Another great week in the books! We had three investigators at church yesterday! Megumi Shimai came for the third week in a row and David came again as well. Masatoshi, who is also a yakusokusha, came for the first time. He stayed for all three hours and seemed to enjoy it. We also have an appointment with him tonight.
We had a really good lesson with David and Barbie this week. We talked about setting a specific goal to go to the temple together and how we felt about it. We committed them to pray about it and David said he was thinking by 2015 they could be married. It was a really spiritual lesson and we are seeing more and more progress with them.
Megumi Shimai is still moving along. We weren't able to get an appointment for this week, but we have two for next week. She also doesn't know her schedule for the month of October, but hopefully she can come to church a lot. She has really enjoyed church every time she comes and she keeps all of her commitments as well.
We met with our investigator named Ryan. He is from Washington, but works for Boeing here in Japan. We went over to his house on Friday night and when we rang the doorbell no one answered, so we walked back to our bikes. We were standing there talking about another lesson we had and then Ryan came out of his house and said we woke him up. He let us inside, we talked for awhile and then shared a message about the Book of Mormon. He is agnostic, so he doesn't really believe in a religion but believes in God. He had some really good questions as we were talking about the Book of Mormon and we left him with a copy. He said he'll read a little bit and he promised he wouldn't throw it away. He seemed really interested and seemed like he felt something as we bore testimony of the Book of Mormon.
This past week one of our investigators, Dylan, gave us a list of scriptures from the Bible that he felt rose questions with regards to the Plan of Salvation. Elder Ludlow and I had an opportunity to study it. It came to a point where we had to tell him about the other revealed books of scripture (Doctrine & Covenants, Pearl of Great Price) and modern revelation that give so much light to the Plan of Salvation. Once we established that, our discussion went smoothly. We were able to share with him a section of D&C that explains the Kingdoms of Glory and he was interested in getting copies of D&C and PoGP. He seems to be opening up more to the church. Our lesson with him on Friday was one of our best that we've had so far.
Rumi Shimai is opening up to us a lot more. She feels like she has a "bad heart," as she put it in Japanese. We have stressed the importance of prayer and reading the Book of Mormon in connecting her with the grace of God and how it can help her overcome the bad feelings she has towards others and herself.
We had a comp exchange with the APs this week, which was great. We had a good day and it was a nice boost to our dendo. We also did an exchange with the Gifu Elders. I talked about becoming fishers of men with Elder Doll. We talked about forsaking all as Peter and the others did to follow Christ.
President Yamashita suggested that we do a 40 Day Fasting Relay in our wards for dendo success. We proposed it to the ward last month and we started last week. We are already seeing miracles from it. Both us and the other Elders had a great week last week full of success and big steps of progress.
We played softball with our ward on Saturday night. I was in the outfield with Elder Ludlow, which was a pretty good work out. Elder Dowe was on the opposite team and we were getting the ball to first base to get him out. He went for the slide and plowed the first baseman. Elder Dowe is a pretty big guy, so we were worried about our member on first. Later he trucked a fifteen-year-old who was guarding second, too. It was eventful night to say the least. I got a hold of one ball and set it way out to right-center field for a home run. I felt pretty good after that one.
This week we have a bunch of appointments scheduled and another exchange coming up. It's the last week of the transfer and things are changing a lot these days, so I'm thinking it's my last week in Gokiso. Stay tuned.
Well that's my bit. Love you all.
Love,
Elder Sanderson
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