Monday, December 31, 2012

Hey Everyone! I'm doing pretty good, and I'm mostly over whatever it is that I had during Christmas. I'm still a little congested, but that's about it. Nothing too bad.

So I suppose the biggest piece of news for now is that after being in Yamato for close enough to half a year, I'm transferring today. My next area is a place called Ushiku, which is about 2 hours away by train from where I'm at now. I guess it's pretty rural out there, so that will be a different experience from what I'm used to. Then again, it is Japan, so we'll see how rural it really is when I get there. Oh, and here's the best part: my next companion is Elder Christensen. My trainer. Again. Definitely didn't see that one coming. When we got the transfer call and they told me I was going to be companions with Elder Christensen, I said, "What?! Elder Christensen?" And they said, "Yeah, do you know him?"  "Yeah I know him, he's my trainer."   "Oh. *shuffles through some papers* Yeah, I guess he was. Well, you get to be companions with him again!"  After they posted the roster for this next transfer, I've gotten calls and emails from several missionaries asking me why I was going to be companions with my trainer again, as if I knew the answer or something. Haha! Well, I guess we'll have to wait and find out.

Let's see... other than that, it's been a fairly busy week. Thursday through Saturday we had fully booked days, which was really exciting for us. Unfortunately, nearly all of our appointments fell through. We did have a lesson stick though, and we were able to attend the baptism of one of the boys in the Zama Branch. We had an investigator come with us to that, and it seemed to have a good effect on him. Sister Ishihara, who was baptized about a month ago, is still acting like a rock star. We've been able to make contact with everyone in her family now, and we've started teaching them. Her oldest son actually lives in another area, so the missionaries over there are working with him. We actually got a call from those missionaries on Friday, and they were telling us about how their first lesson with him went. They just kinda asked him about what we had taught him when we met him, and he said that he had been praying on his own and reading the Book of Mormon (which is fantastic after only one lesson). He also told them that he was able to recognize a change in his mom since she's been baptized, and that he wants to learn more about that so he can have that same change too. Then he pretty much straight up told the missionaries that he wanted to be baptized. He has a date set for the 3rd of February now. It's so exciting!

Sorry this is kinda short, but I've gotta go get stuff packed up so I can get to Ushiku. I'll tell you all about it next week. Later!

Elder Blake