Dante Choro in Japan: Monday, January 23, year 29. Yep, 29. And 餅搗き (Rice Pounding)

This week we did a lot of crazy stuff. It was pretty fun and we got some good work done.
First off, on Monday, we visited our good friends Nishikawa and Mario (they seem to be the only ones home on Monday nights). We talked with them about Family History and Mario seemed pretty interested and said that he might check out the website. Also we will probably meet at the church and give him some tips. That will be way fun!

Then on Tuesday, we met with Itagaki: the blind masseur. He was a former investigator that we found in our phone and Teraguchi Kaicho is actually good friends with him, so he came and was the tachiai for us. He is a pretty funny little guy. He really, really likes samurai history too. Also that day, we went to the Hospital to change sheets and they were having a "flu epidemic" so we got to do...everything just like normal. We wore masks and aprons and gloves.

Then on Wednesday, we had a koukan with the Kanazawa Elders and I got to go to there and work with Elder Frisch. He is super fun and really energetic. We biked around in the snow for a while and visited some people. It was really fun. That night we got to go with the bishop of Kanazawa ward and visit a Less Active Member that he sometimes plays tennis with. The member's kids were sick, so we didn't get to go in and meet him, but now the missionaries know where he lives and can visit him and set something up.

On Thursday, we were going to have our weekly planning session, but due to the koukan and train times, we were cut way short. And we had a lesson with Hirose! He wants to be baptized, but before he commits, he wants to know what he has to do after he does (obviously). So we started teaching him about the commandments and taught him the 10 Commandments of Moses. He really liked it and he said that he will try to follow them...only number six might be kind of hard (Thou Shalt Not Kill) lol. That was pretty funny. He also likes to do a little English, but we just kind of sit and talk in English for 30 minutes rather than have a lesson and the gospel lesson is partially in English anyway. And so he brought his guitar again and we just played around.

Then on Friday, we had DTM and DKK. So our day was pretty packed. Then Elder Greer had been having a headache that didn't go away for over a week, so we called Sister Ishii and she told us that we should go to the hospital to get it checked. That took a little while and we weren't able to get as much planning done as we had hoped. We were also going to have a lesson with one of our investigators, but he texted and said he would be 30 min late and then again and said maybe 45 min and he kept postponing it and so we sat and updated records and expecting him to show up. He didn't. So we went back for dinner and finished DKK.

On Saturday, we got to go with the group "Salad Bowl" and do some rice pounding. It was super fun and there were a lot of gaijin there. So we got to meet a lot more of the ALT's in Nanao and some other cool people. They were way fun and some of them want to meet again. Maybe we can introduce the gospel as well, that would be way good. We went housing that night and it was really, really cold and there were no people home. So we decided to visit Yazaki, because he had called and said that he was sick. That was pretty good and he said that he would try to come to church even though he wasn't feeling too well.

On Sunday, it was raining slush. It was super weird. Also lots of people came to church and I had to play the piano. It was scary. I got to choose the hymns, but it was still pretty scary. Then we went out
to work. And after a short prayer, decided that since there were no people on the street and no one was home, to go to the apartment and call people and update the map and records. The records up here are a mess.

Well, that was my week. I hope that you all enjoyed your week and that you had some good weather.

Elder Richardson

In Kanazawa we saw an anomaly.