April 6, 2015

iPads! Yep, I finally got an iPad on the mission!  I got mine on Saturday so
it's brand new so that's kinda cool, but it won't be mine when I leave
so that's a little sad... :)

But I hope your week went well! I hope everyone's having a great
Easter! Mine was yesterday... :) If you haven't seen the Easter video
that the church made yet, I'd definitely recommend it!

Monday: We went into Sapporo to just mess around which was fun! I
didn't buy anything, but S Choro bought some new pants. Then we
headed back out to Shinoro so we could go to this volleyball activity
in a place called Tobetsu where this member and her husband have
gotten this super big group going to just play volleyball with a blow
up beach ball and it's way fun!

Tuesday we had a good DTM by S Choro and he taught a great
workshop. We also had Eikaiwa as well as we had to travel to Shiroishi
for Splits with the Shiroishi elders for the next day!

Wednesday was splits with the Shiroishi Elders and I went with D
Choro. We'd been on splits once before in Hakodate, and got to be
good friends while we were there so we got to reminisce about all of
the good old days! ;) We visited a bunch of Non-Attending Members as
well as a woman whose grandson lives in Arizona and is preparing to go
on a mission. We actually got to talk with them on Facetime which was
a fun experience.

Thursday we had a lesson with our investigator O san who is
super cool! He's really interested in the Gospel and really wants an
Eternal family but right now is super busy with work. But we read the
Book of Mormon with him, and just had a way good time! Then we met
with an American who lives in Japan, named D. We talked with him
for a super long time, but made a lot of progress. He really
appreciated all we talked about and did for him and is working to
overcome his problems!

Friday we quickly took this iPad prep quiz/test thing because if we
didn't we couldn't get our iPad's on Saturday! So we did that, and
then went into Honbu to be on time for a Zone Leader Training Meeting,
where we learned a little bit more about being Zone Leaders.

Saturday we had ML Kaigi where we talked a bunch about iPads, The
Doctrine of Christ, and Being True Disciples of Jesus Christ. Then we
got our iPads and started on our way back home. On the way, we met
this Sophomore kid who was super fluent at English. He talked with a
perfect American Accent and understood everything we said which was
way cool! He said he was interested in learning more English as well
as about our church so that was way cool!

Sunday was Easter, and it was fantastic! We had some great lessons at
church, and got to go to the Bishops house for dinner which was so
good! We got to talk to him a bunch about what he wants us to do here
as well as people he wanted us to focus on so it was good!

But that was the basics of this week! I love you all tons! Hope you
have a great one! Talk to you soon!

Elder Bickel

PS. With the iPad's we're allowed to check our email when it comes in,
so if you find a talk or something that you think would be good for me
to read, or that might help an investigator, that would be great!
Thanks a ton! Love you lots!