October 9, 2012

Aloha,

I'm transferring to an area called Hibarigaoka in the Musashino Stake. I was only in Urawa for a single transfer, so it was a little bit of a surprise. I'll be whitewashing into the area training a new missionary, and a sister missionary companionship will whitewash in with us. From what I heard from President Budge when he called with my transfer call, the bishopric averages around 30 years old, the bishop spent some time in the states and speaks perfect English and Japanese, there's a lot of family ties between the stake presidency and bishopric (father-son, etc.), and the ward is extremely fired up for missionary work. President Budge said he spoke in their ward this past Sunday and he had never seen so much dendo fire. The bishop has been begging him to send the ward sister missionaries, so President decided to whitewash elders and sisters in. Right after he called me Friday morning he called the bishop to let him know that he's getting what he wants, and that we're ready to really work and see amazing miracles.

The ward set a goal of 12 baptisms this year, and they've only seen 3 so far, so they're really ready to help more people come unto Christ. President also said that he visited the elders’ apartment, which is actually a house, and that he didn't like how it was (I guess it's really old,) so we'll be moving into there for now but be moved to a new place in a few weeks. Because the new missionaries come into the mission Tuesday night and we meet them Wednesday morning, until then I'm companions with Elder Bingham (transfer 7) and Elder Tohara (transfer 14) and we're in Elder Tohara's area, an area called Tokorozawa. On Wednesday we're to be at the honbu (mission home) at 8:15 am for breakfast, then we have some training (and the draft... finding out who our new companions are) from 9:00 am-3:00 pm. I have a lesson scheduled with an investigator today (the elders there before who whitewashed out had it already set) at 4:30 pm, so we'll head out there for that. Then we have a lesson here in Tokorozawa at 7:00 pm, so we'll come back for that. It's really exciting to know that I'll be training, and be whitewashing in on top of that. It's such a great opportunity. 
 

Urawa was really great. Our last Sunday there we had dinner with Bishop and his family. They're really great. I was bummed to be transferring because I'd liked to have been able to work with them more. Then yesterday (Monday,) because it was National Exercise Day here in Japan, we had a stake sports day where the entire stake came out to the Urawa church and competed against each other with games and sports. Points were awarded for winning games then all added up and awards were given to the individual wards. It was a lot of fun and made me even more want to continue to work there in Urawa. But I am really excited to be training in Hibarigaoka. There's always a lot of mixed emotions with transfers. 
 

So everything is going really great here in the mission. I'll try to take some time to write more later or in the next few days. We'll most likely be really busy though. I love you all so much! Thank you so much! Take care. 

 

Love,

Elder Rindlisbacher