Fukishima etc.

Hey everyone! This week has been, unfortunately, a bit slow, but it was still pretty good!

So, first things first, we can use bikes again! The snow hasn`t completely melted, but the roads and sidewalks, at least, are clear enough to make travel safe again. You wouldn`t believe how nice that is! Trips that used to take more than an hour take less than half an hour now and we don`t have to pay for a bus fare. There are rumors that it could snow again, but at least it won`t be bad enough to stop us at this point!

We hardly had any lessons this week, unfortunately. We taught "S"-san on splits about the Word of Wisdom, which he said isn`t possible at this point, and taught "-kun about the importance of God. In addition, we taught "S"-san; we were going to teach about repentance, but she had a lot of questions from her reading in the Book of Mormon, so we spent the whole hour focused on that. It`s kind of crazy how much more she reads from the Book of Mormon now than when I first came here to Yonezawa. She said she would try to come to church yesterday, but something came up so she couldn`t.

On Friday, we went to Yamagata for our Zone Training Meeting followed by a dinner appointment in a town between there and Yonezawa. I made a mistake and ate a lot of Indian curry and bread before and could hardly eat anything that the Yoshida family made for us. Just when I thought we were safe, she brought out a huge cake for the missionaries` birthdays (we all have March or April birthdays). The pieces were almost as big as American cake slices. It was intimidating, though I`m now worried that there`s no way I`ll be able to readjust to American food. The family is really good and wants to do what they can to help their friends learn about the gospel.

We went to Fukushima and back yesterday, which was fun! I didn`t end up having to teach a lesson, which was kind of a relief for me. They were having a White Day shokujikai (lunch), which I enjoyed immensely. It was a lot bigger than Yonezawa`s. The members were as nice as usual, with some asking me questions about English, the Chinese lady talking to me as if I perfectly understood her, etc. We also saw a singing competition in front of Fukushima station with some gospel music! It was pretty interesting. A group of girls tried there best to talk to us in English and were shocked to find that we can actually speak Japanese. It`s always fun to do that!

I think that`s about it for this week! I`ll try to send pictures, because I actually have one of our district! The rest of the p-day time will probably be spent picking classes for BYU and enjoying district p-day! Yay for 17 Miracles!

Talk more next week!

Aishiteimasu!

Elder Kirk Earl

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