Farm Visit and Typhoon

皆さん、おはようございます！

This week has been a pretty good one out here in Hachinohe.

After emailing you last week, we went to a member`s farm out in the country. While most of the Japanese countryside is endless rice fields, this farm was more Western looking, with a barn, farmhouse, horse-pasture, and quite a few farm animals. It was fun being able to see cats again! We were only expecting a few people to be there, but we ended up holding a birthday party for a nine year old member of the branch! It was fun celebrating with all the members and enjoying the tasty food they had brought for the occasion. I`ll send pictures separately.

Also, we got hit by a typhoon, which actually wasn`t too bad in Hachinohe at least. The roof tiles blew off of a nearby home, which was fairly scary, but nothing too dangerous. We weren`t allowed to ride bikes while it was raining, due to fears of sudden flash floods, so we rode by bus to an area called Korekawa in search of LA`s. As usual, we weren`t able to contact any of them, but we did see both an Eikaiwa student and a Shuwa Circle friend. The shuwa lady was the same one that I had talked to about prayer, but this time we just talked about Eikaiwa, which she expressed moderate interest in. I think that the gospel would probably be of more interest to her, but we`ll see how things develop.

I got to teach two investigator lessons this week, which was the first time in a while. "Bob", the American pastor, pretty much told us that we`re going to Hell despite being good people, due to our belief in the Godhead and the Book of Mormon. He really cares about us, so he tries as hard as he can to convince us that we should follow Jesus Christ correctly. This is pretty much the same way we feel about him. Our lesson started with him talking about Ebola, so the lesson had a rather heavy atmosphere the whole time, but we managed to share our testimonies of the Book of Mormon and help him understand how we actually believe in it. We also taught "A" -san about the Word of Wisdom. Because we had helped him carry rice to his apartment, he was in a better mood than usual. He says that he has to quit smoking anyways, but the other stuff will be difficult (and smoking will still be really hard, even though he has a strong desire to stop).

That pretty much sums up our week! This coming week should be good! Tomorrow is splits with the Zone Leaders here in Hachinohe, on Saturday we have a Halloween Party in Misawa with all the Americans, and Elder Fox is going to Sendai to get his wisdom teeth pulled out, so we`ll be in a threesome for about a week.

Aishiteimasu!

Elder Earl