Elder Landon Paskett's Journeys in Japan: September 15, 2016--Konnichiwa, ichiban suteki no okaasama!

Konnichiwa, Ichiban suteki na okaasama!

Sounds like things are going well at home, glad to hear it! Maddy is not old enough to go to homecoming yet, was that a typo? Also, tell her she is not allowed to go unless she writes her brother ;)

Yeah I'm glad our typhoon wasn't nearly as bad as yours in Kagoshima! The wind only got bad enough to break umbrellas and some sunflowers, no real damage though.

We found out yesterday about transfers, and all 4 of the Aomori elders are staying here! Which was a big surprise. Hancock Choro and Hawkley Choro have been here for 2 transfers already, so we were thinking one of them would probably leave us. But nope! I guess it means that there is a reason for each of the 4 of us to be here, I'm excited for these next 6 weeks.

So last Monday, we went to the beach and it was so fun! We found so many sand dollars and we built a sand-temple. I really wanted to swim but I resisted the temptation. The sand was pretty rocky and the water was dirty, we still had a good time though.

T Kyoudai just disappeared last week and we were actually getting worried--we had put a bag of chips and a note in his mail slot on Tuesday, and he wasn't answering his phone at all so we stopped by again on Friday to see if he was home. He wasn't, and the chips were still in his mail slot! So we hadn't heard from him at all since the typhoon, he hadn't been home at all and wasn't answering his phone. We said a prayer for him, then right after, he sent us a text saying he is on a cross-country motorcycle trip and gets back next Sunday. So that was a big relief, we were pretty worried over nothing. We'll start meeting again this week.

I had splits with Murai Choro (our Nihonjin ZL) and that was a lot of fun. We were able to communicate pretty well in Japanese. His English is actually pretty good (probably better than my Japanese), so we had that to fall back on as well. While we were on splits, we felt prompted to talk to one guy down by the Eki. He seemed pretty interested, but while we were talking, he got a phone call and needed to leave immediately so we weren't able to finish our conversation. But then the next day (when I was back with Hancock Choro), we were streeting and we totally ran into him! He was super surprised, but pleasantly surprised. We talked for a while and answered all of his questions, then introduced him to the Book of Mormon and gave him a copy. He didn't really want to give us his phone number, but he wanted ours and said he will try reading the Book of Mormon and call if he has any questions.

We had a cool experience while we were housing on Thursday--we rang the doorbell at one house and the Mom answered through the intercom thing. We asked if we could share a short message, and she said she was busy with her kids and asked us if it would be ok if we just shared it through the intercom. Of course we said yes, then we shared how God is our loving Heavenly Father, and sang I Am a Child of God, through the intercom. After the 2 minute lesson we asked if we could come again to share another one, and she said we're free to stop by again, so our plan is to keep having 2-minute intercom lessons for as long as it takes.

The branch president, Murase Kaicho, took us to Yakiniku on Saturday! That stuff is amazing! We didn't want to empty his bank account so we were going to be pretty conservative with ordering more plates, but he was so excited to have me try different stuff that he just kept ordering more haha. So I got to try gyuutan, liver, intestine, and some other random meats. The gyuutan was pretty good, the texture was pretty unusual. Not bad though. But apparently in Sendai they have really good gyuutan restaurants, so maybe I'll get to try the gourmet version eventually. Liver tasted pretty much the same as any other beef, and the intestine was just weird. The flavor isn't bad, just the texture. It was so rubbery, there was no point in trying to chew it, so we just had to swallow it whole.

R Kyoudai came to church this Sunday! The members were all super friendly to him, and excited that there was a new person. I was so grateful that everyone welcomed him so well, I think that will make a big difference in whether or not he comes consistently.

Also, I played the organ in sacrament meeting. When I started he intro to the first song it was on some weird pipe-sound setting and I didn't know how to change it. Luckily the chorister helped me change it to an organ sound, but it was pretty awkward for a couple minutes.

After sacrament meeting, we went into another room and had a lesson with R and with S Kyoudai, a member who is around his age (R is 19). We had previously talked about baptism, and he actually had a baptismal date before, but then he got too busy and stopped meeting with the missionaries. So we set a new baptismal date with him, and he seemed pretty excited. We taught about faith and read parts of Alma 32, then talked about how we can nourish our faith to make it stronger. Specifically, we talked about daily prayer and scripture study, and he committed to do both of those! We promised that if he would do those things every day, before his baptism day he would know that the church is true. I think the lesson really helped him to understand how we can apply the scriptures to our lives, and he actually said he was excited to start reading the Book of Mormon. He is busy with work during the week, but he wants to meet again on Saturday and said he wants to come to church again if he can. If things keep going like this, we'll be able to see R be baptized this transfer!

So glad all the kids are doing well! Keep having fun! :) I can't view photos through the iCloud thing, feel free to email me any good ones though!

Love you, thanks for all you do!

パスケット長老

Elder Paskett