Not a whole bunch happened this week, but it all turned out pretty good. I know this is going to sound really bad, but I lost my companion again last Monday. Before you get mad let me explain:
It was dark and pouring rain last Monday night and we were trying to bike home on time. I ended up in the from and kept biking and at a stop light I looked back and Tu'akoi wasn't behind me. So I biked back looking for him. The whole time I had TOP GUN going through my head saying "Never lose your wingman!" I also remembered my last experience in Toyota where I promised myself and God I wouldn't do it again. Well I couldn't find him and he had the phone so I went to a convenie and asked if they had a pay phone. They said no and didn't know where one would be (we're in the modern era of cell phones so that wasn't surprising) so I went to a close by drug store and explained my situation and asked if I could use there phone. They allowed me to and I called Tu'akoi and we met up and got home safely. He wasn't too far from me and since I could call my lost comp it was better than my last experience.
Wednesday I had a new mission first experience. On Tuesday a young 27 year old member named Terashima called us up and asked if he could go and dendo with us and said he could take us in his car wherever we wanted to go. We gladly excepted the offer and decided to go up north to 安曇野 Azumino, which is a good hour bike ride away. We had the plan to just go visit less active members that we normally can't get to, but Terashima surprised us. He had already chosen some 団地(danchi-Japanese apartment buildings) to and try to house. He
actually wanted to do real work with us and was in his church clothes ready to find investigators! All he was missing was the name tag! So we went and housed as a threesome which was another first for me. It turned out to be pretty fun and housed all afternoon and found two new investigators. It was cool because Terashima wanted to be right in the action and housed doors with us and would improve his approach every time. I kind of wish I would have gone out with the missionaries back in high school. I was too much of a chicken to go. Plus they were never in our Ward so I didn't have a relationship with them. After housing we hung out with his family (all non-members) and got to build a good relationship at their beautiful home in 安曇野 and then went to
Eikaiwa together.
Friday I had my first experience teaching ZTM (Zone Training Meeting). Our zone, Nagano Zone, is the smallest in the mission with only 14 missionaries. We have a really fun zone with a lot of different personalities and nationalities. We have a Canadian, Brazilian, Japanese, and 11 Americans. Our zone is doing really good right now
despite being so small.
Later that evening we taught one of our investigators named 山中(Yamanaka). 山中 is an interesting fellow who Hobdy and Tu'akoi found. He has a problem with his tongue due to some side effects from some medicine he had to take a year ago. The way he talks is as if his tongue is always in the way. Stick your tongue out and try talking and that's what it sounds like except it's Japanese coming out. I get about 60% what he says so I am grateful Tu'akoi is a native speaker or we'd both be lost. 山中 is actually Christian who says he's read the Bible over 60 times and goes to a Brazilian church. He's been taught for the last couple of weeks and we were teaching about the Gospel of Jesus Christ which is faith, repentance, baptism, the gift of the Holy Ghost, and enduring to the end. While teaching about baptism he told us he was already baptized. That provided us an excellent opportunity to teach about the importance of the Restoration and necessity of proper priesthood authority. It went really well and invited him to be baptized, but said he wanted to pray about it. We promised that he would find his answer if he kept reading the Book of Mormon and praying. It was a really good lesson and have hopes for this weeks lesson.
Long email this weeks folks, but I hope you are all doing well. Fall is in the air and we are on our way to hopefully some beautiful golden mountains. I hope summer was fun for everyone and I am always grateful for your love, support, and prayers.
Best wishes!
スピードと天使
堅城長老
What!? A castle?!
Celebrating 1 Year today at 焼肉
Beautiful 安曇野
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