Japan 17 Oct 2010 Nishinomiya



Week 16

Mission Log

English Class

I`m starting to really get the hang of teaching English class. I have a lot of fun, we learn a lot of material, and the students have a lot of fun too. Elder Hart said that before I came they had one regular student and usually one other random person would just walk in. Now, we have about eight regular students that come each week. When people come they just have so much fun and learn so much that they want to come every week. One student came to our class one time, then went on vacation. She brought us back souvenirs. We only taught her once. They have a binder with a lot of lessons you can teach, but I decided that they were stupid and I make up my own lessons now. My companion mostly just sits there and watches.

We now have four investigators that we teach in English. One is from America, one is from Mexico, one is from Nepal, and one is Japanese but he lived in Hungary for seven years. I really like when we teach in English. It`s a lot easier for me.

I met Elder Aoyagi of the Seventy. He came to Kobe and we had a mission conference. There were people translating for me and the other new missionaries. His talk was amazing. That was on Wednesday. Then, on Sunday, he came to Nishinomiya Ward (my ward). I`m not really sure why he came to Nishinomiya ward, but I`m glad he did. He and his wife spoke for the whole sacrament meeting. We had brought a less-active member to church that week and he (Brother Ueda) said that he really liked Aoyagi. I think it really strengthened him. Than, Aoyagi did a fireside after church. There weren't any translators at church or the fireside. So, I didn't understand most of what was being said, but I`m sure that it was probably super awesome. My companion said it was awesome. At the mission conference, I got to see some of my friends from the MTC that I haven`t seen in like a month.

It`s still really warm here all the time. On Monday we started having to wear suits again. We don`t have to wear suits in the summer because we`d die from the heat, but now we have to start wearing them all the time. I think that it`s still really hot in a suit. It sounds like the winter here is going to be a lot like the winters back home. It will get sort of cold but not too bad. We will probably get snow a couple of times but just light stuff that is usually gone the next morning. Nothing very extreme or exciting.

President Monson said that if you memorize a scripture every day for two years, you`ll develop a photographic memory. He has the whole Book of Mormon memorized. I`m going to start memorizing a scripture every morning. By the end of my mission, I`ll almost have a photographic memory.

After church on Sunday, we were sitting in the kitchen eating peanut butter and jelly sandwiches when two church members came in. They were like "What is that?" They`d never had peanut butter and jelly sandwiches before, or even heard of it. I was pretty surprised. I thought everyone knew PB&J. Japanese peanut butter tastes different. We had some American peanut butter from COSTCO. They tried it and they were shocked. PB&J isn't as good with Japanese peanut butter. We also had nutella and they`d never heard of that either. The all tried some. There were like five of them by this point. They all liked it. They eat rice and soup for every meal here. I`m starting to get used to it. It`s still a little weird though.

HAPPY BIRTHDAY, CALEB!!!

-Elder Isaac D. Swift

Eating something (above)