WELP

September 30, 2013

I know I say this basically every week, but I can not believe how fast the time here is going!! The weeks just keep getting faster and faster!!! NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!! 

Well this week was interesting. We`ve seen both the good, the bad, and the funny. 

Let`s start with the good. Shall we.... 

First of all. The good news always has to start with M**** San! Wow!! I am blown away by him every week. He is just so solid! He loves the gospel, and knows that it is helping him. He really doesn`t have any big concerns, his main thing is that he wants to understand everything in his mind as well as his heart. To me the gospel makes sense in both. But for someone who has never heard something like this before, and who is a scientist and likes experiments, it`s been a little bit challenging. But he really believes and is willing to walk by faith and continue on. 

In fact, this week he passed his baptismal interview!! Yay!! So he is all set and ready to go to be baptized this next Sunday!! I seriously can`t wait! And obviously we are so excited, but the ward is also just thrilled. They need some strong people to be baptized. Honestly, most of the baptisms here over the past couple of years are people who are a little mentally unstable and need a lot of help, or are all less active. I think that has been really hard with the ward and their faith. 

But they see Matsuzaki at church every week, and while talking with him they realizing how strong he is.  This has been so good. Thye all seem to have a new excitement in missionary work. Hopefully this will be the spring board into even more miracles. :) 

Then there is the beloved Y**** Kyodai. I love that old grandpa so much! He loves church, and you can tell he wants to make it a part of him, he is just scared to let go and fully embrace it. But we are slowly making progress.  I think his heart is warming up more than it was in the past. 

And in regards to the rest of our investigators...Ya. That`s probably the bad. We had lessons with a lot of them this week. Unfortunately most of the lessons ended with them saying something like this, `I can tell that you really believe this, and that you care about I, but I`m not willing to change my beliefs to conform with yours. There are lots of different paths to the top of the mountain. You take yours, and I`ll take mine.` When I tell them that we aren`t climbing a mountain, they beg to differ and politely bow out. Ugh! 

With the rest of our investigators, honestly, no one will answer the phone. So we unfortunately had to drop them. 

There was a lot of dropping of investigators this week. And of course me and Crofts Shimai are sad about that. We want our investigators to just take what we are handing out for free. But we aren`t discouraged. Maybe this `purge` if you could call it that, is what we need to start a fresh. Now we have more time to focus on those who are willing to change and want to accept the gospel. So, I am excited about that. 

To end on a lighter note....On Saturday we had a ward BBQ.  Japanese BBQ`s are a LOT different from American BBQ`s...but it was still fun. :) 

The funny part is that on the way to the BBQ, which was an hour away, Croft Shimai`s tire popped. Luckily a member was nice and fixed it at the BBQ. But, we left the BBQ kind of late and didn`t have very much time to make it to the church for M****'s baptismal interview. We were peddling SO hard. We made it just in time. But right as we got to the church Croft Shimai`s other tire popped. 

Oh goodness. Well, it was a blessing that it didn`t pop until we got to the interview, or else we would have been in big trouble. 

Well, I love you all so much! Have a splendid week!! 

Love, 

Dobson Shimai 

Here are pictures of the ward BBQ