Monday, December 14, 2015

13th week in Japan
11/8/2015
And just like that, transfer 3 begins



Dear Family and Friends,

One thing that I still completely don't understand is time on the
mission. It still confuses me how time just flies by so fast. I just
keep loving these people more and more, and I still can't even talk to
them yet haha. I can't wait for the day that I can just talk to
everyone without too many problems. Japan is such an incredible place.
I really hope that everyone is doing well back at home in America. How
are things? Thanks again for all of your emails. I truly do appreciate
it.

After having so many meetings last transfer Weakley choro and I have
been setting some good goals to help us stretch this transfer. We want
to work really hard to improve our amount of lessons and investigators
to church each week. I really hope that we can see at least 1 baptism
this transfer. I know that with strong faith and as we rely on the
Lord that we can see a baptism this transfer. We keep teaching with
faith and trying our best to help our investigators progress. I feel
like maybe sometimes I am a little bit too straightforward with some
of the investigators we have, but I only tell them how it is because I
care about them. As missionaries Weakley choro and I just really want
to help these people, but it seems like there are so many people who
just don't understand why what we are teaching them is going to help
them. We continue to work hard and love them all anyways. I am very
excited to see what this transfer has in store for us.

It is crazy to see missionaries that returned last transfer. I feel
like I developed a good relationship with my district leader, and now
he is back at home in America with his family. We already miss him
back here and won't forget him. One thing that is pretty cool with the
transfer ending is that my 12 weeks is done. Now in the morning we
don't do 12 weeks, so we can get out earlier and get more lessons
throughout the day. It will give us more time to improve the amount of
lessons that we are able to teach. We also got our flu shots on
Wednesday which is good for the winter. It was a little complex
figuring out how to do it at the hospital with nobody that spoke
English, but thankfully we saw one of our investigator families there
at the hospital. They helped us figure it out.

On Thursday some of the missionaries stayed over at the apartment with
us because Okayama Eki is one of the transfer points on the mission. 3
of the Elders are Japanese, so it was pretty cool to try and talk to
them. Our new zone leader was one of them and I am excited to see what
having a Japanese zone leader will be like. We also have been trying
to work with the members a lot more. Baba kyodai (The Elders quorum
President) gave us a home teaching list that will help out a lot. He
is the best. We were able to visit their family last week for dinner.
They fed us some really good pasta and tuna avocado sandwich things
that we also very delicious. Because they are such a strong family we
invited them to become a light to others and shared president Monson's
talk on being an example and a light.

Sunday was such an incredible day. I always love to be able to go to
church and partake of the sacrament on Sundays. Today I really
realized how strong the ward members relationships are. Every week for
sacrament meeting the ward gets out a big computer and a table to type
on for a deaf member in the ward. They have someone sit up front and
sign for him. I realized that even though that probably takes a lot of
work, they all love each other so much that everyone helps each other
out. Ishi kyodai (the deaf member in the ward) gave the sacrament
prayer and gave a talk in church. It is truly incredible to me how he
was able to give a talk even though he can't even hear! We have a
blind lady in our ward who when she comes to church is always
immediately greeted and fellowshipped. The people of the Okayama Nishi
ward have such strong faith! I love this ward so much.

My ponderizing scripture for last week was Ephisians 6:10, "Finally,
my brethren, be strong in the Lord and in the power of his might."
When we rely on the Lord we can be made strong. We cannot endure to
the end on our own. In order to win the fight against the adversary we
must be strong in the Lord and in the power of his might. I love how
powerfully this scripture speaks out to me. I hope that all of you are
able to continue with the ponderizing. For my challenge last week I
asked you all to find some way to serve others. I think that service
is so important, even if it is just something small that we do for
others. This week Weakley choro and I were able to help out one of our
investigators with his English homework. We also helped out the old
folks on Tuesday like we do each week. I love being able to help
others. I hope that we can continue to keep working on serving others.

My challenge for this week is to read President Monson's talk, "Be an
Example and a Light," and to look to be a light to others. There are
so many people in this world who don't have the gospel and need our
help in their lives. From doing service last week we were able to help
others with their temporal lives, but now lets try to help others with
their eternal lives. Being a light to other people is not the easiest
thing in the world; however, I know that as we try to share the gospel
with others in our lives we will be greatly blessed for it in the life
to come.

Questions:

1. My companion's favorite thing to do in Japan is to go to shrines and
historical places that are really old. He says that the shrines are
way cool, and he loves all the castles. His favorite thing to eat is
sashimi, which is just cuts of raw fish. He also loves mabodofu and
curry.

2.  Maybe the only thing I could think of that I might need 
would be an american toothbrush and my scriptures are getting pretty
bad. I am just really excited to be able to Skype home to you.

3. No ping pong lately, sadly. It is hard to get people to come. I
hope that we can play some ping pong sometime, but for now we are just
trying to teach as many lessons as we can.

4. I am not really sure what kind of holidays that they do celebrate.
A couple months back they celebrated something about their ancestors,
but I will have to find out and let you know.

5. I have a lot of good apps that help me learn the language. The best
one is called Imiwa. It defines words and helps us to learn their huge
variety of kanji characters. They have like 10000 different
characters, but they only use about 2-3 thousand. Thankfully we are
not required to learn kanji in our mission, but it helps to learn some
of them in order to read things.

6. They will not let us keep the iPads after our missions, but I have
the hard drive in order to save all my photos, videos, etc... I am
pretty sure that is a United States mission thing.

7. I got that email from Michaels mission hahahaha. It was hilarious.
I am glad that he is doing well. He looks like he is having fun. Tell
him I love him and to keep having fun for me would you.

8. My favorite thing about the Japanese culture is that everyone is so
kind. I hardly have times where people get angry at me when talking to
them on the street or housing to random people. Also the members are
the absolute best. I love them all to death!

Dad's question: I have not seen any problems with same sex marriage
and the church in Japan. It seems like nobody in Japan has problems
with that, at least that I know of. I haven't really heard anything
about it. I hope that it can be resolved more in America. It is sad to
see some of the things that are going on in the world today. That
being said, lets all endure to the end and win the fight!

I love you all tons every single one of you. Keep being amazing and
try to be a light to others. This world is such a short time and
others need the gospel in their lives. We only live here for about
80-100 years so lets endure to the end and choose the right! Love you
all and pray for you always,

Hirschi 長老

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