Yeah the snow...there has a been no hint of it this week! It has actually been kind of warm to me. Last night, I got super hot biking in a sweater and a raincoat. The other guys in the apartment still blast the heater every morning, so in the morning it feels like summer again. Then the day is pretty mild. This week is supposed to get pretty cold though, so maybe we'll see some snow again.
We got most everything transferred to the new apartment, still no desks though. It's actually way harder to study and keep my stuff organized without a desk. I don't think we have any plans to get those desks up soon though...
Other than that, just all of our printed materials are downstairs. So we just stop by the old apartment to get モルモン書s [BoMs] and pass-along cards and such. The workers who are in there working smoke so much! The apartment smells like a pachinko now (not that I know what a pachinko smells like haha), we're thinking about leaving a Chie no kotoba [word of wisdom] pamphlet out for them.
The branch is doing a really good job of reaching out to R, I definitely agree that that is super important. That is interesting that is so important even with active members with the ward splitting. Sounds like you are doing well though and making sure all the new sisters are being fellowshipped!
Unfortunately, R had a sudden work training that he had to go to on Sunday that he didn't know about until the morning of--so he wasn't able to make it to church his week. That was killer, since it would have been his first week after his confirmation. But we've had a couple good lessons this week and he was interviewed by the branch president to prepare to receive the aaronic Priesthood, so he is still progressing well. And it wasn't just normal work, it was a pretty sudden, one-time thing, so it shouldn't be a problem in the future.
On Thursday, we had a good service opportunity with a guy named S from Eikaiwa--he wanted us to place a bunch of side panels along his house to protect it from snow build-up. Imagine sixteen 10'x3' frames of wood, with strong, ridged plastic screwed onto them. We carried them from the garage to the other side of his house and leaned them against his house, so it's basically like an extension of his roof that goes to the ground. The problem was that his house was on a steep hill--they carved out where his house is, but it meant that we were
working right at the top of a 7 foot drop to the bottom of his house.
It was thin enough that we were able to have our feet on the high ground and our backs on the house, then the little crevasse right below us. I don't know if that makes any sense but I drew a little picture that explains it better. Probably chotto abunai [a little dangerous] but we were all fine, it went well. Right after, he fed us lunch and he showed us tons of picture albums--he has known missionaries in Aomori for like 15 years. And he has pictures of him with all of them. We dont have any record of him ever being an investigator though.
As he was showing us his stacks of picture albums, I noticed a Morumon Sho in one of the stacks. I looked at it, and there was a note written inside the cover, in English, from President Smith! Dated February 2015. I asked S if he had read any of the book, and he said no. I asked him if he had read Smith Kaicho's note and he said yes but he didn't really understand it. (Actually he said, in English, "It's way over my head!) So I offered to read it to him in Japanese. So I did what I thought was a pretty good job of translating it, basically it said that it was more valuable than money could buy, and that it would bless his life immensely. After I finished, I asked him if he would
read from it--and he said he would! So hopefully this will be the start of him finally becoming an investigator.
We taught O san twice, he is doing well. We taught the doctrine of Christ on Thursday--beforehand, we had unsuccessfully tried to find a member who could come. We kept trying until about 30 minutes beforehand, we figured we'd just be teaching without a member. Which isn't the end of the world, but ideally we would have a member. Then, literally right as we are leaving the church to go to the lesson, Seza Kaicho and his wife pull up! So we say hi, and he says he is here to do some inspection of the church building. We tell them we are on our way to a lesson, but we weren't able to find a member to joint--and Seza Shimai volunteers to come! She said she would just be waiting around for her husband for the next hour anyway, so it was perfect! She was a huge help, she shared some awesome experiences, and she is soooo genki. Definitely a miracle right there! The lesson went so well, and he committed to be baptized in January! We read 1 Nephi 3:7 together and talked about if he commits to obey the commandment to get baptized, the Lord will prepare the way for him, even with a father who is hantai.
Speaking of his father, we tried the coincidental housing idea, and we got kekkoed right away. Big surprise, right...so it's looking like he will need to confront his dad and just express clearly why he wants to be baptized. But I didn't realize last week that he lives with his parents--so even though he is old enough to not need permission, he's not really independent enough to go against his father's will without big consequences. And we don't want him joining the church to have a negative effect on their family! So that's still kind of bimyo. We have faith it will work out though.
We had a cool experience visiting the K Kazoku, they are an old couple (they are members) and they live mecha mecha tooi. It was about 45 minutes by train. But they were super happy to have us visit! And they even had a service project they wanted us to do--I guess they needed someone to put up these boards over the windows at their son's old house, but they can't do it themselves, and their home teachers do lessons at the church because their home is so far. So they were just hoping and praying that someone would come to do that project, then we showed up at their house! The Lord truly is guiding us. They were so grateful, they gave us a bunch of food after--including the best corn dog I have ever eaten. I hated corn dogs before my mission, they are just so oily and fake and gross. These corn dogs were still oily and fake, but holy cow they were so delicious. This Japanese diet is making me forget what America tastes like.
So it's been a good week, we've had some cool miracles! On Saturday we spent most of the day knocking on doors, and it felt weird because we hadn't spent more than an hour tracting the whole week! Which is awesome. It feels so good to finally be busy, and teaching often.
I love you so much! Thanks for being such a great mom!
パスケット長老
Elder Paskett
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| My homemade creations |
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| My homemade creations |
We don't have a can opener. The other elders told me it was unsafe,
that I would hurt myself. but I did it anyway. When I finally
punctured through the can the first time, I screamed and held up the
knife, dripping with tomato sauce. Haha.
Our service project with Sam:
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