FARMERS TAN!

Dear Family & Friends,

It is so hot here in Japan, its has been 95 degrees with probably 80% humidity. I'm getting a nice farmers tan on my arms.

This week was awesome! I am finally starting to get Kitakami a little figured out! at least I think...

This week we had a joint with Hamato san who has been trying to stop tobacco.  He is still having a hard time but this week we taught him Christ's Doctrine; Faith, Repentance, Baptism, Receiving the gift of the Holy Ghost, and Enduring to the end. He really enjoyed the lesson and I asked him if "When he can stop tobacco would he receive Baptism?" He said "Yes". So he is actually really doing well. He didn't show up for church though :( That was disappointing but other than that it was a really good lesson. And I think we are going to try to set up a date for him to aim for this upcoming week!

Also Kudosan - We met with her and her son for Free Family English Program that we do with them. (30 minutes English, 30 minute Gospel lesson) and so I felt impressed to read the Book of Mormon with them and we started with where they were at and read Lehi's vision. I explained to her that the fruit is happiness and that the Iron rod is the gospel path. She thinks that she is in the dark mists right now but wants to have happiness. It turned into a really good teaching opportunity.  We set up an appointment with her to just hear the gospel and we taught that today. We got a joint with her and ended talking about the Plan of Salvation. It went really well and she is set up to progress. She really likes it and learned a lot of new things today. We also cleared up a lot of misconceptions she had. She thought that we we would go straight to hell if we sinned after baptism. So that was really good. We explained the Atonement and sacrament to her. And she really liked it. It was a little bit of a long lesson, but the joint helped us so much. The joint we chose was perfect for the lesson and had a lot of personal experiences to share. It was absolutely awesome. So every week from here on out we will be teaching one lesson that is just gospel and one that is free family English program. 

Also this week we had a huge festival in Kitakami! It was so cool, I have never seen so many people gathered in one spot yet on my mission. We went to work and handed out Book of Mormons and all the pass along cards that we could. We did streeting till we felt we were going to pass out of dehydration. It was so much fun. I felt really bad because we started talking to some young kids and there was about five of them but me and my companion only had 2 Book of Mormons. We explained our purpose and how cool the Book of Mormon was and gave the 2 we had and the other boys were really upset we didn't have more. I felt a little bad but told them to call us and we can get them more. So hopefully the boys will call.

I took a lot of pictures to of the Matsuri (Festival) it was way cool, they have people dress up as monsters and they dance with swords, and have beasts march. It is pretty cool. They have live Japanese drums lined up all the way down the street just pounding and people shouting and the drums just vibrate your whole body. It was really fun. The name of it is Onikenbai. You might be able to find it on youtube. Not sure. 

We also ran into a ton of less actives at the festival and they were all nice and willing to meet with us. So that was really cool, we got a lot of Appointments set up.

This week we identified some part member families that we wanted to start working with and we decided to visit a less active that has two daughters who are not yet baptized and we met her and her daughters. I asked them if we could teach them as a family and they accepted and seemed to enjoy our visit. So I hope to see some success from that too! 

Also today we had a member introduce her husband to us who is not a member. We just talked with him. You could tell he was a little nervous but I am hoping to be able to work with him more. The member who introduced us to him just became a branch Missionary so I have high hopes for her husband!

Funny story; today as we were about doing some shopping a little kid came up to us and started talking with us and he was so excited to see "Gaijin" (Foreigners).  He asked if he could take a picture with me and afterwards we started talking a little bit more and he got a little quiet and just looks at me and said, "I need to use the bathroom" and booked it away, he pooped his pants....... But he came back and I printed out the picture for him that we took. And he took us back to meet his mom but his mom was in the bathroom but he wants to meet with us more and wanted us to meet his family. So were hoping we can introduce the Gospel to his family too.

That was pretty much my week. Also the thunder hear is so SCARY! i love it!

Love you all,

 

Elder Nebeker