Misawa Transfer 5 Week 6

Hello everybody, excuse me for not sending out an email last week, trying to figure out a new system dealio.

A lot has happened this week. We had our little trip to Oirase Gorge last Monday followed by an awesome dinner and message about Gideon and his 300 which afterwards we had a super intense and spiritual-but-no-cigar lesson with a less active. 

Tuesday was more or less the same as any other Tuesday I've had here for the last 4 months. We visited the sweet old Kashiwazaki Shimai, read with her and she fed us junk food and showed us around her garden. Then we headed over to Uno Kyoudai's home. He was a convert of a few years so he hadn't yet been to the temple! Well, he went to the temple the weekend prior and that's what we wanted to talk about- his experience. My favorite thing he said was that all the tension and uneasiness, the pain in his shoulder and the anticipation of what was to come from this new experience that he had before walking in to the temple flowed out of him as soon as he entered the doors. He said all the noise and commotion from outside in the land of Tokyo was silenced once he entered and he felt an overwhelming feeling of "wow, I'm in a good place surrounded by good people." It was awesome to hear. Following that was the next thing that always happened on Tuesdays. Pizza night at the club with the Mahlums followed by Japanese class at the church. 

Wednesday was splits with my long lost friend Elder Erickson! We did work! Our plan was to visit 3 people- 1 Recent convert, 1 investigator and 1 potential investigator we had never met before. They were all up in the air as to whether we'd be able to meet with them or not which is why we had plenty of backup plans but miraculously, much to my enjoyment, we were able to meet with and have a lesson with all 3 of them! It was a small miracle but a faith-building one nonetheless. Then we had dinner at the Mahlums and a lesson with our American recent convert, Matt. He's been doing practice lessons, we call them "mogis" where we role play and practice teaching. He's great at it and it was fun!

Thursday was good.

Friday morning was zone training meeting in Aomori, a little funky having it on the day of transfer calls cause they make all these announcements and zone goals to a bunch of people who may or may not be there for the next transfer... It was super good though and full of much needed training. Always love zone meetings for the social aspect too! Afterwards were some adventures on the train ride home- left a package a fellow missionary wanted us to send off for him on the train. As it sailed off to Hachinohe, we had to talk with a guy to get the package off the train in Hachinohe, then we had to travel down, pick it up and head right back to Misawa. 2 hours later, what was going to be our time to do weekly planning turned into preparation for our lesson for dinner that evening. Dinner was delicious- with a part member family the wife is a korean and gives us SO MUCH FOOD. Its quite ridiculous matter of fact.

But yes, TRANSFER CALLS came in HOT right after that dinner appointment. The phone call started off, "Elder Robins, I wish I could keep you in Misawa forever but..." at that point I knew my stay here in Misawa was over... I'll be heading down to a place called Kamisugi- downtown Sendai! I'm pumped, I think I'll do well in the city setting, being able to talk with everyone I see and making lots of contacts. There'll be tons of people to talk to all the time, tons of people to teach and we will stay busy no doubt. I'll be second half training Elder Murakami. He was first half trained by who is now the new AP (trained well..) I hope I don't ruin him:) We will be in the apartment with the zone leaders down there- a couple super cool and fun guys. 

Mixed feelings about leaving my home and people here in Misawa as we've seen a lot of success and a lot of potential recently. But I guess the Lord needs me elsewhere! I will go to this awesome area and try to fill in some shoes way too big for me but as I rely on the Lord I'll knoww what to do, how to do it and I'll have a lot of help. 

On Saturday, we did our best to get our general conference sessions in but stayed busy setting up projectors, a member taking us out to an all you can eat meat restaurant and with a lesson with our new investigator, Nakabayashi san!

Japan missionaries recently got new pamphlets that run through three things simply and clearly, and, in Japanese. They go over what to expect from meeting with the missionaries, Who is God? and Who is Jesus Christ? They. are. awesome. So handy. This week with Nakabayashi san we ran through the Who is Jesus Christ pamphlet. We had our branch president and a recently returned missionary join the lesson with us and it was so awesome. He committed to baptism and we were going to set a date but he works on Sundays right now (you have to go to church 3 times before you can be baptized) so he said he'll do his best to make it work. Keep in mind; every time he meets with us in Misawa, he's driving down 3 hours from Mutsu on his little sit down motor bike in coold weather. Commitment. He's awesome and man, he is SOO prepared. The Misawa missionaries should see him getting baptized in the next transfer or two. 

Just got done playing some basketball with some authentic black people. They were blasting some of the music I listened to in "the life before", all kinds of hilarious slang and sayings and man could they jump. So happy I got to ball out one last time! It'll be a while til I'm able to have competition like that I'm sure. 

Alright, well, Misawa has been tons of fun. Seen a lot of people come, a lot of people go, met tons of people, taught a lot of lessons and ate a lot of delicious food. Gonna miss it but I'm excited to move back into what missionary life is really like here in Sendai, Japan. Until next week,

Love you all!

Elder Robins

 my main man Matt

Uno!

Sho and Ko Sasaki

our pday soccer gang!