3日間本部にいなかった。よし。

Good morning sports fans,

This has been a crazy week and time went by pretty fast. Life's been
pretty good. To kick things off our investigator 椿 (Tsubaki) accepted
a baptismal date for the end of next month during our lesson last
Saturday! She is such a miracle! The lesson was really good and we
taught at the church with a member and we taught about the restoration
of the Gospel of Jesus Christ through the prophet Joseph Smith. It was
a really spiritual lesson and she was willing to accept a date to be
baptized and follow Jesus Christ. The next day she came to church and
made a lot of friends and wants to keep coming. We have another lesson
with her today and we are excited to see continual progression.

Monday I got the opportunity to return to 豊田 (Toyota) for a couple of
hours. A new Japanese elder, 中塚 (Nakatsuka), was called to become a
commisarian and we went to pick him up and because 豊田 is kind of
special to me I wanted to go and meet 森村 (Morimura). It was so much
fun. While walking down the street a member pulled off the side of the
road to say hi. They said the saw the missionaries and somehow
recognized it was me and turned around. At 森村's shop we surprised the
crap out of him and had a ton of fun talking to him. He is still
reading the Book of Mormon and an elder has given him a triple
combination and he still has all of my notes and scripture reading
assignments in it and is marking it. It was so good to see him and get
to talk with him for a while. While at 森村's 中塚 called me and told me a
member wanted me to meet with her daughter who I was friends with when
I served in 豊田 but went less active shortly after I left. So after 森村
I met up with the 市川 (Ichikawa) family at the church and got to talk
to there daughter 夏美 (Natsumi). I haven't seen them for almost a year
and they were way surprised that I could actually speak Japanese now.
The only memories they had of me was the first eight month of my
mission while I was still struggling hard with the language. It was so
good to see and talk to one of my favorite member families of 豊田 Ward.
I am so happy to have gotten to go see everyone again and see that
some of the success I saw there is still visible.

From Tuesday on our week got pretty busy. We went on three exchanges
in a row and pretty much traveled around the entire mission. We
started our "tour" in 野並 (Nonami), then 松本 (Matsumoto), and finished
out in 金沢 (Kanazawa). Elder Jones and I packed our bags, loaded the
bikes, hopped in the van, and had our own little three day long
adventure. It was a lot of fun! I got to meet so many people that I
worked with. In 野並 I called up a member family, the 落合's (Ochiai), and
asked if I could meet and they said yes and unexpectedly had a お好み焼き
(Okonomiyaki) party for Elder Callahan and I. It was so awesome to go
visit one of my favorite member families ever and have dinner and a
lesson with them. On Wednesday we headed to 松本 and spent most of the
day helping a sister missionary who got hit by her car while riding
her bike. Elder Warren (松本ZL) and I helped transport her damaged bike
with the van while she was helped out by some members at her
apartment. Warren and I also visited a LA Filipina that Elder Klein
and I used to work with back in the day. At night I visited my
favorite Brazilian family and introduce Jones to Aoki and Preto while
the ZLs had to go to a meeting at the church. It was great to see them
and reconnect once again. Our final destination was 金沢 where I got to
work with Elder Day. Him and I (and Elder Callahan) will be riding the
same plane home in a couple months. He is a way good ZL and has really
been helping the DLs in his zone and has been a huge asset up there.
It was a great couple of days to escape the 本部 and work out in the
field for several solid days.

We got back from our trip yesterday afternoon. At night we had to go
out to 一宮 (Ichinomiya) to go help bring some stuff the 福徳 (Fukutoku)
sisters needed from the apartment they left last week. After that the
week was all of a sudden over. We've got one week left in the transfer
and we'll see where that takes us. It's looking like it'll be a good
week.

All's well here folks so I hope all's well for you out there too. Take luck!

スピードと天使

堅城長老

写真

森村!