Halloween!

First off, Happy Halloween everyone! Hope you had...wait, it's not even night yet and I'm like 15 hours ahead of America. Hmmm, hope you WILL have a happy Halloween! They don't really do anything for it here. We went to the supermarket and they played KidzBop Halloween songs but that's about it.
   
     This week we talked to a lot of school kids. We made friends with some but none are new investigators yet. One older guy called us and asked if we were the English teachers. We said yes and ran down to meet him and teach him. His name is Matsuo Suzuki if you do it family name last like an American. He's 56 and retired. He met missionaries a while back and recognized our nametags and uniform. Since he's free and likes to read we have him a Book of Mormon. He thought it was pretty cool and we even read some with him. No new young investigators but better late (in life) than never!
     We visited the Nakazatos after a while and Moe-chan was feeling better. So good that she was actually heading out with her big group of friends. We were told where they were going and what they were doing, but not officially invited so we didn't go. We thought about crashing the party but couldn't decide so we had a blessed coin toss decide for us. We didn't crash the party this time. Maybe next time.
     Jonivar got assaulted at work. Luckily he controlled himself and didn't snap the other guy in half over his knee. He's big and tough so he only had a slight headache. He also got a few days off work. We visited him and brought him some candy to numb the pain. He was very appreciative. His doorbell is broken so we actually broke into his house and just walked around calling his name until he found us. He was so surprised and happy. He's been studying the Bible and Book of Mormon A LOT recently and we had a big miracle happen actually. He has a new scripture of the day, obviously every day. Well one morning he calls us to share his scripture of the day with us. We meant to give him a reading assignment last lesson but forgot. He opens up and starts reading and it's the exact scripture! I was like, "how did you find that scripture!?" He didn't know, he just felt like he should read it. He also feels like God is telling him to get baptized. Before he had trouble accepting Joseph Smith as a prophet but now he completely accepts him as a prophet. We asked him if there was anything that would keep him from getting baptized now and he said, "nothing." We set a new baptismal date for November 27th, the same day as Yi!
     Speaking of Yi, she's going to start coming to church next Sunday! She's the #1 investigator in the mission and I'm so glad Sister Domino told me about her. Recently Sister Domino has been sending me a lot of people's information so I could contact them. I got ahold of 2 of them already and they both want to come to church! Sister Domino is a miracle worker! I really wish she could be here to see how her former investigators are doing but we'll see if she comes back. For now it's just me and Elder Wilcox. Anyway, back to Yi. She's way cool. She read all the way up to the Isaiah chapters and then decided to start asking a lot of questions. I showed her a verse in 2Nephi chapter 25 that says that if you aren't a Jew you won't understand and that made everyone feel better. It also says you'll understand it as it happens so there. I had her skip the Isaiah chapters and focus back on the "plain and precious truths" of the gospel. I'm so glad I've been blessed enough to work with Yi. She's really as prepared as you can possibly get. She was practically a Mormon before I started teaching her!             Mikami is my farmer investigator friend. He's like 53 years old or something but something about working in a rice field all day makes his muscles just huge and rock solid. I'm supposed to be in my prime but here I am looking at this old guy wishing I had a body like him! Anyway, we rode our bikes way out to his house the other night and talked to him about how he was doing with reading the Book of Mormon. He was worried because it seemed hard. I asked why and he said it was pretty thick. He thought I wanted him to read the whole thing between visits! Ha! I told him not to worry, it's ok to just read a few pages at a time. That made him feel better. We read Moroni 10:3-5 with him and taught him how to know the Book of Mormon is true through prayer. He thought it sounded good so he agreed to read and pray every day.
     And finally, the Halloween party. We spent all week inviting kids to the party. Night and day we worked. Blood, sweat and tears were shed. People may have died, I don't know. No, it wasn't that serious. But despite our best efforts no one came. Which is a shame really because it was totally awesome. There was a costume contest (I went as a missionary and nailed it), musical chairs to KidzBop Halloween songs, donut eating races, etc. At the end there was even a surprise Russian Roulette game where everyone ate a cream puff at the same time. 3 of them had Wasabi in them. "Trick or Treat!"
Elder Rogers
PS - I'll send some pictures later, sorry I don't have them now.