Hello there!
Transfer 2 coming to a close soon! Here's the weekly report.
Wednesday, Nov 26: for zone games, we were gonna do sports, but the gym was getting its ceiling painted, so we played signs and a liar game in another room. Had interviews, then camped out with the assistants to the President for the night with a bunch of other missionaries. There were like eight of us in total. Fun time.
Sapporo Temple in the snow
Thursday, Nov 28: Zone conference! Had a great time learning from the workshops and hanging out with the other missionaries. Between workshops, they do this thing called a Situational Solution. Basically, they call a random companionship to come up on the spot and are given a problem to act out. For instance: what do you do if your companion won't wake up in the morning? One person would pretend to be the disobedient missionary and the other would try to solve the problem (all in Japanese).
Minegishi 長老 and I got called up for one. The situation was the lesson is going too long, and your companion won't stop talking. Minegishi 長老 was the elder who was talking too long. He started talking on and on about the topic of sin to the person we were talking too. I interrupted and said this was important, but we probably don't have any time, so next time we should talk about that. I also added in Japanese, "Us taking up so much time is probably a sin." The whole zone got a good laugh out of that.
Also, we had an awesome lunch. I ordered a nice katsu cooked in egg. Thanksgiving feast of champions right there. After zone conference, went back to the assistants' apartment to grab my tablet, then walked through the torrents of snow to honbu, where we did some weekly planning while we waited for the time our bus would arrive.
It is a 2 hour bus ride from mission headquarters (Sapporo) to Muroran
Elder Brown and another Elder stood in front of the group and were recognized for their recent birthdays. He got to choose something from a gift basket and selected a tie.
The photo projected on the wall was taken in August when Elder Soares of the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles and his wife visited the mission (seated front and center). The entire mission gathered to hear him speak. The small photos at the top are the missionaries who have been added to the mission since that group picture.
Combined Atsubetsu & Odori Zone Conference
Friday, Nov 29: finished up weekly planning and dendoed. Had kids eikaiwa and toeic that night.
Saturday, Nov 30: wrote a melody for "Five Little Christmas Trees" because the concept of a song without notes is kinda foreign to them. Sent a video of the melody out to everyone so that they could practice. Good stuff. Did more dendo. We decided to go visit an old investigator who popped up in our area book. Took a long time to walk there. Met a nice high school kid and had a nice conversation with him. He's too busy, but he said he'd tell anyone who was interested in our kind of message about us.
Met the old investigator at the door. Turns out, he had the lessons two years ago! He's so old, that the person who taught him was Minegishi 長老's trainer! He's still in college and has been a little lonely lately. We invited him to the Muroran Christmas party and he said he'd come. Hopefully, he'll take the lessons again.
Sunday, Dec 1: Church and dendo and so forth. Found that talking with members is a good way to practice Japanese. Also, we have a Christmas presentation we are going to give next Saturday at the Christmas party. Should be a great opportunity to share the gospel with nonmembers.
Hope you all have a great next week! We'll see next week whether or not we're both still here.
愛しています！
Elder Brown
the view from his apartment
Pokemon Donuts at Mr. Donut -- it is a chain in Japan. Elder Brown & his companion have set up several appointments to meet investigators at Mr. Donut. The first two fell through. On Monday, Dec 2nd they had plans to meet a potential investigator -- no report on whether or not the appointment stuck, but we can only hope the third time is a charm!
Mom Note: Receiving this photo from Conner just about made my heart burst! 🌲❤️ We have a tradition of watching Mr. Krueger’s Christmas on Christmas Eve. It is one of my favorites and the kids know that my love runs deep. (For the most part, I think they just humor me). If you know the movie, then you know the connection to this photo. Sweet little Clarissa leaves her mittens in the basement apartment of the lonely, widowed building custodian, Mr. Krueger, after her family makes a caroling visit. Mr. Krueger then places them on his sad little Christmas tree. Because it reminds him of all that is beautiful and good about Christmas. 🌲❤️ The point is, we sent this little tree to Conner and I was so touched that his first thought was to add his gloves and send a picture because he knew how much I would love it!
