This week may have been the best of my mission so far.
I will start with the spiritual things that were really awesome. We
saw soooooo many miracles this week, and not just in our area. Our
whole zone started seeing miracles everyday after we told them about
ours. So let's get started.
First off I have to just say that this week I was really discouraged
and sad. I've been out for about 8 months and have seen almost
nothing for it. I can count the number of actual investigators I've
had on one hand. Let's just say I was struggling. So Elder Purba and
I were praying really hard for something to happen, but it didn't look
like anything would. We went out everyday and worked our hardest
and......nothing happened. And then one day, SOMETHING(S) HAPPENED!
Remember a couple of weeks ago when we went to a private Middle/High
School called Shorin? Well I traded Facebook and emails with the
students in hopes that one of them would want to meet us. Well, one
of them did! His name is Haruto and he's super cool. He wanted to
meet us on Thursday at 5pm. We were so excited but for some reason we
forgot about it. Typical 18/19-year-old guys. Anyway, we were
sitting around the apartment doing weekly planning and feeling bad
that we had no one to teach when I remembered something. I say
remembered but I would speak in other words, the Spirit whispered
something to me, "Don't forget about Haruto."
"Elder Purba! Haruto!"
"Oh shoot. When were we meeting him?"
"Thursday."
"Today's Thursday! What time?"
"5 o'clock."
"It's 5:04!"
We botched it. I text him really fast like, "hey, we're still
meeting today right?" And he texts back, "yeah, I'll be there in 15
minutes. Looking forward to it!"
Now back to panic mode, but this time there's some hope.
"Elder Purba, we have 15 minutes!"
"I'll look up the train!"
We get on our rain gear (for it was raining at the time) at record
speed of under 30 seconds and bike to the church where we look up the
train.
"It leaves in 4 minutes!"
We sprint to the train station at a speed The Flash would envy and
make it to the platform as the doors are OPENING. We did it in under
a minute. I remembered that Haruto told me he lived in Sodegaura so
we headed that direction. We get there just before the meeting time
and he's not there. Ok, were still good, we just have to wait a few
minutes. 5 minutes. 10 minutes.
Text: Where are you?
Us: At the station.
Him: Me too.
We quickly run around the station thrice but not once see him.
Us: Uuuuuuhhhhh, which station?
Him: Kimitsu.
ACKK! We screwed up again!
Him: I have to go now.... :(
Us: Wait! Where are you going?
Him: Home in Sodegaura.
Rejoicing and joyful noises foreign to the land of Japan filled the
station that day. We had not failed! JK, we failed hard. More than
once. But God does not let His children fail. If someone wants to
hear the gospel, He will make it happen. No matter how many times his
missionaries slip up. I know He planned that whole day out and made
it possible for everything to work out. But we're not done yet!
We meet him at the correct station this time and since it has become
dinner time we take him out to dinner. He calls his mom to ask if
it's ok and she comes by to give him some money. We see her briefly
and she is completely fine with him talking to us! That never
happens! Mothers drag their kids down the street to stay away from
us, but not his miracle child! We go to a nearby restaurant and get
some good food to eat. We talk to him about life and what he wants to
do now that it's summer break, etc. etc. We get real close with him
and now he loves us. As we talk we teach about the Restoration and
Joseph Smith and the Book of Mormon. Then we give him a Book of
Mormon. He says it's super awesome and he's so glad he has one now.
He still goes to school even though it's summer break because Japan so
I asked him how long it takes to get there. It takes him 1 hour or so
by train to get to school each day. I asked him what he did on the
train and he spoke music to my ears.
"I listen to music and play game on my phone. But now, I read this
Book of Mormon."
He's so prepared and ready to hear the gospel. He's willing to act
on our message too which, by PMG definition, makes him one of the
elect. It took 5 weeks of disappointment but it was so worth it. We
will be meeting him again soon and we will probably talk about
baptism!
Aside from miracle-boy Haruto we've seen some other cool miracles.
A couple of weeks ago as we were coming back from a District Meeting
in Chosei we met some college tennis players on the train. I started
talking to them and all of them were pretty interested in 'the
missionary life.' One of them was the #1 player in all of Kanto and
he had the most interest. He wanted to come to church and meet us to
learn about Jesus and we were happy to oblige. Only one problem, he
lives in Tokyo and he's busy until September. So actually 2 problems.
The good news is that he wants to learn through email in his free time
so we will definitely do it. When we get his specific address we'll
send the appropriate missionaries to visit him.
LESS SPIRITUAL STUFF AHEAD
(But still cool)
So we've been trying super hard to get people to come to our
tutoring for like 5 weeks. We handed out somewhere near 800 flyers
for it to kids and their parents. I mean it's free, other places can
cost over $100! This should be a no-brainer, right. Well apparently
not because no one came, BUT, one day a mom called us asking if we
could teach her son English! We said yes, set up a time, hung up the
phone, and then FLIPPED OUT! Finally!! So we met the kid and taught
him English and he had a good time and learned a lot, for free. He
should be coming often now and we're excited for it.
We have 2 youth in our Branch of 17 people and one of them is
leaving on her mission to Hawaii next week. So we have 1 youth. His
name is Takashi and he's pretty cool. On Sunday after church we were
hanging out in the park 3 steps in front of the church because it was
nice weather. He looked at me and said, "Can you teach me how to do a
backflip?" out of nowhere.
"Yeah, I know how to do it."
So I explain all the parts and tell him 'just don't freak out.' 15
minutes later with no injuries he can do it fine! Super cool. He
even went out and did it in the street which I thought was crazy.
Anyway, through this experience we really bonded and he grew to like
and trust me. We also got to have fun in the process and now he has a
cool party trick. Working with the youth can be pretty cool
sometimes.
Another thing about working with young people; President Nagano
wants us to really bond with the young people so they'll know they can
trust and rely on us. We're supposed to spend as much time with young
people as possible, doing what they want to do. Note: it must always
have a missionary purpose and we are not just there to be their
"bros". We do everything as missionaries and teach them as we go. We
did this on Saturday by going to all the parks in a city close by. At
one particular park there was a big open space with kids playing
soccer. We joined in with them and kicked their butts as we taught
them. We'll preach and teach and SCORE as missionaries do. :) We had
a great time and invited all of them to learn more with us.
Now, for the title. Something big has happened in Japan. I'm
talking bigger than SkyTree. I'm talking bigger than Tokyo. I'm
talking bigger than RICE! This is the greatest thing since sliced
bread (and I learned how to say that just because of this). It's
Pokemon. Nintendo just took over Japan with their new game called
Pokemon Go. It's like Google Maps but there's Pokemon all over it.
Anyway, Japanese people like their Pokemon so it hit hard over here.
I mean everyone has it. Everyone. Teenagers, little kids with their
parents, 45-year-old Japanese businessmen, 105-year-old grandmas.
Everyone is doing it. People do it while they ride their bikes,
people walk around and do it, I've seen people playing it while they
drive, it's everywhere. It has changed Japan overnight and I'm happy
to say in a very good way. For some reason Japanese people sit in
their houses all day, don't have any friends, and are super grumpy.
BUT, now everyone is on the streets from dusk to dawn and dawn to dusk
(seriously, I asked people and they stay up until 3am to do this).
Why is this a good thing? Since everyone is out on the street, people
run into each other and become friends. BOOM! Japanese people now
have friends and are happy. 2 birds, 1 stone.
Aaaaaaand...missionaries spend all their time on the streets trying to
find people. Now there are people to find! And their phone is in
their hand so they can't tell heir usual lie that they don't have one.
But for some reason everyone is happy to talk to us now, no one tells
us to get lost or anything. Something coincidentally cool is that at
some monuments you can get free stuff for the game. Well, at the park
in front of our church we have one of those monuments! So people
wander around our church all the time! If we wanted to we could sit
on it and talk to people as they come by. To give you an idea of how
big this is I'll use some numbers. Before Pokemon we would talk to
maybe 7-11 people a day. After Pokemon came out we talked to 51! And
that wasn't even everyone. So yeah, because of Pokemon of all things,
we've been able to find more investigators and do missionary work more
effectively. God sure does work in mysterious ways but hey, take what
you can get, right?
So that was my crazy week. I love you all, take care. Gotta find 'em
all! (Investigators)
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