Hi Family!
It was great to get to talk to you for Mother's Day! I was really scared after you didn't call back immediately, and I thought that we wouldn't get to talk anymore. But, BYU saved the day. The second call was a million times easier to understand than the first. Anyways, it awesome to hear about everything at home, and it sounds like everything is good.
Here are a few things from my week that I didn't get to tell you on the phone:
On Wednesday night we were out finding. One of the guys I talked to was pretty cool. I shared a little bit about who we are and the message that we are sharing. He said that he wasn't interested, so I asked him if he liked English. He said yes and so I invited him to come to English class. (this entire conversation was in Japanese) He replied, in perfect English, "I don't think I need it. I can already speak English." It was funny because I had been stumbling through the last 5 minutes trying to speak in Japanese.
On Saturday we saw some older (40/50ish) white guys handing out flyers to everyone. We couldn't tell who they were, but we eventually found out. They were Baptist missionaries, but no one wanted their flyers and they were littered all over the ground (littering is very rare in Japan). It made me feel pretty good because we never see our flyers littered everywhere.
Sunday was a great day. Church was nice, as always. After church, we had a big meal with the entire ward. There was a lot of good food like gyoza, spaghetti, yakisoba, and some good cakes for dessert. After that, we had exchanges for the rest of the day with the Zone Leaders. I was with Elder Jankowski and we had a great day. One of the Zone Leaders' investigators stayed after church for the meal with everyone. After the meal, he was talking to Elder Jankowski and he said that he had had something on his mind all week. So we went in a room and had a lesson with him and we talked with him. The thing on his mind was baptism, and he wanted to know what happened after baptism. So we were able to set up a baptismal date for him in a couple weeks. It was a way cool experience and we were certainly guided by the Spirit as we talked with him.
On Monday we met with our Chinese investigator, Ko, and discussed baptism with him. He has been meeting with the missionaries for almost a year now, and he is so close to baptism. He is just scared to commit to it because he thinks of baptism as "an irrevocable contract with God" and that is a little too big for him (he must have had baptism explained to him that way by missionaries in the past). We are praying for him to have a spiritual experience so that he can have a desire to get baptized.
Tuesday was Zone Conference, and it was great. I learned a ton and I hope that I will be able to apply those things in this transfer and for the rest of my mission. President Daniels talked a lot about a mission in Taiwan where the mission president (who is President Daniels's friend) has helped the work skyrocket. We are going to try some of the things that they do in their mission, so hopefully we will see some of the success that they had. Their increased from 1 baptism per companionship per year to about 9.5 baptisms per companionship per year.
Coincidentally, that is Colin Dunn's mission. I got a letter from him on Monday and it sounds like he is doing great. He says that because their mission (Taichung) is doing so well and because the Kaoshiong mission is moving so slow, they are combining the missions in July and President Hoer is going to be the mission president.
Well, that is about it. I love you all. Have a great day.
Elder Christensen
