Hello from 日本🇯🇵

Hello everyone! This week went by really fast! It was my first full
week with my new companion and we are doing great together. It is
pretty fun to be in lessons and dendo with someone just a little older
than me. My Japanese has definitely been improving a lot and I'm
excited to see where it is at at the end of the transfer.

So onto this week we had a couple lessons with our main progressing
investigator Kodama and they went awesome! Our second lesson we had
with him the couple missionary in our area invited him over for lunch
and offered to joint for the lesson after we ate. It was really
helpful because they are near his age and could relate to him a lot
better than two young punk kids from America haha. His baptismal date
is still set for April 16th and my companion and I are positive he
will be prepared by then. During the lesson we asked him some
questions and he said he has faith and Christ and really wants to be
baptized! I'm excited to keep teaching him and see how much he
progresses before the 16th.

A couple of our other investigators have kind of fallen through this
past week or two. We have been trying to contact then and meet with
them but it has been kind of not to solid so we are hoping things
begin to improve with them soon. Other than that though we teach a lot
of lessons to less actives and recent converts in the branch. This
week a really fun lesson we taught was to the Takemoto family. She
lives with her daughter and son and is a really nice lady with a lot
of faith. This past Saturday we found out it was her daughters
birthday so we decided to throw her a little party along with a short
message afterwards. Her daughter Rina likes pudding so we bought some
chocolate pudding for her and wrapped that up as well as a Book of
Mormon Stories book that would help her understand as she read the
scriptures. Then we also invited the Minamimoto couple to come along.
Sister Minamimoto made her this huge homemade pudding as well as got
her a book called "The New Testament Stories" so it would help her as
she read the bible. We went over and had a little party and she loved
her gifts, especially all the pudding haha. Her family has been
struggling a little recently so we have been visiting her a couple
times a week and I think it has really been helping.

To end I'd like to talk a little bit about our dendo tactics we have
been doing recently. Recently we have been trying to switch up how we
approach people to improve how well our contact goes with them. Lately
we have been trying to become their friend first and talk with them
about English and then go into talking about the gospel and it has
really worked. People have been a lot more open to talk with us and
willing to hear our message. I know there are so many prepared people
here and each day when I go home at the end of the night I think of
the people we talked to and know that we were supposed to come in
contact with them. I am loving all the experiences I am having in
Japan and am really excited for all the new ones that await me! Next
week we will be doing a zone activity in Miyajima so I might be on
later than usual to email. I love you all and hope everyone has a good
week!

Love, シェリル長老