Hi guys!!!

Thanks for your emails. I promise I read them! I’ll be better at responding… eventually.

We got two new people who came to church and they’re awesome! One was my friend Maria who we had met before. The other was Elvida, who is Maria’s friend. They both said they absolutely wanna come again! They’re Philippinas and it was just perfect timing that Elder Eslawan became my companion because Elvida can only speak Tagalog!! (Maria speaks Japanese, English, and Tagalog – all 100% fluently). Anyways it was such a miracle cause one day Maria asked if she can come for a Japanese lesson at the church (finally after two months of ghosting me…) and we were talking and I asked Maria, why did you wanna come to the Japanese lesson? You already speak perfect Japanese! And she responded, well, truthfully I wanted to go to church! So, we invited her to church on Sunday of course and she said she loved it and Elvira came too and was just crying the whole time. It was really sweet. And Maria is so awesome.

We also had another miracle with our friend Hiro! So we were at the matsuri last week but we wanted water. Hiro wanted to go to the closer store, but I said nah, let’s go to the further one so the lines are shorter. We ended up running into his parents on the way there by complete chance(!) We briefly talked and introduced ourselves as the missionaries before hurrying off. Two days later, they both came to English class. We shared a short message about church and they were super interested! But they’re busy on Sunday with work. So we gave them the Book of Mormon, and they said they’ll read it. I’m hoping they can become lesson friends. That would be INSANE because I love Hiro and his parents are just as cool.

The ball has been tough to get rolling here in Tsuyama, like really rough, but we’ve got it going again perhaps? Members are starting to lighten up *a little* (it’s really the hardest part about missionary work in Japan. I’ve never really had members that give referrals. Let me know if you have advice–!!!). But we’ve been working like crazy to find more people to teach (preferably those that don’t just want English but who actually want to learn), and with Hiro, Yuuka, Maria and Elvie in good spots I’m actually really happy and hopeful.

Unfortunately I got sick with a cold for a day, but I got a blessing and felt better after I decided to go out and work. We be workin’ for the man (God)!

This week was filled with actual miracles, I’m feeling lighter every day and glad to be working. Elder Eslawan is awesome. He also wears a vest on Sunday to church 🙂 We work hard, but we also just have a super fun time together. I hate housing tho and recently we’ve done a lot. It feels ineffective, but what can you do?

I recently read something about how every time we reach out to someone, even about something simple, you should point out beauty in every day situations (“those cows? i haven’t seen a cow that content since Moo Moo Meadows came out on Mario Kart Wii.”) Another way to create conversation is pointing out the absurdity of common things (“buying water bottles is for morons”). The idea is to knock people out of their comfortable ‘modernized coma’. I’ve been trying these conversational cues but just with Jesus Christ in my mind in every situation I can. It’s kinda interesting to see how people think (or don’t). Some actually take a minute to think about what we’re saying. You can see it lighten their face when they do. If they don’t? Not my problem lol. You can literally sense the difference between people who do and don’t listen though, you heard it from me first!! Listen to the message!

Love y’all, read your scriptures!!

Elder Son