Elder Callahan in Japan

Kind of a crazy week this week. Tuesday we saw off Elder Anderson and became a regular two-man companionship. The apartment's kind of lonely without him around, but we manage. We we dropped off Elder Anderson I got to see everyone from my MTC district and Elder Schmeil, which was way fun.

That day we found a new investigator on the street who told us "There's no way I'm joining your church, but I'm interested in experiencing Christianity" and was super down to meet with us. We'll see if he changes his tune about joining haha. He came to church on Sunday and had a really good time, and was belting out the songs louder than anybody. Turns out he's an actor fairly famous around Nagoya city, because the members knew who he was. He talked to a couple of the members for the whole second hour of church, just asking questions. He's super interested and a way cool guy, so we're excited about him.

On Saturday we had a ward New Year's party. Every New Year's Party in Japan they do a Mochi Tsuki, which basically entails smashing hot rice with a big hammer until it turns into this sticky goo-type substance called mochi which you then eat. Mochi's not necessarily my cup of tea but the hammer part was fun. Moto-san, our investigator with a baptismal date cam to the party and was talking to the members for a good while. He had a good time, but he looked pretty tired and out of it though, so we cancelled our lesson with him and he went home and slept. It turned out good, because the next day he came to church and was the most upbeat and energetic I've ever seen him. Up to this point he'd seemed kind of uncomfortable and insecure in the church, but this Sunday he was totally chill and happy to be there, talked to the members for a long time, and looked like he was finally starting to make some good friends.
One small miracle that we saw was the reappearance of Brother Yu! He's a member from China, and had started coming to the ward when I got here because he was in Nagoya for work. However, he left the same week our Chinese investigator started coming, so we couldn't use his help in our lessons and whatnot. Because of some communication problems we have with Moto-san sometimes (we're both communicating in a second language) we hadn't been able to get a super solid feel of exactly who he is and where he's coming from, but Brother Yu talked to him for a good half hour before sacrament meeting and then another half hour after church. Afterward Brother Yu came up to us and said "You guys are teaching a good man" so that put to rest a lot of the concerns we had. So this week we had two investigators at church at the same time, neither of whom we wanted to bring to the gospel principles class (as much as we wanted to take our brand new investigator to "signs of the second coming," we decided maybe another time) so we had to teach both of them during second hour. This led to crazy random split lessons, both in the chapel. It was weird. I taught Moto-san with the brother of a member in Okazaki (Brother Kawabata's brother, Brother Kawabata. Feels like I'm on a weird episode of Elmo's World sometimes) and Elder Hobdy taught our brand new investigator. It went way well. That's the most tired I've ever gotten from church. It was a good feeling. Moto-san is on track for baptism, as long as tithing doesn't scare him off, so hopefully you should see some pictures next week!

Those are pretty much the highlights of the week. The Lord is moving his work forward and I've been able to feel His hand guiding us as we do what He wants us to do. It's a really cool feeling to see miracles play out and see the Lord working with you in His vineyard. I love it. I'm really glad I can be out here working with Him. Love you all. Have a good week!

Elder Callahan