T. & sugar cookies
Ok another random assortment of details because this computer is super slow.
I cooked my thanksgiving pumpkin bread in a rice cooker, kinda super proud of that.
So I met with the area doctor. He of course was up on his high horse the whole time and wouldn:t let me ask the real questions. Basically told me what I already knew and then counseled me to in a few years start watching my cholesterol closer and being healthy because that can be a reason for small blood clots which could, not necessarily going to happen, but could happen to my right ear basically messing me more up. He was concerned about me not having the results with me from my old test but I think that will get resolved by me faxing results to America. So really not anything new. Interesting talk but not a whole lot of information.
We have a person in our mission presidency that helped translate the Book of Mormon into Japanese and the Liahona each month. I think thats kinda cool although without knowing it I have cursed his translations at times.
Zone conference was this week. It was really fun. I got your letters that you sent in November. Saw a movie of all the missionaries, received a personalized Sendai mission temple recommend cover holder. Ha. Only missionaries would jump up and down for that but oh well. It is pretty awesome. Then a white elephant exchange which was super fun. I was pretty proud of what I gave and I am now the proud owner of a new statue of liberty figurine.
Saturday we went to the Relief Society activity and made sugar cookies! Oh it was amazing to be back in the cookie making business. Even if it was with a bunch of older women! And goodness were they delicious!
First snow of the year, fun.
So back awhile ago I talked about our blind investigator T. We invited her to come to the relief society activity and she came! So did Y! It was pretty sweet. I thought she might kinda feel like an outsider with her disability and it being a physical thing of making cookies, but the Aizu women are awesome and accepted her with open arms. Our only problem in the end was we couldn:t teach her a lesson because they were all having too much fun talking to her. Although before the activity the relief society president shared a message and what happened after? T. bore her testimony! Ha. That woman can feel the spirit so easy!!!! Sigh. It might be hard to teach her but if we can, she has a lot of potential! It was also good for Y. but eh, she:s old news (joke ;-) )
We had splits again this week. Again with Kano choro and then one day with Fukata choro. You don:t quite realize how much you appreciate your old companion until you get a new one. The Fukata choro day was one of the longest days of a mission in my life. He is a great missionary but he is kinda boring to work with. Oh well, learned some good things from him too.
So yesterday Shinno choro and I went to Koriyama to continue our zone wide attack on kinjins (golden investigators). We got there and even though they had the elders there last week, they were like people that have just walked through the desert and we were cups of water! Ha. If I ever feel unappreciated I will just have to go to Koriyama. So the first non-member we meet is this kinda strange man. After talking with him for a little bit it becomes quite obvious that he is mentally sick and really doesn:t know where he just walked into. Which brings me to another point. There are a ton of mentally sick people in Japan! I don:t know why but its so true. Hm. Google it, there has to be a reason. But as a mission we talk about them quite often because we aren:t to spend our time teaching them because they are under the same umbrella as children in being pure to the Lord.
Anyway the next person we meet is a 40 year old woman named S. Really she is the reason we came to Koriyama. She had been taught two years back and had a baptism date but because she keeps moving between Aizu and Koriyama it never has worked. Well it just so happens we work in both those areas! So we taught her and started asking questions and oh my is she quite ready. Again we asked if she wanted to be baptized and she said yes on the 25th. Why? Because I really feel its what I need to do ... (all the perfect reasons). Do you believe in God? ...I don:t understand him, how can I find out about him? (Drool begins coming down my face at this point) and the rest of the lesson goes along these lines. Not sure she will be able to make it to the 25th baptism date but if she is as willing as she acts she will easily be baptized. Yay!
So after this President Rassmussen is there so he wants to talk to us about Y. So before in specialized training interview with Shinno choro, he said that she needed more knowledge and we had kinda complained to him the day before about this so I:m expecting him to kinda straighten us out. We get in there and he starts whipping out all the scriptures of what the qualifications of baptism are. After that he looks at us and says, "I need to repent for what I said before. She doesn:t need the knowledge to be baptized, that can come later. She needs to obey commandments and have a desire. We have confirmed that she keeps the commandments. So, check her desire and if possible meet with her family and if those check out I will clear her to get baptized as early as the 24th." Say what?! Took me totally off guard. Doesn:t mean she will get baptized then because we still aren:t quite sure her desires but at least I now know I wasn:t incorrect in my thinking before. Maybe she just needed these last few weeks of more shelter by us in order to truly be prepared. We still aren:t sure but we are moving forward. Finally we get out of that interview and Sister Rasmussen walks up to us and says *Here is a nonmember I want you to meet*. Koriyama is Zion I tell you!!!!! Ha. So we taught her which was super hard because she is from China so she speaks Japanese with a Chinese accent but she could really be a great investigator too! After that watched the Christmas Devotional from the first presidency to top off a tiring but awesome day.
Anyway thats pretty much it. Recently I have begun to notice how much you guys did to make our Christmases extra special and this Knex story just reaffirms it. I will try to pass on a little bit of that love of the season onto the people of Japan. Anyway. All for now. Love You.
