Two Year Mark and Counting! and Elder Christy Gets Baptism And...Death of a Pidgeon..Yuck

 First off, I hit my two year mark! How crazy is that!?! I feel so old now. Last p-day I got to watch an amazing video in the mission home with some other missionaries. We found this old vhs that said "Finding Approaches" so we decided to watch it and see if we couldn't learn from it. Well, it was made in 1997 at the MTC in Tokyo, and it was hilarious! They had good ideas with their approaches, but every example had a golden investigator that said exactly what you wish every investigator would say and yet none of them do. For example, after one contact the missionaries asked, "Can we share our message with you at some other time?" and the person responded, "Yes, I have time on Saturday...in the afternoon...around 4:00." No one ever sets appointments that easily, at least not here in Japan. Anyways, watching the video was painful, and yet fun, all at the same time. It was a good way to spend a few minutes on p-day.

On Tuesday we stopped a kid on the sidewalk and started talking with him. He said that he had met missionaries about two years ago in the western side of Sapporo and that he loved those missionaries. Unfortunately, he couldn't remember the name of those two, but I threw out the first name that came to my head that might have served in that area at that time, Elder Raymond. The kid's face lit up and he said, "Yeah, Raymond! I love him. We were way good friends!" Once I told him that I am friends with Elder Raymond he decided that it was fate that we met. He is going to come to English class this week and he says that he is way excited for it.

On Tuesday we also heard a really funny story from a member that we did some finding with. He works at the airport and he related this experience from the day before: He was working at an information desk when a guy ran up and asked where the bathroom was. He showed him the bathroom down the hall, thought it was weird, but then shrugged the incident off. But about two minutes later the guy walked out of the bathroom stark-naked (except for a Winnie the Pooh hat on his head), and started doing some crazy dance in the hall of the airport. He was eventually arrested.   I heard that story and couldn't stop laughing.

On Wednesday when we were doing some housing we had a fun encounter. At one interphone I said that we were missionaries sharing a message of happiness, and the lady on the other end sort of chuckled and said, "Wait one moment." She came to the door and introduced herself...as a member! She is a member of the Moiwa Ward and we just happened to stumble upon her apartment. So we took advantage of the situation and shared a short message from the Book of Mormon before heading on our way.

That night we had a lesson with a really cool kid that is 15 years old. We taught him about God and the Book of Mormon. After explaining about the BoM and the blessings of it we told him that we wanted to give the BoM to him as a present. He put out his hand to reject it (which really surprised me) and said, "I already have one" and then reached into his backpack and pulled out his own copy of the BoM. It turns out that he actually met Elders Thurber and Willis way back in May and had a lesson with them then. He gave me a call yesterday and asked if it is alright for him to bring a friend to our next lesson! He said that his friend wants to meet us! I honestly think this may be only the third or fourth time in my mission that an investigator has invited a friend to their lesson.

On Thursday we had a good lesson with Allen. He wanted to know "Why do we need the Book of Mormon?". We had a really good discussion, and he came up with a really cool analogy. After I had explained the BoM he said, "So if I understand this right, the Book of Mormon is sort of like a lens through which you read the Bible." That is exactly it. Obviously the Bible has been interpreted and taken to mean many different things, but the BoM magnifies, clarifies, and expounds upon the teachings of the Bible in order to help us really understand it.

On Friday, the two year mark from when I entered the MTC, Elder Christy got to baptize a sister into the Moiwa Ward! She had been the investigator of the sister missionaries, but the girl had asked that Elder Christy baptize her. So for the first time in my mission I got to see my companion baptize someone! Up until now, I had always been the one performing the baptisms. And also for the first time, I got to be one of the witnesses. It was cool. Leading up to the baptismal service we had a bit of technical difficulties because Elder Christy got a flat tire one hour before we needed to be at the church. Our apartment is a 20ish minute bike ride from that church, so we had to hurry to our apartment, I fixed the flat as fast as I could, and then we rode as fast as we could to the church. But we made it, everything worked out great, and it was a very spiritually refreshing baptismal service.

Yesterday on our way home from church I saw one of the craziest things ever. A pidgeon was flying across a road, sort of low to the ground, when a crow flew down from on top and knocked the pidgeon down to the ground. (Crows in Japan are huge! and vicious!) The crow pinned the pidgeon to the ground and then proceeded to peck at the pidgeon! I'll let you put two and two together, but just know that it wasn't a pretty sight.

Anyways, that about wraps up my week. It has been another great week in Sapporo and I look forward to the few weeks that I still have left. The chances of me having a baptism before going home are pretty slim nowadays, but I am praying way hard and we are working way hard in order to make it happen. I believe in miracles! I love you all. Thanks for your support, prayers, and love for the past 2+ years! Have a great week.