Hi y’all! ( ｀・∀・´)ﾉ ﾖﾛｼｸｰ

Week 1 in Tsuyama!>

I have a special feeling about this place. While riding the train here (alone with my thoughts), I was wondering what my purpose was for coming here and I just felt an impression along the lines of, “Love the people here like you did in Abeno.” I was worried at first, but the peace and comfort I felt coming here soon far surpassed the anxiety and discomfort I had originally.

Tsuyama is this tiny adorable mountain village. People are so nice and want talk to us. It’s beautiful. Rice paddies everywhere. Actually, so far in my time here, I actually like it a lot more than Osaka. It’s quiet and a little healing for me from Abeno. Osaka was amazing, but the daily grind of streeting in Japan’s second largest city definitely wore me out. I’m excited to take things a little slower in a much smaller area.

All of our friends here are adorable little obaasans/ojiisans (old grandparents). Which is fun, but also difficult in a way! They have 50+ years of life on you. They’ve experienced way more than I ever have. And they speak really strange Japanese. I thought my Japanese was fluent when I lived in Osaka… boy was I wrong! They’re the sweetest bunch though. And even though teaching them about Jesus Christ is a really slow process, I see a lot of potential in them. This week, I even had the opportunity to go to a dog café with a few of them. It was the best.

This place is incredibly rural. It really feels like I’m in some mountain jungle. There’s about 40 seats in our little chapel and about 18 that are actually filled. I hope we can see the Lord’s hand in our efforts as we work diligently! Coming here, I felt that working with the inactive families would see the most success. My companion and I talked with the Branch President on my way to our apartment about how we could best support the branch, and I was glad to hear that the Branch President also heavily emphasized the importance of working with the inactive members here. We visited around 25 inactive member’s houses last week, shared a message with 5 and were able to obtain follow up appointments then too. We stopped everyone we saw on the way, which was honestly awesome. People in Tsuyama are way nicer than those in Osaka.

One day we felt like we should stop by this one person’s house who had been taught once or twice… my companion and I ended up teaching him! It answered a lot of questions he had about our religion… but he still asked so many. He’s a firm believer that Buddhism is way more peaceful than Christianity, since there’s been no war in Japan since he was born (around 70-80 years ago). Well, I didn’t really wanna get into the politics of it, so I just decided to teach that Christ’s original church from the earth disappeared and was restored by Joseph Smith. He seemed to understand that answer! But when I tried to tie it into the Book of Mormon and asked him to read it, he said no because the print was too small and he doesn’t like reading. He said we could come again to his house anytime, though I’m not sure how far he’ll get as a teaching friend right now. He’s coming to our English class Thursday though as a “trial”! I’ll talk to him more then. There were a few more people we invited to church and English class along the way too, but this one felt a little special.

I was also reminded about how quickly the end of Matthew feels. I feel like I finally just barely got to know Christ from its pages and then I’m pretty abruptly asked to go, teach, and baptize all nations. I mean, after all the apostles experienced, some still doubted the reality of Christ (Matthew 28:17). I just finished merely reading about Him! Can’t you give me just a minute to breathe? To enjoy the resurrection of Christ? The ingenuity of the scripture is that the book ends fast so that we go and practice His work. His message is communicated to us and the purpose of Matthew’s record is done. And by ending the book so short, Matthew implicitly promises that when we go to work and make disciples of Christ, the Lord will be with us (“Lo, and I am with you alway”). I testify of the joy that following Christ brings. It is incredible to be given the privilege to see that first hand on a mission. I love working hard on the mission – it really is impossible to feel anything but joy when you devote yourself to the Lord’s work.

There’s a typhoon this week hitting Japan. Sounds like this week will be fun for that reason. And I’ve received notice that I’ll be staying with this companion for the entirety of next transfer too! I really look forward to spending more time with Elder Bell. He’s a super awesome companion.

じゃあね(^o^)/

Elder Son