Well, today is May 1st, officially my 11 month mark...can't believe how fast it goes!
Speaking of fast, the sakuras went so fast! They are a pretty big deal all over, I'm glad we went to see them last week because this week they are all green! And it was raining pretty hard this week, so that destroyed a lot of the petals. I was thinking they would be pink and white for so much longer. But they were very pretty while they lasted!
Ig. Shimai made huge progress this week! We taught her on Friday, it was one of the best lessons I have been able to be a part of. The spirit was so strong and just guiding the discussion the whole time. We started off talking about the Fall and clarifying her questions, then that led into how the Atonement was prepared from the foundation of the world, and that the Doctrine of Christ is our path to forgiveness of sins and eternal life. We had two sisters from the branch teaching with us which was very helpful as well. After teaching about the Doctrine of Christ, the invitation to be baptized just came so naturally, and this time, she accepted! We haven't chosen a date yet, but she has been praying the last few days about when to be baptized, and we will decide together this week. But the important thing is that she really wants to get baptized! Sister Minakawa (one of the members), who joined the church when she was 20, shared why she chose to be baptized, and it was so powerful. Ig. Shimai said afterwards, "I'm much older than 20...I guess I'm getting baptized pretty late, huh?" We had a good laugh about that, we assured her that lots of people aren't baptized until after they die, so she is still ahead of the game.
After the lesson Ig. Shimai taught us how to make gyoza! She had a great time when we made some "American culture food" (super cheap pancakes from a mix), so she returned the favor with some "Chinese culture food," hand-made gourmet shrimp gyoza. She even made the dough for the shell from scratch! It was so good. We had 3 members there as well, so it was good for her to build more friendships with the branch.
We had a great lesson with R and T as well--they are 17 and 16 years old, and they both like English. I think for both of them, they started meeting with missionaries just for the English practice. On Saturday, we invited them to come to Ramen with us, we had a good time and joked around, then we went to McDonald's for dessert after.
As we sat drinking our Kiwi mcflurries, we had the most spiritual lesson I have ever had inside a fast food restaurant. We started out talking about Christ and receiving relief from guilt and overcoming our mistakes, and it turned into a "rise up and be men" talk. Felt like the good old days with Bro. Holbrook in teacher's quorum haha. We talked about the fight between good and evil, and how we have to choose a side. We talked about Christ coming again, and how we need the 2 of them on His side. We read a little bit from Abraham about the noble and great spirits, chosen before they before born. It was amazing to watch the change in their eyes--we felt the spirit, and we knew they felt the spirit, and really started to catch the vision of what the Gospel is all about. The Lord allowed me to see these 2 young high schoolers, who use their umbrellas as play guns to shoot at cars passing by, as powerful potential Priesthood holders, with the capacity to do so much good.
One of the ladies in our branch had her father's funeral this week, so we got to visit his altar and burn the incense candle thing in his jar of ashes. It was a really cool cultural experience actually. She kindly told us that we didn't have to pray to him, but she would appreciate it if we just kneeled down by the altar. Our investigator K's grandma passed away this week as well--we haven't been able to teach him this week because of that, but we will make him some cookies or something this week. He told us he wanted to discuss some things with us about his grandma, so hopefully the Lord will be able to turn this sad event into something that will help him see the importance of the gospel even more.
Su has actually made a bit of backwards progress, his mental illness seemed to be worse this week than it has been before. He was being very irrational with so many things that he said to us, and not really following anything we said to him. One thing he told us that he just wants to forget about Jesus Christ, but would like us to come over and teach him more about Joseph Smith. We're not totally sure where to go with him right now, but we are just trying to show a lot of love and make sure he trusts us.
We saw the best fireworks of all time in Oomagari this week! There was an international symposium featuring fireworks from a bunch of different countries, it was amazing. We went over there Thursday and talked to sooo many people. The trains were packed, and people were all so friendly (probably because they thought we were tourists). We met a sweet guy named M from Canada and made a new friend J from England, and we met some people from Sudan and Mongolia this week as well. We carried around pamphlets in so many different languages, it was a lot of fun.
So that's been this week! So many adventures--I love you so much and I
hope the wedding is amazing!
XoxoxoXOXOXOXOxoxoxoxoxoXoxoxo
パスケット長老
Elder Paskett
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| Omagari fireworks |
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| Ramen with R & T |
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| Cool fish streamers in the eki |
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