Oaks Taikai

This week as pretty good. We had some cool things happen and some regular things happen, but lately the only thing we`ve been doing in Yamagata is trying to find people and we have been teaching Sasahara Family about the gospel and thats about it. This week we went to a few members houses and did family home evening with them. We went to the Hirai Family`s for dinner and FHE. They fed us Sushi and it was way good. We ate the sushi with our hands instead of our chopsticks cause apparently thats how they rolled back in the day. Other then that we have been trying to find people like crazy. We called this one person last night that was super excited to hear from us. They had their entire family on the phone trying to talk to us cause apparently its been a long time since they have seen the missionaries and they were super excited to hear from us, so hopefully that turns into something. Today we are planning on teaching the Sasaharas about the Apostasy. We are going to show them some pictures and build a house out of blocks and wreck the blocks down and tell them that that is what happened to the church of Christ. Hopefully they understand everything, but I think it`ll be good. Other then that every week we have been teaching a few of the members out of PMG and doing PMG Lessons with them. Talking about each chapter. Last week we taught about chapter 3 and how all of the lessons are tied together. Its crazy how put together PMG is. Umm...What else...Oh my goodness I totally forgot until just right now. We had a mission conference and Elder Oaks of the 12 came and gave a talk. He is a way funny guy! Way cool. We got to take a picture with him and shake his hand I told him I was from Ogden and he gave me a sarcastic face and said "hmm...I think I might know where Ogden is" then he chuckled. Elder Oaks talked about a ton of different things. He talked about the nature of God and some things about Patriarch blessings and the Trinity and the things not counted are often more important then the things counted for, he also said that this will be a turning point for Japan. It was pretty awesome. We also had a pretty good English Conversation class. On saturday we had 2 appointments but they all spoked us, which was a bummer but other then that this week was really good. I hope everyone else has a good week. Love ya all! Bye!

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Sasahara FHE's

So last week was a pretty good week. On Monday we went to the Sasahara Family's house to do another family home evening. This time we taught about Prophets and we talked about how Samuel the Lamanite got on the wall and he was protected from the arrows and stones and stuff. Today we are planning on going to their house again to do another family home evening. We are going to talk about the Living Christ and about Baptism and stuff like that. It should be fun. Other than that this week we had a split with the District Leader and he came to split with me and with Brother Kamio. The split was a pretty good time. The only thing that we did for 2 days was finding. Thankfully, on the split with the District Leader and with Brother Kamio they found this 16 year old kid that they met on the street and made an appointment with him at the church for Saturday, and no one thought that he was actually going to come, but he showed up and we got a new investigator that day. Ohh also this week, way funny expirience. So we are talking to people on the streets and we stop this one girl. We start talking to her about some different stuff. She likes her family and happiness and then she also liked the Beatles and Hollywood movies and so we talked to her about that stuff for a little bit then we told her that we needed to go visit a referral that we recieved and she asked us if she could come along with us. She likes Lord of the Rings and adventure stuff like that, so she thought it would be a great adventure if she tagged along with us. It was pretty weird, but she tagged along with us and we dendo'd like normal even though she was there. Way funny, but whatever. Later that week we met her again, of course it was an appointment that we did, but we tryed to convince her that Jesus Christ was a ton cooler than Aragorn and Legolas...I dont know if she bought it, but she totally might have. So I think we are planning on meeting her again next week at the church with one of the members, so it should be pretty awesome. Anyways, other than that Takeru-kun that we met on Saturday is a pretty cool kid. He is part of a 2 person band and he playes the drums. He is 16 years old, but he really has intrest in the message. He really wanted to know what happiness is and whatnot. Way cool kid. Then on Sunday we have been doing this PMG class with a few of the members in the ward and last week we did a lesson on chapter 2, and it was really good. Later tonight we are going to be going to the Sasahara's again to teach them, then after that we are going to go to a members home to have another Family Home Evening. It should be pretty awesome. Hopefully everone will have a good time. Kamio Kyodai is doing really great. He is one of the best missionaries that I know. He hasn't even started his mission yet, but he's going to be crazy good. Anyways, that was pretty much it this week, catch ya later! Bye-bye! 

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Yamagata

Hey! Thanks for all the support. So the only thing that has happened really this week is that we went to a family named Sasahara family. They are way cool. They let us in and we do FHE's with them. It's pretty awesome. They like learning English too, but the other day the 7 year old asked his mom what the purpose of life was, and the mom was like "Oh, why don't you ask the missionaries because they will be coming over in a few days" So they waited till we came over and we taught them the purpose of life. It was so cute though, cause he whipped out his notebook and a pen and he couldn't write the Kanji yet, but he wrote down 2 Ne 2:25 and Alma 34:32. The two purposes of life. He wrote them down in his little book and told us that he understood. Way cool expirience. The parents were pretty into it too. We also have another family that we are trying to get a Family Home Evening with called the Kikuchi family. They are way nice. The other day when it was snow mega hard we went to a place called Sagae and we were trying to find a member family and they happened to be outside shoveling their driveway and we offered to help if they helped us, so they helped us and we helped them and then they took us in their car to find the member. Later that week we brought them kit-kats and cheese crackers and then they let us in their home for a few minutes because our train wasn't for another 30 minutes. At that point we couldn't really do any talking about gospel stuff, except for we tryed to explain FHE and stuff, but it's going to take a few more interactions with them to get things going. Well, other than that we have just tryed to visit members and we are starting to do FHE's with members a lot more. Maybe to help them to get into dendo a little bit more. It makes it really easy to just invite a friend to come to their home to do an activity. It's super cold and the wind bites, and the snow is crazy, but it's way fun. My companion is doing way good. He hasn't been to the MTC or anything, so he didn't have that training that other new missionaries have, but he is getting along just great. Yamagata Ward is the best! Love it! Hope all is well back home!

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Blizzards in Yamagata-ken

So this week I was transfered to Yamagata! Sorry that I haven't had any time to post anything for a long time. My time as Assistant was really thin, so I barely had any time to even get on the email. But Yamagata is great! My new companion is Brother Kamio. That's right...Brother Kamio. He hasn't been set apart as an Elder yet, but he will be soon. I'm going to be his companion for 6 weeks and then he is going to go on a full time mission. We have been studying really hard lately and trying to find as many people as possible, but no success so far. We literally came into Yamagata with nothing. The area book doesn't have much in it, and I didn't really get the feeling that we had many investigators to begin with, but it's been good. We have been visiting the members a ton recently. The other day we went to the Miller Family. They are a half-japanese family, and it was the youngest daughters birthday the other day so we went over there to say hi! Then the next day we went to go visit another family that lives in a place called Sagae and we visited them and the snow was crazy! There had to have been about 2-3 meters of snow there. It was ridiculous. We visited them, but no one came to the door, but the good thing was, that when we went to visit this member, we got to help out a family that lived in the same neighborhood. The Kikuchi family, and we gave them a pass-along card and stuff, but we didn't really get to talk to them about the gospel, so we are going to go back and give them a thank you card and then offer to teach them how to have a family home evening. So hopefully that will be good. Other then that, we went to church yesterday and gave our testimonies and then gave a little introduction of ourselves. After church we shoveled off the church roof. It had about 3 meters of snow on top of it, and we had to shovel it off or else the roof could cave in. Then we did a role-play lesson of Lesson 1 with one of the members that is planning on going on a mission soon. And that was pretty much it for this week. Ohh wait, so on Thursday when we were trying to get to Yamagata, we waited at the bus line for 3 hours, to get on a bus. Apparently the buses for Yamagata were all down and we were waiting in line of about 200 people. Finally a bus came and we got to get on it, but it was freezing and I definitely thought that I was going to get frost bite on my feet. Crazy week, but way fun. I'm super excited to get back to regular dendo. Wish me luck! Domo!

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