Missionary Moments

The weather this week took a turn for the worse, the wind coming off the mountains was super cold, almost like a freeze machine. I thought we were over with winter, but it seems we still have a few more weeks left.

This week was pretty full up. We went to the far away area twice. The first time we went we met our Chinese friends, we were about to go into the house of the one that doesn't really speak Japanese or English when the one that plays League asked us to come into his house, but we had an appointment, so couldn't right there, and then he had to go to work. They are both going back to China this week for Chinese new years, but I look forward to studying with them when they return. Chinese are just so nice and open, I wish I could speak their language too.

We had a surprise change of Zone meeting to Saturday,..... it was nice to go and catch up with people ..... The mission has changed so much since I first got here. During the Zone meeting for an example, they asked me to get up on the stage, and to fall backwards off it, into the arms of a few strong Elders below, while the rest of the zone chanted 'Daijyobu yo' (its okay!), I did it, and was pretty fun, and it was a good example relating to missionary work with members, and without members. 

A few days before we visited the mother and daughter again. They didn't have the ECC class, but they had planned a few activities to do with us, and gave us their schedule and got the 'whenever is welcome' thing. It seems they are both open to hearing the gospel from us too. The mother has been Less Active for a while, and the daughter knows almost nothing. They then gave us two containers of rather expensive wild boar meat. (Inoshishi in Japanese). It is rare to find, let alone eat, so we ate that very gratefully two days later for lunch.

On the same trip we went Brazilian hunting again, and found some! One guy we housed into (like the second door) pretty much preached to us and agreed with everything we said, and wants God in his life again, and pointed out all his friends and then talked about people he is going to refer us too, and said we can come back anytime and he will accept everything. In Portuguese. I am starting to understand it more or less now (it has a lot of words the same as English, just pronounced differently), at least enough to get the topic, and reply in Japanese. Elder H. can give a good corrupted Spanish/Portuguese thing that is enough to share the gospel and talk in.  It was so golden, and so much like the stereotype we were joking about/ wanting that it was really funny. We will be looking for more like him for sure!

The next day we went back to that city (Souja) to do service for Sister T. and her daughter. They had a bunch of furniture they needed moved up stairs, except the stair well was super narrow (almost like a ladder). We managed to get all of it except one extremely tall and wide dresser up using it and all 4 of our muscles together. The dresser was impossible though, so we took it outside, got a ladder out, a piece of rope (the only one) and Elder L.'s belt and hoisted it up and over the veranda, which is probably the single most dangerous bit of furniture moving I have done in my life. It was cool though, because it honestly looked impossible, but somehow we manged to get it done without breaking it or ourselves. We needed photos. The family was quite impressed. We then had a second lunch (we had already eaten in the apartment) of Mexican food. 

So, it was a good week, and on my birthday Brother T. (who takes us to visit less actives) took us to a restaurant that sells Lamb, and I ate lamb for my birthday! That is really rare in Japan too. We are lucky in Australia.