9/10/08 Email Message

Family!,
I thought it might be easier to send one big email this time so here it goes! Hows it going?! Its weird that the letter took so long to get to you. Mom said it took 12 days. Thats weird. I got the wikipedia article Dad sent me yesterday, but im not sure how long it took to get here. Hopefully letters will be faster in the future.


Im glad to hear everything is going so well back home! Kimberly saw her baby! How cool is that! I bet its going to be the cutest little baby. I cant wait to see pictures! And your reading the New Testament? I love the New Tesatament. I dont really get the chance to read it much right now though because our mission has a goal to finish the Book of Mormon by Christmas. As we read, we summarize each chapter in our study journals and analyze specific points that stick out to us. Its way cool, but very time consuming so I dont have much time to read much of anything else.


As far as the food goes, its alright. Its good but it seems like everything tastes pretty much the same. They dont really have much of a selection here. You can either have some kind of noodle dish or some kind of rice dish. Haha apparently there are different kinds of each but I cant really tell. And they have this drink here that everyone loves to serve us. Its basically wheat tea. They call it Mugi cha - I call it tobacco water. But i drink it anyways because its cold. Haha maybe Ill get used to it.


As far as things here, they are going much, much better. Its weird to me that I got so homesick. I was not expecting it at all so it really caught me by surprise. But Im totally over it now. I still miss home and everything, but it doesnt effect me like it used to. I know God is helping me to focus on the work - I can feel His helping hand everyday.


I had a great experience last week. On tuesday I went on splits with one of my zone leaders. He is going home after this transfer so we are basically on complete opposite ends of the spectrum. I learned a lot from his insights and experience so it was a great oppurtunity. We went dendoing [proselyting] from 1 - 8pm. It was super hot and super humid all day long. We must have knocked on 1000 doors and talked to hundreds of people. Not a single person had any interest. It sounds like it should have been terrible, but the funniest thing was it was amazing. The more I bore my testimony and tried to introduce Jesus to these people that had absolutely no interest, the more confident I became in my beliefs. Every time someone kekkoed [declined]me, my testimony grew a littlemore. It got to the point were I was walking as fast as I could to each house so I could have the oppurtunity to bear another little testimony. It was awesome! Ever since that experience, Ive been having a great time. We work hard everyday but we still have fun doing it.


We also have 10 investigators! We found an apartment complex that we call China Town. Everyone that lives there is a Chinese immigrant, but they all speak great Japanese so we are able to communicate really easily with them. It seems like every person we talk to there wants to listen to our message. We found 2 of our strongest investigators there. They are both 20 year old college students and they are both always so excited to meet with us. One of them read half of the book of mormon in a week! The other one told us he feels like Jesus is his destiny. It was so cool. They have never even heard about God before so its amazing to see how excited they get to learn more about him. Im really excited to see them progress.


Its so cool to be here in Japan. Everyday something happens that makes me realize just how amazing it is that Im actually here. Usually its something that seems insignificant, but its huge to me. Like a couple days ago we were out housing and it started to pour rain. We had two more hours to be out so we just kept knocking doors. Near the end I was completely drenched and super tired. On the way home we walked by a little house that had a little rock garden out front with a little statue in the middle of it. The garden was covered with bright green moss and the way the rain was falling off the statue into a little fish pond in front of it made it look like a postcard of Japan. It was so beautiful. I said a little prayer of thanks for the oppurtunity to be on a mission in Japan, and the for the blessing I got from being completely drenched and super tired.


Thanks for all your prayers. They have helped so much. I love you all and I miss you. Talk to you next week!
Love Elder Kingsford