Yeah Yokote is great! I actually love riding trains, because it gives us a chance to have longer conversations with people. When we stop people on the streets, we can only talk for a minute or two, but train conversations give us a little more time to get to know them. Having everything so spread out has been hard, we spend quite a bit of time walking. There are so few people on the streets compared to Aomori, so that's hard too. But so far everyone here is so much nicer than in Aomori! Almost every time we say hello to people, they say hello back, and when we have conversations with people, they will even ask us questions back! It's like I'm an actual person again, it's
great.
Elder Maynes is great! He did a good amount of college before his mission so he is 4 years older than me, but we get along great. He's a super cool guy. He is from Vancouver, Washington, and he's studying business at BYU. This is his 3rd transfer in the field, so he entered the MTC 3 weeks after I left. It's kind of fun because we're both pretty new, but not so new that we're lost.
So good to hear about these mission calls and farewells! Tell Allysa and Bria and Jake ganbatte for me! Where is Jake going? And let me know where JD is going when he gets his call!
We had a record low of 10 people in sacrament meeting yesterday. It was pretty funny because 6 of us were sitting up front (branch presidency, organist, and us 2 blessing the sacrament), and 1 person came in late, so we started the meeting with 3 people in the congregation. The high schools were having their big tests this weekend so our investigators weren't able to make it, but we should have some there next week.
I gave my first talk in church! I talked about Christian love and service. I felt like it went really well. I typed out an outline of my talk with quotes and scriptures, but most of it was just speaking from the heart. It may have been the first time I have given a talk without typing out the whole thing like an essay. As I was speaking, I saw the Dendo Shunin's wife pull out a notebook and start taking notes on my talk! I wanted to cry.
Since the branch is so small, I was thinking they would all have crazy dendo fire, but so far it hasn't quite been that way. But we are getting to know them all really quickly, and I think things will start picking up with the members soon. The ward mission leader and his wife have been super helpful, they are great. Right now we are focusing on a couple sisters who have husbands and kids who aren't members.
Our Eikaiwa here is way small--we teach 3 times a week, once in downtown Yokote, once at the church, and then once in Oomagari, a neighboring city. Last week we had 6 people on Monday, 3 on Wednesday, then 1 on Thursday. But the Eikawa program is changing to GoEigo Mission School, and we'll doing Eiken and TOIEC prep classes to try and get more high school and college students to come. The problem is there are no colleges in Yokote. But hopefully we'll be able to get momentum going more with the high school crowd.
One student who comes on Thursdays is named I, she is way awesome! She's 50 or 60 years old and her English is way good. And she's a hair stylist so she cuts our hair for free! She gave me a haircut yesterday and even fed us dinner afterwards, it was so nice. Her husband doesn't speak any English, and their 30 year old son who lives with them speaks a little bit.
We found a family this week!! We were knocking on doors in the late afternoon and it was going pretty slow, but then one door was a young mom and her 2 year old daughter. We introduced ourselves and talked a little bit about Christ, and how our families can be blessed through Him and His teachings. I could see in her eyes a spark of curiosity--she said that she had never really thought about religion, especially Christianity, before, but she was interested in learning more. She said that her and her husband usually both have work off on Sundays, so we are going back this Sunday for the first lesson with the I family! She said that she and her husband almost always both have work during the time we stopped by, so it was a crazy coincidence that she happened to have a random yasumi the same day we were tracting around her area. But we know better than to believe in coincidences!
A couple cool miracles--on Saturday, we went to an appointment that we made with a PI right after lunch. We ate lunch in our apartment, then walked about an hour to her house, then when we got there, we saw that she was making lunch for us! But didn't tell us we would be eating. WE thought it would just be a lesson. Then on top of that, Sister Yamanobe from the branch was there helping her make food! Apparently they are really good friends. So we were able to have a lesson with a member present, and 2 lunches that day haha. Her name is I*, she was very obstinate that she doesn't believe in God, because she can't see God. No matter what we would try to teach about faith and prayer and the spirit, she would just go straight back to "I cant see God, so I cant believe in God." It was a little frustrating. But she is a very sassy obaachan so we were able to be pretty bold with her without offending her.
Yesterday, we had interviews with Smith Kaicho up in Akita, and things were running late. We ended up having to miss the train we were planning on taking back to Yokote, the next one was about an hour later. So we sat down on some chairs in the Eki to finish our language study while we were waiting. Then, this guy walks by and sees Elder Maynes, and he comes up and talks to him. It turns out he is one of our investigators, Y san! I hadn't met him before this. We tried to meet with him during the week, but he couldnt because he was planning to go up to Akita. Then we just happened to run into him, in Akita, because our interviews went late and we missed our train! That put us on the same train back to Yokote, so we taught him a lesson on the train, and he said he has been feeling warm and peaceful every time he prays. We helped him identify the spirit, and he committed to pray to know if he should be baptized in February!! There really are no coincidences.
So it's been another great week! It had been pretty sunny lately, still cold though. There is still snow everywhere but usually the roads and sidewalks aren't terrible. Stay safe in that crazy ID weather!!
Love you!!!
パスケット長老
Elder Paskett
Us and Y san at the Eki in Akita
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| Post-haircut meal! |
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