Obedience is the Price

On Friday the thirteenth, we had a great day.  We had ZTM, zone training meeting, and then went on splits for fun and did some streeting until the curry place opened and then got some Indo curry.  It is the best.

I am learning how to amimono which is crochet. A little girl in the ward is teaching me. She is amazing! Holy cow, she's like seven and she is working on a sweater because she doesn't want to be cold. Hahaha. Cool. I made a finger puppet and she was really funny with telling me how to do it. I'm glad that we got to do this because she doesn't have many friends in church her age. Her little sister is also teaching me kanji, the Chinese characters they the Japanese use. Their mom is the Eikaiwa coordinator (the English class they teach) and she is the bomb! I think she is the primary president too. 

It rained a lot here and got kind of cold.  I hope that it snows, I'm dreaming of a white クリスマス.

So we've had our pre storm. Yesterday at stake conference, Sister Ishii, the mission president’s wife told us it is going to snow on Wednesday, she was very certain.  All of the Japanese ladies definitely know what the weather is going to be like it is so crazy.  So every day we watch the old lady across the street leave and see what she is wearing. Or if she has an umbrella, etc.

I had to give up soda cold turkey. Ishii Kaicho (President) doesn't want us to drink it and we have to drink juice or water, or vitamin water.

So this week we worked really hard and we had so many blessings. We found like seven investigators and we met a lot of really cool people. This week was stake conference and Ishii Kaicho spoke. His talk was really good, I think. Haha.

We have eaten all sorts of things and the best is definitely the octopus. It is really chewy, but if you chew a lot it will let out the flavor, but don't chew it if it wriggles on your chopsticks, because it will grab onto your teeth and it is really hard to get off.

My Japanese is getting a lot better, I can understand when people are talking to me at normal speed, for the most part. There are still a lot of words that they all use that I don't know but I am really working on it.

Our goal for the end of the year is to get ten baptisms and so in order to do that, we have to be really obedient. Which reminds me of the time when King Limhi's people were in captivity from the Lamanites. They were all praying to the Lord to bring them out of bondage, and the lord was "slow to hear their cries because of their iniquities." (Mosiah 21:14-15) Then later, Alma and his people, were also in captivity, and they were ordered not to pray or they would be put to death, so they prayed in their hearts and the Lord responded that he knows covenant they made to him,  and he then covenants with them that he will bring them out of bondage. (Mosiah 24:11-13) the difference between these two groups was that Alma and his people were obedient to the words of the church leaders (Abinadi & Alma) and they repented unto baptism. Limhi and his people, did not. They were the ones who killed Abinadi and cast Alma and his people out. Later they were helped out of bondage but not immediately. All of this story brings me to the point made clear in D&C 130:21 "And when we obtain any blessing from God, it is by obedience to that law upon which it is predicated." We want to
gain a major blessing, so we need to be majorly obedient. So we are really trying to be obedient.

The people in Gifu are so great! They really are so cool, we have all sorts of people in the ward, and they all are connected by one thing, the gospel. When we are walking on the street, we never know
who we are going to meet. I just realized that rhymes. （＾◇＾）anyway I love it here.

愛していますよ。

リチヤドソン長老

 

We went and got some stuff for the apartment at the dollar store and right next door there was a sale for "room shoes" which I desperately needed, I lost my flip flops in the MTC or something so I have been having to walk around the apartment in sock and feet, and in people's houses they have to lend me some shoes. So I got these.  They go in my bag and we wear our own room shoes in other people's houses.

 

Birthday party--evidently the birthday girl gets pie in the face!

Found Homer slippers!