Elder Landon Paskett's Journeys in Japan: February 6, 2017--Genki desu ka?

Hello my wonderful Momma!

This week has been good, we did a lot of tracting but have actually been seeing more success tracting than I ever have before. Every day we found at least one person to follow up with! We have been giving pamphlets to people who express interest, so we are putting a lot of trust in the power of those pamphlets.

I think the best finding day was Wednesday--first, we found a new investigator who lives in Akita. He is 26 years old, and he was staying in Yokote for a few days for work selling life insurance. We told him about how the Gospel of Jesus Christ is our spiritual life insurance, and he expressed a lot of interest in the Plan of Salvation. We got to share a basic overview of the Plan, then we set up a follow-up appointment for the Akita Elders!

Right after that, we rang the doorbell of a really long house. It had 2 doors, and a guy answered from the door 10 feet down from the one we were at. He peeked around the door and was very surprised and excited to see 2 Americans! We told him we were Christian missionaries, then as we came to the door, we saw that inside was a dance studio. We asked if he was a dancer, and he said yes and told us to please come in. So we went in and there were 2 people doing some super jozu ballroom dancing! We sat on the couch with the guy we met and talked for a while and watched them dance. Then he said he was actually in the middle of a lesson, so he went back with his dance partner and started dancing. We just sat on the couch kind of awkwardly for 10 minutes while the 4 of them were ballroom dancing, they were all super good too!

When they finished, they wanted to take some pictures with the Americans so we happily obliged, and talked with them for a while. Two of them were students, and the other 2 were a married couple who taught ballroom dance for a living. The students had to leave, then we asked the couple if we could come back sometime to share a message. They said they were super busy, but they had 30 minutes until the next lesson so they asked if we could share it right then! We taught them the restoration, and I felt like it we did a pretty good job of teaching simply and clearly. But, they weren't super interested. The lady said that whether it's true or not, it doesn't really affect her life because she has been doing Nihonjin religious stuff for so long, she can't change to a Christian lifestyle anyway. They did accept a Book of Mormon though, and said we are welcome to come back and hang out anytime.

The A family was sick this last week, so we weren't able to meet. But hopefully we will be able to this week!

Y san is doing great, we went and worked out with him this morning. There is a little gym nearby (in the same building that we have Monday Eikaiwa), and it's 200¥ for 2 hours so we decided to go check it out. They did not have nearly as much equipment as we were expecting, basically like 5 lifting machines and a bunch of treadmills. And they had guides that would baby us through each machine, they would adjust the seats and the weight and stuff for us then make sure we did our reps nice and slowly. They told us the purpose of the gym is to prevent illness and maintain health, not to gain strength. That also explained why all the other people there were like 70 years old haha. But it was a good time, and we got a decent workout.

Yesterday we also fasted with Y, we had just taught tithing and fasting this last week so it was perfect timing. His parents still want him to wait a little while before being baptized, so we fasted to soften his parents' hearts and to be able to know what to do from here. His bap date is still set for next Friday, and it will honestly take a miracle for that happen. But it's ok, we know a guy :) We finished up all the commandments and he is good with all of them, and he even bore his testimony yesterday! He said how he is studying both Christianity and Buddhism, and his Dad is a monk so he sees a lot of value in Buddhism. But, he really likes Christianity and wants to be baptized. He asked us if it was ok to still study Buddhism after he is baptized, and we told him it's good to learn about all kinds of things, but we can't worship any other Gods. That's not looking like a problem right now, but hopefully it won't be in the future.

That is so cool Mitch knows about the Kamakuras! I guess they are pretty famous throughout Japan. People say that foreigners come from China and Korea and all over to come see them, so we'll see how that goes! We have already seen a good number of tourists from other parts of Akita ken.

They just hollowed out the Kamakuras this week! I'll make sure and send some pics. They also make tons of mini Kamakuras that look so cool! We ran into a group of people on Saturday that had just made a bunch of the little ones, and they were super excited to see Gaijin. We took pictures inside a big Kamakura with like 10 different families' kids, then some very enthusiastic 10 year olds took us on a tour of the Kamakuras they built in the park. I actually think that they will give us a lot of good finding opportunities, in addition to just being awesome.

Grayson didn't put me up to the dog thing! Haha I was just expressing honest thoughts. But it sounds like this is a common theme you're hearing, maybe God is trying to send you a message?

We walked M Shimai's dog again this week, and she said that we would be going to lunch with her friend and she wanted us to teach the gospel to her friend! But then she didn't tell her friend that missionaries would be coming to the lunch, so it was kind of awkward. But we talked and were able to discuss the Gospel a little bit. Her friend was into some crazy Buddhist psychic stuff and believed in it pretty strongly, so she wasn't really interested in our message, but we just stated our beliefs and said that she is always welcome to learn more if she changes her mind.

Glad G got to go to Klondike! Even if it rained on them. Still a great experience I'm sure!

The schedule change is way nice, although none of the changes are too big. It's good though because now we spend more time out talking to people during more effective hours of the day, and we have studies and lunch during less effective hours. And it's set up so I'm not nearly as tired all the time, I think that having a little more variety in the schedule instead is good. Before, it was just a huge block of time in the apartment, then a huge block out on the streets, then we came home. It makes the days seem more productive and way faster too.

Anyway that's about all I can think of for this week! Oh also we had President Whiting come and talk to everyone in Morioka zone so that was cool! I was asked to sing at that and a lot of people told me after that they felt the spirit so strong during the song, I sang that one arrangement of "A Poor Wayfaring Man of Grief" that me and Taylor and Berkley sang once. So yeah that was good! Overall it's just been a good week, and so fast!

Thanks so much for the email! Love you!
パスケット長老
Elder Paskett