Last week of August in Hachinohe

    Picture is from his last area but I love it!          

Hey everybody! This week, like pretty much every other one, has been pretty good!

First of all, we have started going to Japanese class here. Not only is it a good way to improve our language skills, but we`ve also been able to meet lots of new people and have a chance to share the gospel with them! It`s generally easier to talk to other foreigners about the gospel, not really for language reasons but because of the cultural background. It`s interesting how most foreigners know who we are and what we do, but the Japanese are generally pretty unaware of what it is we do. The good thing is that we can talk to the teachers and other Japanese volunteers as well, so I think that this class is going to really help a lot! Our `shuwa` class has also been good for getting to know new people. I was able to talk about prayer to one of the other students, and during the time after class where everyone talks about what they did and what they liked (I call it `akashikai` or `testimony meeting`), the student talked about how she enjoyed our discussion on prayer. It was cool to have a more natural way to talk about what we believe.

Unfortunately, we weren`t able to teach any lessons at all last week. "A" san fell asleep in our first visit, and the second time he had visitors come, and since his apartment can only fit about two people at a time, we had to `shitsure shimasu`. We`ll have plenty of chances to get him taught this week at least!

We also made a new Eikaiwa poster! I had to wear it, I think to emphasize my gaijin height, and we went to the main street here and tried to bring anyone we could to Eikaiwa. We had a kind of crazy guy talk to us, he said that we were weak people because we`re religious. My companion said good-bye to him in the middle of his rant, which really confused the guy. We also had the infamous `pink house guy` come to the church and complain about everything. Branch leaders say that he comes every year, basically opposite Christmas. So, yeah, along with Hayakari Kyoudai saying things that we couldn`t understand, we`ve had an interesting week of crazies. Thankfully, though, we got our hometeaching finished yesterday and got pizza in return for teaching a lesson! I love good cooks!

That about finishes my week, but feel free to send any questions! Aishiteimasu!

Elder Earl