1/19/15 - Takaoka - Elder Tsuru
Well things have been a blur this last week so I will try to get everything
straight.
Tuesday we had transfers and so we went to the Station in Nagoya to find
our new companions. I had to pack my bike on the trains with me which is kind of
a pain but you gotta do what you gotta do. It was a lot of fun at the station
because we got to see everyone. Elder Larson was there and a lot of people that
left the MTC with me. It was so good to see how well everyone was doing. My new
companion Elder Tsuru is awesome. He is from Brazil and he is a ton of fun. We
hit it off right away. He is very hard working and is so good at Japanese
already and he is not afraid to speak at all. All of the missionaries in the
Kanazawa zone took the same train back to our zone. It was a 4 hour train ride.
But a ton of fun. We shared so many hilarious stories and the time flew
by.
We are in an apartment with 4 elders. Elder Tsuru is the only one of the 4
that stayed. Elders Gacilan and Hastriter are whitewashing the other area. The
apartment was kind of trashed when we got here. We have already taken out 10
bags of trash. Kind of ridiculous but it happens. We are going to need to do
some deep cleaning today to get this place back in shape. It is a big apartment
though and it looks like the area has a lot of good potential. The grossest thing we
have found so far was when we moved the dryer we found a bunch of mold behind
it. The dryer had been hooked up to a makeshift vent thing right out the balcony
door and the wood covering the gap had molded. The other elders cut it out and
replaced the wood to fix it. Who knows what other surprises we will find
here.
As for my new area it is awesome. So so so much potential. We have already found 3 new
investigators and the other elders have found 4. We had 1 eternal investigator
when I got here and one solid one with a baptism date. We are going to put this
place on the mission map! As for the ward they are amazing. There are about 30
active members and a lot of part member families. The bishop is amazing and so
is the ward mission leader. They are always so ready to help. I am excited to be
working with them. One of our investigators that we found talked to us and
shared a lot of things but we didn't understand hardly any of it. Japanese is
still so difficult when people just start talking about random things but if I
know what is going on I can understand most of it. The ward members were
impressed with my Japanese when I got up in church to do a self introduction and
they couldn't believe that I have only been here for 6 months. Truly I have
received the Lord's blessings.
As for the area it is cold. It has rained 3 times and snowed 2 days so far.
We really bundle up everyday before we go out. I have been wearing at least 3 or
four layers every day. Because it snows so much here they have these interesting
things all over the city. They are sprinklers in the roads. When it snows
instead of plowing the roads they just wash them. The sprinklers just spray and
wash everything down the drain. We are close to the coast so we think they just
use ocean water to do it but we aren't sure yet. It is strange but hey it works!
Takaoka is a lot smaller than Gifu and so we don't have as many people to talk
to on the streets but that doesn't stop us. I have decided that some
missionaries when the weather gets cold or conditions aren't right don't think
that they could do as much as if the weather was good. I think that is
completely wrong. Why would God let anything slow down his work? If missionary
work was not successful in the snow we wouldn't have missionaries serving in it.
This is the Lords work and if we put our trust in him we will be able to
accomplish our purpose here. I am sure of it. Already in this last week we have
found more investigators than were found in the whole last transfer. I love it
here!
Something fun that happened this last week is since I don't know the area
at all we have been exploring and getting a feel for the area. On Thursday it
was raining and it was way cold. We were out and I told Elder Tsuru that I am
going to get us lost and then you can get us back home. And lost we did get. We
got so turned around on all the streets and with no landmarks we ended up going
way north when we thought that we were going south. It was so cold. We stopped
and talked to a guy to ask him were the station was and he kind of laughed
because we were going the wrong way. He pointed us back in the right direction
and we started back off the way we had just come. Elder Tsuru was freezing
because he didn't have his rain pants on and so he was soaked. But despite the
rain and the cold we still talked to a lot of people on the way home. He is a
trooper. The world needs more people like him.
-Spiritual thought-
Something that I witnessed first hand this week was that if we put our
trust in the Lord and keep doing the things that we know we should then he will
help everything work out. It has been an adventure transferring here as senior
companion but it has been very good. I have had to put my trust in God and that
he will help everything go as it should. I didn't stress out over the little
things this week and just focused on being a missionary. I did my part and the
Lord helped the rest fall into place. The biggest thing was at church we had our
Inv with a baptismal date coming to the Eki and someone from the ward was
picking him up. I had no idea how any of this was going to work but I felt that
all of Sunday just flowed so smoothly and there were no problems at all. I just
put myself where I needed to be and the Lord helped me. I know it is not always
this easy but if we are doing what we are supposed to we can qualify for the
help of the Lord. I always want to be in the qualifying spot.
Well have a great week everyone!
-Elder Esplin
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