Japan week #89

This has been a great week to end a marvelous transfer! We have transfer calls tomorrow, and I'm not excited at all. I don't think elder  skinner and I are going to switch, and I don't want to have another companion! I would love to have him end my mission with me!

We've seen so many dang epic miracles, and we've both grown so much this transfer, it would be the biggest blessing to be able to work to the end with him...

 But! This week was a blast! On Tuesday we had dtm as per usual, but president and sister nakatsuka came! We had interviews with president nakatsuka after dtm, so they came and participated in dtm with us, and it was a blast! It was probably my last interview with president before my LAST one in the mission home before I go home so... It was kinda intense. But not really.  He just asked me how I was, how dendo was, and if I had any questions. And when we were done talking about that he asked me a few questions about the mission and what I think could be done to improve it, and then it was over! It took all of fifteen minutes. Everyone else was taking like, 30+ minutes. And so while I was waiting for everyone else to finish up, I hung out with sister nakatsuka, and we talked about what all Japanese older women talk about! Girls and marriage! It was way fun. :P she was like, you got any one you've got your eyes on? Any plans? And the she talked about marriage and gave me some great  motherly advice. Haha! Gotta love my second dendo mom! Love her to death!

  And then on Friday, I had splits with elder Suzuki. You might remember him from when I was zone leader in atsubetsu. I went on splits with him then, and now he's my dl so we got to go on splits again, and he was super nervous, because I was zl back in the day. But I assured him I was way happy for the opportunity, and we had a GREAT day! Saw a ton of miracles, and got to teach lots of lessons! It was super fun, and we were just goofing off and working hard. And by the end of the day he was saying how badly he wanted to be my companion. It was a great day, and I sure love elder Suzuki! And that's basically it. The rest of the week was awesome, but nothing super special to report! Thanks for all your love and support!

Love, Mike

Japan week #88

Hey everyone! This has been quite the crazy week. We have seen some crazy cool miracles, and had lots of fun this week.

We had ztm on Friday, and, you guessed it...iPads. Woooo...  I'm not sure how much time I want to invest into it since I have NO time, But whatever... It's ???????! Getting to ztm was a nightmare though. We had to travel to asahikawa which is about a two and a half hour train ride from ebetsu, and no one told us our travel plans, or the money situation or anything, so since I'm the oldest missionary in our area I was nominated to figure it all out. So Thursday was all phone calls and stress figuring out how I was gonna get $300 together, but it worked out and we all made it to asahikawa safely and on time. We stayed in the suehiro elders apartment which was WAY nice! It's one of the nicest apartments in the mission, so that was nice. haha!

   But aside from ztm, we had a GREAT week. We were really blessed, and had some epic miracles. We met our investigator H San on Tuesday, and taught him one of the most intense lessons I've taught in a long. It was literally the make or break it lesson. He was thinking about self dropping, and not seeing us anymore, and we had planned that lesson to invite him to baptism. And so when we invited him, he was way taken back, and got almost...mad at us. It was intense. And at first he said no. That he wouldn't make a baptismal date, and so we talked about it, and about what would be holding him back, and in the end, we made a baptismal date with him for the sixteenth of May!

We're super happy, and so dang excited! He also came to church this week. So he's going very well. We unfortunately can't meet him this week so at sucks but... Not much we can do about it.

   And we went to go teach our college student investigator sato K last night, and had an INCREDIBLE lesson. We did some Book of Mormon follow up, and talked a bit about our purpose in this life. And then we talked about Christ and how we believe in him and have faith in him and then talked about why. Taught the atonement, faith, repentance, baptism, gift of the Holy Ghost, and we invited him to also be baptized, and he said yes! His date is for the Fourth of July, and it's way strong. He really wants to know if this true, and he wants something in his life that has more meaning than what he has right now... He's incredible. Th spirit was so strong, and when I was testifying about receiving my testimony, and about how he can have the same experience, I was just blown away by how strong the spirit was.

This work is so true!!

   And aside from that, we just had lots of dendo and lots of fun times! I can't believe this transfer is already over! Basically...

Just one more week and then transfer calls. And in just five weeks we have received so many blessings in helping this area flourish. 

    Have a great week! I love all of you!!

   Love, Mike

Japan week #87

So this was another great week! Elder Skinner and I are killing it! Teaching lots of lessons, finding LOTS of new people to start teaching, and it's been glorious. We were worried about not having lots of time to work this week, because of conference, some stupid ipad online courses thing, :P and bicycle maintenance. But we got our work on, and we busted out some great times. No super cool stories really, but just lots of hard honest work, which has been wonderful. :) I LOVE working like this for this work...it's the single greatest experience. :)

  We FINALLY got our bikes back on Wednesday this week. My poor baby was HAMMERED from the missionary that had to temp use her...so we got our bikes, and spent two hours or so fixing them all up. I had a couple spokes that I needed to tighten, a punc that needed some work, I had to tighten up some breaks, and a host of other junk, and then do it for all the other elder's bikes since they didn't know how to do it on their own. :P Turns out I had a HUGE piece of glass in my front tire...thanks other elder! >.> And had to replace the tire, so I found a nice tire for 25 bucks, put it on myself to save some cash, and after greasing up all the unseemlies, she's working great! :) Not as cool as motorcycle maintenance but...made me feel good to work on even just a bicycle. :P

  General conference was also amazing. Spiritual highlight as always, and it blows me away that it's my last one as a missionary. My how the time flies.

  And that's about it! We are getting ipads on the 17th, this Friday, so that'll be crazy. Not excited for it, at all, but whatever. :P I'll get used to using it after a month and a half, and then come home... いいんじゃない. Love you all, thanks for all your support!

 Love, Mike 

Japan week #86

This has been another incredibly amazing week! We have been working our BUTTS off, and we've been reaping in the blessings. We were about to increase our teaching pool again by about 4 people, and we're looking forward to working with all of these new people! We have a few people that we're planning on inviting to baptism this week, so that'll be epic! Hopefully we can make some baptismal dates, and start getting people progressing in the right direction faster!

   Nothing too crazy happened, no super crazy stories or anything, but we did have one really sad experience. We met a lady called N San last week, I think I wrote about her in my email, but we went to go visit her, and it felt like we were fighting with nail and tooth for her salvation. We met her, and she said that she had read some of the Book of Mormon, but that when her JW friends found out, they got SUPER pissed, and were yelling at her to burn it, and not talk to us, and all sorts of stuff. And so they super scared her away from us, and so during the 15 minutes we got to talk to her, it was GAME TIME. We were bearing hard testimony, and doing everything we could ot not lose her. Elder Skinner and I have high expectations for her, and we met her under such coool circumstances, so we don't want to lose her. But nothing we said could deter her, and she doesn't want anything to do with us anymore. We said at a future point we'd come back one more time, and if she still felt the same, we'd leave it at that, so we can still go see her one more tie, but we were crushed. In this work, you get the greatest happiness, and the greatest sadness, its nuts. And that was more or less our week.

  I'm looking forward to watching general conference next week! Can't wait! :D

 Elder SKinner and I are having a BALL, and we're loving each and every single day. The work is amazing, and I'm so dang happy, everyday. :) This is true. I know it, and I will not, cannot deny it. :) Have a marvelous week, my prayers are with you!

 Love, Elder Dialogue