It's a Bright White Wishy Wash

Hey there!

Last week right after email I realized I forgot all the details every one wants to hear. I am companions with Elder Roney in Gokiso in Nagoya City. It's about thirty minutes by train from the Mission Home. We have a zone of thirty-one missionaries and eleven total areas. I live with three other missionaries, Elder Roney, Elder Schade, and Elder Benzon. Elder Schade is from the same home ward as Elder Roney and Elder Schade goes home in three months. He is also our District Leader. Elder Benzon just finished training and he is the only remaining missionary in Gokiso after this last transfer. Elder Schade, Elder Roney, and I are new. Our district is four Elders and four Sisters. We are going to the Nagoya Castle next week!

So, this week has been a lot of fun. We had a pretty smooth transition for it being a white wash. Elder Ashcroft (one of the last Elders here) left a planner with a week's worth of stuff for us to do and we just had to fill in the blanks. We are getting our baptism by fire into the Zone Leader position as well. But things are going well.

We added two former investigators back into the investigator pool last week. One is a part member named Furuhashi Kyodai and another is a man named Tanaka Kyodai. Furuhashi Kyodai's whole family is less-active, but he loves the missionaries and invited us over for lunch next week. We will do FHEs with him to ease him into the Gospel more. Tanaka Kyodai has had trouble keeping commitments in the past, but we have only talked to him on the phone so far.

There is a recent convert here in Gokiso named Shito Kyodai. We have become pretty good friends with him. He is about 60 years old and has some trouble focusing on the lessons, but we're doing AB lessons with him now. He is pretty strong in the gospel.

There is an investigator here in Gokiso named Ito Megumi Shimai. She has been investigating the Gospel for at least three years. I actually taught her about a year ago when she was an investigator in Kasugai. When we met this week she was really surprised to see me again. I think that Elder Roney and I can help her overcome her concerns now and help her make the decision to be baptized. She has a very large knowledge of the Gospel and keeps commandments pretty well from what I understand. She just wants to pass a test for her work before she gets baptized, which only comes around every January. It will take some ponder and prayer, but I think we can help her.

One of my teachers from the MTC, Brother Nielsen, lives in my zone now and he came to get an old bike from us this week. It was so cool to see him and talk about the good ol' days from when I didn't know Japanese. He bought us some parfaits and we had a good time chatting. I get to do an exchange in the area he is in.

That's kind of the news for this week. Love you all.

Love,

Elder Sanderson