Monday, February 25, 2013


Aloha,
I was able to see that video you sent and it looks like you had more than just a little rain. I'm happy for Mikela! When does her summer term begin? How'd the preparedness open house thing go? That's great that the Hawaiian Civic Club is giving those scholarships.

You might have heard about all of the missions that'll be opening to accommodate the influx of new missionaries. What exciting news! And... one of the missions is Japan Tokyo South. This mission will still be the Japan Tokyo Mission, but it will extend a lot farther  north, and the southern half will become a part of the Japan Tokyo South Mission. The split will happen on July 1st of this year. That's all we really know right now. But I'll still be here for about four months after the change, so we'll see what happens! The Japan Tokyo South Mission President is President Wada, now serving as Bishop over an English ward in Shibuya.

Anyway, there's a lot of great things going on here in Hibarigaoka. It's impossible to not love being here.

Tuesday night Elder Call and I met a family of four while going door-to-door. They were about to have dinner at the time, but said they'd be happy to have us back to share our message. We think that the husband isn't home very much, so we've referred them to the Sisters here in Hibarigaoka and hopefully they can begin to work with them!

We were able to meet with an African investigator, Johnson, after a long while of not seeing him. We've scheduled lessons with him for today, Wednesday, and Thursday, so hopefully he can begin to progress more. When we were meeting earlier, about 3 months ago, he was reading the Book of Mormon and praying daily, but was unsure of baptism because he had already been baptized into another church. Now that we have lesson appointments set again hopefully we can help him to gain a true understanding and testimony of the Book of Mormon and the Priesthood.

Saturday we had only about 10 minutes between study and weekly planning to get outside and find new people. About five minutes after leaving the apartment we met a 17 year-old high school student named Kawashima. Taking from a training we had received Friday showcasing
different ways to introduce the Book of Mormon, we flipped open to the picture of Joseph Smith and asked if he knew who he was. He hadn't and we explained to him that Joseph Smith had  done something amazingly great and important for us. He was surprised he didn't know what we
were talking about and we were able to quickly teach the Restoration.  Kawashima-san said he has been studying society in school lately and is very interested in learning more about what we have to say. He's busy with a bunch of upcoming tests and then he's going on a school trip to Okinawa, but we have an appointment to meet with him the day after he gets back!

Kawashima-san is 17 years-old just like Erina-chan, one of the Sisters’ investigators. She's a relatively new eikaiwa student and we've had a lot of fun at many activities with her. She's been reading the Book of Mormon every day recently and just set a strong baptismal date for next month. The Sisters taught her the Plan of Salvation and at the end when they asked if she would be baptized she started crying. They asked if she had hesitations or concerns, and she said she was crying out of joy. She said that she doesn't know why, but she always feels like she's going to cry when she meets with the missionaries. It's so great to be able to help some of the younger generation to accept the gospel!

Last week, after a bunch of visits and helping, we had the Kasai couple attend church after many years of inactivity. They didn't attend this week so we'll need to continue to really work with them. However, we had another less-active member come to church today. Georgie Yasutake is just 11 years old and he and his family are members, although most of them aren't leading the best of lives. We've been visiting them pretty regularly lately and were overjoyed to hear on Friday that Georgie would be coming to church. He made it, and even brought a friend. They stayed for all three hours and seemed to have a great time. The ward really did a great job of welcoming them and helping them to feel loved. Hopefully we can help them both to grow in
the gospel, and receive the priesthood next year!

A few weeks ago at a zone conference President Budge shared an analogy that I liked and feel like relates to Hibarigaoka well. The analogy is a space shuttle, working and working to get off the ground and climb through the sky. Until it breaks through the atmosphere, then it's just smooth flying. Hibarigaoka is working extremely hard right now, and seeing a lot of great things. If Hibarigaoka can continue to work diligently and effectively, always full of love, then we'll be able to break the atmosphere. Great, great miracles will happen. It doesn't mean that from then on it will always be smooth flying, but we'll have opened the floodgates on the huge miracles that I know are waiting for Hibarigaoka.

Anyway, today we dropped our suits and a few ties off at a dry cleaner's, polished our shoes, and cut our hair... in preparation for something I'll have to tell you about next week! I hope you all have a great week. Thank you so much for all of your support and love. I love you!!!

Elder Rindlisbacher 



 Bowling
 Iori-chan, daught of recent-convert Oota Erina-shimai
 Poi! (from powder)
 We went onto a college campus with a potential
investigator and these were there.

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