April 13, 2015

Hey everybody! I hope your week went super well! Mine was awesome! We

had some really fun stuff happen, as well as we got to watch Conference

so that was super good!

But to start off, I just want to say I love you all! You all are so

great for supporting me and for showing me so much love even though

I'm halfway across the world in Japan right now! Love you all tons!

Monday was great! Elder S got a haircut, and we got a little

shopping done. Then we were super tired so we took naps! You might

think we've been taking too many naps and we should go out and do

something fun. The problem is, here in Shinoro, it's so

inaka(countryside) that there's really nothing much to do. So we took

naps again. Then we met with D who's our American investigator. He

was doing well, and is always glad to have us in his home. He's been

meeting with the missionaries for a long time, but has recently been

thinking about baptism. He doesn't quite believe in some of our

teachings though, so we're working hard to help him out. We could use

your prayers.

Tuesday we went out to Tobetsu(this really far part of our area, that

is even more countryside than Shinoro, and met with a few of our

investigators and PI's. We got a few lessons in which we were super

happy about, and then headed back for Eikaiwa. Eikaiwa was fun, and we

enjoyed spending time with everyone. For the game we played Charades

which had been a while, but turned out way fun!

Wednesday we spent a lot of time planning. We did our weekly planning

session, as well as we prepped two workshops for our ZTM on Friday. We

got a lot of things figured out and were super happy with how our

workshops were looking. Then we went to Honbu so we could go on Splits

with the Assistants on Thursday!

So I went on Splits with Elder M in Kotoni, and we had a really good

time. We met a cool college kid who really wanted to meet again

which was fun! And we also spent a bunch of time visiting members,

thanking them for all of their work, so I got to go see a bunch of my

member friends from Kotoni so it was way fun! We also visited a few

Non attending members who were super nice and we think they'll come

back to church soon!

Friday we had Zone Training Meeting... We started it off by getting

the iPads set up for our Zone, and then went into our first workshop:

True Disciples of Jesus Christ where we focused on being more

effective in our work. It went super well so we were glad. Sadly the

iPad stuff took a long time, so we had to cut it a little short, and

then we had our second workshop on "The Doctrine of Christ" which also

went well, but we had to cut this one a lot short so it was kind of a

bummer. Then we went to lunch, and headed back so we could meet with

our investigator N san who I met for the first time that day.

He was way cool and really loves books! But we talked with him about

Easter and stuff and it was good. Then we went to Kid's Eikaiwa

where no one really showed up, so we just canceled it. But it was fun

to talk with the one member family who came.

Saturday was General Conference! I loved Priesthood Session so much!

It was amazing! I really just loved the entire General Conference, but

especially Brother Gibson's talk! I learned a ton over this General

Conference so it was great!

Sunday also was General Conference, and we enjoyed it! The members

were super nice and made a ton of food for us for lunch! So basically

we have like half of this week's meals already prepared for us! Then

we had a good long talk with D before going out to the F

family's house where they fed us a ton of food too! So I think I'm

fattening up! ;)

But it was a really fun week, and we're having fun! Love you tons! Talk

to you soon!

Elder Bickel