Stake Conference Shout Out

Things are really starting to turn around here.  Finally.

     On Monday we had a typhoon so Elder Purba and I just sat trapped
in the church all day.  It cleared up around dinner time and we were
able to go home and have birthday cake for dinner.  Thank you Mom!  It
was so good.  Elder Purba sang for me.
     On Tuesday we went to Tateyama as usual but Mizuno Shimai
wouldn't let us do yard work for her for fear that I'd crash going
down her hill again.  So we just rode our bikes around all day and
talked to a lot of people.  We found a little peninsula that had a
good beach and there were a lot of people there on vacation.  Most of
them were just visiting from Tokyo but a couple were locals.  We went
to English Class after that.
     This week the Zone Leaders came to our District Meeting and we
did a lot of role plays.  We learned how to improve our teaching
skills and I realized I have a really really long way to go.  I've
gotten worse since the MTC where we had 2 or 3 lessons a day.
Kisarazu had like no investigators at all for a really long time.
BUT, that's why this week was so cool!  We found a lot of people to
teach!
     We had splits with Elder Watabe and Elder Johnson.  I went with
Elder Johnson and we went housing for a little while.  We found a
family that said we could come back and teach them sometime.  We also
housed into a Filipino woman named Jamie who loooves Christianity.
We're so excited to teach them!  Elder Purba and Elder Watabe found 2
new investigators and they are really golden.  They taught one of
them, Mikuni, in the church for a while and he said he wanted to come
back.  They also taught a high schooler basically the first 3 lessons.
We both found some new English Class students who will be coming
starting tomorrow!  It was just a really good day.  Splits are full of
miracles.  Oh, I forgot to talk about the Nakazatos.  Miyuki, the mom,
got sick and couldn't talk to us recently so we decided to visit her.
I bought her some chocolate bars and a flower.  I picked the flower
off the side of the road because I couldn't find a flower shop in
Japan but she'll never know.  I really love their family and they like
me so it all just works.
     On Saturday we went to a baptism for someone Elder Purba found a
long time ago.  He's super nice and it felt so good to be there.  Then
we had Stake Conference part 1.  Our old Branch President, Tanda
Kyoudai, drove us home from that because he's super cool.
     On Sunday we had Stake Conference part 2.  They broadcasted it so
we didn't have to travel to the Stake Center.  It started off really
good...and then John showed up.  John is a 60ish year old man who
believes in every conspiracy there ever was.  He always tells us about
the Illuminati, Obama IS Osama Bin Laden, Japanese people aren't human
and they're trying to poison us Caucasian humans, etc. etc. etc. for
the next 3 hours with no breaks.  Well, we don't like him and he just
ruins everything so we took him across the street to the park and had
a throw down talk with him.  We told him that if he wasn't talking
about Jesus, we didn't care.  Then he started saying Jesus was a fraud
and we just told him we didn't want to see him anymore.  He started
raging so we just told him to leave and not come back.  We handled it
pretty well and he may even stay away from the church now.  We came
back in to the church and President Nagano was talking.  About us!  He
was like, "Some of you may not know about the Elders down in Kisarazu
so I want to tell you about them.  Their names are Elder Purba and
Elder Rogers."  At this point our members all looked at us like, 'what
did you do?'  He told me the story of our service in Tateyama, my bike
crash, missionary-ing the ambulance guys, ignoring Sister Nagano and
working anyway, service at the Nakazato's, the neighborhood helping
us, and the Nakazatos becoming interested.  He made it sound really
good and mentioned me by name a few times.  He  made me sound a lot
cooler than it actually was and now I have like 1,000 members waiting
for me to get 6 baptisms.  No pressure.  Most of our members didn't
even know anything about it and they were a lot nicer to us after
that.  They had a meeting with us afterwards asking how they could
help and the Branch President declared next month Missionary
Appreciation Month.  He also reminded the members that we have a food
basket because it's been empty for like 3 months.  It was really nice
of President Nagano to do that for us.
     On Monday we went to Chiba for splits with the Zone Leaders.  It
started raining so we prayed for it to stop and it did.  Then we went
out and tried to find people.  A less active agreed to meet with us at
the mall and let us teach him a lesson there.  We taught him the
restoration and apparently it was the first time he's ever heard it.
He's also crazy by the way.  He asked Elder Viehweg to give him a back
massage and it was so awkward to watch.  He just kept looking at me
while I tried to cover my laughing.  Then we went streeting and we
found a college age guy named Hiro.  I asked him if he'd ever met
missionaries, "no" have you ever studied Christianity, "yes, I've read
some of the Bible."  Have you ever seen a Book of Mormon?  It's like
the Bible but better.  I showed him it and gave him one.  He thought
it was super cool and wanted to read it and talk to us about it.  He's
a new investigator now!
     Tuesday, today, was Temple P-day.  We were supposed to get a
typhoon as big as they come and things were looking bad.  But every
missionary in the mission decided to pray that it would go away and we
could make it to the temple AND IT WENT AWAY.  We all got to go to the
temple and it was awesome just like it is every time.  The power of
prayer is real.  It works miracles. God works according to faith and
if we pray with faith, He will help us.
I love you guys,

Elder Rogers

The story, as promised

We go down to Tateyama, a little beach town a lot like Okinawa,
every week on Tuesdays.  We go there to help Mizuno Shimai with her
garden.  She lives at the top of a super tall and steep mountain.  A
typhoon came and rained a lot while we were there so the road was
pretty wet.  As we were on our way home I was going pretty quick down
this mountain because it's steep.  Maybe 50Ks or more.  That's pretty
fast.  I couldn't slow down very much either because the road was wet
and my tires started slipping around if I did.  Well at the bottom of
this mountain is a really sharp curve so I was trying to slow down to
make it.  Well, yeah, my back tire started swimming like a fish and as
I started turning it swung out in front of me.  I stuck out my left
foot and smacked it really hard on the street, thus slowing me down by
quite a lot and allowing me to skid instead of roll.  My bike rolled
under me and I rolled over it onto my elbows and hands.  I managed to
keep myself from hitting anything important, just my elbows, hands,
knees, and feet.  Nothing on my torso or head or neck.  I was wearing
my helmet though, just in case.  The crazy thing is that I crashed and
stood up and walked away from it in a total of about 3 seconds.  I
actually landed on my feet.  I should've broken something but I just
got a few scrapes and a swollen, bruised heel.  Some people saw us on
the side of the road and came over to help.  They called us an
ambulance and I got to ride in one for the first time ever.  It was
really cool.  We told jokes to the guys inside and missionary-ed them
up.  They may come to our English class and might even be interested
in the gospel.  Everything just works out.  I had X-rays taken at the
hospital and then like 12 people started working on me.  They poured
alcohol all over me and it stung worse than the cuts.  Then they gave
me a wheelchair.  I gave it back and hopped myself out of there and
into a taxi.  The driver took us to the station and then we went home.
We might've ridden home but the police took our bikes.  We called some
members and they got our bikes back for us so we're all good.  Anyway,
I had no injuries under my garments.  Naturally.  President Nagano and
Sister Nagano prayed for me and I was able to ride a bike the next day
and get back to work despite them wanting me to take a break.  I told
them I was fine and was miraculously healed.  My cuts are basically
gone now and I can walk almost exactly like normal.  The reason I had
a wheelchair at Zone Meeting is because Elder Purba and I found it and
thought it would be funny to wheel me in and then have me walk out at
the end.  It was and people freaked out.  I'm fine, don't worry, God
IS taking care of me.  No doubt about it.  He will protect me from any
danger I could possibly find myself in.  I know He takes care of all
of His children, especially His missionaries.  I'm very thankful for
the prayers of all those who have been praying for me.  I know now
that nothing can stop me so long as I put my trust in the Lord and do
what he wants me to.  It really was an awesome miracle and I'm glad it
happened.  An added bonus was that the members gave us a ton of food!

Love you all!  Sorry if I worried any of you, but I'm totally fine
now.  That was almost a week ago.


Elder Rogers

The rest of this week

This week on Monday a Filipino man came up to us and asked me if we were the missionaries for the Mormon Church.  I told him yes and he said he's been a less active for 15 years because he couldn't find the church when he moved here.  We told him where it was and invited him to come.  He should be coming next week when we may or may not be talking.  We were supposed to give talks a couple of weeks ago but didn't because it somehow got double booked.  Anyway, he owns a restaurant nearby and we sometimes visit him.

     Now you all know about my bike accident but don't be fooled, it had no effect on the rest of my week.  The next day I rode a bike over to a close (in spirit not distance) friend's house named Eiji and did yard work for his family.  At the end of the day, just as we were going home actually, a neighbor came over with a Japanese weed whacker.  Now if you've never seen one of those before I'll just give a brief explanation.  Imagine a regular weed whacker had a baby with a circular saw.  That's the Japanese version.  He let Elder Purba borrow it and he finished the yard in about 20 minutes when it would've taken weeks by hand.  While he was hacking weeds I talked to Eiji's mom a little.  I gave her a pamphlet, the Gospel of Jesus Christ, and asked her to read it.  Her emphatic response,..........."No way!"

     "What?!  Really?"

     "Naaaaah, I'm just kidding."

     "So you'll read it, right?"

     "No way!  Hahaha!"

     "I'm dying inside right now! :("

     "I'm just kidding, I'll read it."

     She's such a punk.  :)  But we love her anyway.  She messed with us and pulled our heartstrings quite a bit but she really will read it and talk to us about it next time.  So yay!  She's a new investigator and her family loves us!  Her son Daiki and her daughter Moe were pretty concerned about my crash.  Moe (not pronounced like the 3 Stooges, mow the lawn + eh? I can't hear you) had crashed on her bike just a few days earlier pretty seriously and could empathize pretty well.  Daiki made sure I knew that he wanted me to be more careful.  He's 9.  We should be seeing them all on Wednesday, assuming the weather's good.

     Which brings me to another thing: there are 3 typhoons on their way.  One of them is actually here right now and it's pretty serious.  We're trapped in the church unless we want to get soaked and then blown away.

 We met a kid named Haruto a while back and gave him a Book of Mormon and taught him a lot but hadn't been able to meet with him for a while.  We decided to just take a day and find his house, even if it meant knocking on doors all day.  It didn't come to that because as we got off the train to go to his house he stepped out of the next car!  We walked home with him and the reason he hasn't been meeting with us is because he has a ton of homework.  More than during the school year actually.  He stays up until 2am studying and working because his teachers gave him a huge workload to do during summer break.  What kind of break is that?  Crazy as it sounds, he'll probably have more time during the school year to meet with us.  Luckily for him summer is almost over.

     I don't know how many of my American friends out there know about the Sapporo, Japan Temple Dedication but I got to watch it and it was awesome.  It's a beautiful building and the people are so grateful to have it.  I'm glad the people of Hokkaido (that's the island where the temple is) get to have the temple near now and can receive all the blessings of the temple.  It was really good to see.

Well Th-th-th-That's all folks!

Elder Rogers

 

Ammon Dendo!(missionary work)

We had lots of fun miracles this week.
     To start, we went to Tokyo's Little Germany which isn't actually
in Tokyo.  We biked there in like an hour and it was really cool.  I
probably already wrote about it but I forgot so maybe you forgot, so
let's all just reminisce together.  It was super cool, we rode
unicycles, played with bike-powered bubble machines (we're really good
at it), and even got to see a drum performance by high schoolers that
only come twice a year.  What are the chances that it would happen on
the P-day we go let alone any P-day!  Anyway, that's just one cool
thing from last P-day.  Now for the real stuff.
     On Tuesdays we go down to Tateyama.  Yama means Mountain in
Japanese and they weren't kidding when they named the place.  It's
miles and kilometers of up and up and up.  Both ways.  We got there
and it was hot so we decided to go to the mall and get lunch in the
AC.  While in the food court we saw a member family, the Kawaminamis.
We talked to them and the mom bought us drinks because it was so hot.
*So thankful, lifesaver.*  After that we talked to our 1 youth,
Takashi, about how he can get into BYU.  Then he practiced doing
backflips in different areas while we videoed.  It was super cool but
missionaries aren't allowed to ever since one Elder sprained his ankle
doing it. *sigh*  After hanging out with him for a little while we
went up (and by up I mean to the top of a STEEP mountain) to Mizuno
Shimai's house and did yard work for her.  She fed us (yay!) and gave
us ice cream to take home.  It didn't make it very far though.  Then
we decided that since we had already biked up 1 mountain that day, why
not bike through ALL  the mountains?  So we did.  We biked until we
hit ocean and then took a right towards a member's house.  She lives
waaaaay out there so no one ever visits her so we decided to change
that.  We stopped at a 7/11, they're everywhere here, to look up
directions.  Out of nowhere this guy just pulls up super fast and
almost hits Elder Purba!  He stopped like 3 inches from him!  He then
proceeded to get out of his car and scold us for....being here?
Somehow we got talking about how we're missionaries and what we do and
his heart softened.  I could see it.  It was so weird, but God works
like that sometimes.  He let us go and a few minutes later he caught
up to us and gave us ice cream!  What?!  We talked to him for a little
bit and now we're friends.  Twist ending, right?!  I'll bet you never
saw it coming.  I sure didn't.  We continued onward at about the pace
of a bullet and traveled around the peninsula to the member's house
AND.......she wasn't there.  BUT her daughter was and we gave her a
note to give to her mom.  So our efforts weren't totally in vain.  I
think.  I hope.  Ahh, it'll probably be alright.  Then we had to make
it back home before curfew so we decided to take the
shortcut........through the mountains.  We survived and made it back
with time to spare.
     We had Zone Conference this week and it was so needed.  After
getting all the trainings I realized I have a long way to go.  I made
a mental list of all the things that I need to start doing or need to
start doing better.  It was a pretty long list but I guess that means
I have lots of opportunities to improve.  :)  I know I'm a long way
from perfect but at least I have a perfect example to look to so I can
become better.  I know that by following my Savior's example I can
become a better missionary and a better person.  I'm so thankful I
have this opportunity to spend my time trying (key word there) to
become more like him.  I'm also very grateful that I'm not alone in my
feeble efforts and that He's right alongside me, pushing me along and
carrying me when I can't do any more.  I know that He lives and that
He loves me and I am grateful beyond words for his sacrifice.  I know
that He's here with each of us when we let him and that he's cheering
for each and every one of us because he wants all of us to make it
back to him.  And that's why I'm here, because he's saving me every
day and he wants me to do the same for his other children.
     So another big miracle from this week: we decided to go over to
Eiji's house and do yard work for his family.  He has a LOT of weeds.
Waist deep, thick as hair, weeds as strong as trees, you get the
picture.  Well we went down to the dollar store and got some gardening
supplies.  By that I mean we got 2 little $1 sickles and some gloves.
We showed up like, "We're her to do kusatori(that literally means
"weed pulling" but I'm not sure what it actually translates to) and
the mom was like, "Really?!  You go for it."  So we did and we thrust
in our sickles with our might just like D&C4 says to and we got
blessings!  The girls came out and talked to us (that's not the real
blessing lol) and were so happy we were working hard to help them.
Then we completely cleared out a big section of their yard and the mom
was thrilled.  She was so happy.  We went back the next day and it was
even better.  Elder Purba and I ran around hacking things like maniacs
and cleared up the whole back yard to make it more manageable to pull
out the weeds.  I pulled out several trees that she didn't want in
there because I like manual labor, service projects are my favorite,
and it looks a lot better now.  The mom bought us slushies and kept
sending her kids out with soda.  I found out that there was a 9 year
old boy in the house and got an idea.  I caught a lizard to lure him
out of the house and he took the bait.  Pretty soon we were catching
bugs together, playing street ball, and he even helped cut grass and
pull weeds!  By the end of the day we were best buds.  His name is
Daiki.  As we were going home we decided to go to Sushiro, a sushi
restaurant across the street from our apartment.  Well, lo and behold,
as we were walking in Daiki came running over and gave me a hug!
"Where do you come from?"  He then pointed over to a van that had his
whole family in it.  They had the same idea!  So we got put at
separate tables but that didn't stop the mom from coming to our table
and giving us ¥3000, that's $30.  We can't take money so we gave it
back and while doing so we were able to meet that father.  He liked us
more after that.  Their whole family likes us now and we'll be going
over more often, hopefully to teach them.
     All good things so far but sadly I have to bear bad news.
Kisarazu is know for having a lot of mentally sick, actually Joker or
Mad Hatter level insane people.  I have gone my whole stay without
meeting any of them thankfully.  That is until Sunday.  There's a guy
famous amongst missionaries know as John.  John is basically God in
his mind.  Or maybe not God, Superman maybe?  Anyway, he's crazy
beyond belief and he showed up just as church ended one day.  He's an
old guy, about 60 and I guess he drank the water here or got a brain
injury at some point.  Japan is very lenient with their mental laws
and so 90% of their crazy people are not being taken care of in mental
homes.  John believes that only people with blue eyes are human and
that everyone else is....some other species.  He also thinks that
non-humans are trying to poison him and that Aspirin is the antidote.
He eats like 20 a day or something.  He also believes he has super
strength and can clap like the Hulk to scare people away.  He believes
in Obama Bin-Laden.  He has a biplane that he once flew at supersonic
speeds and he discovered gravity.  He thinks Einstein and the like are
morons compared to him.  He's French royalty and he's mentioned in the
Bible in Revelations twice.  He's also meant to save humanity, people
with blue eyes.  So yeah, he's completely wacked out.  It was really
hard to get hi to leave too, but we did it.  That was it with him and
we now have an emergency action plan should he ever come again.
     And lastly we have today.  We got invited by 2 different groups
to go see fireworks.  I feel so loved.  Sadly we can only go with one
so one of them won't be feeling the same way.  While running errands
today a man approached me and asked, "Are you a missionary for the
Mormon church?"  "Yessiree, that's me!"  He then told me he was a less
active because he didn't know where the church was and I promptly
taught him the address.  He thought it was lucky that we met because
he had been wanting to come back to church.  He will be coming from
now on and we're going to see him on Wednesday!

Elder Rogers

O-Bon (Oh bone)

Hey everybody, I had another great week.  We saw a lot of small
miracles and lots of crazy things.

    So to start off the week we visited our friend Haruto.  Haruto is
a sophomore in a private school we volunteered at about a month ago.
He speaks English pretty well, he can hold a conversation, and likes
us.  So we'd met him a couple times before and he said it was ok to
stop by on Monday.  So we went to the train station by his house and
he was there waiting for us.  He came on his bike and it was kind of
messed up.  Elder Purba fixed his bike (service points!) while I
talked to him.  He's got a lot of homework to do (yeah, Japanese kids
do homework during their 1 month summer "break") but he's already read
50 pages of the Book of Mormon!  He really likes it so far and we said
we'd throw him a party when he finishes.  I'm excited, he's reading it
everyday on the train and really thinks about it.  He's just a kid!
But he's so cool and prepared.
    On Tuesday we went way down the peninsula to do garden work for a
member.  She has a big yard and she does things old school so she
handed us a couple of scythes and said go for it.  We cut the grass
and pulled weeds and fought giant spiders.  It was fun and I got a
cool tan line from the gloves I was wearing.  She made us some little
waffles and gave me a big thing of mugicha (wheat tea.  Don't worry
it's ok) to take home.  She lives on the top of a mountain and going
down is really fun and fast.  I belted my iPad to my chest and rode
down while videoing but I messed up.  I did a time lapse instead of a
video so you can't really tell how fast we're going.  We hit 48mph.
On a bike that's really fast.  We also saw some giant parade floats
and a jet pack.  I'll attach videos.

     The Sister's area got closed so there's no more Sisters.  They gave us the
key and said we could go get whatever food they left in the fridge.  They
had some good food that we happily took.  Something that most Elders
don't know is what the inside of a Sisters' apartment looks like.  I do and
let's just say that it is so much bigger and so much nicer than an Elder's
apartment.  I guess that's because we would never see their apartment in
most cases.  But now I know and the favoritism is obvious!  Lol. 
     We were streeting by the sew wall in our area when we noticed this
white guy.  Normally I'm the only white guy within at least 30 something
miles or so.  I gave him the nod of 'yeah I saw you what's up' but kept on
riding.  We decided to turn around and talk to him.  Good choice.  He's
from Texas and he has a Mormon friend.  We talked to him for a while,
it was so good to speak English again.  he says he wants to meet again
and play basketball or something and his friend (Japanese girl, not
girlfriend, girlfriend's friend) says she wants to come too!  As we were
talking to them we noticed lots of people gathering.  Turns out that right
where we were standing is a special spot for Pokémon Go and a crowd 
of 60+ people come there every night to play!  Who knew!  We're
planning on going back later and seeing what we can make of it. 
     Due to the fact that the Sisters left the area, we now teach the Children's
English Class.  It was so fun.  There's two kids ages 9 and 7ish and a little
teeny tiny girl named Iroha (Ee-row-ha) that's like 2.  We sang the ABC's
with them twice and even the Iroha got it! When we finished the 1st time
she said, "one more time!"  I couldn't argue with her so we did it again.
Then we sang the Hello song from Primary.  We taught them animal names
and shapes.  We introduced them to Monkey in the Middle and they loved
it.  It was fun for us too. 
     We heard music outside one night and found a festival for O-Bon going
on at the bottom of our hill.  We checked it out and it was pretty cool,
though it was pretty small.   On the way home I bought a pizza which never
happens in Japan because it cost over $28!  It was totally worth it though
because we never eat pizza.  We met a biker gang in front or our cul de sac
and they were pretty cool.  I said hello, got the typical response, "Harro" and
I knew we were going to be friends.  One of them rode a Hello Kitty
motorcycle on purpose.  His girlfriend and dad live right next to us actually
and now we're friends.  Another one of them likes English so we offered to
teach him.  After biker gangs and pizza were over we went to visit Eiji, our
less active friend.  On the way to is house Elder Purba felt prompted to check
a fighting gym near us.  I peeked my head through the sliding doors and he
was there!  The gym leader waved us in and we got to sit and watch.  It was
super cool.  Some of the guys were really good and one of them was as toned
as Bruce Lee.  Eiji did pretty good but we think he's still a beginner.  It was
cool to see him doing something he likes.
     Yesterday was Fast and Testimony meeting.  Elder Purba and I did it and
then our only youth di it too.  It was awesome to see him.  Takashi, get up and
bear his testimony.  Then after church he showed me his backflip he's been
working on since I taught him how to do it. He's really good.  We visited
 members because they almost never get visited.  They all live pretty far away. 
We visited Ichihara Shimai and we offered service, she offered chicken.  We
were still fasting so we didn't take it then.  Then we went to go visit Kobayshi
Shimai and she lives pretty far away.  On the way we saw and old man taking
pictures of a flower and Elder Purba thought he recognized him.  She we talked
to him and it was Kenji Tsuboi!  He doesn't have a phone or email and the only
way to contact him is through Facebook which he never uses. This guy is a ghost,
a ninja that can never be found, bet we ended up going right where we needed to
be at the right time!  He's going to come to our English class now and meet with
us when he can.  After that we continued on and saw lanterns hanging over the
street and heard music playing so we followed it until we found a big festival.
There were more people there than in the entire area next to ours!  It was crazy! 
Elder Purba somehow bumped into someone he knew.  It was a tank engineer
who used to come to English class.  He going to start coming again.  After that
we headed back to the festival in time for the dancing and music.  They had
these little teeny drummers and his 4 or 5 year old girl was killing it.  Later on
that night her big brother came out (I don't know if he was actually her brother
but he was pretty enthusiastic) and just went hard on those drums.  There was a
stage in the middle they invited the kids to go dance on and it got some people
pretty excited.
     I know we were guided by God's hand this week as we went out and worked.
We never would have met some of the people we did otherwise.  I know if we're
doing what we're supposed to that God will place us where we need to be, when
we need to be there.  I'm very grateful to be able to see so many miracles each and
every day and love my time here as a missionary.  I wouldn't be anywhere else if
I could pick because I know I'm right where I need to be.

I love you all.  Remember who you are and what you stand for.  Be good. 
Elder Rogers

FIESTA!!!

First things first, eating taco rice/tacos with chopsticks is HARD.

Hello everyone,
   This week was pretty good.  We also had transfer calls this morning
and the results are..........I am staying in Kisarazu!  Elder Purba
had been here for four transfers already, that's six months, so it was
only a matter of time.  He'd already spent a quarter of his mission in
this one area.  So President Nagano decided, "Ah, whatever.  Let's
just keep him there for another transfer and bump it up to 7 AND A
HALF MONTHS."  So he's staying too.  :)  The other Elders in Chosei
are also staying.  The sisters changed though.  Sister Ortega went
home and Sister Domino went to Tokyo.  We made transfer bets and I bet
that Elder Purba would stay and Sister Domino would go to Tokyo.  I
won.
   As for the rest of the week, we had a lot of miracles.  I had
splits with Elder Watabe on Tuesday and it was amazing!  So many
miracles crammed into one day!  We went to visit Eiji, he's a less
active, and we saw a kid on the road in front of his house.  We went
and talked to him and as we were talking his friend came up behind us
and we started talking to him too.  They both had interest and became
new investigators!  That's 2!  That's more than most people usually
get in a week over here for those who don't know.  Then we went down
the street a little farther and found 3 kids coming back from baseball
practice.  They wanted to learn more about Heaven and became new
investigators.  Now the count's up to 5.  Before they had left 3 more
of their friends walked over and they had interest too!  We found 8
new investigators in 1 hour!  It was so awesome.  Then we finally went
to visit Eiji but he wasn't home.  His mom was though and she was
really nice.  She likes that we're friends with her son and take care
of him.  She also likes that we teach free English and wants her kids
to come.  Then we went back to the station and found 3 kids that
wanted to learn English.  They wanted to learn right then, so we took
them and taught them.  They really liked it and so we got 3 new
students.  We've been trying for over 5 weeks so it was a really good
feeling.  As we started heading home we stopped 2 guys but they didn't
have interest.  Luckily, this one girl did and literally jumped into
our conversation with her 2 friends.  So they might come to our
tutoring too!  It was just an amazing day.
   We had a 79year-old man come to our English class and he was really cool.
   We visited our friend, the Kisarazu Bad-Daddy himself, Brother
Sugimoto and had dinner together.  His family is just awesome.
They're so nice.  We talked about the differences between Japan and
America and how God blesses his people.  We just talked to him and his
family for a while and it was great.
   We had a Latin Night (fiesta) for Sister Ortega's going home.  It
was a huge success.  We went and picked up Eiji from his house and saw
his little sisters there.  We invited them and they took a train to
get there.  We beat them to the party ;).  We had as many people (or
more) come to the party as are in our branch!  That's only like 20
people, but that's a lot for a party in Japan.  It was really cool.
Elder Purba and I made a lot of food (taco rice) and brought the fun.
The Sisters made 2 piñatas.  I punched one across the room while
blindfolded and Eiji kicked one across the room (he does kickboxing).
There was music and dancing and it was fun.  Eiji really seemed to
have a good time and opened up as the night went on.  He's usually
pretty reserved and keeps to himself but we go to him ;).
   We live in a neighborhood of young families so there are a lot of
kids around us.  They're all under 7 and loved to mess with the Gaijin
(foreigners).  We get ding-dong ditched all the time and they always
want to play during study time.  This week we had a brilliant idea.  I
was reading the New Testament and came across the Fishers of Men
scripture.  Why not be fishers of men?  Let's buy a fishing pole, put
a piece of candy on the end, and fish out of our 2nd story window?

Since they were banging on our door this morning we decided to chase

them around the neighborhood and they freaked out!  They thought we

were going to eat them or something.  Then they chased Elder Purba

around with cicada shells trying to put them on him.  It was really funny.

That was about it for the week.  Thank you all for reading, take care, lots

of love, Bye Bye.

Elder Rogers