May 4, 2015

Transfer 15 Week 4


hello family!  This week was pretty good.  It rained like the dickens yesterday though.  It was raining so hard it hurt to ride our bikes.  It was really bad.  We were so wet, it was funny.  We saw a snake trying to swim upstream in one parking lot.  I felt kind of bad for it.  The rain was so hard and so fast that streets were becoming rivers less than five minutes after it started.  I have never had it rain that hard.
  

We had a great junkai and learned some good stuff, and we also saw some really cool miracles.   The Elder I worked with, E. De La Paz, and I prayed and picked a few areas for the day.  We then went to those areas the next day and at first it didn`t seem like anyone was home.  We prayed again and felt like we should go to a certain apartment where we ended up handing out a BofM.  Then the next area we went to we made an appointment with a lady who knew someone who comes to our eikaiwa.  Then in a later area  we didn`t have a lot of time, but the first door we knocked on we handed out a BofM and made a return appointment.  We were running around all day trying to keep our time frame.  But because we did, every area we went to, we were able to find to person we were supposed to.  It was really cool to see the hand of the Lord as we found some really cool people and were able to share the gospel quite a bit. 

 

Then, one of the Investigators that the Elders here had been teaching for like a year, finally started to make some progress. For some reason for the entire year the Elders kept teaching her even though she wouldn`t come to church or even take a BofM.  Elder West and I were talking about how either she needs to progress or drop, and then she took the BofM and said she would read it.  She seemed really likely to do it too.  Then we called her to see if she would come to church and she told us that she was stuck in the hospital due to a child patient who has the flu.  Apparently none of the employees are allowed to leave for like a week, and then she will go to Naha (Okinawa`s biggest city) for a conference or something.  At this critical time she`s gone.  Way dumb.

Then on Saturday, after a long day of dendo and not much happening, we were to meet a pi that Elder West was working with a few months ago and who we both had felt impressed to go visit the night before. She took a BofM and made an appointment for tomorrow. She seems really promising and her family is really cool too. 

Then we had an investigator come to church who had always been too shy or had had some other reason for not coming. But we committed her to use her faith and courage and come to church. It was super good and we think that she should be able to progress more now. 

Way excited to Skype next week. 

Love you, have a great week!

Elder Lee

Iain

April 27, 2015

Transfer 13 Week 3
So this week we didn`t really have a lot of time to dendo.  We went to Naha on the main island of Okinawa Thursday night.  We then stayed the night there in the Elders apartment and then the next day went to the Okinawa Stake Center a little bit north of there.  That building is gorgeous.  It is just about the biggest church in all of Japan, if not the actual biggest.  It has two Wards, the Japanese Ward and the American (military) Ward.  It was super weird because there were Americans speaking English there, multiple.  And it looked like an American building, so I was super weirded out.  Then we had lunch with rice, which made it a little more normal.  But it was still weird.

The Training on Friday was really good and I learned a lot from the things kaicho was saying.  The iPads are actually going to be a really good opportunity to become more diligent and more focused.  I think because it will be so easy to get distracted it will require more discipline and stronger will power than required before.  I think it will really improve the missionaries (although I can see this easily leading to problems).  

Then we had a special training on Saturday from a guy named Elder McClane.  He was in my apartment in Kumamoto for my last transfer there and is a good guy.  Kaicho asked him to go around the mission and give a special training on how to find and make new investigators.  It was super good and he was very blunt and blatant about how to do it most effectively and what missionaries need to do and not do.  It was so true and I think it will help a lot of the missionaries.  Although I am older, I was still able to learn a lot from it and I really wish I had learned some of that stuff earlier.  

So far we haven`t done much with the iPads.  But overall it doesn`t change much of how we do missionary work.  It`s still a tool and we need to be lead by the Spirit to teach, regardless of the machinery we have.  

Eikaiwa (English class) is super fun.  Elder West and I teach Kodomo (Kids) Eikaiwa.  It`s fun, but those kids are crazy.  There is one that acts super shy at first, but soon she is running around drawing on everything with a whiteboard marker.  She is uncontrollable.  But it`s fun.  

The main difference between here and Hiroshima is that people are a lot less busy and do things at a slower pace.  Which was fun at first because I used it as an excuse to go at their pace.  But over the training and after thinking about it, I really need to work hard and use my time effectively.  I don`t have any time to spare.  

After that, we started watching the clock more, making our appointments shorter and we dropped some not progressing Investigators.  If they don`t want to progress, we can`t help them, so meeting with them serves no purpose for us or them.  We have been way more effective and met some awesome people, saw some cool miracles.  

Amami is also a little different.  But the relaxed feeling is the same and the people are super nice in both places.  I don`t know how touristy it is, although they have plenty of shops and advertisements.  

We taught a lesson to a lady who didn`t really understand much and her thought process was a little weird, but Elder West and I were really able to teach a good lesson because we were being effectively and working hard together.  We are becoming better at being one.

  

Elder West is really fun and I think we will be able to do some cool stuff before transfers.  

Love you guys, have an awesome week,  

Elder Lee

Iain