Awesome Sunday meetings!

 Elder Mosdell and his companion have had a few bad weeks with some investigators but their patience, hard work and prayer paid off big this week!

"This week we had a couple lessons with (a female investigator) again, and she's doing really well. On Thursday we taught her about the plan of salvation, and she really liked that because it means she has a purpose to work for, and that God loves her enough to create a plan so that she can be happy. :) It was an awesome lesson! On Sunday was the other "lesson" which was technically Sunday School class, but Elder O helped teach about half. Anyways, The lesson was on the Word of Wisdom, and it went pretty well. Unfortunately we weren't able to focus just on her during the lesson, but more on that later. After church I talked with her for a minute about it, and she said that it would be a little hard giving up coffee and tea, but that she would pray about it. She wasn't able to find any information about the Book of Mormon when she searched, and we were able to answer her questions that she had during the lesson on Thursday.

Church was absolutely CRAZY this week. We had 5 investigators come, which is more than double what I've ever had before. We filled the classroom for  the Gospel Principals class, to the point that we had to go on exchanges and I went to a different class so that we could get everyone in the classroom. We were a little spread out, but it all turned out really well. The family that we found a few weeks ago came, and they have a TON of interest in Church. The wife felt the spirit super strong in sacrament meeting, and the husband really liked what he heard, and wants his future kids to grow up learning the traits of the church. I'm super excited for them! We also had another 19 year old come. We met him a few weeks ago, and he was interested in coming and learning about the purpose of life. He was SUPER confused after sacrament meeting, and felt like he shouldn't be at a Christian church, because he knew nothing of what was really going on. I (with the help of a Single Adult from the ward) was able to explain a lot of what was going on, and that as he comes to the other classes everything will start to make more sense. He really enjoyed learning about the Word of Wisdom, and how it helps us to live healthy lives. After church we were able to meet with a man who met the missionaries over a year ago but they never followed up with him after that day. He's been wanted to come and learn about church ever since then. We toured the church with him, and we were able to teach him about prayer as well as set a baptismal date for the 28th of October! I'm amazed at how many miracles we've seen this last Sunday, and I can't wait to see them continue. We'll likely have 6 people at church this next week!"

Look what we found at the import shop next to the train station!

Just to prove it wasn't from a care package. The soda had a label too.

They biked 42km around the border of their area on P-Day. This is the view from one of the tallest hills.

Splits and Donuts

"Weekly Update:

 

This week in Tama we were able to go on splits with the District Leader on Tuesday, and I really enjoyed it. It was fun to go to another area and spend time working with a younger and Japanese missionary. This was my first experience with being with any missionary newer than me. It was also nice to get to speak and practice Japanese all day again with a native speaker again.

 

We had two lessons with (the investigator who thought I hated him) this week, the first one seemed to have gone pretty well, but the second lesson today sadly did not. We asked him to fill out some of the information on the baptismal form, and he didn't feel safe giving his birthday, address, and parental information. We weren't able to convince him that it was safe, and I'm a little worried that he might still have problems with me. I feel really bad if that's the case, because to be honest I've been wanting to help him learn and progress to baptism since I first got here, and I've never said anything hateful about him. Sadly he also told the Bishop (before our lesson) that he was willing to give us the information and fill everything out. The Bishop said that he seemed "very good to go" in the interview, but in our lesson it was the opposite. After talking with the Bishop we decided to stop lessons with him for a few weeks and then start working with him again. I'm really not very happy about having to drop him... but I guess what has to be done has to be done. Meanwhile all we can do is pray for him and follow up once or twice a week.

 

Sadly we've also not been able to meet with any of our other investigators this week. :\ One investigator has been busy with work and a dog show this week, and was unable to come to church today, but she is still super interested, and reads the Book of Mormon a lot. She's searching for a general history of the Book of Mormon to help her understand it (she's getting through 2 Nephi now). We emailed her today and told her we can get her "Our Search for Happiness", but it sounds like she's also already gotten a hold of some other books. We're just hoping they're of decent quality...

 

Elder O and the District Leader found a Potential Investigator on Tuesday. When Elder O and I visited on Saturday we were lucky and we were able to teach a short little doctrine at the door to her and her husband. They want to come to church this next week, and she's got a lot of interest in the Book of Mormon and church. Her husband doesn't have much interest, but he's willing to check it out for her. They're a pretty fun, and very bubbly couple, and I think they've got some good potential. :)"

 

A huge moth, a bit tattered though.

An empty train, maybe Elder Mosdell needs to shower! LOL

A nice sunset in Japan

Wow! Beautiful sunset. What a difference a few minutes makes.

Mmmm donuts!


I'm thinking the donuts were a consolation for having troubles with the first investigator. But they did end the week on a positive note with the new family they met.


Arm Wrestling for Cookies...

"Weekly Update:

 So this week was a little interesting. Elder Oand I taught a lesson on Thursday, and about 10 minutes into our lesson with (the investigator) he stood up, and very angrily stormed out of the church, shouting "Hate you" at me on his way out. We were both in complete shock, because it seemed to be out of no where, and we weren't sure what to do. After trying to call him once we ran outside and jumped on our bikes to chase him down and find out what was wrong. Fortunately for us, most missionaries can bike FAR faster than people in Japan, so we were able to catch up to him as he was going up a hill and flag him down. So yes, we did "chase him down up a hill". :) But anyways, we managed to get everything sorted out, turned out for some reason he had thought that I'd been saying I hate him behind his back, and because I had a slight cold that day I wasn't talking much during the first part of the lesson, which I guess made him feel like I didn't like him so much that I wouldn't even speak to him. In any case though, we got it all worked out and he's back on track for being baptised.

 

(Another investigator) is doing as good as ever. She's read all the way through the introduction and first Nephi in the Book of Mormon, and is continuing to read and pray about it. She hasn't gotten an answer yet, but things seem to be going good. We were able to finish off the entire first lesson last Thursday, and we'll likely be teaching lesson 2 tomorrow... if we can find someone to join for the lesson... there's now a new rule going into effect in our mission. From this week forward we can't teach a female investigator (or do practice lessons with sisters from the ward) if there's not an 18 or older male there. This makes teaching here a little bit harder.

 On Saturday last week we got our shipment of Book of Mormons at a zone conference. We were almost out of them in our church, and at our apartment, so we ordered 40 (30 Japanese + 10 English)... of course what we forgot to think of when we ordered them was that it's a 30 minute walk from that church to the train station... and 30 Books of Mormon plus my quad and PMG weigh A LOT! >.< but that's OK, I made it back in one piece so. :)

Oh, and at that conference there was an arm wrestling competition for the extra cookies that Sister Budge brought. I won. :) It was kind of fun to have a little rivalry between MMHS and SF (two local high schools) for my first match too (btw the score was 2-0) ;D.

 

Other than that my week was pretty normal. :) Hope you all enjoy your week!"

Yep, limited news this week and no photos until next week.  Kind of a bummer, but we did get a lot of neat photos last week so I guess we'll forgive the boy this time.  He seems to have a knack for winning extra food, I don't think I'd want to go up against him in an arm wrestling match - I know how that would end!