So far Tottori seems great! I have way too much to tell you because of transfers and because I'm now a DL/Trainer, so I have no idea where this email is going to go!
Tuesday we biked up the foothills of Mt. Fuji again! 久しぶり！We went and finally got a lesson with the guy that lives up there. Up 'til now he hasn't accepted a whole lot, but this time around we had a good discussion of life's wonders. It was perfect, actually, because we planned to teach about the BoM to him. We included how the BoM can answer all sorts of "questions of the soul". We then suddenly remembered a paper that the bishop's wife had given us that listed several questions of the soul, and references in the BoM where they're answered. We pulled that out, gave it to him, and he was way interested in that. He even said "yes, I have interest in this." Except it was in Japanese (はい、これに興味がある). Awesome!
One night--I've already forget which--we visited a PI that loves the missionaries and has met with them before. He also really likes English, so whenever we go over we talk to him in English. Well, I may or may not have taught him the word 'chocaholic'. Basically, he remembered that, and gave me a whole bag, a REALLY big bag, of chocolate.
Thursday, we had dinner at an Italian restaurant that I've been wanting to go to since I got to Kitarokko three transfers ago. It's probably the only legitimate Italian restaurant in all of Japan. Or, at least, they fake it pretty well. :) You'll have to wait to see pictures from it (still trying to get those off!).
So transfer day was on Friday. If you look at the map, you'll see that Kitarokko and Tottori are halfway across the mission from each other. We got up early to meet at Sannomiya in Kobe where transfers happen. There I had to wait for all the people going to the west side of the mission to gather so we could all go together. Unfortunately, there was a wreck on that train line, so our train was delayed an hour. We finally headed off as a group and got to the Okayama area--the honbu of the west side--about 2.5-3 hours later. Then we met up with our companions. My new companion/trainee is Elder Calder. He was born in Guatamala and raised in Utah. He's proven himself to be a pretty cool guy and hard worker, as well. After we got there, we had to wait about 3 hours for the next bus that would take us from Okayama to Tottori. Then the bus ride took another 3 hours, so after taking another 5-10 minute train to the eki by the apartment, it was 7:00 at night. Apparently every Friday night at 7 in this branch is game night, so we went to the church for that. The shimai had forgotten about it since they also had to deal with transfers, so it was us and a couple other members, and the shimai came a little late. Pretty awesome way to start out the transfer!
I've already met a lot of the investigators here. One investigator I met on Saturday really likes the missionaries.
Other than that, I've had to start completing my DL responsibilities. I haven't quite started them all, such as weekly follow ups, but I'll get those done soon. Funny story: I came all the way from Kobe to get here and now Kaicho is holding DL training this Thursday. So in less than a week of being here, I have to go all the way back to Kobe, then back here again.
Ya, I'll probably leave it at that for now. If there's more left over to tell next week, I'll do that.
Responses!
10 inches?! Really? I'm missing all the good stuff! When Pace Choro and I left the apartment to go to transfers, it was snowing again. I have no idea how much accumulated, though.
It actually isn't any colder here than Kitarokko. There also isn't a flake of snow anywhere. The whole train ride to Okayama we could see snow our the windows,but up here, there's nothing. I guess the members and other people just don't know what it's like out here. The weather here is actually a lot like Oregon's; in other words, it's raining constantly and the wind is blowing. Another funny story: we were biking over a bridge that runs out into the Sea of Japan. The bridge is also the closest bridge to the Sea of Japan (yes, I'm on the coasts, right now). Well it seems that the Japanese coast is like the Oregon coast in that there is a lot of wind. As we crossed the bridge, that had no other buildings or bridges to damper the wind, we were blasted by super strong, super cold wind. We seriously were almost blown over. If it had been raining harder, I'm pretty sure that part could've been considered a typhoon!
One more funny story: When we left the morning of transfers, there was one more gift bag on our apartment door handle. Having absolutely no where to pack it since it couldn't fit anywhere, I carried it the whole time.
That's all there is for this week. I'm pretty stoked to get a whole week of dendo in my new area. Then again, I probably won't be able to since I have to go all the way to Kobe and back for DL training. Give my best and my love to everyone. I'm losing my English: at first I typed 'everything'. 皆様に私の愛を上げてね! That's better!
愛、
~ウイルソン長老
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