The wild fish ran loose in the city...

皆さんへ：

        I hope you all had splendid week and did many spectacular things. For me, this week was hard. We, once again, had to go to Nagoya for a training. This time however, we got to give the training. So this week again was looking like last week at the start. Then it started to pick up after we got home and did some finding. If you ever have a rough day, I would suggest knocking on doors for a couple hours. And then riding around looking for people for an hour. Then repeat.

        Well we had some great lessons this week and we taught one of our investigators the word of wisdom. He was a little worried that he would not be able to follow this commandment in time for his baptism. We had a great member there to help us out and he shared his personal experience when he was taught from the missionaries and they asked him to follow the word of wisdom. At the end of the lesson, he agreed to stop alcohol and do it one step at a time.

        We met with him a few days later, and he said that he had researched the church online to see if there were any other rules that we had. Unfortunately, the website he found didn't give much information, and not all of it was true. After helping with his questions about which were real and which weren't, we talked about the commandments. He decided that he didn't want to follow all of them and that he would not like to receive baptism at this time. He promised that if he got an answer from the Book of Mormon, he would talked to the missionaries again. So we were really sad to see him go.

        Anyway, this week we got to do a lot of finding and meet a lot of people. We gave a lot of people copies of the Book of Mormon and hopefully some good will come from that. We also met a guy while we were knocking on doors that isn't really interested in religion, but wants to learn English and said that we could share what our church thinks about things with him.

        Well, I'm sorry this one was short, but you can all deal with it. Hahaha! I love you guys and hope you get to do some cool things this week!

 

リチャードソン長老より


Pictures!!!

We played with the camera features on Elder Mendel's camera for a little while.

 

 

 

 

I decide that I don't like trains. . .

Well, I used to. But after this week, I'm not sure I really do like them or not. Anyway, all in all we spent about 13 hours on a train, which doesn't seem like that big of a deal, but it was annoying. And
we are going to spend about 10 hours this week.

Anyway, that's enough of my ranting. This week was way fun! We got to go to trainer's training on Wednesday and that absorbed a lot of time, but it was fun for Elder Mendel to be able to see all of his bean friends and I got to see all of the other trainers who are some of my favorites! Then the next day we got to have a special training with the zone and President Ishii! It was way super fun! On Saturday, we got to have a lesson with Mizusawa! He is thinking about joining the church for the long run, not just a thing to do! Aawesome! He asked us about funerals and how it works if his wife is a different religion and stuff! He also straight told us he wants to be a Mormon! Then that night there was the cultural celebration for the Sapporo temple! It was way cool and we got ot hear Elder Stevenson speak in Japanese, Elder Whiting (he's the area president) also spoke in Jjapanese and President Nelson said "konbanwa" which means good evening. pretty great!

Then we had the dedication yesterday and it was amazing! I'm glad for the chance to be able to watch and participate in such great event!

Anyway, this week we had some fun and we spent most of our time on trains, so recently I've been reading the teachings of President Hhinckley book and want to share a quote with you....

 

"With gratitude in our hearts, let us not dwell upon the few problems we have. Let us rather count our blessings and in a great spirit of gratitude, motivated by a great faith, go forth to build the kingdom of God in the earth."

 

I think that it is so good to be here in Japan, even when we have some struggles, we can stop focusing on those few things and just work really hard and the lord will do the rest! such a great thing.
I
love you all and hope you have a great week!

Remember Proverbs 16:32

32 He that is slow to anger is better than the mighty; and he that ruleth his spirit than he that taketh a city.

Focus on yourself, and do all you can to help others, but overall your salvation only relies on you. so learn to work on it.

Elder Richardson

We went to the emperor's garden house in Numazu last Monday for district activity

Staying in Shizuoka apartment for one night after the cultural celebration

 

The Sapporo temple

Mission Olympics, we got a gold in Mountains...

Dear Family, Friends, and the rest of you,

        This week was great. And by great I mean that it was sooooo hot! And by hot I mean I think I'm going to die. And by die I mean overcome my challenges and work despite of the struggle that the Lord puts in my path. And by that I mean that working in Fuji was really, truly great this week.

        First off, we had a great time with our investigators and with members. We had a couple of great lessons with members present to investigators on Tuesday and the feeling afterward was great. We got to teach Tezuka at the Mochizuki's house and she told us that she really liked church last week! Sha had the image that it would be really strict and stuff, and I don't know if you have ever been to
church, but it's just not that. we have the primary in the back, and it was fast Sunday, so the testimonies weren't prepared or anything and in our ward everyone in just hilarious.

        Then that night we went with Kikuchi Kyodai up to the Nakajima's house and had a lesson with Keitarou. We talked about the plan of salvation and he agreed to be baptized on the 20th! That's next
Saturday!

        We also had some fun with Members this week, we got to go to the Satou FHE on Monday and they were a blast. We also got to do a little fun picture with a sparkler type thing. It will be included.

        Our bean chans had a great miracle on Thursday (we had exchanges) and they invited one of our investigators to baptism! And he said yes! We are excited his name is Mizusawa (or at least that's his Japanese name) and he is from Iran. He is super cool and probably one of the funniest people ever. So now we have three people getting baptized in Fuji! So we are pretty excited.

        We have been going HAM with the Book of Mormon this week. We got a bunch of members (really only about 20) to write their testimonies in a Book of Mormon and then we are giving them out like nuts. From that we are seeing so many miracles, really small ones, but miracles nonetheless!

        Anyway, this week was great and we had a great time. I hope that you all are doing great things wherever you are and that you always remember to knock at the door, don't just ring the bell, sometimes it doesn't work. So knock. And it shall be opened unto you.

        Elder Richardson

 

Tike stole my nametag at Eikawa

Found Godzilla on the way to somewhere

We made awesome smoothies

Fun with fire

One of my idols...if I can be his age and be that ripped, life is good.

 

Best English mistake of the week.

 

Love to you all (even if you aren't one of the family or friends lol)

 

Again from Elder Richardson

 

 

"We're gonna have a good lunch tomorrow... (August 8, 2016)

And then we'll hate ourselves afterward"
-Elder Richardson August 3, 2016 9:35 PM

        Well, this week went by fast, like all the other weeks recently. But this was different because my companion noticed it too. We are more than halfway done with the transfer and it feels like we have only been together for a few days or so. But it feels like we have done quite a bit, so that's good.

        Last Monday, our biggest celebration was that we got to take a little nap. Elder Mendel is way 疲れたed and so he needed, I just wanted it. Hahaha! But then we were all ready to go and even had a member FHE planned for that night! But then we went and...the members forgot and the husband wasn't there. So we shared a quick message with the wife and then left. Mochizuki Kyodai, the member that we had the appointment with, called later and said, "I'm sorry desu kedo, senior dakara." Hahaha! For those of you who don't speak this crazy mix of Japanglish, pretty much it means: I'm sorry, but it's because I'm a senior. so again, hahahaha! But we got to talk to a few cool people that night so it was ok.

        Then on Tuesday, we got to have a member lesson in the morning so our studies got a little skewompus. (Spelling? Also is that even a real word?) we got to cut out early from our companionship study and go to the train station. We had an awesome lesson with the Fukatsu Family!
Then that night we got to fine tune our badminton skills. I love having sports night! It was super fun and this week a bunch of people came. It was way good!

        Then on Wedensday, we did our weekly planning because we had an exchange on Thursday, which is when we usually do it. So we got to plan and then go visit Watanabe Kyodai! It was really fun and he seemed to enjoy us coming to visit him.

        Then on Thursday was our companion exchange with the Numazu Elders. I got to stay in Fuji with Elder 大津. We had a great time and the best part, of course, was eikaiwa! I got to teach in Fuji again! It's been so long. But it was great!

        On Friday we had an amazing training by Edler Bauer about flooding the earth with the Book of Mormon. So after that, Elder Mendel and I switched all we talk about to only the Book of Mormon. So this week we gave out seven! And four of them were on Friday after the DTM.

        Then on Satruuday, we had a lesson with the Itou family planned, but then the Paulsens from the mission home came and wanted to check our apartment, etc. so we pushed back our appointment with them from three to four and decided we would take a train instead of biking up there. And the Paulsens were hungry and wanted to go out to lunch with us and we got to be the ones to introduce them to Udon! Which, yes is just a soup, but a really good soup! And they also got tempura. Then we had a great lesson with the Itous and talked about the Book of Mormon...shocker! And we came up with the idea to have everyone in the ward write their testimony in the cover so we can give it out and the person can have someone other than us telling them that it is true. Well us and the people in the Book of Mormon that say that it is true over and over again. Hahaha!

        Then on Sunday Tezuka came to church! It was fast Sunday so she didn't seem to know what to think about the testimony meeting, but then everyone started to greet her afterward and at first she thought that was cool, but it started to go sour so we went to class right then. In the investigator class, the normal teacher want there so we had Nishiie Shimai teach and it was great! Since it was the first
time, not much of a lesson was done from the book, but we just talked about missionary work and fasting and all the questions that Tezuka had. Then when she came down from Relief Society at the end of church she had a big smile on her face, so we think that she might come back. Or maybe she was just happy that it is over.

        Well this week we worked our tails off, literally, we no longer have tails. Hahaha! But we got to meet some great people and we have started flooding Fuji with the Book of Mormon. So life is good, it's still really, really hot outside, but it's good. I hope that you all have a great week. And for those of you in America, enjoy the fact you have garbage cans everywhere, your recycling system isn't really hard to use, you have air conditioning in entire buildings for the most part, you can read traffic signs, and you can buy chicken broth at the store.

        Anyway, I hope you all do some great and fun things this week!

Elder Richardson

 

That's all mayo.

It literally took forever and three hints to get this word. Even for our "native speakers."

The Plan in "cute" form.

 

Japanese missionaries in action, we were trying to play with two balls at once.