Good Times‏

Hello everyone,

     This week was pretty awesome.  We did some of this and some of that and had a great time.  Me and Elder King went to Tsukuba for splits again.  I went with our district leader Elder Nielsen.  We went to teach a practice lesson with a lady on her doorstep, but her nonmember husband was there so it turned into an actual lesson.  It was awesome.  It went really well and he really liked having us there.  Then we went and did some service in a lady's garden and just talked to her while we pulled weeds and such.  It was really good talking to her, she had a daughter that served in Fukuoka!  (That mission includes my homeward). So it was really cool.  We had JSL, Japanese Sign Language, and it was a ton of fun.  I actually retained a bit of it and it was really interesting.  I was having people explain a language (JSL) to me in another non-native language (Japanese) but I actually understood and had a lot of fun.

     We did Eikaiwa (English conversation class) on Wednesday night and Thursday afternoon all about food and everyone really enjoyed it.  One lady even wore some special earrings shaped like hamburgers and hot dogs the first time and then oranges the second time.  Apparently old people like natto, fermented beans.  Why?  I don't know.  They're supposed to be healthy for you or something but I don't know why that would be true.

     We had a dinner and practice lesson appointment with our Bishop.  We thought it was on Friday night but he called us Thursday night and was like, "It's raining so I'm going to drive you to my house.  Come downstairs and let's go."  So we went.  Bishop knows I'm pretty new to the mission and so he wanted to test my teaching skills.  He practically ignored my companion and just kept addressing everything to me.  We taught him about the importance of the Gift of the Holy Ghost and how we need to be baptized to receive it.  Him and his wife were pretending to be investigators.  She was good cop, he was bad cop. :). He asked a lot of questions trying to throw us off, but we withstood him in all things and were not confounded of men.  We also taught a really good lesson.  Every hard question he asked we just built the explanation into the lesson.  It was really fun.  Afterward he said we were really good teachers (pointing at me and only actually talking to me, he was ignoring my companion because this test was for me). He told us to keep doing what we were doing and he'd love to have us over again sometime.

     We also set a baptismal date with one of our investigators!  He's an old guy who teaches English and he's been taught everything the missionaries teach.  He comes to church all the time and he really wants to be baptized and get the priesthood.  His wife is strongly opposed to him being baptized though.  He's dealt with this for a while now and he was finally just like, "I'm going to show my faith and go for it.  My wife will change her mind if I'm a good example."  We were so excited for him.

     We visited a less active family and played with their 9-yr-old boy and helped him with his homework.  Then we shared President Monson's talk "Choices".  The dad is a less active member, his family is not.  The dad asked us if he made mistakes could he still come back to church.  And we were like, "YEAH!  *clears throat, becomes dignified once more*  Of course you can.  God loves us and will always allow us to come back to Him."  He asked us to sing the children's hymn "I am a Child of God" for him because he hadn't heard it in like 20 years.  We decided we would sing it with him and his family and he really loved it.  I love his family and think they're great people.  They plan on coming back to church for the first time in 20 years next week!

     And last but not least, we had a party last night.  The Tobe family invited us over for an event last night.  There were 20 or so people and we were going to have dinner and practice English together and talk about the link between psychological health and religion and then talk a little about the church and what missionaries teach about.  It went beautifully.  We talked about positive and negative thinking and where it comes from.  *Cough* Holy Ghost=positive *cough*. Everyone there was interested and wanted to know more.  Isn't that great!?  It was also a couple people's birthdays so we had cake and sang too.  Missionaries can take out a 2 cakes in about 3 minutes it turns out.  Sister Tobe let us loose and told us to clean up anything and everything left over.  It was great.  Oh yeah, Sister Tobe is friends with one of my friends from my last area, Brother Ito.  They both love missionaries and I love them right back.  I won't say they're my favorite people so far because I love everyone equally, but they are favored in my sight and I don't mind spending extra time with them.

     So I didn't think a lot happened this week until I started writing this email but now I see that I've been so blessed here.  I didn't even write everything!  But I really like the people here and how open and incredible they are.  I've gotten close with a lot of people here already and I really hope I get to stay here for a little while longer.  I don't want another surprise transfer just when I'm getting settled in.

     I love you all, thank you for brightening up my day by being awesome people and whatnot.  Y'know, feel free to write me back anytime really.  My email isn't just for my family (although they will take precedence you if I'm limited on replying time (: ).  I love you guys and take care.

Elder Rogers