Kikuchi miracle

So this week was pretty much a regular week in terms of lessons and
stuff...we had a lesson with this chinese guy named Cho Senzan-san,
and he wanted to debate with us and he told us at the end of the
lesson that he was expecting more of a fight from us, because he said
that he had studied Mormons before, but the whole entire time we
pretty much agreed with 98% of everything he said and at the end of
the lesson he was really moved by our attitude. We didn't argue about
nearly anything, and he said that we wanted to hear more and talk
again, so we agreed. I thought that was pretty cool. Attitude can
change a lot! Another thing that we have been doing this week is going
around to different stores and trying to put up Eikaiwa (English
class) posters and place flyers in stores and such...it went pretty
well, it reminded me of going to the universities to put up flyers and
talk to administration about Helping Hands. Way scary, but when you
get someone that will listen then it's worth it! We also have trying
to meet our neighbors more, so the other day me and Elder Okada made a
ton of french toast sticks and went around to the neighbors and gave
them out and invited them to Eikaiwa. That was pretty fun. But the
coolest part of this week was I got a call from someone that Brother
Kamio and I found in his first week and we have been trying and trying
to get them to do a Family Home Evening with us, but the other day I
gave them a call and asked again if we could do an FHE and the dad
said to me something so sweet! He told me that because Brother Kamio
and I asked their family so many times to do a FHE, the younger
brother in the family had been persuading the family to make some
family time together, and because of that, they decided to make some
more family time and he said that they grew a lot closer together. He
said it was because of us that their family had grown closer together,
and then at the end he said that it would be alright if we went and
did FHE with them sometime! I was way stoked after I heard that! That
was definitely a miracle if I've ever seen one. But yeah, next week
will be really good. Tonight we are having another Family Home Evening
with one of the members and our investigator, so we are hoping that
will go down good. But that was my week in a nutshell. Hope everyone
else is doing great! Love ya all! Bye-bye.

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One lost and another found...

So this week was pretty good. On Monday we went to the japanese chess
(shogi) museum and looked at how they make the shogi pieces. We went
to Tendo to do that, and apparently Tendo is famous for pumping out
strong shogi players, so since Kamio kyodai loves shogi we went there
for his last P-day. It was pretty fun. Then afterwards we went to the
Sasaharas to do a lesson with them. Taught them about the Spirit and
how it warms us and makes us feel comfortable. The next day was a
split with the other missionaries in the house. We had to go around
with them to pick up all of the investigators that they had. So we
taught a few people lessons and we went to visit some people at where
they work to tell them that Ruefenacht choro and Mead choro were
transfering. The next day Kamio kyodai and I went to Sendai to go pick
up my new companion. His name is Okada choro and he is from
Shiga-ken...so Kyoto Stake. So he speaks Kansai-ben like no other. He
is working on fixing it though. So we picked him up and then Kamio
kyodai left on Friday so we were a 3 doryo for a few days. Anyways, he
has been trying way hard to get into the missionary feel of things. He
passed out his 1st Book of Mormon the other day and we did our first
Baptismal commitment the other day too. For his first week in the
mission he is seeing tons of miracles. It's pretty awesome. On
thursday we went to a members home to eat dinner and do a lesson and
then after that we went to a Less Active that lives nearby and invited
her to church in which she came, so that was very awesome. Church this
week was way sad. There is a family that lives here that is moving
away. Probably one of the central families in the Ward, and they are
moving away as well as tons of the YSA's. (Young Single Adults). But
yeah, we are all doing great and the snow is melting away, so maybe we
can get by without wearing a coat now. We'll see. Anyways, Other than
that this week has been awesome. Okada choro is going to be a great
missionary. Well until next week.

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1 year anniversary...

Hey, so this week was pretty good I guess. It was transfer week and such,
but yeah. On Monday last week we visited a girl named Riku-chan and it's
too bad but she was so interested in deep stuff. Like God and Purpose of
life, and prayer and such, but it turns out that she is going to be moving
soon so we couldnt meet her anymore. Then on Tuesday we went to Sanjo
shimais house and we did a Family Home Evening with her, with the Ward
Mission Leader. We taught about Love and the Love that Christ has for all
of us. Then we went to the Sasahara's place and did a lesson on the
Restoration and the Book of Mormon. It was a pretty good lesson I think.
The dad was pumped to read the Book of Mormon to his kids before dinner. So
hopefully they read the Book of Mormon. Then on Wednesday we had our
English classes and the first English class we had was in the morning. Then
afterwards we had the actually Eikaiwa and we had about 20 plus people
there. Eikaiwa is always a good time. Then on thursday we had our district
meeting and we talked about Testifying and then since it was the last
district meeting of the transfer we had a little testimony meeting,
and it was way good. It was also one of the missionaries Birthday's so
we bought him a cake and we all ate cake together. Then later that day
we just dendo'd like regular. Friday was just another one of those
dendo days, but we did do our Weekly Planning that day. Saturday was
all a dendo day. Knocked on houses all day long. But we did get a new
investigator that day. Mayuko-chan is her name and she said she was
going to be coming to the Relief Society Anniversary party thing on
Saturday, so we'll see how that goes. On Sunday...way cool. It was the
1 year anniversary of the big Tsunami and Earthquake, so at 2:46pm
everyone in the church had a minute of silence time and the Bishop
just rang this bell thing and everyone just meditated for a minute.
Also before that we had a Baptism take place. Brother Akashi got
baptized on that day too. He said that he wanted it to be on the 11th
so that he could always remember his baptism day. Pretty cool right?
So we had all that take place on Sunday. Then this morning we got our
call from President and we all got our transfer calls. Obviously I'm
staying...I'm going to be in Yamagata till the end, but Kamio kyodai
is going home and then the other two elders in the apartment are going
to be transferred, so I'm left all by myself again. Yamagata is going
to go back to a 2 elder, and my new companion is going to be a
Japanese fresh off the plane. So we'll see how these last 2 transfers
go. But this week was pretty fun, hopefully the next week will be good
too. Well, Love ya all! Bye bye!

PS. Shimizu Yukimasa Kyodai, the young-man in our ward going to
Waseda, is probably going to be in the business/economy major...unless
he gets into Law...but probably the business/economy major. Yoroshiku!
^^v

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Another Regular Week of Miracles

So this week we taught the Sasahara Family again and we taught this
time about the Apostasy and how the church of Christ was lost from the
earth. It was a good lesson and hopefully they learned a lot. We also
went up to the Sato Family. They are a pretty cool half czech half
japanese family and we shared a message about being thankful and then
later that night we went over to the Kikuchi Family's home to see if
they would be willing to do a FHE with us. We met them probably the
first day we got to Yamagata and we have been trying to get them to do
a FHE with us, but we are slowly moving them forward and we are
probably going to be able to get one eventually. Then on Wednesday we
had Eikaiwa again and there was quite a few people there, but yeah,
there was this new guy that came to class that I talked to afterward
and we pretty much had a whole discussion on the topics of the First
Lesson and the Restoration and the scripture that we shared in the
spiritual message hit him deep, so that was the reason we started to
talk about that kind of stuff. Hopefully he comes next week, but yeah,
way cool expirience. There was also a day when we went to pick up some
Potential Investigators and we went to this one house and talked to
this girl about the Restoration for maybe 25 minutes and eventually we
had to give her a pamphlet and tell her to try to pray because I
guarentee you wont feel any bad feelings from it. The rest of the week
we had the opportunty to help one of the members move their stuff into
a moving van and then later that night we went to the bishops home to
eat dinner. It was a good time. We taught them about the Restoration
and did some magic tricks and stuff. Then on Sunday we did the Preach
My Gospel class after church and we had like 5 of the young men there
to listen to the message. We talked about the Commandments and what
blessings you can recieve from them. One of the young men here in
Yamagata just got accepted to Waseda-daigaku and he is leaving pretty
shortly, but he says he wants to go on a mission so that was good.
Well that's been my week so far hope everone else's has been good. See
ya!

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