Thanksgiving Fun!

Dear Family,

Well it's been an interesting, but really good week! First things first we had a bunch of changes through the mission this last week. So I'll get to those later but, big thing is that we taught a bunch of lessons this week! I feel like I haven't taught sit actual lessons in a long time. Maybe it has been... I'm not sure what a long time is anymore, the mission is messing with my perceptions of time! But we taught a lot of lessons and had a lot of fun doing it!

 So first I'll talk about the new mission standards. So president Wada has things called "S.O.S. Invitations" they are when you talk to people about church for some amount of time and invite them to make a step forward in their progression by giving them a clear decision between 2 options. He asks us to have 70 of those at least a week. But this Thursday we had zone conference from 9:00 am until 6:00 pm. It was long. But he gave us some new things to do for those Invitations which basically means we teach a whole heck of a lot more lessons on the street than we used to. Also he set up a new starting investigator program where the very first time we meet for a lesson after the initial contact we make sure to give them a soft baptismal invitation basically "if it's true will you be baptized? And we've already had the opportunity to ask 2 people that question and they both agreed. One is more promising than the other but they are both good. So we also got a dinner with the Larsen's this week which was way more energetic than usual it was great. Lots of fun. So now I'll tell you about some miracles and some fun stuff.

Miracle, we tried twice to visit a p.i. on Friday, and both times they were not home, but his wife said the second time that we can try tomorrow. (Good to know she's on board) so we came back on Saturday night at the same time and he came out invited us into his entryway (genkan) and we talked there for about 40 minutes. What's funny is that the very first thing he said is (translated) "look, I can't convert immediately. I can't do that, I've been Catholic all my life." And it sounded like he expected that to be the end of the visit but as good missionaries we followed up on the pamphlet, he hadn't read all of it but he had some questions on the priesthood. So standing in his entryway I taught him what it is and had him read some definitions in the pamphlet to which he had one question. Is this saying that my church doesn't have the priesthood? Yes, yes it is. But he was strangely enough, just fine with that. So we kept talking and it reached a point while talking about Jesus Christ that I asked him, Tai  San, (his name) if this is true will you follow Jesus Christ's example and be baptized? Which he then proceeded to say no to. So we explained further that if in 4 months, if you know it's true, and it is, will you want to follow Christ's example? To which he said of course I will. I will do it. So now is when we were running out of time and invited him to learn even more with us every week. And again, shut down hard, but then he asked if we would come over every month to teach him, for 30 minutes each time. And we accepted. Then we prayed and extended commitments and he will be praying once a week until we visit in December. So that went incredibly well and we felt like we were seriously led by the spirit. Boom. Miracle!

Next miracle, shorter this time. Is that I was praying on Sunday asking that at least one of the people we invited would come to church. Then halfway through sacrament, 2 random people we've never met before walk on. Both construction workers and sit down with us. So we helped them through church and taught them a lesson, and now we have a lesson next week with one of them and the other might join. Crazy! Other than that we dendo'd as hard as possible and have taught a ton of street lessons this week, my confidence in teaching is doing better and everything is getting better here. I hope it continues.

Some fun things from the week is that we visited a family, the Suzuki's who have had contact with a MTC teacher because he homestayed at their house once. And they came to our basketball activity on Saturday morning. It ended up being a lot of fun! 15 people came! Now we will be working on them as we can. Also we played basketball on Wednesday with a p.i. And he has some better potential now! Woo! And here's another funny thing. Japanese people hate rain, that's a fact. So we got all set up for eikaiwa and stuff and had all the assignments already out for like the first time ever, and 5 people came. All because it was raining! So I got to become a student!

So yeah! That was my week pretty much! Today was zone Pday at the park right by my apartment and we played ultimate frisbee for 2 ish hours. My team even won! But to add a funny unfortunate note to it, we did a whole "last point wins" thing and we won. Then we decided to do one more. So on the throw that would have given the other team the winning touchdown my face was in the right place at the right time and I ended up taking a big frisbee right to the nose. To make it even cooler blood was running down my face!  I felt like a boss for sure. I had just saved the game with my face after all! But then one of the members we were playing with told me I was bleeding and took care of it, and drove me to his house where we made sure it was all taken care of. So all in all, we won, I got to feel like a boss, and everyone had fun! I'll send a picture of my bandaged nose lol

I hope that answered most of the questions. As for thanksgiving, I can't wait until next years Thanksgiving and Christmas. But this year I'll be at the Sorensons, in about 30 minutes, to eat Thanksgiving dinner there with them. And we'll be on base for Thanksgiving day, so we get 2 Thanksgivings! I'm glad everything is ready for Christmas there! I also look forward to seeing everyone, I hope Ollie recognizes me! He's the best! Kaiden has a good little brother. I hope everyone had a great week and don't forget, I love you all tons and tons and 2!

 Love,

 Elder Gailey

 

Matching Day

 

Elder Gailey's bloody nose