6 Months Gone

I was soaked earlier this morning.  But the weird thing is that it hasn't been raining recently.  It has been hotter than usual though.  I think you know what I'm trying to say.  Now that I've put that mental imagine into your minds, let me tell you about my week. ;)

We had a real nice week this past week.  It started off good with a fun p-day.  We went to the batting cages with a brother in the branch and it made us sore for a few days after.  Then on Tuesday we had a couple of really good lessons.  Like way good.  One of them was a lesson with our investigator.  We taught about Jesus Christ.  His life, the Atonement, and about all the wonderful things he did on the earth.  It was way cool to see him learn about the Savior and really like it.  I mean it seemed that he really liked learning about Him.  It was a way good lesson and the next time we meet with him we want to commit him to baptism, because we think he is ready and that he'll say yes.  The other lesson we had was with one of our other investigators.  She has been coming to church for a while now and we've been teaching her for a while.  But she has a problem remembering and understanding the lessons so it is hard to help her progress.  But when we met with her this week, we asked her the first baptismal interview question and she answered it right.  She even gave us a little reason, which made us even happier.  It showed that little by little she actually is progressing.

We got a new investigator this week.  He's way cool and really nice.  He has travelled a lot so he speaks like perfect English.  The only problem is that he is most likely moving to England next week.  So we're going to teach him as much as we can while he's here.  He came to a little after church meal gathering thing yesterday.  It was way nice.  A lot of the members really like him and think he is way interesting.  So they are bummed that he's moving too.  He came to the talent show that we had on Saturday too.

Oh, btw, we had a talent show on Saturday.  Since I have no talents I had to come up with something to do.  So I played with my yo-yos.  It was super pathetic.  I'm glad you weren't there to see it.  But Kano choro and a brother in the branch played the guitar.  That was way cool.  A student from English class sang and played the piano.  She was so good.  It was fun even though not a ton of people were able to come that we wanted.

 It's weird thinking that I've been out on a mission for over six months now. Just think in four times the time that has already past, you'll have to deal with me again. I hope you live up the short time that you have without me. It will go by faster than you think. ;)

Anywho, I think that about wraps up the week that I had.  If not, then I guess you may never know.  Sorry.  Kinda.  Hope you have a good day!  :D

Love, Elder Wixom 長老。

It's Going to be a Busy Week. Hopefully

This week we had a lot of really good things that happened.

We were able to meet with an investigator twice that we haven't been able to meet with for a while.  It was super great because we were able to have to really nice lessons and were able to give her a Book of Mormon, which she started to read in between the lessons we had.  That was super great.  She was also asking some good questions to try and help herself understand the book better, which is also great.  Hopefully we will be able to meet her again this week.  She's pretty busy usually, but we would love to have a lesson with some Sisters from the branch there.

Another investigator came to church again this week.  She is starting to seem just like a normal member at church.  But the best part was in Sunday school when she was able to remember the answer to a couple questions that she was asked.  That means that she is remembering!  It is the hardest thing that is keeping her from baptism, the trouble with remembering and understanding what we teach.  But the fact that she was able to answer some questions right shows that she is improving and progressing.  Little by little.  That's how we work.

We were also able to meet some nice people this past week who told us that we could come back later.  So this week we have a few appointments that we set up and I hope that it wiil be good.  We are going to be hopefully, really busy.  But that is okay because when you're busy in the work, that's when it is the most fun and we see the most success.  Being busy makes the time go by fast too though.  So that's kind of a bummer, but it's okay because we're working hard.

Right now I am typing this e-mail, but shortly after this we have a couple of appointments that we need to go to.  One is with one of our strongest investigators.  I pray that we will have a good lesson today.  Well, I guess I'll talk to you next week.   Hope you have a fun life!  Talk to you soon.  I love you!

So to answer your questions, I don't know how long the rainy season is.  I don't know if it has really started yet, but sometimes we get a lot of rain.  We are usually able to dry out pretty well in the apartment.  There is only Kano choro and I here in Nagaoka.  The Helping Hands service projests are over so we don't have any more of those, but if we can find projects around time we try to do those.  As far as English class, we have it in the church once a week.  People usually find out about it when we talk to people about it or pass out flyers.  Sometimes people hear about it from their friends or they see some flyers that we have left at convinient stores, but not usually.  I do a lot of cooking.  I make lunch everyday unless there is something going on.  As far as needing anything, Kano choro wants to know if you have any simple recipes that don't require a lot of different ingreidients that make good food.

Love, Elder Wixom

Finally Pictures

Here are some pics I received from Elder Wixom today.  He sure looks good.  Hope you enjoy them.

Best wishes,

His Momma

Very Wilish letter

Love the stamps

First picture in Japan at the Tokyo Airport

At the beach in Aomori

At Hirosaki's Sakura Festival!  The best sakura in all of Japan.

At the train station in Morioka

With E. Squire at Hirosaki Festival

Gian Nebuta Float at Warasse ( The Nebuta House)

Another Float at Warusse

Sunset in Aomori

My First District in Aomori

On splits in Hachinohe

E. Kano and I swinging

Sweet bike riding picture of me and E. Kano

E. Kano and I doing missionary work

E. Kano and I doing more missionary work

Fireworks in Nagaoka.  So big.  We were by the river the first night

More fireworks

We were on our roof a ways off from the river and the fireworks we still so big.  We could feel the explosions.

My Head's Spinning and I'm Soaked

Currently, right now, at the moment, today it is raining.  It was not raining too much when we left the apartment, but by the time we got here to do e-mails it was raining pretty hard.  But that's okay because we just came from teaching a super nice lesson with one of our investigators.  It was so great!  It made us so happy we were singing all the way back into town through the pouring rain.  Today I think is going to be the start of a good week full of a lot of good things.  But I'll have to let you know how it goes next week.  But right now I can tell you about how last week went.

Last week wasn't a bad week, but there was a lot of things we had planned to do that we weren't able to do in the end.  A few lessons fell through and finding was a little hard this week, but on the bright side, we were able to do a couple lessons and we had some great training from our zone leaders.  I kinda want to tell you about the training because I think you will enjoy it.  So it was during district meeting, the zone leaders came to train our district and it started out just like normal.  The only thing that was different was that they told us to bring our cameras to the meeting.  We didn't know why they wanted us to, but we sure found out.  While they had us do a practice finding scenario, they used our cameras to record us so that we could see ourselves in a contact.  One of the points they were trying to make was that in contacting it's not just about what we say, but also about what we look like.  So we were able to look at the videos and see things that we were able to improve on.  But the best part was after the meeting, they planned to put what we learned into action.  So we went on splits with the zone leaders, one zone leader went with each companionship, and they followed behind us dressed as normal people and recorded us contacting people so that we could see what we do that is good and what we could improve on.  It was a lot of fun and we found a great guy during it.  It was great.  And the next day, we were able to find another super great guy just going to an appointment.  So I think the training really helped us see what we needed to improve on and really help us get better.  And it was super fun.

Other than that, the week was just full of doing normal missionary things.  This week we are going to do even more and be even better and then it's just going to have a snowball effect.  At least that's the plan.  I guess you'll just have to read my e-mail next week to see how it goes.  Hope you all are doing well, and having fun.  Love you all!

Love, Elder Wixom

It's Nice to Have a Great Week

This past week was one of the best weeks of my mission I think.  There was so many good things that happened this week it was awesome.  But I'm not going to write about any of them.  Mwa ha ha ha...

Just kidding.  I want to tell you about it.  So first off we just did normal work and stuff, which is fun, but it was a little hot so that wasn't great.  But we've decided that when its hot outside, that's when we see good things happen.  We had a great English Class, where a couple of new faces came and had a great time.  We were able to meet with one of our investigators and she told us that when she is ready, she'll be baptized.  It will still be a little while before she is ready, cause she forgets things easily, but eventually she will be ready and she'll remember what she promised us.  We were able to visit another one of our investigators and schedule another appointment, hopefully to teach him and his family.  That will be great.  We were also able to teach one of our English students so he is now an investigator.  He seems so golden and so prepared.  He has his problems, but when we taught him about the Book of Mormon and the promise that if you read, ponder, and pray you'll get an answer, he joyfully exclaimed, `Now I get it!`.  It was so awesome to just see him absorb what we were teaching.  Missionary work is so Fun!  (That was what last week's e-mail was titled.)  And lastly we were able to go with the branch and an investigator to see the fireworks on Thursday.  And they were just amazing.  I'll have to show you pictures sometime.  And then we saw them on our roof on Friday with the Elders from Joetsu.  And they were amazing too.  Even though we were farther away, it still felt like a punch to the gut when the big ones went off.  Let's just say that fireworks at home may never quite entertain the same way again.  There was Pikachu fireworks!  And smiley faces, hearts, and Hello Kitty ones, but I wasn't able to get any pictures of them.  But they were just awesome.

It was a great super fun week.  Hopefully this week will be just as good.  Just withot the fireworks.

Anyways, I think I'm going to go now.  I hope you are enjoying your lives in wherever you are living.  Hope you have a wonderful day!

Love, Elder Wixom