This week was an pretty off week because we weren't in our own area for over half of it. On Wednesday we went down to Chosei for District Meeting. I was notified afterwards that that District Meeting was unnecessary but it was still awesome. I set the vision for the District and told the missionaries what we were going to focus on to see baptisms. It turned out to be exactly what we talked about in Zone Conference and Zone Meeting so I guess I wasn't wrong. Anyway, we're planning on seeing a lot of baptisms by the end of the year down here. This area hasn't seen a baptism in years, and all but one of them have disappeared off the face of the earth. But not this time! We have 3 investigators with baptismal dates by the end of this year! We actually set our third last night. SPECIAL SHOUT OUT TO ELDER PURBA
Hey, you remember Mikami? The buff rice farmer that lives out in the tambos. We visited him last night and asked if he had read the Book of Mormon we gave him. He had but didn't understand anything because he was reading in the guide at the back. We read the intro and talked about how to know if it's true by reading and praying about it. Then we showed him Nephi, who makes much more sense than a dictionary/guide. We asked him if he would be baptized if he knew it was true and he said, "ii yo." Which basically means no problem, I'll do it. We set a baptismal date with him for December 25th, Christmas!
My personal favorite investigator of all time, Yi, came to church for the first time yesterday. It exceeded her expectations and the Branch just adored her. She even fasted because it was fast and testimony meeting. She was too nervous to bear her testimony this time but said she wants to next time. She's not even a member yet! She's getting baptized on November 27th right after church. Jonivar is working for that same day.
Anyway, some smaller miracles. On the way to Zone Conference we noticed a Nepalese woman who seemed very lost. We went over to help her and it was her first day in Japan. Knowing the feeling, I volunteered to help her find her way to work. We were heading to the same place so we just went together and talked on the way. Her grandpa, dad, and brother were all Christian missionaries! She traded phone numbers with us so we could call her again. During Zone Conference we did a role play of introducing the Book of Mormon and inviting someone to read it. After Zone Conference we took a wrong train that took us out to the middle of nowhere and got us stranded for an hour. There just so happened to be one other man stranded with us so we started talking to him. Elder Wilcox explained the Book of Mormon and read some with him. Then he gave it to the man and invited him to read it. The man willingly accepted it and it was awesome. He lives in Tokyo so we'll probably never see him again but it felt good to help him. Because we had taken the wrong train we were going home later than planned. That turned out to be part of God's plan because we ran into the Nepalese lady again! And this time she had a friend with her. What are the chances of running into the same person twice on a train in Japan!? I'll tell you. Zero. Unless God sets it up. So of course we talked to her and her friend and we hope to be able to teach them more in the future.
In Zone Meeting we talked about getting high school kids to come to our English classes. This has been a stress point for me for the past 5 months because it's nigh impossible here. I won't tell you all the details of why because it just stresses me out but I'll just leave it at "I have less than a 1% chance of ever succeeding." Well I was blessed to beat the odds! 2 high school girls came and had a really good time. They're going to go to Okinawa next week so they won't be able to come then, but they may be able to meet my Momma. That's almost better. No, that's definitely better. As kids start seeing these girls at our class I hope to see more come. If we just had a ton of students that would be great.
There's a lot of amazing miracles going on here right now so I can't even write a hundredth part. But what I've written sufficeth me, and I make an end.
Love you! Elder Rogers
PS - Thank you all so so so so so much for sending me your love and support! I actually almost cried but I'm not a Sister missionary so I didn't. I didn't know there were so many of you who cared. I won't let you down!
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