Small Miracles and Japanese Pizza!

December 7, 2015: Week 58
Area: Kitakami

Companion: Mitchell Choro

Hey everyone! It was great to hear about your week! I loved the pictures from Temple Square Erin! Your family is so cute! And that was way weird to see PG playing in the new gym. It will be weird walking in that thing when I get home. I still like the one I played in, but I guess it's pretty nice.

My week was pretty good. We saw some small little miracles here and there. I'll start with the one on Tuesday. 

We had a lot of time on our hands so we did a ton of door to door contacting. I usually don't like door to door, but sometimes you just gotta do it, and sometimes it can get pretty silly. Like one house we knocked on, this super old grandma answered the door, saw us and just started laughing. I was just going along with it and tried talking to her. She just starting waving her hand and basically said, "I'm super old, I have no idea what's going on." And basically said that four or five times. So we kind of just slowly walked away. It was weird. 

We did find a couple of people who said we could come back so we will see! But the cool thing that happened was when we were out in the boonies crossing a bridge to house a neighborhood, I saw a man taking pictures from over the bridge and felt a prompting that I needed to talk to him. So, as I passed by, I just said it was a good view and asked about his pictures. He responded and starting talking to me. He turned out to be way cool! And get this, he has been to Salt Lake before! We talked about that and if he saw Temple Square and stuff. I gave him a pass-along card and an Ekaiwa flyer and he said he'd come. And as he said, he and his wife came to Ekaiwa the next day! He's a retired dentist and his English is way good. Now he just travels the world, climbing world famous mountains and taking pictures. He isn't an investigator, but it was cool to follow a prompting and then find out later why you were prompted to do it.

Friday, I unexpectedly woke up to a blizzard outside!! I looked outside and thought, "oh no....it's begun!" So we braved out into the snow and walked to the Eki cause we had ZTM in Morioka. The train that usually takes an hour to get there took about two and a half. The snow caused a lot of problems with the trains so it took forever. So we stood shoulder to shoulder in a packed and muggy train for over two hours. It was a swell time.... And we were about 30 minutes late to the meeting so it was a little awkward to walk in and have everyone stare at me. Oh well!

After the meeting, the Mowers took me and my companion out for lunch. Elder Mower wanted to go to an all you can eat pizza place, but he got lost so we settled for another all you can eat it pizza. I have no idea what I was thinking; you should always avoid Japanese pizza. I now understand why. It was the weirdest stuff I've ever eaten. So the restaurant was like Tuchanos where they bring it around to you and put it on your plate. First of all, the waitresses were like scared of us because we were American and didn't really treat us the best. Second, this "pizza" was, I'd go as far to say that it was an abomination. I could just imagine the cook in the back thinking, "what random things can I put on this one!!?" There was one with octopus and clams on it, another with ham and French fries, and my personal favorite, tuna and French fries. Oh man it was weird. I can't wait to have normal pizza when I'm back! It was disgusting, but definitely a funny experience.

The second cool miracle that happened was on Saturday. We were riding the train to Hanamaki and a woman came and sat next to me. She actually started talking to me, asking if I was a student. I answered and we started talking. Then she began speaking fluent English! I was way surprised. She went to language school in Sendai, so she's pretty fluent. I asked if she was religious, trying to shift to the Book of Mormon. She said she was Buddhist and wanted to learn about God and Christ, partially because her English professor is apparently a famous Jamaican gospel singer named John Lucas, so she wants to learn about Christ because of him. I explained the Book of Mormon in English and got her number and plan on meeting this week!! It was way weird teaching in English to someone. I felt kind of awkward; I'm not used to it, but it was awesome, God blessed us with a miracle even when I didn't do anything to deserve it. It was awesome.

And lastly, we had a lesson with Suzuki San last week about the restoration. It went pretty well. He is finally starting to understand why we need the Book of Mormon. He liked the concept of prophets and has been trying to pray on his own, so things are still looking good. He was going to come to church yesterday, but his work schedule suddenly changed and he couldn't come..... Next week though!

Well I hope you guys have a wonderful week! I love you so much! I hope you have a wonderful holiday season! Talk to you soon!

Love,
Elder Nathan Didericksen

It's begun!!

Beautiful view of the Kitakami River and the city in the back.