This week was pretty normal. It was all pretty normal UNTIL I FLIPPN' BECAME AN UNCLE YESTERDAY!!!!!!!!!!! TOTALLY WAS THE ONLY THING I COULD THINK ABOUT FOR THE REST OF SUNDAY XD
But wait, I'm getting a little ahead of myself. Let me backtrack a bit XD…
After emailing on Monday, we got groceries, stuff, and visited the couple missionaries. The husband is still in the hospital, but hopefully he will be released soon. Apparently Japanese people will go to the hospital for colds and low fevers. They freak out a bit if they even think they are getting sick. They do the whole mask thing if they cough twice I swear. After Preparation Day time we went out a ways to visit a potential investigator. She is from Singapore but speaks fluent English. She teaches English out of her home. She is way nice and loves the missionaries, just not when they move. She told me about the time she got really upset with a particular missionary because he had been in Sumoto for seven and a half months and then got transferred XD We weren't able to talk with her much before her English class, but we shared the #Hallelujah church video and invited her to look on lds.org to learn more about Easter. We helped her teach English then headed home to end our day.
So, little side note: Many of the cars over here have similar, or the same, body styles as those of their American counterparts. However, almost all of them go under a different name. Either that or they will be sold under a different brand--so all of the Scion and Infiniti cars are sold under Toyota and Nissan respectively. So the Scion XB is sold under Toyota and the Infiniti M is sold under Nissan. And I lied when I said Daughtsun is a thing here, turns out what I thought was Daughtsun (I have no idea how to spell it) is actually Daihatsu. And Suzuki is a much bigger brand here than in America. Here, Suzuki is comparable to Hyundai on popularity.
I can't really remember what happened on Tuesday (that's what happens when I don't write throughout the week). And looking in the Area Book doesn't help because my companion writes everything in Japanese XD I know we did service at a care center and the old people couldn't get over how big I am. I also know we did Eikaiwa. That was good--we talked about body parts and stuff. I felt really awkward because the class wasn’t all that responsive XD But it was good.
Wednesday was good. By the way, it's been mild this whole week--partly sunny with warm winds. Yesterday was the star of some rain which has continued into today. But yeah, Wednesday was good. We did service at a day care center. The White Handbook says we can't to stuff at day care centers, but apparently we have special permission from Welch Kaicho. So we played with kids for a couple of hours. I tried to teach one of the kids how to say, "What’s up". I tried to explain that it's a combination of hello and how are you. He didn't get it XD After that we went out to see the bishop. He wasn't home, but we were able to teach his wife in the geinkan. We taught about the importance of following prophets, especially with General Conference this weekend (for us in Japan). Then she gave us doughnuts! やった (yes)!
Thursday was super busy. We visited the couple missionaries in the hospital. Then we had lunch with a member and then celebrated her birthday with cake. Then we tried to do Weekly Planning in 45 minutes and it didn't work XD We tried to visit a lot of potential investigators but a lot of them weren't home. We met a grandma and grandpa with their grandson running a mochi cart. We talked to them about the church and they thought what we’re doing is great. They gave us a lot of free mochi which was great! Yep, I don’t remember the rest of the day, but I know it was good.
So, the Sumoto Castle looks like it's the smallest castle in Japan. I'll send pictures when I visit. But, to give you kind of an idea: Matsue Castle is the second-largest in Japan, and Sumoto Castle looks like it is 1/4 that size. Buts it has a beautiful location atop the neighboring hill, I bet it's a beautiful view from there.
Friday we woke up early to travel to District Meeting. We cross the Kobe Bridge every time for District and Zone meetings. We discussed preparing spiritually. With General Conference coming up it has been on the minds of many missionaries. After District Meeting we had kōkans with the district leaders. We did service for one of the members, a lot of yard work which I loved because no one has given us opportunities to do manual labor service yet. Then they fed us a ton of snacks. After that, I went with the district leader to visit two members. One a less-active and one a recent convert. Both have strong testimonies and both are good people. After that we went back to their apartment to end our day.
We woke up normal time on Saturday to head home. We got back in time to change for more service. We were helping an Amerika-Jin member move stuff from his friend's old apartment to his friend's new apartment. It was great, the member is awesome. He wants to have an eternal family with his wife, but it's a little bit of a struggle. He likes us, and so does the family. Be he has told us that it needs to be taken slowly. It was good service! After that we visited the couple missionaries to talk with them about branch presidency meeting, since he was in the hospital. The husband is the first counselor and my companion, Yamamoto Chōrō, is the second counselor. After that we had dinner before branch presidency meeting. Then they had branch presidency meeting. I tried to follow along, but he branch president uses very informal Japanese so I wasn't able to follow along very well. After that we ended our day.
Sunday was good, as always. Our Branch President was able to come so that was nice. Like I said before, all of our meetings are halved because of our small size so we were done by 11:30-12:00. We took the sacrament to a couple of members because they are confined to their homes. I tried to say the sacrament prayer in Japanese and it didn't work. XD In the MTC they have the prayers written out in Romaji, so you are reading English characters. But here it's written in Hiragana and Kanji which means I took forever trying to say that we will always have the spirit of sweet bean paste to be with us, rather than the spirit of Christ...yeah XD Gotta love it. After taking the sacrament we visited a progressing investigator. Right now he is really struggling with feelings of worthiness. We taught the Atonement of Christ and tried to help him with these feelings. I hope and pray that he will find resolution. After him we had dinner with a member--the same member that we had Easter dinner with. She made us awesome beef stew, salad, pasta, and rice. It was really good, but my stomach was not doing well. At first I just thought it was hunger pains when it started after our visit with the progressing investigator. But by the time we started dinner it had grown a bit. By the time I was done with dinner it was kind of severe. I couldn't focus on the conversation so I just tried to blend into the wall while I dealt with the pain. But about 30 minutes later the pain disappeared. Completely gone, in the turn of a second. It was very strange. The thing is, I had a similar stomach pain two months before, in February, that occurred on Fast Sunday. It might be a pattern, I'll keep an eye on it next Fast Sunday.
Today we cleaned, studied, good stuff. After mailing we are planning to do shopping and such. Yay! It's still rainy so we aren't doing much outside for Preparation Day. After our preparation time we are planning on visiting the woman who teaches English. We want to invite her to watch General Conference so we will see how that goes.
I want to testify to you guys that I know God is literally our Father in Heaven. He loves us so much. Never forget that.
いつもあいしています (always with love)!
Elder Peacock
P.S.
I'M FREAKING AN UNCLE!!!
XD
Sent from my iPad
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