Muroran Week 4

Hello there!

Kind of shocking that I'm already halfway through transfer 2. Here's my report for the week.

 

Tuesday: had Zone Conference Meeting. Gave my workshop on joy. I'll share a bit on that in a sec. Other than that, pretty basic day. Did some dendo. Visited a sick member. Had sports night. There was a high schoolish kid who came who was a non-member, so that was great. He gave me a tip or two on shooting hoops.

 

Wednesday: not too much happened today. Lots of searching, little finding.

 

Thursday: weekly planning today. I tried messaging of our investigators who's a college student, shared a scripture. Asked for some of his thoughts on it, (still hasn't responded). Just trying to let him know we know he exists between meetings. Made a bookmark for Sakamoto-san at a 7-11 with a picture of Jesus Christ. The printer gave us a hard time for a while, until we finally realized we had to convert the picture from .png to .jpg. The wind also started to really pick up today. There was literally nobody at eikaiwa today, so we waited 30 minutes, then did some housing.

 

Friday: Went tracting out in the snow today. Didn't find anybody, but some people pitied us walking around housing in the cold. The hope is somebody will think, "Man, why are these young boys doing this out in the freezing cold? They must have a pretty good message!" Anything it takes to bring people closer to Christ. Also, kids eikaiwa was interesting. I'm kinda glad there were only a couple kids, cause "5 little Christmas Trees" is a little too advanced for them 😭. I'll probably just have to do songs like "Once There Was a Snowman" or "We Wish You A Merry Christmas". Oh well. Also, did a water blowout today, or at least tried to. We followed some instructions, which were somewhat vague in a place or two.

 

 

Saturday: housed a bit in the morning, and met some Jehovah's Witness people out doing the same thing. Figured we should move to a different area. Got the tickets for our splits in Hakodate. I'm starting to see why our leaders want us to keep 10,000 yen on hand. Also, took the True North test for Japanese. Have yet to receive the results of how fluent I am. It mostly had me listen to phrases once and then try to repeat them. It got pretty rough at the end. A super nice member gave us deer meat and deer liver. Met a guy while streeting who had a bit of interest. We're meeting him this Saturday at Mr. Donut. Finally, did some housing, picked the deer meat up at the church, went to the apartment, went back to the church, grabbed the keys we left there, then came all the way back.

 

Sunday: got that break-up letter from Sakamoto-san. Bummer. Pretty good day other than that. Had some of the deer meat. Not a fan of the liver, but the regular meat was delicious!

The break-up letter: their one investigator left a letter at the church for the missionaries, letting them know he didn't want to meet with them anymore.

 

Monday: man, a little while after we stopped talking, it rained HARD. I am loving that compact umbrella I can keep in my bag's bottle holder. I just hope the wind doesn't destroy it someday. Went and did shopping after a bit of dendo. After putting everything away and getting the remaining stuff packed up, we had to run (literally) to the train station for Hakodate. And now we're sitting safely on board. I'm typing this, and I just finished a delicious bento of katsu.

Today, on P-Day, Elder Brown and his companion traveled to Hakodate (another area in their district) to meet up with the missionaries there.  There is a companionship of Elders and a set of Sisters serving there.  They were planning to do an activity together on P-day.  And then Elder Brown & his companion will stay in Hakodate with the other Elders and do a couple days of splits before returning to Muroran.

 

Let's see, my Joy workshop.

The brunt of it was me sharing three things I found gave me joy in the past couple transfers as I've started as a missionary. They were staying focused on what's most important, truly giving our all, and knowing what we have. One of the quotes I shared was from I think my favorite talk of last general conference.

 

Terence M. Vinson, "True Disciples of our Savior"
Giving our all doesn’t mean that we will be continually enveloped in blessings or always have success. But it does mean that we will have joy. Joy is not fleeting pleasure or even temporary happiness. Joy is enduring and is founded on our efforts being accepted by the Lord.

 

I should frame that and put that in every apartment I go to. As long as we're focused, diligent, and have the right attitude, we can have joy no matter what.

 

(Exhale)

Aishiteimasu!

See you next Wednesday, probably.

Elder Brown