Anways, it has been an up and down week for Elder Thurber and I. Basically we have had a ton of awesome experiences and some really good lessons. We found a ton of good people....But, Satan has been working really hard against us and we were sort of a little depressed on Sunday. We had two people that were going to come to church (really strong commitments), but one got sick and the other just didn't show up. We also met a nice older man, had an awesome first lesson were he felt the Spirit, but now he won't answer his phone or his door. So that is the jist of things this past week: have something awesome happen, and then have something terrible happen the next day that negates all of our positive work. We have so many good investigators now, but none of them have time to meet with us! It is pretty frustrating, but we are still working hard and still finding lots of good people.
On Friday we are going to meet with Fujine san (I think I wrote about him a couple of weeks ago). Well, he just finished reading the Book of Mormon, and it took a whole of three weeks! I have never had an investigator read the Book of Mormon all the way through before! We are pretty excited to meet with him again.
We had an awesome experience the past few days. On Monday night I was looking at an old Potential Investigators list (old missionaries write down phone #s and addresses of people that they find and such). This particular list was from 2004 or 2005, and there was one person named Kojima that had the comment "He is really golden! Please meet with him and teach him!". So Elder Thurber called the number, but got no answer, and we sort of just shrugged it off. The next morning (Tuesday) we got a call, and it was Kojima! We asked if we could meet with him, and he said "Sure, how about this afternoon?". So we met him in the afternoon and had a good lesson. I don't think he truely is golden, but he is probably the coolest Japanese person I have ever met, and one of the nicest, too.
He is 41, but back when he was in his 20s, he was a professional snowboarder! K2 (probably the biggest snowboarding company in the world) sponsored him and he competed in contests all around the world. When he first heard my name he said "Isn't that name Scandanavian?". Anyways, I had a fun time talking about snowboarding with him. I showed him my pictures and asked if he could do a backflip. He replied "Actually, that was my forte." Awesome! He mostly specialized in halfpipe. After my mission he has promised to take me to all of the good snowboarding spots in Hokkaido if I return in the winter.
But besides his awesome past (snowboarding, surfing, paragliding, etc.) he is a way motivated guy. He runs a rest home and is way busy. This morning he gave us a tour of the place and it is way nice. He is busy every day because he lives on the top floor of the building in which the rest home is, so he works 24/7, 365. But, he committed to coming to church tomorrow, and it was a strong commitment! He put a note in his phone, and he told us he would "take time out" of his schedule in order to come. We are way excited because he could make a way strong member. Plus, he has a wife and 3 kids. If that family got baptized, it would do wonders for the branch. Right now, only about 25 members come each week, so a family of 5 would be amazing.
Well, that is about it. I love you all. Thanks for your prayers.
