First off. It's official! We have the keys to the room we will have church in Saijo!!! We probably won't have church there till maybe the 15, but from now on we can use it for lessons and for all sorts of stuff! It's so great! I'm so dang excited!!!!!!!! =D =D
Sho has had his struggles, but he is getting closer and closer to baptism every day. He will probably be baptized in the next two weeks! I'm so excited for him! He's already given up tea, which was pretty hard for him. He doesn't think he has that much faith, but he really truly does!
Also we had three thanksgiving dinners this week. Man am I stuffed! Two of them were with american families in Hiroshima and the third is actually a bit of a thanksgiving miracle.
So a senior couple here in Hiroshima Zone was thinking a while back, Hey lets get the missionaries at our place for a zone thanksgiving dinner. But then as the zone grew and grew from 18 to now like 40 they realized we needed it at the church. So they went to costco and asked them if they could cook the turkeys in the ovens at costco since the church didn't have room for turkeys. But they said they wouldn't. Undeterred Elder Schroeder wrote a letter to the CEO of Costco essentially saying, There are 38 young men and women serving as volunteers for two years far away from their family, and we just want to give them a thanksgiving dinner, we will still love costco if you can't help, but we would love to just give them a good thanksgiving dinner. So the CEO got that letter and then called the head of the costco here and said, "Give these people everything they need to have a thanksgiving dinner" So we had a thanksgiving dinner entirely paid for by Costco. It was so delicious and it really helped me feel God's love despite being so far away from home.
Another miracle is haven't been able to meet Gary lately, but we ran into him and his wife at the 100 yen store the other day. It was such a random chance, but it allowed us to talk to his wife, (who we havent seen in 3 months and is what is holding him back) and helped us to be able to hopefully get her and them to something where they can feel the members love, so that she will be okay with Gary being baptized. He is so close!
Then on Tuesday night we were housing and we met a man named Morita san. At first he said, " Oh I'm buddhist" "Cool you're buddhist? What do you believe as a buddhist?" we replied. "I actually don't believe anything" (Which is pretty typical of the "buddhists" here. So we both laughed with him. (He's a super cheery guy) Then shared some of our message and he said "Oh Im not really interested) But for some reason I felt impressed to share how before I came to Japan I didn't like curry and wasn't interested in eating it, but now after I tried it I love it. And he was like "Ahhhh now I see haha" "So can we can come back and visit and share our message?" "sure" he said, so we set an appointment to come back thursday night.
Thursday night we went back, and I wasn't sure if he would let us or not, but we came and he let us come into his house, (actually pretty dang rare) and we sat down. He brought out his 1 year old child (so so cute) and we talked and shared the message of the restoration with him. He went from "Oh im not interested" on tuesday, to at the end where he said he was "kyomi bukai" or "full of interest/really interested" That is the one word every Japanese missionary wants to hear! We have been praying and fasting to find a family this month for Saijo. And since that we went from having all single investigators to now, more than half of our investigators or potential ones are now families including two other families we've found in the last two and a half week that might listen. "Ask and ye shall receive knock and it shall be opened unto you"
This gospel is so true and changes the lives of so many! Thank you for all your support! I love you all so much!
Love,
Elder Walton
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