Week 33

Mon

We got Baskin Robins ice cream from a member. What a healthy, delicious dinner.

Tue

We had a lesson with an investigator that went remarkably well. We were talking about Christ and how he is alive today and it seemed like she had some trouble picturing that so I said let's turn to 3 Nephi. When she opened the book, she turned to the exact page. She said it spooked her because it made her feel like something was there/someone was watching. I said that it was God and He is watching. The Spirit was strong. After the lesson, we bought takoyaki from a street vendor and had it for lunch. Usually there is only tako (octopus) in takoyaki, but this vendor decided to play things up and put in things like white fish and fried crunchy things. It was good though. One of our appointments canceled so we decided to visit a member. When we got there, there were a bunch of neighborhood kids playing jump rope and blowing bubbles and such with the moms chatting nearby. The member walked over to them and said hey, these are some volunteer missionaries from my church. They teach a free english program where they come to your home. Is anyone interested? The moms were a little hesitant at first but they said yeah actually we wouldn't mind. We then played with the kids and talked with the moms for like thirty minutes. If we had just rang their doorbell, I know we wouldn't have gotten the same reaction. Yay for members who help the missionaries! On the way home, it was dark. And there was a dark cat. In the middle of the road. I didn't see it till too late, so I swerved, and unfortunately the cat decided to run in the direction I swerved, so I ran over the cat and crashed. The cat was fine, it ran away before I could get up, but I now have scar layer #5 for my knee.

Wed

There is one less active who we aren't sure if she is alive or not, but when we visited, we peeped through her mail slot and saw new trash on her floor, so we think that she still lives there and is still alive. We went to visit a former investigator and found the lady who only spoke spanish that came to church last week. Apparantly the former investigator is her neice and she was visiting for the week. Funny how things work. One former investigator said that it would be ok if we came back...for twenty minutes...once a month. But we'll take what we can get.

Thu

We had an appointment on Fri, so we had DTM on Thu morning in Yokkaichi. It was so strange to go back. I've only been gone for a month but it already feels like things have changed. The church smelled like Yokkaichi church, though. After that we went to go watch a recent convert's daughters run in their school race. We ran into the bishop's wife there. Apparently her daughter was also running in a race. Then we went to another member's house and talked about dendo and what she's going through right now as Sister Ishihara helped the member color her hair. It was a strange experience. But on the good side, the member came with us to visit a Less Active. We ate sukiyaki together, which was very delicious. The less active's boyfriend was there and he participated in the lesson. It seemed like he was open to hearing more, so hopefully we can meet with them agian.

Fri

Three investigator lessons in one day! Yay! We invited one to be baptized. The answer she gave was a little wishy-washy, so we'll see what she thinks next time we meet. One of our investigator's grandchildren are from Nevada so I got to talk with them a little. I hope we can do FHE with them or something. Then we watched Finding Faith in Christ with a lady who is 78. She likes to talk, so it was a little hard to get her to focus on the film, but she sat through it and at the end she said that she believes that all those things actually happened. Hopefully she'll begin to progress!

Sat

Kid's Eikaiwa was actually manageable this week. I hope that this is a patter that continues and not just a fluke. We did family eikaiwa hoping to share a message again afterwards, but the grandmother of the family bullied us into going shopping. We want them to realize that we are very happy to teach English for free and the only re-payment we want is for them to listen to our message, but I think they think that they need to repay us through taking us places and such. I dunno.

Sun

At 8 o'clock in the morning, it occured to me that we would be teaching the lesson in Sunday School. So I hurriedly looked at the lesson and planned as best I could. I think it turned out pretty good. We had 5 Less Actives come to church. We went out looking for members that no one knows about, found one, but no success on the others. Hopefully we can find more. I like hearing the word of God on Sundays. It's like 3 extra hours of personal study. One member wants to carroll with the sister missionaries in December and wants to start practicing now so that we can do it well by then. Unfortunately, we aren't sure if both of us will still be here by then. Sister Ishihara is definitely leaving because her mission ends in October, and I'm not sure if I'll still be here then because that would be three transfers in one spot. It's happened before though. I would like to be here because I love carrolling. And Takabata is fun.

 

Love to you all,

Leah