05 March 2012

Email from Matlock 5 March 2012


 Dear Family,

       It would seem that I am coming back home next week. Weird. It doesn't feel like I'm going to stop being a missionary and start eating cereal and speaking English every day. I had a great week which made me want to stay here in Japan for a bit longer but right now its pouring rain and freezing cold so I think I'm alright with taking off now. Due to the weather conditions today will be packing day.
       Started the week off with my last zone conference with President interviews. They were short since we'll be having another one at the end of the mission here in a little bit. Right after the conference we had splits which I was notified of the day before. The assistants wanted to go on splits with all the new missionaries in the zone and that meant my companion. So I went with another Elder to none other than Tokorozawa. It was so good! Felt so great to be back in that area. At the time I went to Tokorozawa it was the busiest place I had ever served in. Having been in Tokyo for the last six months it’s looking super empty. Couldn't believe just how small and spaced out everything was. I'm going to have a huge shock when I step foot in East Lyme again cause I'm sure East Lyme is even quieter than this suburb of Tokyo Japan. Anyways, we had about half the people we stop talk to us on our way to meet a ward member to help him with his English class. We made it to the station a bit early and it was proposed that we pass out English fliers, but I having grown tired of that insisted we did Book of Mormon pass along cards instead. This kid came up to my companion and talked to him for a long time! Then the teacher came and we brought this kid along with us to the English class. The class was grueling. I thought the church class was hard to teach. The class was full of 60-70 year old grandma's who can't speak English at all and just can't register English words at all. I was in a small discussion with two of them and I had to explain everything I said including the spelling using both English and Japanese. I was exhausted after that! Afterwards the teacher took us out to dinner and our new friend came along too. That was fun. The teacher is a member from Sir Lanka who I enjoyed talking with while in Tokorozawa and it was good to see him again. We traded contact information with three guys we met on the street one of which lives closer to Kichijoji than to Tokorozawar. A member contacted me and said that he invited they guy who lives close to Kichijoji to the baptism they were having on Saturday and it would be good if I came. So we did, explained all about Baptism and the Atonement and such. Afterwards gave him a tour of the building, went out to eat, went to Kichijoji and gave him a tour of that building and finally gave him a Book of Mormon and sent him on his way. We spent about 5 hours with him all in all. Woah nelly. It was good though, we had a chance to explain and testify about a lot of things.
       That went great and the next day it snowed like nothing else. It was increadible. We shoveled the walk way to the church to prepare for eikaiwa but hardly anyone showed up. That meant we combined intermediate and advanced and I only had to teach one eikaiwa that week. Thank goodness.
       Sunday went very well, right at the beginning of Priesthood meeting an investigator showed up unexpectedly and was able to attend our discussion on....baptisms for the dead and temple work. Perfect right? It actually was. After the lesson we had a smaller lesson with him to explain what baptism is in the first place and talked about how though Christ that is possible. Then everything clicked and he said his parents had passed away and if there was something he could do for them to make them more comfortable and happy he wanted to do it. What do ya know? We have something like that. That went very well too. We're going to go out to eat with him before I leave.
       It was a great week. Hope this week goes just as well.
Can't wait to see you all!


Matlock Wyman

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