Things are great here! Yamagata is crazy! I haven't seen in a tanbo in almost a week. It's the weirdest thing, we can ride our bikes for 20-30 minutes and still be surrounded by buildings. Big change from Kitakami and Yokote. My companion is Elder Watanabe from Tokyo! He has been out for a year and 10 months, he goes home at the end of next transfer. We live in a 4-man apartment (めっちゃ久しぶり) with Elders Willardson and Travis, from Wyoming and Utah, respectively.
The ward is amazing! I love everyone so much already. I had my first legitimate DCS meeting since last December on Sunday, it was awesome. The Ward mission leader is around 30 years old and is とってもオシャレ、and has so much dendo fire. His wife is a convert of about 5 years and smiles more than anyone else I've met. Their 2 year old daughter is my new best friend, we had a little imaginary picnic together in the chapel after church per her request haha. Her Mom said she almost never talks to new people but was super happy that I was somehow able to make friends with her.
We also have ward missionaries here! There is one couple, the Takedas, who did a Mogi lesson with me and Elder Travis (we had splits yesterday). Afterwards we asked them if there was anything we could do to help them, and they asked us to pray that they would be able to find someone to introduce to the missionaries! They are amazing.
It was weird being at church for 3 hours again, it was good though. Sacrament Meeting was he primary program, it was soooo cute I actually teared up a few times. We talked about eternal families during Gospel Principles class, and learned about dendo during priesthood! We feel so supported by this ward. One of the members brought us lunch to eat after church, and the choir director had me accompany them on the piano to practice some Christmas songs. I feel like I'm already a part of the family :)
We don't have too many people to teach right now, but we have an appointment with a young investigator named T on Friday. He seems to have a lot of potential. Watanabe Choro and I both haven't met him before, but we're excited!
We taught a lesson to an RC Akiba Kyoudai as well, he was actually taught by my previous companion Elder Pratt and Elder Livermore from my Doki!
There is also a deaf member is this ward, so I studied a little bit of 手話 on Saturday night so I could talk to him on Sunday. He lit right up when I started signing to him, and didn't seem too bothered that I only know like 4 words haha.
One cool story from this week was on Saturday, we were street contacting and saw this young lady sitting on the bench talking on the phone. Usually we don't interrupt people if they're in the phone but we heard her switching between Japanese and English, and then talk about how her English has gotten a little rusty and she wants to practice more. I figured the Lord was dropping so pretty clear hints, but I didn't want to be rude, so I just kind of awkwardly went up and handed her a flier, pointing at the "Free English Class" part but not saying anything so as to not interrupt her phone call. She saw it and then actually asked the person on the phone to wait so she could talk to us! She said she lived in America from when she was like 2 until she was 10, and she actually used to come to our class a few years ago. We invited her to come again and she sounded super excited about it, so we'll see if she comes tonight :)
One other little miracle, we met a guy from Colombia! He was walking with his Nihonjin girlfriend and conversing with her in Spanish. We stopped them and she wanted to keep walking, but he was like "I want to wait and see what they have to say." He spoke a little English but no Japanese. He is Catholic so we shared the message of the Restoration with him, it reminded me of practicing teaching the Restoration in one minute back in Priests' quorum. I was glad I had practiced it back in the day because I realized in that moment how un-eloquent my English has gotten haha. He said he was leaving back to Colombia the next day, but he thought it was cool and said he would definitely look at our website and research more about this Joseph Smith guy. Hope the missionaries in Colombia will be getting a self-referral pretty soon :)
Things are fantastic here and Yamagata is great! Living the dream every day :)
Love you so much!
--
パスケット長老
Elder Paskett
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| Me and K san (Kitakami) |
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| Yamagata District |
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| Ramen with Elder Watanabe |
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