The great Intersection Interception

Hello world! Jared is back with another week of missionary work!

Monday: let my comp use my hair clippers and...I had to go help him so I spedrun last weeks email. Some peoples hair is good and ... others are going bald ... joke he isn't going bald its just not my hair so I don't know how to cut it (his hairline is a little bit receeding on the side but dont tell him).

Tuesday: Another Zoom DCM, that was fun. Then we visited some single elderly members in the branch, I love their Japanese, its so fun :D (I love Japanese) We were going to one of their neighbors for a return appointment (after we visited her last week we did some housing near her house) but the house he was at before aparently wasn't his house. (He was just sitting on the back porch) So that was awkward, we never found him. We had planned a lesson for our friend Kate that night. Kate had been progressing lots but her family doesn't support her getting baptized so her date is off, and she is getting harder and harder to contact. :( Just the way the cookie crumbles I guess, but hey! We planted a seed deep inside of her! She can't unfeel the spirit that she felt with us and I know one day she will recognize what she is missing :) Instead of the lesson we decided to go to a mall called Yume Town, it was a suggestion of where we could go to find people (yatsushiro is very... rural). We went even though we would'nt have too much time but we were able to meet Emi! She has been to eikaiwa a long time ago, but had somehow gotten sidetracked and forgot about it. I asked if she had heard the messages about Jesus that the missionaries share and she said she hadn't but wasn't opposed! 

Ok Im not gonna write about all the other days but here some highlights:

Finding methods:

Library finding (couldn't talk except in the phone call area) 2/10

Intersection interception (lots of high school kids and some Filipinos at around 6pm) 7/10

Store hopping (there are 4 or 5 big grocery stores town this one street and foreigners frequent them, ride past them and if there are lots of bikes then stop and go find the Filipinos!) 9/10

 Pause: this week while store hopping we met this lady sitting outside on a bench and got to talk with her! She was from the Philippines and had kinda been looking for a church, she asked for a bible but we didn't have any (I'm not even sure if we get those in Japan to hand out? the office elders can probably order them) 

Facebook (so good oh my goodness, in 28 minutes I messaged someone, they responded, we had a conversation, and then they committed to coming to church on Sunday :) also there were 3 new people from Facebook that I thought would come to church this Sunday but none of them did :( we did find one other person though! and he is friends with one of our new members and another investigator.) 10/10

Housing (people rarely come to the door, everyone has doorbells and is always busy :'( ) I would say 2/10 but it works when it works, always follow the spirit! 5/10

Member referrals (we have been trying to get members a lot more involved with our missionary work! Its been going well and we've had the opportunities to meet/hear about members family members! Praying it all goes well!) 10/10

Japanese updates:

命に関わること　means "a matter of life and death" and that's fun to use

Also.... I started learning kanji .... okay okay okay I know I'm not supposed to do that but I know lots already because of the law of brain absorption and I'm not learning all the readings at the start, but I am learning the meanings of the 2200 kanji approved for common use by the Japanese government because I needed another goal for Japanese. I hear and study so many new phrases and things, but its so hard to remember them but what I've noticed is when I know the kanjis for the word its easier for me to remember the word. And I prayed and felt good about it... sooooo... yea I'm 200 something down so hopefully I can finish by the end of next transfer. It was fun because each day last week I'd study kanji for 2-3 hours (consecrating the extra time in morning, lunch, dinner, and nights) and each day I understood another kanji for fire extinguisher. If I apply the key words I learned for each kanji it translates at "extinguish fire utensil". So that's a lot of fun and something I'm grinding on right now. I also wanna learn tagalog but Japanese is the main focus! I get to take my next language assessment this week! Last time I got a 5.8 or something and I'm hoping for a 7 but... I dont know. But its ok, I still have a year! I just want to keep mastering and growing my Japanese so I can better teach God's children! 

Lesson with Regemae!

I said before that Kates baptismal date got taken away, but Regemae is chugging along in her Book of Mormon reading challenge! We met with her 3 times last week, one lesson and two Book of Mormon study sessions. Yesterday we read 1 Nephi 19, Nephi testifies that he is writing the things of God, as directed by God. He testifies of the savior coming to save us. Regemae said she wished she was there in Nephi's time to see the hand of the Lord in these things. I mean,,, I thought we had the spirit in the lesson before then, but... wow. From there it was so powerful, we asked if she believed that the Book of Mormon was true. She believes it is. She asked how she can know what God wants her to do in life. We talked about the Gift of the Holy Ghost through baptism, and receiving God's direction through him. It was such an amazing lesson. President Fukushima shared an experience from his life where the spirit had guided him, and we testified of that as well. We invited her to pray to know when God would have her be baptized. (Her date right now is April 20th so she can read the whole Book of Mormon first) Please pray for her to recognize her answer!

Ok I gotta call it here, I love yall! have a good week! Also my bdays tomorrow, I forgot. I'm gonna be a gross 20 year old, eww.

Ok Iove yall! Bye bye :)

Elder Rasmussen