Monday, March 24, 2014

Hey Everyone! Thanks for all of your emails! It sounds like things are going fairly well for you all. Today is the first day of the new transfer. We weren't supposed to get transfer calls until tomorrow, but then we got surprised when they called us this morning. I'm staying in Yamate (big surprise). My next and last companion is Elder Young. He's transferring all the way across the apartment. It'll be way fun.

Last monday we had a zone p-day, and that was really fun. After that, Elder Moua and I went grocery shopping while Elder Young and Elder Call went out to go contacting. After shopping, Elder Moua and I went to Yamashita park. We had just gotten there when we got a call from Elder Young, telling us that he and Elder Call had already gotten 40 contacts over on Oosanbashi, and to get our butts over there. We got on over there, and there were just tons and tons of people there. There was a huge cruise ship there called the Queen Elizabeth. It was massive! For whatever reason, everyone wanted to talk with us (probably because they thought we were from the cruise ship). Lots of fun.

On Wednesday we saw the most awesome young boys on the train. Elder Call is sitting and I am standing, and these three young boys who were maybe about 10 years old got on. They scampered on over to a bench that had three open seats that were near each other. One of these boys goes running over to one of these seats, and ends up almost running into a woman with a baby who was about to sit in the same seat. This young boy stood back and let the woman sit down. The other two boys went and stood with their friend since there was no longer a seat for all three of them. The woman thanked the little boy, and I mentioned to Elder Call how nice that was of the little boy. We managed to catch the little boys' eyes and say hello, and we talked to them a bit. A stop later, someone gets up from next to Elder Call, and Elder Call slides over in his seat to make room for the boys to sit down. However, instead of sitting down, the boys gestured for me to sit down instead, and refused to take "my" seat. Then, much to our surprise, this boy comes over and hands a piece of candy to both Elder Call and myself. What outstanding little boys. I was very surprised. 

Today was a bit of a crazy day. We started off with district meeting here in Yamate, and that went pretty well. We then went off to District meeting in Kamiooka. After the District meeting, we hurried back to Yamate as quick as we could to set up for for the Music Night that was planned at 6. We had a lesson with Laura and her two boys planned for 5, but we ended up being a little late. That worked out fine though because so did they. We had a quick lesson, and finished up by 5:40. Much to my relief, by the time we got upstairs all the set up was complete. 

Now, I was really nervous about this Music Night. We had found several potential investigators with musical abilities, and so we brought up the idea to the ward. They seemed skeptical, but gave us the go ahead to plan it on our own. As time kept ticking down, it was looking like Music Night was going to bomb. The last Sunday before Music Night, I was looking at the proposed program, and it was looking like Music night had devolved into a concert for Eriko Sato. None of our investigators with musical ability who we had planned this event for were able to come. Alot of our other investigators who we had invited to just come and listen ween't able to make it either. But, when we proposed this idea back at the beginning, we agreed that even if only one investigator came, it would be worth it. So, we rolled on ahead with it anyway. 

Here's a pic of Elder Moua and I at Oosanbashi
with a man that we talked with. That's the front end
of the Queen Elizabeth behind us.

Throughout the week, things had just fallen into place, and we were able to get enough acts lined up that we could take a good 30 minutes or more, and the. the. just take time at the end to socialize while eating snacks. Now we come back to where we were on Friday evening, with 20 minutes to go, and none of our performers are there yet. There ended up being a fairly good turn out from the members and our investigators, which pleasantly surprised me. But then things got pretty scary pretty fast. It's 6:00, time to start, and only one of the performers was there. We stalled as long as we could, but by 6:05 everyone started looking around, wondering why on earth we hadn't started yet. We now had our first performer, who was about 10, and Sister Mikami, who is a boss on the piano. We figured we'd just go ahead and get started and hopefully the other people would come before the first two acts were done. We get things started, but then the 10 year old boy who was first had run off and was playing somewhere. Well, I guess that means we're starting with Sister Mikami, right? Well, she had run off too to look for the young boy. Eriko was there, but couldn't sing because her accompanist wasn't there. So now there's me, up front, running a show that has no performers. For what seemed like the longest, most awkward 5 minutes of my life, I'm trying to amuse the crowd. 

Finally, the young boy shows up again, and he begrudgingly plays his two short pieces. Then Sister Mikami plays her pieces, which were beautiful. While she was playing, everyone else finally showed up, and we were able to proceed without a hitch. When all was said and done, after a rough start, Music Night ended up being a great event that everyone enjoyed very thoroughly. I'm so grateful that the Lord made it all work out and fall into place at the very end. Otherwise, it would have been a disaster of an activity. 

That's about it for now! I'm really excited for this final upcoming transfer! It'll be a blast to work closely with Elder Young. 

Talk to you all next week!

Elder Blake