This week was super good! Hahah Actually it was great! So not sure where to start. Noriko has sort of been avoiding us so we are leaving her alone for a week or so. Lang doesn't want to read the Book of Mormon so we aren't visiting him for a little bit. But that's about the bad stuff of the week. We found like three high schoolers about 15-16 years old and all of them were interested in learning more. Oh we also found a 19 year old who works with Lang that said he was interested so we set up a lesson and we told him bring a friend that's interested and he did. Haha We were supposed to meet last night during the matsuri (Japanese celebration) but we couldn't find him for a while. He came with a group of friends who are kinda like partiers and stuff like that but he actually had a friend who was also interested. So we talked to the two of them for a little bit but it was a little to late for us to teach them and the atmosphere was not the best either. Haha. But we are going to meet with them next Saturday and teach them. They are super busy working during the week but the are willing to make time to meet so that is a good sign. Tanaka is the one we found and his friends name is Yokoyama. Tanaka is kind of a goofball and seems like a mischievous guy but I think he's actually got some interest and hopefully all will go well with those two.
On Friday I had splits with my District Leaders companion. He's 25 and is about to finish his fourth transfer. His Japanese is pretty bad actually but he works hard and it was a good day. We were talking to these two guys in their mid twenties for a while. One of them was pretty interested as far as learning English, then this 50 year old came up to us out of now where and he's probably like 4 ft 8 maybe. Anyways he pretty much took my splits companion and walked over to this bench and sat down. So I finished up with the other two and went over to the bench. By this point Elder Manapori, from Austrailia, had given him a Book of Mormon and he was flipping through the pages. We talked to him a tiny bit and I asked if he wanted to meet again some time and we could teach him and he said yes. I asked to exchange numbers and he told me the first three digits and he couldn't remember the rest. I asked him if he had his phone and he started feeling his pockets and then jumped up said shipmata and like briskly walked away. So we had a golden investigator and he just walked right out of our hands. We ended up looking for him for a while and couldn't find him so we continued to talk to other people. We then decided to go back to our bikes so we could go back to the apartment and miraculously out of the corner of my eye I spotted first a Book of Mormon in someone's hands being looked though and then I realized it was that crazy little old man Yoshio. We went over and talked to him for a little bit again and we tried to teach a lesson/some principles to him and he pretty much kept saying "shite iru" which means I know but he didn't know he was just crazy. I would try to share some thing he didn't know and eventually I showed this Plan of Salvation diagram I have on my iPad and he looked at it for a second and said shite iru. Hahah Crazy man! Anyways the whole time we talked to him he was staring at the Book of Mormon just flipping the pages. Oh also I asked what happens after death and he said my body is getting spread in the ocean and I said oh that's neat but like life after death and he just told me his body is going in the ocean. Hahah Well that is great. Also he never found his phone. Anyways we set up an appointment for the next day and I left a scripture for him to read. During the lesson the next day he told them that he liked my scripture and that he read half of the Book of Mormon already. The District Leader asked him what it was about and what he liked and he said he doesn't know but that it gave him a good feeling and he likes it. Well that's good. He can't read but at least he has a testimony of the Book of Mormon. He also committed to baptism with them and went to church on Sunday. So that was great.
Speaking of baptismal commitments, Aoyama has a date. August 14. Although he didn't come to church on Sunday he said he would come from here on out. In order to be baptized here you have come to church three weeks in a row. He will be the first baptism Joestsu has had in over two years.
We had to take a train to meet Aoyama in Arai and after the lesson we were finding and we met one of our 15/16 year old investigators. He said he was interested in after death so we exchanged numbers and we are hopefully going to have a lesson soon.
On the train back we ended up meeting this college student from Tokyo looking for another college. His name is Kento. We ended talking to him for a while actually and a lot of it was about the gospel. It was a really good meeting and there was like a real bond made between us and I feel like I will see him again. The spirit was pretty strong there and we ended up giving him a Book of Mormon and he was pretty excited about it. We also became friends on Facebook so that when I'm out in Tokyo I can contact him.
Also we taught the Chinese guy Sha. He's not quite sure about modern prophets but he does have a Book of Mormon in Chinese. He went to a Catholic Church on Sunday though. Not sure why. Also the less active sister that came to church last week, Hashimoto shimai, has some solid Dendou fire now. She pretty much tracked down another less active who we have never actually been able to meet with and pretty much committed her to coming back to church. She's not sure when but she promised she would come back.
I gave a talk in church yesterday in Sacrament Meeting. It was about ancestors so I just talked about how the Book of Mormon is a bunch of writings from ancestors to help them teach their children and raise families. So I shared how we can build our families off of principles taught from the Book of Mormon.
Also my man Mitsuo, the guy who came up to us yelling Mormons a few weeks ago and asked us where the church was pretty much disappeared after that. But we ran into him last week and he informed us that he has a place to stay now and that he's going to come to church and eikaiwa soon. Haha He asked us for our number so we gave him a flyer with a map to the church and our phone number and a bunch of other information and he was like no cell phone and we tried to tell him for like 5 minutes that that was our cell phone number before he realized haha. Also he had tape on the back of his head and we asked him why and he said there was a bad spirit following him but he figured out that if he puts tape on the back of his head it will protect him from the bad spirit. Hahah He's pretty weird. Mitsuo and the guy we found on splits, Yoshio, are basically brothers just a few years apart. Hahah Here is a picture of us and Mitsuo. If you look close you can see his tape.
All in all this week was amazing! I know this church is true and that there is a purpose for every conversation I have with a person. Joetsu is growing slowly but surely and I'm so happy to be apart of it. We can see so many miracles daily if we just open our eyes. I know that to be true.
Well that's all for this week
Love you guys!
Also I had some dang good ramen this week. Here's a picture of that.
This is my new Yukata. It was free!! Also, I am in the tatomi (straw mat) room that we sleep in. We just pull our Futons out and put them on the tatomi.
Thought for the week:
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