Japan week #25

Hello everyone! 

     This has been another fun week! As some of you have heard, I am now officially in Otofuke for another transfer, and with the same companion! My district didn't even hardly change at all either, so this transfer was a bit boring for us. ;) Haha!! BUT! My old zone leader from when I was in Muroran, came to Obihiro, to be my zone leader again! :P Needless to say I'm way stoked! Love the man, wanna go out and dendo with him again! And I'm finally gonna have that opportunity! :) 

   I am happy to not be transferring, and to not have to change companions. I feel like we are together for one more in order to see some miracles over these next six weeks, and so we're gonna be working hard to make sure they come! The AP's called us and told us that they feel that our investigator Sato San, can get baptized this transfer, and they STRONGLY encouraged us to do all we could to make that happen. And so we're gonna do our best! Elder Kozuma and I would love to see a baptism, so we're working hard! 

  So this week was pretty eventful. Even though we weren't transferring, we still had to make the 4 hour trip to Sapporo to the transfer spot anyways. For music practice. So yes, I am still in it! I'm in a couple big group songs, and then one small group song, and I'll tell you, are they AMAZING. Way fun, way good! I'm very excited! We have two concerts to perform, one on the 15th of February, and one on the 1st of March. Sisters Evans is going all out because this is her last chance to put on a music night since their mission ends in 6 months, and boy is it gonna be great. The missionaries have written some really incredible numbers, and they sound great. It's way fun. :) I love that I'm out here on my mission, and I'm still able to use my talents and perform for people. It's such a blessing. :) And we always sing in Japanese, sometimes English. 

  At the music practice this week, I was talking to President Evans. He is way fun to talk to, and he's a WAY smart dude. We were having a nice conversation, and then he asked me how my Japanese was, how I felt about the language, and what not. Pretty natural question. I told him that it wasn't an area of stress for me, and that I feel pretty comfortable with it. To which he said, 'Oh good, I knew when I met you that it wouldn't be a problem with you. I expect you to keep working, and to become one of our gaijin japanese speaking all stars.' And then walks away!! I'm standing there going. :O Then I yell, 'Thanks for your faith in me!' Haha!! Talk about pressure. Now I have president Evans expecting me to be flipping awesome. ;) Haha! It was interesting, figured that you might like to hear about that. I haven't talked a ton about the language, but it's going great. I have really improved a LOT since my first transfer. I look at some of my old notes and what not, and I have come a LONG way. In fact, I was just thinking about this yesterday, that I understand more than I don't understand. That thought just hit me yesterday. And it really made me think a lot about how flipping blessed I am. I am just some young white guy from Idaho, only thing he knew about Japan was that they bombed america in WW2, and now I'm in Japan, serving the people, speaking the language. It's flipping amazing. My language skills have really come a long ways. Being with a Japanese companion certainly helps, and I feel like last transfer I really got a handle on the understanding part. I almost always know what's being said around me now, and I can just about express myself without any hitches at all. Obviously I'm not perfect, and there's still tons I need to know, but I am just so grateful that I've been blessed with language skills that I can use to further this work. That's kind of the biggest thing that happened to me this week. I've been very humbled because of that realization. I'm so dang blessed! I'm growing so much! Man, there's just no way to one up the Men Upstairs! Anytime you think you're paying any of it back, you realize you've only dived further into their debt. It's great. :) 

  That's what I learned this week. After all the music night practice craziness we came home, and had some fun dendo. The ward had a single adult activity that we attended, which was a blast. It's great times out here. :) 

I love you all, and I wish you all a very very very happy and successful week. :) Keep Sato San in your prayers, we want to be able to see her baptism this transfer. :) I love you all!! :D

      -Mike