Week 76

Dear Family,

Morioka is a pretty cool area. There are lots of good restaurants from what I hear from the Elders here right now. It's also way big. Apparently it's comparable to Sendai except that Sendai is split into three different areas.

Some of you may (or may not) have heard that I am currently serving as the responsible adult for the 10 missionaries in the Morioka/Miyako district. Actually that's not quite the case. There are some pretty responsible people in this district. Two of them are APs and one is an STL. And one is Elder Anderson who happens to be my second father. Elder Free being my first. Anyway, I've been having lots of fun trying to figure out a few different problems that have come up and been expected to resolve. This district is very different from Iwaki. I hope that I will be able to leave a positive impact on this district. There are some fire missionaries, but there is also one missionary in particular that is struggling a bit more than might be considered ideal.

I ran this morning. It was fun. I love running. But I don't think my hip liked it at all. My hip is so high-maintenance. It thinks it can just chill at the top of my legs and not even be expected to run around Morioka 500 times. Unfortunately I'm thinking that I might have to postpone this battle a little bit until after my mission and figure it out then. Assuming that my silly hip doesn't kill me before January. That would be awkward.

There is a Sister in Iwaki that expects that I will pick her up from the airport when she comes to America. She's one of my favorite people. She might be older than my grandmother. Not that that says anything. I have very young grandparents. I just wanted to make sure that you all understood that it wasn't a plan of mine to steal young women from Japan and marry them in America. Or at least not yet. ;)

I haven't driven a car in a very long time. Hmmmmm. I also haven't been on a hot date in a long time. Or listened to twentyone pilots. The things I sacrifice for trying to share the gospel. One of my family members quoted the "by small and simple things are great things brought to pass" scripture in their email to me today. Maybe by my small (relatively. I'm not sure that giving up driving was a small sacrifice) and simple sacrifices then great things will be brought to pass.

I love you the most and I apologize for not writing a weekly this week. I am too tired.
BeN

I'm not sure if you've seen this picture before. Probably not. I think it was taken right after English class last pday. But the Sister with a tentative plan of visiting America is the third from the right on the front row. Her first name is Emiko which means "Smile Child". I think it's pretty appropriate.