What a week! Before I begin I just have to say something. I played soccer this past week. On a full sized field. With real goals. With actually good soccer players. And it was for an hour straight! It was so natsukashi I almost cried. I loved every minute of it!! It has been a really long time since I've played soccer like that and it just revitalized my love for the game. So how it works is every Saturday morning some people meet together and play soccer on the Kadena Air Force base. They are all Americans and in the military and about 20 of the guys are non members! We met a few cool guys and we're going to go next week to see if we can't build some friendships and invite them to some of our future activities.
So there was a lot that happened this week so I'm going to have to run through it all pretty quick. To begin the week, we went out to a return appointment with this phillipino lady and she became a new investigator! Right now she said she's looking for a church and searching for God because the church she was raised in doesn't feel right to her. We taught the restoration and she loved it, we have plans to go back this next week so I'll keep you all updated!
That same day on the way home we didn't have time to have lunch so we decided to eat at McDonald's. While we were eating there I noticed an old man across the restaurant eating by himself. He looked really lonely and I felt a prompting I should go talk to him, so that's what I did haha. As I approached him and asked to sit by him he kind of lit up and offered me a chair beside him. I talked with him for a few minutes and noticed he had a few interesting things on the table with him. They look like some random carnival props. When I asked for his name he said, "magician". I thought maybe I heard it wrong so I asked him to write it down and sure enough he writes down the word "magician". Before I could connect the dots he points at his magician props beside him and says to me, "I'm a magician". So I of course asked if I could see some of his tricks haha. He was more than happy to show me a few of them. Afterwards I invited him to church on Christmas and told him to call us if he ever needed help with anything. It really helped me realize that as a missionary you can share the love of the gospel in other ways than just knocking on doors!
So this past week we also made a new investigator. His name is Yaka. The sisters found him a couple weeks ago and apparently he took the lessons like 30 years ago and got close to baptism but had a problem with smoking. But! He actually quit smoking all by himself a few years back! So we jointed a lesson with the sisters and they passed us to him and we set a baptismal date for December 17th.He is way cool! We have to really push this next week to get him all set for baptism but we think he can make it. He came to church these past 2 weeks and really enjoyed it so things are going good with him! We've got a couple other people we are working with too so hopefully we can set a couple more baptismal dates here soon.
I love being in Okinawa! Having tons of American members and Japanese members is the best! It honestly feels like I am back in America though. When we go on base there is a bunch of Americans, normal American grocery stores, restaraunt like chili's, Taco Bell, subway, etc. It feels really weird sometimes! We definitely get spoiled here.
One of the benefits of being a Zone Leader is you get to talk with all the missionaries in your zone and you are a lot more up to date and know about all the miracles going on with other missionaries. I have seen so many miracles since I have been here in Okinawa and I know that the Lord has a hand in His own work. This Christmas season is such a special time of year and I'm so excited to be spending it with the wonderful saints in Japan! I also have a talk I'm giving on Christmas Day so I'm excited for that as well. Life is going good here and I couldn't ask for a better area, members, or companion. I hope everyone is as excited as I am for the upcoming Christmas! It will be awesome! I love you all and hope you have a great week! See ya!
Love,
Elder Sherrill
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