Elder Rogers Japan Tokyo Mission: EVERY.SINGLE.INVESTIGATOR.IN A WEEK‏

Hey y'all,
    Elder Rogers comin' at ya for another week of Missionary fun. So
this week definitely had its ups and downs. Purba Choro, one of the
other elders in the apartment transferred. But he became District
Leader in his new area! So that was an up and down. The new guy is
named Elder Mützelberg and he came from Australia. I have an Auzzie
in my apartment, how cool is that! He does lots of accents too, just
for fun. When he teaches English class the Japanese people can't
understand him at all. I think that's hilarious. He doesn't. But
really, it's hilarious.
    We did 10 drive-bys this week. We took a nice card we made and
dropped it off to investigators and members who have helped us out.
    We've been making friends with all the old people at the park we
go to in the mornings to exercise at. They do the old people radio
workouts which is basically where they just move around to see if they
still can. :) There's a 10-yr-old kid who comes to play soccer with
us every morning and do workouts with us. He's pretty cool.
    So, on to the downside of this week. ALL of our investigators
decided they don't want to meet with us anymore. ALL OF THEM! How
does that even happen?! Ok, not really all of them. But our most
interested one is going to New Jersey for a month for reasons. So
she's still interested but everyone else was like, "yeah, I don't
really want to be Mormon." Or, "I don't think I'm quite ready to
change." :/ Well then... We did talk one guy out of it though which
brings me to my next point....
    The UPside of this week. We talked a guy out of giving up on the
church! He came in and said, "I have absolutely no interest in this
religion." And I do not remember what we said. All I remember doing
was testifying about Joseph Smith and the Book of Mormon. I remember
telling him how important this gospel is to me personally. In the end
he admitted he hadn't been reading the Book of Mormon and that was
probably why he felt that way and he agreed to start reading it again!
He also had newfound interest and wants to continue meeting with us!
Can you say, 'divine help'? How about, 'Spirit power'? That was
definitely not me. There was no way I could've talked this guy out of
anything. I'm just a kid in nice clothes talking about a guy with a
gold book who saw an angel. But I'm so glad it's not just me trying
to help these people, I've got someone much better than me on my team,
and when He wants something to happen, He can make it happen.
    We also made a package for one of our friends who just left for
the MTC a couple weeks ago and is now in the field in Nagoya. We put
tons of junk food and letters from us in a big box (graciously donated
to him through me by my family). I stuffed it into my backpack as
much as it would fit and then biked it up to their house. Oh yeah, I
can ride my bike with no handlebars! It's not that big a deal. I
just saw all the other Elders doing it and I had never tried it so I
was like, "I wanna do that!" And now I can do it better than them.
Sidebar over. So we pulled up to their house and waited In the light
rain to give them the package. Sadly no one was home. Buuuut, a nice
(Chinese?) lady saw us and we talked to her and she pulled out a huge
thing of cookies that she gave to us! It was awesome! She just
literally magicked it out of nowhere. So I gratefully accepted this
kind act of black magic and stuffed it in my coat because there was no
room in my backpack. After that we biked back in the now much more
heavy rain while I didn't touch the handlebars because I was too busy
trying not to let the cookies slip out.
    We rode a train up to a referral who never showed up :( but on
the way back I talked to a guy wearing Grand Canyon pants and he has
interest in the church! He also lives like 2 minutes away from it.
So we invited him to church and activities and we'll see what happens.
    Last night while we were at tutoring we had some interesting
things brought to our attention. For example, does anyone know what a
Kappa is? Google it: Japanese Kappa. It's a humanoid,
froggy-skinned, turtle shelled, monk haircut...thing. Just look it
up. You'll see what I mean. Apparently a city near here claims to
have lots of them. They're like Bigfoot for Japan or something.
    Oh yeah, we started a kendo night! That's bamboo sword fighting
by the way. Super excited for that. It starts up this Tuesday and
hopefully a lot of people come. We're trying to get the youth
together more often to have fun in the church and to bring their
friends. And what young man is not interested in sword fighting,
right?
    We have a ton of lessons set up for this week so we're going to
be slammed for the most part. I like that personally. Sitting around
is boring and it's cold outside. If we have actual lessons we get to
be inside. Also, we got to call President Nagano a couple nights ago
which was pretty cool.
    Well I love you guys, take care and be good people. That's all folks.

Elder Rogers