Hitting my stride :)

I'm just so HAPPY!　I feel like I'm hitting my stride (knock on wood).  Squatter toilets, eating eel and dried eel bones (a first that happened this week.  I recommend it!), riding through wind, rain, typhoons, popping tires, teaching lessons and loving missionary life.  Remember in the movie Cast Away when the man comes back and can`t sleep on a bed and instead sleeps on the floor?  That just might be me pretty soon.  A lot happened this week, there always is.  But all I can remember is the lesson we just taught this morning (haven't had a real preparation day (the day that missionaries use to buy groceries, do their laundry,clean etc.)  in MONTHS.  But I I can't complain if you get the wonderful opportunity of teaching lessons!)

Fukuoka, Nagasaki, and Yamaguchi zones in the Fukuoka mission.

Sister Williams and I have the cutest investigator ever.  He is in his 70's and was a referral from his daughter who is a member of the church.  She was back in Japan visiting a couple of months ago and introduced us.  The daughter went back home but we continued to teach him.  He has Parkinson's Disease and when we first met him Sister Williams and I were in shock.  He was just downright depressed.  There was no light in that man.  When we taught he laid on the floor totally incoherent and not participating.  We semi-willingly continued going.  He lives about an hour away by train, but we decided to give it a couple more shots.  A couple of months have passed since that first visit and having just gotten back from teaching "Otosan" (we call him dad).  And little by little he has been changing.  He is Buddhist (most people are here) and we had to beg him to read the Book of Mormon.  Some how he did and he got his hands on Liahona Magazine talks and General Conference editions of the Liahona and fell in love with studying.  Otosan, who was so depressed because he couldn't walk and couldn't contribute to his community or family, began to open up!  When Williams Shimai and I heard him laugh the first time we were in shock.  He is just the cutest old man ever!  Day by day he has been praying.  When Sister Williams and I first asked him to pray for us we were really surprised.  It was one of the most sincere, heart felt prayers I have ever heard (or even said!).  He most definitely speaks with God.  Little things like reading the Book of Mormon and praying, coming to church and testing his faith have brought about a NOTICEABLE change in him.  His daughter sees it via skype, his wife sees it as well and Sister Williams and I most certainly see it.  It has been an absolute privilege to teach him.  A little trying, it's taken a lot of patience and encouragement, but it has been the neatest transformation I have ever seen.  The gospel of Jesus Christ changes people.  It enables each and every one of us to lift ourselves up and out of bad places; be it physical or mental.  Otosan is a changed man.  Today we got on the train and visited him.  We had left him with some reading to do from the Book of Mormon and the Liahona (a church magazine printed in many foreign languages) we gave him.  And when we asked him how the reading went he just lit up.  He explained to us that there are a lot of similarities between Buddhism and Christianity, lots of the truths are the same.  However, he has felt the peace that comes from Christianity and that is something that in 70 years has not come to him.  He said he has been really sick lately, not able to walk at all.  But he has never been so happy.  He said he got his answer... he wants to be baptized!  To have Otosan come to that conclusion by himself was really incredible.  But we still had to teach the lesson we had prepared.  We taught the principle of tithing.... dun dun dun :)  It's a little bit tricky.  But we taught it and Otosan just laughed (still not sure why, but that should be a good sign, right?).  He said 10% to give to God is kind of high, but he would pray about it.  I can't adequately describe the lesson, but every time we shared a scripture, told a personal experience and/or testified he would just nod his head and grunt and then say something along the lines of "Well I guess if that is what God wants me to do..."  If we had taught that lesson when we first had met him he would have kicked us out of the door faster than we could have said "amen".  But his faith is so, so much stronger that I have ever seen it.  He wasn't willing to just take our word about tithing, but he was more than willing to ask God and that is all that matters.  I love him!  Please pray for Otosan :)  

Lots of other stuff this week, but that is just what stands out to me the most!  I love you all!  Have a great week.  Good Luck! 

Hawkins Shimai