Elder Landon Paskett's Journeys in Japan: March 13, 2017--Top o' the week to you!

My most exquisite and excellent ママさま、

We have some good news and some bad news--good news is that Barton Choro and I are getting along really well and working together well, the bad news is that we are having some emergency transfers in the middle of this week. Long story short, I will be getting a new companion from Tsuruoka named Elder Haskins. I haven't met him but I am excited to work with him and I hope he is as stellar as Barton Choro has been!

As far as the door slamming thing, I don't remember being very surprised my first transfer. I do remember being surprised when people would pretend not to see/hear us, or when they would just put their hand up as a shield and start speed walking away from us. Haha I have learned to laugh at and love it though.

R is doing alright. He sent us a text on Tuesday telling us he really wanted to meet, so we met with him and asked if there was anything he wanted to talk about/discuss. He said not really, that he just wanted to do some free talk to practice English. He told us that talking about the Gospel stuff is pretty boring, and basically it's just a hoop he has to jump through so that we will speak English with him. That was like a knife to the heart, but not really surprising. But we talked about ways that the Gospel has helped him, and he actually loves praying. He prays every day at least once, and he feels like God has helped him and answered his prayers. But, he says that God still hasn't answered his prayers about the Book of Mormon. It's hard because sometimes it feels like he doesn't really want an answer, but other times it seems like he is golden. He has definitely made some progress in the last few months though, so I feel like he still has some good potential. He told us that he would rather get baptized in December after he turns 18, but we're hoping that as he understands more, he will start to have more of a desire to be baptized and then will want to be baptized sooner. Or even December would be fine, as long as he actually does get baptized. We'll see how it goes with him.

We taught S the Chie no Kotoba lesson, and before we had even finished introducing the commandment, he asked "but how can I quit drinking coffee?" We talked about the power of the Atonement, and agreed to start working together to keep the word of wisdom little by little. He had no problem accepting it as from God. He says he feels peace from us, and we told him that he will be able to feel that peace, the spirit, more fully if he keeps the Chie no kotoba. I was so impressed by his faith and trust, but he is very worried about being physically able to stop. He drinks coffee, tea, and alcohol and smokes every day, so we have a long way to go. Our first step this week was to cut the coffee down to just 1 cup per day, he is doing great so far. He came to church this week, and he told me that he loved the pamphlet of the Testimony of Joseph Smith. He said we should have given him that one before all the other pamphlets! Understanding that helped him really put everything else in context. Makes me think I should be using it more.

We met Obama in the Eki this week--or at least, a crazy old man who tried to prove he was Obama. He was very friendly and actually greeted us first, then we had a long conversation of listening to him go on and on about war and God and freemasons and Christ's second coming. I thought we were going to have a good gospel discussion at first, before we realized that he was just crazy.
He asked me, "who's the guy who's president of America? The black guy?"
I said "....Obama?"
And he said "that's right. Obama....*points to himself*...Obama....*points to himself*"
"You're...Obama..?"
"Yes. You're Obama. *points to himself again*"
He went on to explain that if you cut off his finger, he would bleed red blood, and Samurai also have red blood, and the Samurai have leaders, and America's leader is Obama (apparently he doesn't know about Trump yet), and guess what would happen if you cut off Obama's finger? He would bleed red blood. Therefore, he is, in fact, Obama. We decided that we couldn't argue with that logic and left.

We visited the house of a PI this week, we went inside and I asked him how his week has been. He kind of mumbled, then said "talk about God and the Bible now." So, we did. We taught him the message of the Restoration and gave him a Book of Mormon, he said that he didn't agree with everything we taught, but that he would try coming to church this Sunday. He came, and he and S sat next to each other and became good friends. Literally, S is a better fellowshipper than the members are haha. He even offered to give him a ride to church next week! Not including missionaries, they were only 9 members at church, so having S be a good friend was super helpful.

We met a boy on the street who used to go to a Christian school, so he has read from the BIble and thinks it is interesting. We explained what the Book of Mormon was, and he said he would really like to try reading it. We offered to give him one, for free, and he was so excited! He said thank you multiple times, and told us that he would definitely read it. God really does prepare people!

It's been another great week, we went on a fun little "hike" through some snow to see a Jinja today for our last P-day together, that was a good time! Even Yokote is beautiful.

Tell Kara congrats for me! That is so awesome!!

Love you so much!!!
パスケット長老
Elder Paskett