Week 91 – July 8, 2013

Hello, 

Happy Fourth of July! And Happy Birthday, Mom!!! Sister Wada actually shares birthdays with you. I hope you had a great day.

 

How is Mikela doing at school? When do/did her classes begin? When does Kauluwehi head back to school? I hope everyone's enjoying Summer. The humidity has definitely set in here. We open the door and get hit right away. It's not overly hot yet though, so kind of just feels like Hawaii, in a sense.

 

It's been an eventful week as always. We've gone to each zone with President and Sister Wada for conferences. This past Tuesday we went to the Yokohama and Fujisawa zones, and on Wednesday to the Musashino and Machida zones. All of the missionaries were able to meet and get to know the Wada's a little. After the conference with Fujisawa zone on Tuesday we went back to Yokohama (kind of in between here and Fujisawa) because President had a meeting with the Yokohama stake presidency that evening. President and Sister Wada took Elder Olson and I out for dinner and it was really nice getting to know them better. President Wada then stayed there in Yokohama and we drove back to Kichijoji with Sister Wada. The streets in Japan are pretty hard to understand, basically impossible without a navigation system in the car, and Elder Olson was driving. We're normally able to get around okay using the navi, but that evening we just had a really hard time for some reason and were lost for about a half hour. It was really comical as the navi would tell us where to go and Elder Olson would accidentally turn onto the wrong street. That happened a bunch of times in a row, but we did make it back home safely and were able to get outside for about 45 minutes to talk to people on the streets. We met some nice people and exchanged phone numbers.

 

Speaking of driving, I took my driver’s test again on Thursday (4^th of July)... and passed! I wasn't able to receive my license yet however because I've moved from Nakano to Kichijoji and have yet to register and receive proof of residence. As soon as we can get that done I'll be able to go and pick my license up, probably sometime this week.

On Friday we had the first Japan Tokyo South Mission Leadership Council (since the mission's been reopened.) We had all of the zone leaders and sister training leaders with President and Sister Wada and Elder Olson and I. President Wada presided and conducted the council. With the Tokyo Mission we always held mission leadership council at the church, but because there was only a total of 15 people at this conference we were able to have it in the mission home. We spent the morning studying from the Book of Mormon. President Wada helped everyone to liken scriptures unto themselves and really bring the scriptures alive. His basic vision for the mission is for every missionary to return from their mission with a strong testimony and conviction of the truthfulness of the Book of Mormon. He knows that parents would be proud to have their son or daughter return from their mission and say with honesty and conviction, "I know that it's true." And when every missionary has a true testimony of the Book of Mormon they will really want to and be able to share about the Book with anyone. Anyway, we then had lunch and following lunch we spent the afternoon practicing teaching. It was a powerful meeting and we hope that each zone leader companionship can take what they learned and felt to their zones.

Saturday morning Elder Olson and I went to a Gospel voice training workshop with a guy we met the night before on the street. He's actually from California and has a few CD's out and is pretty good. He taught and had everyone sing 'Oh, Happy Day.' It was fun and an interesting experience for Elder Olson and I. He's busy but we'll probably be able to meet with him again sometime soon.

 

Last night we had dinner with the Saito's, a great family in the ward. They had all of the missionaries serving in Kichijoji over (nine total with this being the mission home.) We have three sisters, Sister Sasaki, Sister Brown, and Sister Miskin, along with Elder Tauchi serving as commisarian, Elder Nagaoka serving as recorder, Elder Olson and I as assistants, and the Yamashita's serving as mission secretary and financial clerk.

 

So everything's going great here. The time's going by quickly and Elder Olson and I really want to get this area going more. We're trying to make all the time we can to find and teach investigators. It's a great area and we enjoy it.

 

Have a great week back home, or wherever each of you may be. I love you!!!

 

-Elder Rindlisbacher