He also said he really doesn't want to get baptized but when he reads the Book of Mormon he has a good feeling. So sadly I think things are done with Aoyama.
We have a lesson this week with those two boys we had a lesson with a while ago so hopefully something will come out of that. But for the most part right now we are in complete finding/searching time.
This Thursday is Zone Conference. President Nagano, Sister Nagano, and the AP's will be meeting with all of us so I'm excited for that. Hopefully we can learn a lot and apply it to Joetsu.
My companion is on his last two weeks as a missionary so that's kinda sad but he's working hard.
On Friday we had exchanges. Our District Leader and his companion came to Joetsu this time so it was nice to be able to Dendou in Joetsu on splits for once. My companion for the day was Elder Title. He was my kohai in the MTC. He is in his first transfer right now and he's from Orange County. He's a good guy but he talks a lot about non mission related things. While we were dendou-ing he told me all about his plans for after a mission and who his roommate options are for about an hour and a half. Anyway we had a fairly successful day as we talked
to a lot of people and found a few people who said they were some what interested and took some pamphlets and said that they would read them and get back to us. So we will see about that. It was a real miracle to see how the Lord strengthens your abilities so that you can accomplish the things he needs you to do. There wasn't a single
situation where I didn't know how to handle it that day. Since we are both still trainees it could have been a very unsuccessful day but through our faith in the Lord we were able to invite people unto Christ.
Today we went to a historic park in Joetsu. It used to be a Samurai's Castle but pretty much everything was destroyed by an earthquake. The founding Samurai was from that video game I played before my mission. Hahah.There was still this look out tower so we got to look at that and there was a museum in there with a bunch of cool stuff like Samurai swords and an armor. Everything was in Japanese and most of it was
Kanji so I couldn't really read it. Probably a good thing cause we would have been there all day if I could have read it.
Here are some pictures
"Looking out the window from inside the Castle."
"A lot of huge fish and a turtle if you can find it."
"View from inside the Castle."
As far as the typhoon goes, we haven't really got hit by it. It's actually been way hot this past week and today it is super hot but the typhoon is supposed to hit us tonight or tomorrow. I'm actually pretty excited for it. It'll be insane!
Well that's all I've got for this week! Have fun with the boys and juggling the girls schedules!
Love you!
"Random knife we found while Dendouing."
"Also it rained a tiny bit on Friday and my handouts got wet so this is how I dried them."
Here is the email Mason sent to Steve this week.
A lot of people here are the kind of people that join the church love it and are so happy. Then something happens, the missionaries move on, whatever it is, they stop coming to church and don't know why they did it in the first place. They all have testimonies and they all saw miracles that God provided as they were trying to join the church and they just for get it. This group could be like three or four times the size it is with more work and success but slowly they let those cracks get bigger.
I also have seen the blessing and the difference in preparedness in missionaries. I've met missionaries here and in the MTC where it was just baffling to see that they are missionaries. I feel as though I have truly been blessed already for my preparations before my mission and I will probably continue to be blessed.
Lately it has been a little frustrating as Aoyama is pretty much finished. He has a mental problem and doesn't even remember the Restoration. It's a great opportunity as we have about two weeks left in the transfer to see if we can rekindle that fire we had going in Joetsu.
Here is your patience and persistence analogy. An area is like a deck (Steve is in the process of building a deck on the back of our house) or learning a language. At first it is rough, slow, rocky, uneven, unsatisfying, and all around not what your ideal dream for it was. At first you don't have investigators, ward members don't want to help, your young and don't even know what you should do half the time, your language is slow, your vocabulary is small, your pronunciation sounds like a drunk Russian man who is missing half his teeth, the boards don't line up, they don't fit, you have bad nails, the foundation/ base is cracked and uneven or molded. But as you work at it and set goals and then set goals to reach those goals, you will see success. You will know who to visit, and what to say, how to help people so that they are interested, people will see the importance and help you, your vocabulary will be wonderful, your pronunciation will be impeccable like an angel, you will know how to fit things together that make sense, the boards will fit, you will know the measurements, you learn the process, probably be able to hold one board in one hand and nail in some nails with the other, you get faster and more efficient, and eventually it isn't even work it's fun and enjoyable. You will probably want to see what you can do next, how you can improve it and eventually it will be better than you had dreamed.
Well that's about it. Hopefully we see some real big miracles in Joetsu this week.
See you later love you!
Oh also my reading skills are getting pretty good.
Thought for the week:
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