Michael's Good Experience: I'm so old!

At church this week Elder Dunn and I were sitting in young mens talking with the leaders as the 2 young men that were there this last week were fighting in the corner and they started trying to schedule an activity with us and the young men for August 20th and for the first time I had to pipe up and say that I will have returned already by that day... its crazy! Who knew I would ever make it this far? It doesn't feel like I should be this far, but i am which is kinda freaky.

Anyways this week was really good. Elder Dunn and I have been working really hard and doing our best to work as inspired as possible. It was really cool to look back on the week because there were so many miracles and so many times that we felt like we were in the exact right place at the exact right time. Dad had asked if any of those people we met last week became new investigators, and the answer is yes, a couple did, and we also had a couple more on top of that. We actually led the mission this week in new investigators. Even though we didn't have a whole ton of time we were able to get lots of work done.

That guy from Canada has been talking to us a little bit over SMS and we finally got another appointment scheduled with him for this Friday. I'll be with another elder on splits but it will still be lots of fun I think. And the guy from the Bahamas was unfortunately unable to come to church this week. He called us on Wednesday or somewhere around there saying he was going to. Then we called him on Saturday night and he said he was still good but that he was going to go to the English ward down in Yokosuka, however when we followed up with the Yokosuka elders they let us know that he wasn't feeling well and wasn't able to attend. But that's what he gets for going clubbing all Saturday night and getting super drunk. I don't know why people do that, it doesn't even sound fun poisoning your body to go party. Weird.

So last Monday night we went on the first split of the transfer. I was with an elder named Elder Molen. He's from Utah if I am remembering correctly and we were really excited to dendo together so the first kid who we saw we tried really hard to talk to him and he ended up becoming a new investigator. His name is Shin. He's from China and he is so prepared! We met him on Wednesday and gave him a church tour for about 40 minutes then he headed home but he prayed said he felt the spirit and at one point told us that after his first time at church that he thinks he'll be able to decide whether he wants to be a member or not. He is full of faith and he light of Christ. It was incredible to find and teach him this last week and he can potentially be baptized in about 3 weeks so hopefully that will happen!

So here is a crazy miracle we saw this week. We had Stake Priesthood Meeting this last Tuesday where basically we do all the coordination with the stake for our investigators and zones. That basically went right up to our curfew, 9:00 ish so we were definitely going to be late coming home because we still had at least a 30 minute train ride and a decent walk to get home. So in the station we were about to get on the train but felt like we should wait a few minutes for the next one and got on the later one. Upon entering the train we were super tired so we just leaned up against the door and kind of just started discussing what happened at SPM and stuff when we notice a guy looking at our name tags funny. So we casually say hello to him and he immediately asks us where we are from. Then one thing lead to another and he was asking about Christianity. Then we set up a time to meet him and gave him a Book of Mormon to study in the mean time. It was way cool and we felt really guided. Then we met him last night and did part of a church tour part of the restoration with him and he just soaked it all up so he is going to try to come to church this week or maybe next week and hopefully within the transfer get baptized! Its crazy we have lots of plans!

Also here is a funny story. So after Eikaiwa we were talking with an investigator and he was kind of avoiding our lesson appointments so we asked when he could meet and he said for his daily run on Saturday. He said it not expecting to gaijin from America to accept that but we said "Ok see you at 3!" and blew his mind. However here is when it gets funny or sad I'm not sure but we got to the run and about 3 miles into the 13.4 that we had planned I realized I forgot my inhaler... well at about the 7th mile I hadn't yet had an attack but it was pretty dang hard to breathe so I accidentally by forgetting my inhaler proved his stereotype about Americans true! Ridiculous! It actually ended up helping us build a better relationship with him though so we are really glad we went out on a whim and showed him how determined we are so it was great!

So that was my week in a nutshell! I hope you all had a good week as well, it sound a bit like mom and dad are feeling sick but i hope you get feeling better you're in my prayers! Everyone make sure you have a great week this week, go out and do something adventurous and let me know about it next week! I love you all and wish you the best!

Elder Gailey

Coming Home from Stake Priesthood Meeting