No Regrets: Hastening the Work in Tokyo: I seriously love this place!

Sanjo. This place is so special. However, during my time with a previous companion, there was rarely a day that went by in which he didn't talk about how cold Sanjo was and how few people there were (it was actually really cool that I got sent here because I had heard more about this area than any other area in my whole mission. When missionaries would mention it, I'd say I really wanted to go to Niigata, and then they'd tell me lots about it!) Between what I've seen and heard, my thoughts about this area are very conflicted. Here's why: about 75% of what I heard about it was straight complaining. Kinda those classic comments about a "dead area" that you and Mark talked about in your letters. "Everybody just says 'kekko desu!" And "every house from here to Yahiko Mountain has been knocked on several times by missionaries." And "Everyone already said they have no interest."

I'm gonna be straight up, I hate a negative attitude more than almost anything else in this universe. No matter how different I am from a person, if they have a positive attitude, we can be great friends. But consistent negative comments just wear on my patience really fast and make me depressed. And so it is with Sanjo!

There are a lot of people who will just swat at the air like you're a fly and say, "I don't need that!" It happens from time to time, but let's be honest, it happens everywhere else too. That's the reality. You can't mine gold unless you dig through some dirt first. I've come to conclude that the only thing that's difficult about Sanjo is that it is very cold. But I like the cold for the most part. Maybe I'm just lucky because this is my dream area. There are miles of rice fields, old houses, ancient japanese structures, gorgeous mountains covered in pine and bamboo, the list goes on and on. I absolutely love this place. And we've actually had 4 times as many lessons this last week as is normal for the area (normal is 3) Elder Okano said he really wants to turn things around. Right now, we're working hard! But lots of prayers would be appreciated. However, never feel bad for me or anything, because I'm not trying to be humble or whatever. I seriously love this place. As far as looks, it's my favorite area yet. :)

The two-man apartment is really interesting. We only ever see each other, which is so strange. There are no other missionaries within an hour train ride of us, so we have a lot of ground to cover :P The ward is really hoping that we'll have some sisters come in soon, but for now there are a couple of investigators and less active members who are ladies that we visit with a male member. It's pretty isolated, which I am not used to at all after Shibuya.

Hahaha, the apartment is already cleaned up quite a bit, but I took a few pics for you ;) It's almost on par with a clean apartment, and pretty soon it'll be the most comfortable apartment in the mission!!

Fixing the lights.

Aaaawww, that sounds so fun! I love to hear about y'all working in the yard and making grape juice and jam and apple sauce and such! Those girls are so cute! I saw the pictures of their costumes and I died!! This year was a hit, Rachel. Bravo ;) You too Mae, Hudzy looked way good! Good work on the vest ;)

Man, this week was awesome. I'm trying to remember all that happened... we talked to TONS of people! We mostly focused on working with less active members though. One of our ward members, brother Kumagai said that a certain brother Maeda might have known Grandpa! Anyway, we knocked on his door and it was awesome! I've learned that one of my missions that the Lord wants me to accomplish is working with grumpy people. Elder Okano was pretty devastated by some of the rude things that were said, but I didn't understand any of them so I just smiled and kept being friendly and he said he'd like it if we came back! :D We met another brother Shida who is an inventor and being in his house was so cool! He's one of the nicest people ever, and was so happy to have us there. So was brother Tosaka, he was all smiles the whole time! We actually had to tactfully say, "I'm sorry, we have another appointment..." because he loved talking with us so much! :) That's really been the focus of our work.

Toshiki is awesome, but he's hard to teach. His family is actually half members, and he has interest in raising his children in the gospel, but when we meet he just wants to play sports and stuff, and getting around to the lessons is really difficult. But our relationship with him has gotten to be great!

So, this is the worst story that could ever happen to missionaries. After a long day of finding, we found a new investigator named Junjun who was so awesome and said that he wanted to come to church with his buddy!!! And then on Sunday they weren't there, and later that day we got an email saying, "Sorry, I got lost, so we just found a catholic church and went there instead." And then he hasn't responded to our invitations since......

Dang it.

Please pray for us to find new people!! We just applied at the city service center, so we'll be making lots of friends! And we're going to colleges to offer to teach English as a mission, and people in the district are already finding people to teach the gospel as well from it! :D So, that's definitely going great!!

Today we biked 20 miles and went to Yahiko and explored the shrine and it was one of the coolest days of my life!