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| Elder Sherrill and his District at Goemon |
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| Nape party! |
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| Mabodofu |
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| An old picture of all the new missionaries leaving for their new areas |
Happy Valentine's Day everyone! We didn't do much out of the ordinary
here for Valentine's Day but we did get lots of chocolate from the
members! So that was pretty sweet. This week had its ups and downs
like I suppose all weeks do but recently it has been pretty difficult
on my companion and I. To begin though I will start off with the good
stuff that happened this week.
First off is we had a sweet nabe party last Thursday! The sisters
found some Chinese investigator and decided to throw a party for her
before she went back to China for a little bit. The sisters invited
their other investigators and we invited some of the college students
that have been coming to Eikaiwa recently. It turned out to be a huge
success! 2 of the sisters investigators came and brought their
friends. Then a couple college students came from Eikaiwa and we had a
few of the younger adults come from our branch. We had the party at
the Minamimoto's (the couple missionary in our area) and their
apartment was filled. The food was really good too, it consists of
these two boiling pots of liquid. One was tofu milk and the other was
some red sauce like stuff I can't remember the name of it. But anyways
you throw a bunch of food in the liquid like tofu, meat, noodles, and
all kinds of vegetables and then you let it cook. Then after its done
everyone just eats out of it like a buffet and you keep adding more
and more stuff to the pot to cook. The Minamimoto couple definitely
spoils us with their good cooking skills. During the party we played
some get to know you games and just had a good time socializing with
them. Near the end my companion and I shared a spiritual thought with
everyone and I know it had an impact on some of them.
Later in the week we had the basketball service assignment again! It
went really well just like it did last week. Unfortunately the kids
weren't there that time but the adults/teenagers still were so we got
to play with them. So that was a really good time and it was so much
fun getting to play with them again. They all were pretty excited to
see us back there. I forgot to take a picture again this week haha but
I will try to take one next week if I remember.
Alright so now onto the not as good part of the week. This week we
only taught a couple lessons and they were all to recent converts
because we still don't have any investigators. So the rest of our free
time went to finding some people to teach, which means a lot of dendo.
Unfortunately, we didn't see any success this week and weren't able to
set any return appointments. On top of dendo being hard to begin with
it is really difficult because I'm still not very good at Japanese so
people seem to be less interested. For example, yesterday while we
were out housing we knocked on this door and I was talking to this guy
and I messed up my sentence I tried to say to him so he just started
to laugh and said he wasn't interested and shut the door on us. That
tends to happen every now and then. Or sometimes they will say they
can't understand our Japanese and kekko us (that means to reject). So
needless to say it was pretty hard to keep a positive attitude this
week.
Although, as I was reflecting on this week a quote came to mind. It
was a quote that came from our monthly news from the mission home. The
assistants to the president wrote an article about attitude and shared
this quote from a man named Charles R. Swindoll, it is, "I am
convinced that life is 10% what happens to me and 90% how I react to
it." As I thought about that it really made me think about my own
personal attitude and how it is effecting me. I feel like I am usually
a pretty positive person but there are definitely some situations that
try my positivity and that has definitely been these last couple of
weeks. I have realized that the only one responsible for our attitude
is ourselves. Attitude is what determines if our trials are a positive
experience or a negative experience. We can either choose to learn and
continue moving forward positively or let our negative experiences
control us and our attitude. So even though this past week was filled
with some hard experiences I have tried to maintain a positive
attitude and I know it has made such a difference.
To finish off I would like to share a funny experience that happened
earlier this week. While my companion and I were out knocking on some
doors in this apartment complex we came across this really fat, but
rather nice cat just hanging out in the parking lot. We stopped and
pet him for a little while then continued on towards the other side of
the building. As we walked he followed us and we thought it was pretty
funny and jokingly said that he would be our dendo companion that way
people might listen to us since they see us with a cute cat. We go up
to a door and the cat still hasn't left so we go ahead and knock on
it. As soon as the man opens up the door the cat bolts inside! The guy
yells and then grabs his umbrella and starts trying to chase the cat
out of his apartment. All the while elder Harrell and I are trying not
to die laughing. After the man gets the cat out of his apartment we
try to talk to him and he was pretty mad we brought a cat with us so
he shut the door on us. So definitely a learning experiencing of not
to play with cats while we dendo haha.
That's about it for this week. I love this work and even though it is
difficult at times I know it is the Lords work and we are always
guided by Him. I pray everyone has a great day with their loved ones!
愛しています!
Love, シェリル長老
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