Michael's Good Experience: Hello out there!‏

Dear Family,

Well this week was an interesting week! As you know I have a new companion and now we've served together for a full week. I miss my previous companion because we had such a good groove going with the dendo and getting pi's and lessons and stuff. It was really good, and this transfer even though I am the junior companion it's looking like I need to be more of the senior companion. Elder Eaton does his best, but he doesn't really trust other missionaries well, and so it makes dendo a little tough because you start heading towards an end goal in the conversation and if you pause at all he will jump in. But, there is a better half to that sentence. I have really gotten over worrying about what my companion will think if I tell them they should dendo differently, and so slowly, we've been working together a little bit to make it better, and we visited a guy that said we could come back while housing and my companion really tried to do better and you could really see and feel it. I don't think it will get really consistent or anything like that for a while, but at least that one time it was really good. The person we visited wasn't super interested, but we taught him about the Book of Mormon and were even able to give him one. So even though he doesn't super much want us to come back at least he knows our testimonies and a good image of missionaries, and has a Book of Mormon. So way good part of the week.

The rest of the week was harder as there was almost a power struggle going on, basically both of us testing to see who would be the one to take charge, it seems more like that will be me, which I think will be really good this transfer. We only had 2 real investigator lessons this week, so that made the week pretty long but one of those was with the one and only, Dipen. We invited him to be baptized on June 13th and he said he needed to think about it. But this week we will potentially have 2 meetings with him and really should know whether he will be baptized this transfer or not by next emails. It was a good lesson we had one of the members, brother Misu, who is fluent in English, there as well. So we were finally able to get a member to meet Dipen! Way good stuff there. During the lesson he really seemed like he wants to get baptized. He really wants to be able to be forgiven of his sins, and to get the gift of the Holy Ghost, but it seems he is a little afraid that even though his family would support his decision to convert that he might get a harder time from his extended family. So hopefully we can meet him and he can come to church this Sunday. You have to attend at least 2 Sacrament meeting's before baptism and there are only 2 Sunday's left... So it might be pretty tight, but I think he can do it!

Hagiwara, although he's "not a pious man" he really seems like he is moving towards it. So far we have only met him 2 times but I have called him and had many conversations with him like a friend, so he has some pretty good relationships with the missionaries. But anyways, we got an email from him this morning, and well, he sounds like he is getting pretty deep into the Book of Mormon. He hasn't read any more than the intro and testimonies of the witnesses as far as I know but in the email he was referencing the English version that I gave him and made some really cool connections that strengthened my testimony in a unique way. So the day that we met him to give him the English Book of Mormon that he asked for, elder Turley and I forgot to bring one, so we searched the church for one, but then I remembered I had one in my backpack. The church didn't have one so we decided to use that one. Now for the real cool part. About a week before that day I found a lot of English book of Mormons and I grabbed one to carry and mark parts that might help investigators. So I marked up the intro really nicely so that if ever I needed to I could really help teach the introduction really clearly. And I also marked some other scriptures in 1st Nephi as I was reading through it. Well Hagiwara doesn't know it, but the person who marked the Book of Mormon he has was me. But because I had that Book of Mormon prepared Heavenly Father was able to work through me to help him see some cool stuff. He was saying in the email that the bible is the first (or like more main) testimony but that the Book of Mormon is another testimony. Then he referenced the underlined word in the intro "comparable" meaning comparable to the bible and working together to testify. Then he asked why, if the Book of Mormon really is as important as he and we believe it is, why is it not called "the other testament of Jesus Christ" which is a pretty good question. But in all this he was really deeply thinking about Jesus Christ and God and all of that so I think we will be able to help him through some serious progress by the end of the transfer. AND he is the one that asked us to meet again this time instead of laughing really hard and agreeing when we ask, so I'm really excited. That was way long but cool story! Who knew that forgetting the Book of Mormon at the apartment, and having one on me to read when elder Turley was in the bathroom would change so much with one of our investigators!

Other than those 2 we've been finding all week, which has been tough as described above, but it's getting better I think. We have a couple new pi's but not much of report. Also we taught another investigator, Sasaki. But he returned the Book of Mormon, said he didn't understand it, and that when he went to the Internet he didn't like what he read. He wouldn’t really let us explain either, especially cause some of it was true and he just wasn't willing to change. He said the happiest time in his day, week, or life, is when he is sitting by the window, reading the newspaper, and drinking his coffee. So he said thank you but I'm going to leave now. And then left and wouldn't listen to us. So that was a bummer but we'll keep trying when we can on him. This week though we have a few lessons planned already and hopefully more to come. It was a humbling and tough week but hopefully the next 5 are better. Japanese is getting slightly easier in some areas but it's still way hard and sometimes I wonder if I will ever understand, but I know that I can at least speak enough to make a difference.

Well I hope that everyone at home is doing well, and has had a good week. I've been learning a lot that it's often not worth it to worry too much about things that happen when you don't want them to or don't happen when you do want them to, it's more worth it to realize what happened today that made it a good day, or what didn't happen today that made it an even better day. There's all kinds of things in life that bother us too much so if I just recognize what can and can't be helped, then everything just floats a little smoother. Japanese lesson for the day! "Shouganai しょうが無い" it means it can't be helped. Like maybe there is no piano in a room but no one wants to sing without one, but it's shouganai so they do anyways.

I love you guys! You're the best! Have a great week!

Love,

Elder Gailey

P.S. We also had scout ekaiwa so that was way fun! It was just English in groups of three then some games and stuff and it was way fun! I'll send some pictures!

P.P.S. That was a really long letter! :)

Elder Gailey finally got his box!