Hello my most beautiful, wonderful, subarashii Mother!!
Glad the Sezas sent you the pics! It's always so fun to see those two. I actually saw them down in Sendai, and they said they were coming up to Aomori for the Christmas party! Seza Kaicho made a comment about how Santa wasn't tubby like he was expecting, Santa told him that Mrs. Claus put him on a diet.
Being Santa was so fun! I only made one little girl cry. She was looking a bit intimidated, so I gave her a big smile and waved at her, then she burst into tears. Oops. But all the other kids loved it! I got to give them presents from the big bag and it was so fun to see their faces light up. And Japanese kids are the cutest!!! Make sure and look for the pic with Murase Kaicho's little daughter. She is the most adorable little girl I have ever seen! She even grabbed Santa's fingers, I almost cried.
The new challenges are fun so far! Training isn't too complicated, it's actually nice in a lot of ways because I have so much flexibility to try new things. And I am way more conscientious about being enthusiastic and cheerful and obedient, just knowing that someone is watching my example makes me want to be a perfect missionary haha.
So my companion is Elder Hall! He is from Ogden, and he likes running and swimming. Perfect right? We'll probably be going on some snow runs this transfer! He is doing really well so far, I don't think he's quite enjoying his mission yet though. But I think very few people enjoy the first couple days of dendou, especially with jet lag and not understanding anyone and all that good stuff. It will be fun to see how he grows!
These last couple days have made me so grateful I had a Nihonjin comp last transfer. I think we also have an added amount of the gift of tongues, because I feel like I am understanding people better than I ever have before. Also, knowing that that responsibility rests mainly on me has helped to be much more diligent about listening intently.
We've seen some cool miracles this week! Especially when I had the opportunity to work with Nathan Choro in Sendai. So I got to Sendai monday night and spent the night in the honbu, then had training meetings all day Tuesday. We were originally supposed to meet our trainees Wednesday morning, but their plane got delayed going out of Salt Lake, so the missionaries going to Japan this week were scattered throughout Seattle, Tokyo, China, and Korea. Almost all of our missionaries came in Wednesday night, and some got stuck in Tokyo and came in Thursday morning. That was kind of crazy but it meant that Nathan Choro and I got to just dendo in Sendai Tuesday night and all day on Wednesday! That was so fun.
Miracle #1 -- While we were changing my bus tickets from Wednesday to Thursday, we met a lady from South Africa in the bus office. We talked to her a bit after, in English. She told us a bit about her conversion story and how she accepted Christ. Super cool lady, she has even talked to alot of her coworkers about Christ. We invited her to come to church, and she said that while she has been in Japan for work, she has been looking for a Christian church to attend but hasn't found one. So that was perfect! Then, part 2--normally, we only carry Japanese Book of Mormons. I have never yet gone finding with an English one. But, I had a copy of an English one on me that I had been studying and marking up! I was following Elder Bednar's challenge to read through the Book of Mormon with 1 topic you want to learn more about or question you want answered. I had been reading and marking everything that talked about the Holy Ghost, I was about halfway through first Nephi. It was in my backpack since Nathan CHoro and I were both carrying everything with us from the honbu to the Kamisugi apartment to spend the night--which was crazy because in any other situation, I would've left it in the apartment instead of taking it with me proselyting. So of course I gave her my English copy of the Book of Mormon and she said she would take a look!! THen we got her number to give to the Kamisugi missionaries.
Seriously though, what are the chances that 2 Americans would meet a South African lady in Japan, who is looking for a Christian church to attend, and have an English Book of Mormon with them? Especially in a city that is on the opposite side of the mission from where we are living.
Miracle #2 -- The next day, we had a full day of finding in Kamisugi since the new missionaries' arrival was delayed. That night was Eikaiwa--we were considering going, since Eikaiwa is always fun, but we decided since they already had more than enough missionaries there to teach, our time would be better spent out talking to people on the street. So, we were out on the street, and after talking to tons of people and having a good time since Nathan Choro is the best, it came to our dinner hour. We were walking towards a Indo Curry place, and as we were waiting at a light, I noticed the lady next to us kept looking at us. So I said, "konbanwa!" And she replied, "good evening. How are you?" Surprised that she spoke English, we talked for a bit, and she said that she loved English and used to always go to an Eikaiwa class, but she had to stop because it was too expensive. She perked right up when we told her about our free Eikaiwa, and she asked when it was. We told her it started 10 minutes ago--but she wanted to go catch the remainder of class anyway, so we walked her to the church for the last half of Eikaiwa.
That was a testimony to me of using time effectively! We could have gone to Eikaiwa, and had fun being extra teachers, but instead, we were the only missionaries on the streets in Kamisugi on that Wednesday evening. And we just "happened" to run into a lady who was looking for a new, more affordable Eikaiwa class, and was willing to walk with us to the church right at that moment! Cool right?
Miracle #3 -- Since we walked that lady to the church, our time for dinner was dying very quickly. We didn't question the sacrifice to give up dinner time to drop her off at Eikaiwa, but we realized that we were going to have to book it if we wanted to be able to eat and get home by 9:00. Long story short, we ended up running through downtown Sendai from restaraunt to restaurant, trying unsuccessfully to find something that would fill our vast missionary bellies without emptying our thin missionary wallets. We chased down one restaurant that exists on Google Maps but not in real life, then went to another and it was closed, and so on. Eventually we went in to a regular curry restaurant, one of Nathan Choro's favorites, and decided we would look for a lesson opportunity so we could have until 9:30 to get home.
We ate and there was nothing--but as we were leaving, after accepting the fact that we would return home late, I just said "this place is delicious, have fun" to a guy walking in the door. He laughed, and then he grabbed the to-go bags that were prepped for him and came back out! That was surprising, but it meant we were able to have a full conversation with him. He was interested in learning more about God, he took a Book of Mormon and we exchanged phone numbers. It was probably 8:55 at that point, and that conversation qualified as a lesson (to be a lesson, we have to teach a principle, extend a commitment invitation, and have contact info to follow up) so we had until 9:30 to get home and still be obedient! It started snowing as we jogged home, and we made it at around 9:20.
Hancock Choro is one of the ZLs in Kamisugi, so we got to refer our newly found PIs to my mission "dad"! We were also able to get one referral to the sisters, plus an extra Eikaiwa student! It was a great day's work with Nathan Choro. We felt that we were truly laboring for the Lord since we knew we wouldn't be able to see any of these new investiagtors progress, so any selfish motives were out of the equation. It was outside our own District, outside our own Zone, but we worked so hard and it felt so good.
So that was all before we even met our new companions! Thursday morning we met all the newbies, then found out I would be training Elder Hall and Nathan Choro would be training Elder Garacochea.
Elder Hall gave out his first Book of Mormon in Japan right before we got on the bus to Aomori! I felt like a proud parent. Since then, we haven't had tons of dendo time but we have found one new PI and we have gotten a couple referrals (from the sisters) who we will try and visit this week.
Our district is so good! Satomi Shimai (who was here my first transfer then left) came back to finish training Candland Shimai. Morris Choro is finishing his mission here, and Mimaki Choro just came and replaced Murai Choro. So we have 2 Nihonjin, 2 Beans (new missionaries), 1 "dying" missionary, and me. It is going to be such a good transfer though I can already tell.
Last night was my first Houkoku! During DL training, they talked lots about being a Christ-like leaders, but we didn't learn a thing about reporting numbers. So that was a mess, we barely finished by 10:30. But I learned enough that everything should go smoothly next week.
Snow has been crazy here!! There is probably more snow than I have seen in a city ever before in my life. And it just keeps coming. So we have just been walking everywhere. But it's great!
Thanks for all you do! Love and miss you!
パスケット長老
Elder Paskett
New Leaders' Meeting:
Ward Christmas Party:
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