That's What I'm Talking About!

Good morning sports fans,

Wow where did my week go? This has been the first fast week I've had
since I reported into the 本部. I've done a lot of travel and spent a
lot of time out of the office so things are just looking more sunny
side up.

So my adventures begin this week after church on Sunday when we drive
all he way back out to 静岡(Shizuoka) to go pick up a sister missionary
with health problems to take her back to the 本部 so she could go home.
It was sad to have to pick up and then watch her leave the next day,
but she needed to go get healthy.

On Monday Nakamoto came back to the 本部 from running some errands and
found some official Japan Nagoya Mission letters on our desk so we
opened them up and they were our "Trunky Papers." These simply our our
return notices that ask for information about what airport you want to
fly into and your Ward/Stake leadership and other info regarding your
release as a missionary. They come five months in advance of you going
home and it was just crazy to think that I have now less than five
months left in the mission field. To make ourselves a little more
trunky we ate burritos to celebrate...

Onto things that don't make us trunky, Tuesday we rolled out to some
good old familiar territory in 岡崎(Okazaki). The Zone Conference there
was really good. I love 岡崎 Zone! Nothing quite beats your bean-chan
zone that you spent six transfers in if you know what I'm saying. I
know a lot of people in the zone and worked with quite a lot of them
throughout my mission. The ZLs Elders Jones and Klein are among my
favorite missionaries in the mission. We've know each other since the
MTC and worked all together up in 松本(Matsumoto). They're ZC went
really well and there was such a good Spirit there. During their
testimony meeting as I was listening to missionaries in the zone share
the miracles they've seen and testify of the truthfulness of the
gospel, I had such a strong out pouring of love towards these
missionaries. As I reflected a little bit about how I was rather
discouraged with AP work last week and I received a little bit of personal
revelation. One of my main frustrations has been not having anyone to
teach or bring closer to Christ. However, by watching these
missionaries I realized that I still have that opportunity as AP. As
an Assistant my primary purpose is to help strengthen missionaries and
their testimonies and while they may not be actual investigators, they
also need to be brought closer to Christ. I still have the desire to
go and find those who haven't yet heard the restored gospel of Jesus
Christ, but I have begun to learn to find satisfaction in my capacity of
what I can do. I love missionaries.

After the conference I was able to go on exchanges with Elder Jones.
It was way fun and we got to go visit some people who I know and
haven't seen in eight months. We got to visit the Ashikawa's who are a
Brazilian family and talk with them. The wife still remembers me from
my numerous exchanges and visits to 岡崎, so it was pretty cool to meet
up with them again. Being able to get to work with Jones was also
really great. It's been over five months since we last went on an
exchange together and it was great to go do 伝道(dendo) and learn from
him. Him and Klein are doing so well in 岡崎 it's crazy. It was so good
to be back in a familiar area and get out and work in it.

On Thursday we jumped back in our van and cruised out to 静岡 again, but
this time for a zone conference/exchange. It was a beautiful day out
there and it felt like the banana belt of Japan because it was so warm
out. The skies were also clear enough to see Mt. Fuji which was pretty
sick. It looks way big from 静岡 (which is still 30 miles away) so it
must be huge in person. Once again I got to meet up with some people I
haven't seen for a long time. I got to meet up with my bean-chan Elder
Coleman and Klein's bean-chan Elder Hansen and also good old Elder
Corréa from my Toyota days. That conference also went decently well.
Nakamoto and I ended up translating for almost three hours of the
conference which is the longest I've ever translated for. I was
translating for a Japanese couple who are missionaries in the zone and
I hope they understood what I was saying. As time went on I got more
and more tired and I felt like my abilities kept dropping, but I made
it through and it seemed like they were grateful for the effort.

After this conference as well I was able to go on an exchange with
Elder Farias from São Paulo, Brazil. I've known him for most of my
mission, but this was our first opportunity to actually get to work
together. It was fun, but we got kind of lost a lot because Farias
just got to 静岡 three weeks ago and the city is huge; way bigger than I
expected. We had some fun trying to figure out where exactly we were
and were able to get some good work on the streets in as well. Farias
is a really fun guy (like almost all Brazilians) and we had a great
time working together.

Yesterday we returned and had some office problems in the afternoon
like losing Internet and such. That problem probably came about to
just make the day seem more interesting than normal. It's been so
great not sitting in a desk in the office dealing with stuff like this
this week. The great thing is next week has a similar travel schedule
so here we go!

Valentine's Day is coming up this weekend, but more importantly my
dear sweet mother's birthday was yesterday(today in America). I love
my MOM! No one beats you dear! I love you to death.

Have a great next week y'all! Enjoy yourselves. Thanks for all the love and support.

スピードと天使

堅城長老

Celebrating with burritos