It's been a pretty good week. Lots of good biking and
running to and from appointments. We've been able to meet and make appointments
with some solid people so we're excited for things to finally get moving in the
area. Coming in we didn't really have anyone we were teaching so it's been an
incredible blessing that things have been turning around.
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| Post Lesson |
Our district leader Elder Giles had an amazing experience
this week. Our apartment is placed on a steep hill. While on the way down this
hill a taxi cut him off pretty hard. Due to the high speeds he took an action
movie style drift, put his bike into a pole, and there was a 2-3 second gap of
air time before he ate pavement. Due to his hardcore guardian angels he was in
much better condition than his bike. The taxi driver gets out and tells him,
"it wasn't my fault, hope your okay." Then scurries into the cab and
books it for the sunset. The best part is the story doesn't end there. The
next day we go into the bike parking to find that his already folded in half
bike looked even worse than the night before and there was a ticket on it. We
go to the police station and find that it wasn't because of law breaking but
because he was a victim. Apparently there has been a mentally disabled man
in the area who has been getting up at 2:00 AM, trashing bicycles, and
disappearing into the night. He was last seen lifting Elder Giles's bicycle
into the air and pile driving it into the asphalt before running from the
scene. Elder Giles is now in Kamiooka police records as one of 4 victims in the
past 2 weeks.
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This Saturday was an absolute blast. We went over to
the Yamate area where we were meeting with a group of people to play
basketball. We met up with our man Alec who is from China. He grew up in a town
in northern China where the North Korea, China, and Siberia borders meet. He
speaks English, Japanese, Korean, and Chinese fluently and is crazy good at
trash talk on the basketball court. It's hilarious. But we played some ball,
and he took us to this awesome Chinese restaurant afterwards (Have I mentioned
how much I love Chinese everything) and had an awesome talk. He's starting a
young family, wants the best for his son, and really loves The Book of Mormon.
We're going to be doing the same thing on Saturday with him but he
requested that we have a sit down lesson at the church on top of everything
else so we're super stoked. Also he wants to bring us to his house on the coast
and teach us how to make Chinese food. It's only been a few weeks and it's
already a great transfer.
Wednesday got hectic! So it snowed Wednesday morning,
then by the time night came around it just changed into rain. Luckily it
was one of our busiest days so we were right in the middle of it all!
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| Surprise Snow Storm |
We had to
go drop off some stuff at a member's house but we took the wrong bus so we
ended up in a totally different place and we had about 10 minutes to get there,
so one miraculously timed bus and couple sprints later we got there on time! We
dropped off some stuff, shared a message, and set up a time to visit their
neighbor again, just in time to realize we had a conference call in order to
plan a big Stake activity. So we found some shelter in a back alley and joined
the call. After the call went a lot later than planned we had just enough time
to grab a couple onigiri's for dinner and eat them while we ran to another bus.
If you would have asked me about barely having time for
dinner and wearing a suit and tie about a year and a half ago, I'd probably
chuckle and say you're out of your mind. But The Lord has perfect timing. I
think he's given me just the right amount of challenges for me to grow. I'll
admit some days are harder than others, but that's alright, everything always
works out in the end. That night was one of the most fun nights of my mission.
Despite poor conditions there were a lot of laughs and even more confused
Japanese people.
If you've read this far I would suggest 2 scriptures for you
to read after.
Mosiah 4:27: And see that all these things are done in wisdom
and order; for it is not requisite that a man should run faster than
he has strength. And again, it is expedient that he should be diligent, that
thereby he might win the prize; therefore, all things must be done in order.
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| Enter Kamiooka District |
