Week 11

Haha, this is so weird with me being at my mission a week earlier :). I keep saying my last transfer whenever someone asks, but this is my first transfer, but I still was here last transfer.... Anyway, it's confusing, but awesome! 

Transfers rolled out last week and we were in Florence. Florence is in the most southern zone of the Gilbert Mission. But my companion Elder Bodily and I got transferred up to the most Northern zone, bluewashed an area (where Elders take over a ward that Sisters were previously serving in) and to put a cherry on top, blank areabook! No whiteboard, nothing. Meaning: we had no information on people the previous missionaries were meeting with and had to start from scratch. Thankfully we met with the ward missionary leaders (we cover two wards) and now we have some things we can work on. But it's crazy, there hasn't been any progress for 1-2 months in this area, because the past Sisters, one got her visa to Brazil and the other one died (mission lingo for she finished her mission, don't freak out :) ). But now we can get these lessons going and get some progress! 

A cool moment we had this past week was during night contacting. So we felt inspired after a prayer to visit a particular family. It was weird because on our map, their address was XXX but on the map it showed it to be YYY. My companion felt to go to the address written in, so that's where we went. We got there and knocked and..... nothing. We went to the other contacts beside them and still nothing. Afterwards when we were talking, we both voiced basically the same thing in our head. "Why did we feel good about coming to this family? Why did we feel good to go to a door and have it not be opened?" A couple minutes later we decided to visit a family that was up on the next street. We felt good about him and went and he answered! Due to circumstances in his life, he hasn't held a calling for the past several years and has been home for the past year. He's basically very sick and you can't tell unless he tells you. But we knew we were there to cheer him up. He's a strong member, we didn't go and teach him, we didn't go and got him to be baptized. We were there because God knew that this Brother needed someone to talk to. After a while into our conversation he asked, "Did the Stake President send you?" We said no, he thought we were joking at first :). Then he asked again, differently, "Did the Bishop send you?" And again we said no. And that was a tender mercy for him and us. An angel didn't appear to him and give him words of comfort. God sent two 18 year old missionaries and that was what he need. Very humbling to see that even though we are imperfect and by ourselves we are a stumbling block for God's work, God still uses us to answer our people's prayers. I know that we went to his house for a purpose and that was to simply cheer him up. Awesome experience!

My Japanese is still ok :)! Thankfully I have Sisters in my mission that were in the same Japanese District as me in the MTC and my mission President is going to let us video call to practice Japanese. I think I've said this already, but hearing it again won't kill you :). 

Also in my ward there's a cool brother who speaks Japanese and a sister from Japan. So I'll be getting some good SYL from them :). Arizona is great and I've been loving it. Two Elders from my District, Elder Rahm and Wixom, had some photos from their mission and man I thought I was going to cry. Don't get me wrong, I love Arizona and the people here, buuuut, there's something left to be desired with the endless dirt, rocks, and cactuses. But there is beauty in all things and I won't deny, the sunsets here are spectacular. But man, the pictures they sent, wooo! They were good pictures. Anyway, I got a dinner in 34 minutes and I need to shower. Ahhhh! 

Bye!!! P.S. sorry if this email is bouncing everywhere with ideas/topics, lots of thoughts to gather :).

みなさんをあいしています

ロバートソン長老