Randomness

This week I have learned that the Lord puts someone in your path to speak to always.

 

This week where to start...

So this week we were doing some tracting and we were walking down a fairly busy street with quite a few cars, when I hear from a pink car, "SUMIMASEN"! (excuse me).  I wasn't sure if it was for us or what, I was kind of confused. I looked around to see if the lady was calling out to someone else because that just doesn't happen here in Japan, or so I thought. Then she stops her car in the middle of the busy street, jumps out of the car and walks up to us.  At this point I'm thinking, whoa is this lady crazy or is this a miracle? She runs across the street and the first thing she says to us is, Sanbika itadaite mo ii desu ka? Which means can I have a hynm book. I was like uhhh..... Who are you? how do you know us, and our song book?  So I just asked her if she was a member and she just said way back in the day. And obviously me and my companion aren't going to be lugging around hymn books with us to hand out so we told her we didn't have any.  Then she was like how much for one? I told her for free but at this point I was so confused and cars are going crazy.  I said let's go to the church and get you one and she just said DAME DAME! which is like bad, can't do that. So I asked if we could meet her and give her one later. She said the same thing DAME DAME. I was so confused so I was like you can come to church and get one, she didnt like that either... So I gave her my business card and number and she jumped back in her car and went on her way. She said her name was Saito. So now we are going through all of the member records trying to find her and have the sister missionaries drop off a hymn book to her. Ill let you know how that turns out.

 

This week we went bowling with our ward mission leader and also our cute Hoshi family. I'm getting some new bowling tricks in my bag.  They are the cutest family.  Right now Izumi San, the mom just got a job.  Meeting with them as much as we do is going to be a little bit harder but she is way cool and she invites a lot of her friends to lessons and things so we find a lot of people through her. I felt bad we had to cancel one of our lessons and she said that Yuna her 2 year old daughter cried all day because she couldn't come play with us... I felt so bad!

 

This week as we were walking down a random street I saw a gaijin (foreigner) and it took me a second to realize he was a Japanese person. So I yelled out to him cause he had passed us.  I just asked in Japanese, Can you speak English!? He replied in Japanese, You bet I can!　Turns out he knew a lot about the Mormons. He has lived in Japan for 20 years, and told us quite a bit about missionaries in the past. He had worked in Hachinohe for a long time so he actually new some of the members there. He told us we are famous here in Japan. He also made it very clear to us he doesn't have any interest but respects that we come take time from schooling and other things to do this. That was interesting. So I kept talking to him for a while and actually found out a lot about him and some things that he had seen missionaries do in the past. He was quite educated with the Mormon church... sort of. He has been to St George once and is actually from Pennsylvania.  He went to visit someone he knew from Hachinohe in St. George. I kept trying to get a number from him or something so we could stay in contact and see if I can't change his mind but he would always change the topic whenever it got to getting that kind of info. But he gave us a tip that there is an international center where a lot of foreigners are so were going to go do a little bit of Gaijin hunting this week. Ill let you know how that goes.

 

Oh I almost forgot, I can't remember if I told you about the Jamaican lady we found while housing but we figured it would be best to let the sisters work with her. She is way cool we visited her with the sisters and got to know a lot about her.  She loves religion but is a baptist and seems like a pretty strong one too but will listen to messages about Christ. She is way kind and gave us some Jamaican food that her family had sent and gave us recipes and stuff for Jamaican food. So I'm hoping the sisters can keep in touch with her often. She is way funny, and could really use the gospel in her life. Her brother was murdered a while back, and her family is a really close family. So we are hoping that introducing eternal families will open her up a little bit more for the hearing the gospel.

 

This week we also went with a less active a member and a non member out to eat. That went super good! The less active came to church the next sunday and the non member and I had a good talk about the Gospel. She actually knows a lot about the church because she has come to church a few times and has heard the lessons and things but we talked about freedom of agency. And we talked about baptism and how she feels like it is the right thing to do but she doesnt want to be pushed into doing it and that she wants to do it for all the right reasons so she basically told me too that she needs a testimony. But she said that she loves the churches teachings. So we were able to work with the sisters and they have an appointment with her now on Wednesday. I'm excited to see how it goes.

 

On Sunday we had a lesson with the less active member that we visit every week now. He is super funny.  In his prayers he always says thanks for sending these missionaries for me to help me not be a less active anymore.... Oh he is so stubborn but I love him. He shared all these scriptures with us about keeping the commandments and repenting it was way good and way funny because he knows all the answers.  He knows what he has to do, he just won't. He shared a scripture in Alma and it talks about if you were to die now could you stand guiltless before God? And I asked him that question after reading that. He looks at me and says, well I guess I better repent. Oh he is so stubborn. But he has an amazing testimony and you can feel the spirit with this man he just needs to act and make that full change.

 

Random fact about Japan. They have vending machines everywhere! All over the streets you can see them everywhere you go.

 

Love you hope you are all doing well.

 

Elder Nebeker