Week 101

Hello world,

This is the first P-day of my last transfer. Last week was technically the first one, but I didn't have my new companion yet. So I only have... 5(?!?!?) more of these emails. I hope that some people have enjoyed reading them. I sometimes feel bad that I'm not a terribly talented writer and that sometimes things I say don't come across the way that I wish they would. I think that some ancient prophets have said similar things: "And I said unto him: Lord, the Gentiles will mock at these things, because of our weakness in writing; for Lord thou hast made us mighty in word by faith, but thou hast not made us mighty in writing" (Ether 12). I think that Ether might have been better off than me. He at least seems to think that he could speak pretty well. I'm not sure that I can claim to be good at speaking either. Lol

This week we got dropped by a friend who had met with us a few times to talk about the Book of Mormon. We weren't too sad. Just a little bit. His reasons for stopping weren't really the ones that I like to hear. They were along the lines of "I've thought about my future and I'm going to be moving pretty soon. I don't consider myself to be a very religious person, but Christianity kind of contradicts Japanese culture. I'm also pretty busy with school and final projects so learning about this stuff is kind of hard". If I had to pick one that I could most identify with it would probably be the busyness with school. But none of his reasons had anything to do with the truth of this message and whether or not the gospel of Jesus Christ has been restored to the Earth in it's fulness. We told him that there will always be trials and reasons why it would be "hard" to follow Christ, but those are simply less important than the truth of the gospel. If we truly believe that we can live eternally with God, our Heavenly Father, and our families through believing in Jesus Christ and keeping his commandments then we will be willing to make sacrifices.

I got to have Thanksgiving dinner with the senior couple in our branch. They're super great! They couldn't do a turkey because Japanese people generally don't have ovens and Thanksgiving isn't widely celebrated in Japan, but they made mashed potatoes and some really good chicken. They also fed us a couple different kinds of salad. In the pictures you can't see any of the food so we decided that we'd have to have another one for Christmas so we could get a picture with the food. They're great. :)

I love you all (at least a little bit)! Have a great week!
Elder Mitchell