Week 84

We just finished up going fishing with Brother Shibata who got baptized last week. We got special permission to go to Miyako because apparently ocean fishing is better than other kinds. We unfortunately only got one fish. That's okay though. It was pretty fun.

This week Elder Richardson was bitten by a bug and almost couldn't fit his foot in his shoe because of how swollen it was. We had to go to the doctor and get some fancy medicine for it. Brother Shibata came and waited at the doctor with us. Then he bought us tonkatsu. He's great.

We recently started a thing that President Sekiguchi calls the "Siesta schedule". It's where we wake up at 5am but get to take a nap from 1:00 to 2:30 after lunch. That was actually started yesterday. So we've only done it once. I'm not a huge fan so far...

Our friend Tak is in the military and was a little bit worried about whether or not that was okay. We shared the Title of Liberty with him. For those who aren't familiar with it here is a quick excerpt from Alma 46, "And it came to pass that he rent his coat; and he took a piece thereof, and wrote upon it—In memory of our God, our religion, and freedom, and our peace, our wives, and our children—and he fastened it upon the end of a pole. And he fastened on his head-plate, and his breastplate, and his shields, and girded on his armor about his loins; and he took the pole, which had on the end thereof his rent coat, (and he called it the title of liberty) and he bowed himself to the earth, and he prayed mightily unto his God for the blessings of liberty to rest upon his brethren, so long as there should a band of Christians remain to possess the land". This basically says that fighting is justified in order to protect your country, your freedom, and your family.

We talked to a pretty cool dude this week. He started with an English "No thank you" and started closing the door. But we're pretty seasoned missionaries and do our best to share the gospel and teach by the Spirit so with some persuasion and long-suffering we had a decent conversation and answered his questions about the purpose of commandments and who God is. He had met with missionaries from other churches before but didn't know too much about how our church differs from other Christian churches. We got permission to come back and talk with him again. :)

Have a great week!
Elder Mitchell

 Most of my district.

Fishing with Brother Shibata.