Elder Nathan Alan Didericksen: Easter in Hirosaki

April 6, 2015: Week 24
Area: Hirosaki

Companions: Canepari Choro and Larsen Choro

Konnichiwa everyone! It was so great to hear from you guys. That email was great! I'm sure glad to hear that your conference weekend was good, despite the fact that Kelsey and I were absent. We haven't been able to watch it yet unfortunately, but we will sometime this week. I'm so excited to watch it. As a missionary, conference is a very exciting time and I'm excited to hear from the leaders of our church. Easter was kind of disappointing though; no one even mentioned the term Easter or talked about Christ's Resurrection at all. It was a little strange. It didn't feel like Easter at all. I was feeling a little homesick yesterday because I was missing out on all of the Easter fun, but I'm okay. I feel very close to home now because I'm eating a corn dog as I type this so it's all good, plus we sang America the Beautiful for comp study. I need an American patriotic fix every once in a while! This week was pretty good. Not a ton happened, but I will give you some of the highlights:

On Tuesday, we rode out for about 45 minutes to go visit a bunch of our investigators who all live way close to each other. Unfortunately, none of them were even home so we kinda struck out on that one. It was fun though to ride around with the other two guys in the warm weather. When we ride our bikes around, we get a bunch of weird looks and people taking pictures of us. It's a weird sight to see three white dudes in suits biking around on little beach cruiser bikes in white helmets. I would laugh if I were them! I like being in a trio actually, especially with my two companions. They are awesome and we are having a ton of fun lone wolfing it in Hirosaki. Well after doing that for a few hours and after lunch, we had a mogi *kind of a practice lesson* with the man we recently reactivated. He is way nice and he loves to talk to us. His wife is deaf and can only do sign language, but he doesn't know sign language, so I have no idea how their relationship exists. It's a mystery! Anyway, after his lesson, we had another over the phone lesson with a lady who is a less active only because her house is like 4 hours away. It is pretty weird teaching phone lessons. It's definitely hard to teach in unity over the phone; we managed to get through it though. The lady is really nice though; she yells out ai shiteimasu *I love you* every time we are about to hang up. No one says I love you in Japan.

The next day we went out again to visit some of those investigators, but unfortunately, none of them could meet again! It was kind of a bummer. But one funny thing happened. We were standing outside a convenience store looking at an address when this super crazy dude comes up and starts talking to us. This guy is fluent in gibberish because I don't think he was speaking Japanese or any other normal language. We just sat there nodding our heads and acting like we knew what was going on. Then he went into the store and came back a minute later and gave us food that he had just bought in there. Then he walked away. It was super weird and random, but I'm not going to turn down free food!

Throughout this week, we have been able to use the new Easter video and teach about Easter and Jesus Christ a lot. As i missionary, I really have a greater appreciation for the Atonement and Christ's sacrifice. Easter really meant a lot more to me this year than it has my entire life. It is a cool opportunity to be able to share the message of Easter that because Christ lives, we can be comforted in times of heartache and trial. Because he lives, we too can be resurrected and live with our families for eternity. It is really cool to be able to share that with people I meet.

On Friday, we had a zone training meeting in Aomori. We learned about how we can become better disciples of Christ and how we can become more sanctified. It was a pretty good meeting. That was our last time going to Aomori for this transfer. Hopefully, I will be able to go back there again someday because it is a pretty city.

The next day we taught Narita San and it was a great lesson. He actually kept his commitment to read Alma 32!! We were pretty excited because that dude never keeps commitments. He even came with questions which was great. He told us he learned that we don't need to have a perfect knowledge to be baptized and things like that. We were thinking for a second that he was going to say he wanted to be baptized, but alas,he didn't. But he did show signs of progression, which was great. A few other miracles occurred. A mom and her daughter randomly showed up to Eikaiwa for the first time, and another one of our investigators showed up to Eikaiwa out of nowhere. We were able to do a lesson with him after Eikaiwa as well. It was a pretty cool day.

It was a pretty good week being able to learn and ponder about the sacrifice of Jesus Christ and his love for us. I love being a missionary during holidays like these and be able to teach others about Christ and his love for them. Also, this week, I'm giving a spiritual message in district meeting. I have been thinking a lot about Peter from the New Testament recently and I want to do it on him. I'm really fascinated about him. He went from a normal, weak, fishermen to a great and powerful apostle and prophet. And of course, the New Testament tells us about his many weaknesses such as denying Christ three times, but through his faith in Christ, like in Ether 12:27, he was able to become a very powerful witness of Christ. Us too, like Peter, can have weak things be made strong through Jesus Christ and become sanctified disciples of Jesus Christ.

Well there you go, my little spiritual input for the week. Thanks for all that you guys do for me and for all of the support and words of encouragement. I have the best family in the world. I miss you guys a ton and I'm excited to be with you guys when I get home. I'm grateful for the opportunity to be in Japan though and to learn and grow. I hope you guys have a great week! I love you! Talk to you next week.

p.s. Can you believe I hit my six month mark next week!! Crazy huh?

Love,

Elder Nathan Didericksen