Letter from Matlock – 24 December 2010

Dear (Family in Japanese characters),                         14 December 2010
Last Sunday one of our investigators had his baptism!  I did the baptism and my companion did the confirmation.  When we did the baptism we found out our investigator has a small fear of water.  When I went to dunk him in he stiffened up like a board so we had to do it three times.  It feels so great to have a baptism!  I feel really blessed to have been able to find, teach and baptize someone.  He gave a really great testimony after the baptism. He said that he desires to become a faithful Christian and that the four most influential people in him learning about and accepting Christianity are his aunt, grandma, my companion and me.  The ward has done a great job of taking him in as well.  Everyone showered him with gifts and cards and love.  He is also thinking about going to America to study and wants to go to BYU!  Apparently he has a good chance too.  But I’m going to sit on my excitement about that one until I see it happen.
One of our other investigators is also coming along well.  We’ve taught her everything and it’s a little surprising to her but because she has a “warm feeling” about church and meeting with us she wants to follow the commandments!  If all goes well that will happen this week or next week.
We finally got back to touch with one of our original investigators!  He’s been going crazy with work and hasn’t even been close to this area for a few weeks.  Well, he still really wants to be baptized and so we’re aiming for next year on the 2^nd. 
I forgot to mention in last week’s letter.  Right after we went to bed one night the fire alarm in the apartment started going off!  We start going down the stairs from the 12^th floor to the 1^st floor and get half way down when they tell us it was a mistake, go back to bed.  What I want to know is how you mess something like that up?  Either there’s a fire, or there’s not a fire!  Doesn’t take a rocket scientist to figure that one out!
Speaking of accidents after eikaiwa we were heading back home through the rice fields and I turn a corner at the same time an old man was coming around the same corner.  I slammed on both my brakes but unfortunately my front brakes were stronger than my back ones.  So then I flipped over my handle bars and landed in the irrigation ditch by the side of a rice field.  So then I had the pleasure of riding the 1-2 mile ride back home on a chilly evening half soaked.  Yea that’s what I call fun….and of course the old man didn’t stop long enough to say “oops” and just took off.  I need to talk to him about a little doctrine called repentance…well that destroyed my dictionary which was already pretty battered, and I had to take all my clothes to get dry cleaned since they were covered in mud.  Not doing that one again.
There was a free Christmas concert at the church this week and I was really excited to hear some good Christmas music.  A famous flute and piano player came to do the concert and I think somewhere along the way the concept of Christmas was lost!  Only one song had anything to do with Christmas.  It seems I won’t be able to truly feel immersed in Christmas as American’s know it until, well, I’m back in America.
Probably left out some big details of this week, but no time for that now!
(Elder Wyman in Japanese characters)