weekly email

This week in Tsu:

Transfers 

 I actually had to go with Reis up to his new area for two reasons: 1) I had no available tachiai (temporary member companion) for like 6 hours and 2) my new companion had not only sprained his right wrist, but also broken his Samsung Tablet by default when he forgot his password, and thus needed a new tablet from HQ. 

But that was good because I got to see Elder Wesemann, the mission’s Recorder! #MTC comp

It was an Adventure. We went way out to Toyota first, met an Elder Cutler, then I picked up a quick guitar tune and then we took a fancy tram back into Nagoya, where we walked to HQ and met an Elder Ilg on the way (a new missionary from Brazil who didn’t know his trainer yet. He’s actually from the same, countryside place as Elder Reis so they had a good time catching up. Elder Reis thought for sure that he would train this guy ..but the Lord works in other ways). 

Elder Miole's tablet was broken, and HQ couldn’t fix it. They couldn’t give him a new one, either. So

we had to get an iPad! Oh, Man.. so disappointing! ;) ..we set it up, got out, arrived at the station and then realized that he had forgotten the charger. To add to that, Elder Miole forgot his iPad password already, somehow, and we had to go reset his iPad again! 

But back on our feet, first week in Tsu, one afternoon we were headed out to a service project referred to us by a member. Ooh, service! Ok! 

We got lost amidst the Inaka (countryside) highways and barely made it slightly late ...to the wrong place. Wow. We must’ve biked 14 Km to that place! But it’s ok! It has potential for the future. We checked out the new place and it seems to be opening up a neighborhood Eikaiwa class soon that they would love to have native speakers to volunteer at. No efforts wasted. 

Later this week, we were hit by a typhoon. It rained buckets for three days. But, you can’t let a spot of water hold you back from work, so we headed out as normal to find some new investigators. We wanted three in one night. Miraculously, we were blessed with that. 

It kinda happened like this. We walked down a ways from the station towards a LA whom I’ve never met before, tried to meet them but only got the answering service of their 10 year old daughter.  Then, we decided to just knock on all the doors of the apartment complex in which they live. It’s a huge complex. There must have been about 20 gigantic buildings there. 

That night, on the hunt for 3 People, we were expecting to find a lot of people from the Philippines because it seemed to be that type of foreigner's place. But after getting rejected by some, and only receiving sketchy appointments from others, we finally came across one Philippine lady who showed solid interest in the Book of Mormon. There's one! 

Go a little further and there’s this one older Japanese lady who opens up to us. We shared a message about Family History, something the Mission has been trying to push for a while now but nobody has a clue what to do for, and the lady actually showed interest! She gave us all her contact information, asked us to come back next week, and then politely wished us safety home. There’s the second one! 

I wasn’t settling for the earlier, sketchy appointment as an actual investigator, so we go on again until a door opens up to a young, high-school aged Japanese lady. She was chill! Way prepared. I have no idea what approach to use for these kind of people, but just by opening my mouth I sensed that it was filled with the words she needed to hear. I talked about Christ and why he is known around the world. My companion gave excellent support, and the lady said we could come back next week. Even amidst the rain, when you don’t feel like much, the Lord will bless you with guidance towards your goals! 

Loving this area. The members are all fired up now that Elder Miole, a Philippine missionary, has come. He’s probably the first, maybe the only, Philippine missionary that I know. How lucky I am to work with him here! The Member missionary work is going to explode this transfer. I’ll probably get some very interesting tastes of Philippine culture along the way. Anyone ever heard of Balut? 

Typhoon 

愛しています！

カードん長老より

Elder Cardon