It's been a great week! Always new adventure here in Kitakami. One thing President Sekiguchi I has been focusing on recently is the number of people we contact each week, he's having us set goals and report that as key indicator. It's really simple, but has actually been really helpful--it's made it so that we really analyze our different activities and think about how we can be in the right places at the right times to be able to come into contact with the most people. We have been trying to be pretty creative with different ways to be able to talk with more and more people.
We ran into a high schooler on the street this week who already received a Book of Mormon from missionaries a while ago. We were waiting on opposite sides of the street at an intersection, then when the light turned green I wasn't sure if we wanted to awkwardly stop him in the middle of the road while we crossed or if we would just keep going and save ourselves the awkwardness. Instead, we just decided to wait on our side and awkwardly watch him while he crossed the road and came to us. It was pretty obvious we were waiting just for him to come to us so we could talk, so I was worried he might be uncomfortable, but when we started talking to him the conversation just flowed so naturally. And I am so glad we made the effort to talk to him! He already had a Book of Mormon, he read a little bit but had gotten busy and stopped thinking about it. Until he ran into us! He is way interested in God and the purpose of life, we had an appointment to meet with him this week! The blessings of opening your mouth are
real!
On Sunday, we did splits with Branch members for I think the first time in my entire mission. There were 3 non members at church who all agreed to do a lesson right after church, so I taught 2 of them with a member Masaki while Elder Shumway taught the other one with Motodate Kyoudai! We are so blessed to have so many opportunities to teach and such great support from the branch!
During the lesson I was in, we taught about tithing. As I taught, it really hit me how big of a blessing tithing is. It really just hit me how cool it is that we have churches with chairs, tables, hymnbooks, and pianos, freely used by everyone, even in small cities like Kitakami. We have temples all across the world, free copies of the Book of Mormon, all of these wonderful blessings that are made possible through tithing. I know it is a system inspired by the Lord, and it just makes so much sense to me. I am honored to be able to pay tithing to the Lord and I hope I was able to convey that during the lesson.
The branch president asked us to go home teaching with him this week, which was way good! I'm glad he feels like he can trust us. He spends almost every single day looking up and trying to contact different less active members, it is so awesome. I wish every member across the world had the dendo fire he has :)
Things are great here and we're off to a good start this transfer!
Love you so much!
パスケット長老
Elder Paskett
To answer your questions...
About the food, we get rice from the branch so we always have rice. But I just get bored of eating the same things over and over again so that's where the crazy weird experiments come from haha. And I don't have enough room in the budget to do any expensive experiments haha.
About finding people to teach... The Sendai mission has classically been the lowest baptizing mission in Japan, and even the world. It was rock bottom when I got here my first transfer. Besides Ryoma Kyoudai in Aomori, I basically went those first 4 transfers without finding any investigators who progressed to baptism. Generally 1 new investigator was a lofty weekly goal haha. But since then, things have been changing so much. Part of it is that
the missionaries are getting better and developing more skills, and I think we are ready as a mission for the Lord to prepare people now. Sekiguchi Kaicho has been a huge part of it as well. He has so much faith and is determined to guide us to have success. And he is wayyy smart. Not necessarily book smart like President Smith, but street
smart and so smart with people. Basically the biggest obstacle is just a lack of faith. Partly missionaries who are discouraged and let their faith weaken, but on a bigger part is members or entire branches who don't really believe
people will be baptized in their area. Luckily the Kitakami branch is one of the more solid ones :) But yeah people here are ready. Young people have that hope for a better life than their parents have. Japan's society is changing. And Jesus is coming! These really are the last days :)
Glad you get to be involved with the temple! So cool.
Love you!
1, 2 - Last GoEigo with Elder Pratt and Sister Mitsuyama
3 - Katei no yube! Ft. the Elders, Fujita, the Sasakis, M, C, and the Sisters
4 - DTM w/ the new district
5 - Our new homie M
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