Alles Gut in Matsumoto

Good morning sports fans,

It's just pouring rain outside and is supposed to keep pouring all week long. There's so much water I wouldn't be surprised if the island is sinking. It's going to be a long, wet week.

This was actually a pretty crazy week and somehow we managed to get a ton done. On Wednesday we did another 安曇野 (Azumino) trip where we taught 金子 (Kaneko) again. She had started reading a little bit of the Book of Mormon. She didn't have much time, but she still has a ton of interest in us. We we then found three more investigators with the member we went up there with. Two of them didn't really have too much interest, but were willing to meet again. It's been awesome how successful 安曇野 has been. That night our 英会話 (Eikaiwa)'was pretty fun. We were talking about vacations and places to go in the U.S. Someone asked if they could shoot guns while in America and the whole 英会話 changed from there. The rest of the time was answering their questions about firearms and how to shoot. I haven't had the opportunity to talk about that kind of stuff for a while so it was really entertaining to answer all of their questions. They are just amazed that we allow our citizens to have such "dangerous" objects.

Probably my craziest day this was on Friday. We took the two hour train to 上田 (Ueda) to attend the DTM there. Afterwards I went on an exchange with the DL there, Elder Valente from São Paulo, Brazil. As we are heading back to 松本 on the trains, we correctly make our connection and are riding for about an hour and I realize that I don't recognize any of the stations names. Valente asks the lady next to him if we are heading towards 松本 and she said that we were going in the opposite direction. The 駅 (eki) we got off at was on the very border of The 上田 area almost out of the prefecture. We had an appointment that we needed to get to in 松本, but learned we were going to be an hour late. My cell was dead so I had to go old school and call Klein with a pay phone to have him cover our appointment. When we finally got to 松本 the whole train ordeal had taken about four hours. Our mistake was a simple one. We were on the right track, but there's a Y in the line and if you take the one train that is five minutes earlier than the other then you get sent in the opposite direction.

The day was not a loss, however. That night we had. Lesson with some of my favorite investigators, whom of which I really haven't talked much about. They are a Brazilian couple by the names of Aoki and Preto. This was the first time that they had ever been taught by a Brazilian missionary and it completely changed them. They have been taught for a while and love the church and Book of Mormon, but through complications with the language barriers they haven't accepted to be baptized. They loved Valente. The opened up like never before. Preto speaks decent English and Aoki speaks both Portuguese and Japanese, but speaking to a native was so good for them. I can understand Portuguese to a certain extent and understood what Valente was teaching and talking about and learned their sauce with baptism. Valente's coming back again this week and if I can get a Brazilian companion next transfer then I am sure they will be baptized soon. Last miracle of the week was yesterday afternoon in the pouring rain. We decided to go no check on some potential investigators that were found last transfer, one of which was a lady who Tu'akoi me Hobdy found who speaks German. When we knocked the door a man who looked Japanese opened and was about to reject us until Tu'akoi asked where he was from and he said Brazil. Then he asked if his wife was German
and then the wife popped out from around the corner and looks at me and asked, "Alles gut?" She then started talking to me in German and to my surprise I could understand about 80% of what she was saying to me. To my dismay I couldn't respond back in correct German; I kept trying to use Japanese words inside my sentence. I learned that her grandparents are from Germany, but moved to the German colony of Parana in southern Brazil. Her first language is German, but she also speaks Portuguese. Enna ( that's her name) was super nice and knew about Mormons and and asked us if we had a paper/pamphlet/book we could share. I said yes, but not on me and asked if it would be alright if I brought a Das Buch Mormon with me next week and could share it with her. She said that would be fine and says she wants to read something to keep practicing her German and wants to practice speaking to me because she doesn't get the opportunity to speak. I promised I would practice and I am super excited to meet her again.

Well this week's email is quite an epistle. I cannot believe how much stuff happens in a week. I hope you all are keeping just as busy as me. I am so grateful for all of you and for your love and support.

Have a super great week!

スピードの天使

Pink お寺 (O-Tera: Buddhist temple)