Monday, April 23, 2012

Leadership Training

And just like that another transfer has come and its onto number 6! Today was transfer calls (or for us, lack thereof) so another transfer in Furukawa. The next one is when it gets "dangerous" for me. Chance I could be out of here after this transfer. It will have been a little more than 6 months then. This week was rough with investigators. Met with none of our big ones. For a variety of reasons, some weren't home for appointments, others were our fault of having meetings only time they could meet. Sigh. Although the old woman "M"san came to church yesterday without us even asking. Its was cool. She really didn't pay attention while I was teaching Gospel principles but just read the gospel principles book and then asked if she could borrow it. Ha. She ended up leaving it but whatever. We did get a new investigator this week being the man that doesn't think prayers can make it to heaven on an empty stomach. His name is "M"san. He is a nice man. He bought us sashimi (what Americans think of sushi (raw fish)). We weren't able to do much of a lesson only about God and then he went off with the Japanese belief that there is a God in everything. Oh well. Also he might only have interest in Americans.....I wonder. Only time will tell. We have one old investigator like that. Whenever I call him to invite him to activities he tried to set appointments with us, super backwards but he just wastes our time so I have to avoid them. 2 Dresses? Really? Thats ridiculous. Thats all I have to say about. We bike quite a bit. 25-50 miles a day? I actually don't know at all. So three cool things this week. 1. We had leadership training from President. Normally I wouldn't attend such a meeting only district leaders, zone leaders, and trainers but President invited us all so we come and he explained his reasoning. "This mission is super young. Not all of you are leaders now but you are going to have to be soon so I figured I would have everyone attend" Also everyone had already cleared their schedules because we were suppose to have our Area President come talke to us but....he is now the Presiding Bishop. Funny thing that President showed us is that there are 5 or 6 high up in the church people that super close connections to japan. Elder Evans, over the missionary department......President Rasmussen was his Zone leader....ha. Super funny. Anyway. Tons of good stuff there. 2. So as I have said our branch president has been sharing his crazy vision the last little while with us but we never really have time to talk about it so called him up and asked if he could just meet with us and share his vision of how missionaries will fit into it. It was one of the cooler meetings I have attended with this man. I expected to have to ask a lot of questions but all I asked was "what is your vision for Furukawa" and he went off, first about the history of this branch, getting shut down, his fighting against the church because he wanted his branch back. ha. Definitely could feel the mans love for the branch and for these people. Then he just dug into us. Listing off what we needed to change. It was humbling because they were all good things. Sigh. Just have to put even a little more effort in. 6 months in this area no baptisms, people moving backwards....not good. 3. We had a BBQ as a branch. It was fun. Well I have already taken up too much time so that shall be all for now. Love you all. Talk to you next week.