Mom and Dad,
Happy Thanksgiving! I'm sure you all enjoyed it (and the jello salad). Japanese people don't celebrate Thanksgiving, even though they made a word just for it--yet they don't have a word for Christmas. Pace Choro's family sent some Thanksgiving related dinner stuff, and we bought a couple of special things and made our own mini-Thanksgiving dinner! It was pretty good, although it could've used some jello salad. You'll have to tell me about your Thanksgiving.
Monday: Just a normal preparation day with the added activity of buying special things for Thanksgiving dinner. We also went out to track down some PI's--none of them were home. We shared our beliefs with a person who's Jehova's Witness and he is going to let us come back and tell him more about our beliefs.
Tuesday: We had Zone Conference (Zone大会, if you remember) in Kobe. It was SOOO good. It ended up going a lot longer than they planned and ended after 5 in the evening (it began at 10 in the morning). We ended up having to reschedule a lesson we had planned for the day, but everything worked out well. We got back to Kitarokko at about 7:30pm. 大会 was really good and everything President and Sister Zinke, as well as the Assistants said was really powerful. At the end, the missionaries returning home this transfer or the next transfer had the opportunity to bear a quick testimony. Both of the AP's are going home and bore powerful testimonies--it was really awesome!
Wednesday: Today we had the lesson we rescheduled with one of our investigators. I think I already mentioned this, but he's very concerned about showing faith and repenting before he is baptized. Last week, Hiratsuka Choro and I showed him how he can show faith and how he can repent. Last week, the lesson went great and he saw that he really was showing faith, and even seemed happier by the end. He still feels he has a lot more repenting to do. Later in the evening we went to track more PI's. There was one guy that talked to us at his front gate, but since it started pouring down rain he asked us to come back on a day with no rain. Long story short, we got pretty drenched.
Thursday: Thanksgiving! Yes, that means we had our dinner! Other than that, we went and visited a devout-Catholic PI family. The mom is actually from Texas so all the kids are half Japanese. They all are fluent in English and Japanese. They're all extremely kind, especially to us missionaries. They had just put in Despicable Me 2, but stopped it to just talk with us for and hour or so. They're really great people, and they gave us pizza (real pizza, not Japanese pizza), rye bread, special apples, Hershey Kisses, M&M's, bacon (real bacon, not Japanese bacon), and a book that the oldest daughter wrote based off her journal from when she did missionary work with some nuns in Taiwan for three months. All-in-all it was a pretty good day.
Friday: The only thing worth speaking about for Friday was we met with the JW from Monday. We only spoke at the genkan of his apartment rather than going in. We asked him about his beliefs then we shared the Articles of Faith. We asked if he had questions, which we answered. He didn't seem too likely to invite us back, but after he asked us about what we believe Jesus' name is and God's name is and talked about that for a bit, he said we could drop by next week. Alright!
Saturday: We had a lesson with the really smart GC investigator. During personal study, We just prayed and begged for answers about what he needs to learn to progress. I turned to the mission training plan. Upon reading the very first line, which quotes the first part of the missionary purpose, it struck me that he needs to know about Christ, why he's important, and how everything we do is in His name. As I continued to read the training plan, more idea's came, so I wrote them all down and we put together a lesson from those during companion study. That night, the lesson really had an impact on him. He may not be any closer to being baptized, but now he's actually considering it.
Sunday: Just the normal Fast and Testimony meeting. Also while going to a PI/PM-family, we ran into an old investigator that the current AP's taught lessons to a year ago! We were just stopped at an intersection in a neighborhood, it was pitch black, and I saw movement in the shadows so I looked over and saw her washing her car. I made a small remark about Japanese addresses being hard to find, and then she told me how to get back to the church from that spot. Naturally, I asked how she knew and I found out her story about meeting with the missionaries last year and such. It was pretty cool. I'm certain it wasn't just by chance. That night we also had dinner with a young family moving to Osaka in two weeks. They served us yakiniku!
I love this country!
愛、
～ウィルソン長老
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