Preparation Day in Mission Office

Here’s my most recent picture (February 9, 2018)

Eli desu!

How’s everybody doing? I’m doing pretty good. We went on three exchanges this past week and had some other cool things happen. Let’s start with last Sunday.

Well, a few weeks ago we were invited over to a member’s house to have lunch and he invited over his Chinese friend Gabriel to tag along. We talked with him and it turns out he is Christian so we invited him to church. He couldn’t make it the first time but we kept in touch with him and he came to church last week. He sat through the first two hours and the third hour we went into a separate room and had a lesson with him. We talked about Joseph Smith and the restoration with a focus on modern prophets and the Book of Mormon. We had Chinese materials and he speaks great English, so it was awesome. We then brought up baptism and told him “hey, we know you were baptized in your church but you need to be baptized like Jesus was by someone with the priesthood and he said I want to do that. So, we committed him to be baptized February 18th (my last Sunday in Meito). He said yes. Now we just need to teach him all of the lessons. He is so prepared.

On Tuesday I went out with a young missionary (he has been out for almost three months) and it was fun to be able to work with him. He didn’t understand “We are going to go visit a member” in Japanese so I spoke English for a full day for the first time in 40 days. He is a cool kid from Oklahoma who likes motorcycles and cars so it was fun to talk with him about that. We also met one of the coolest guys ever on the street who kept asking us a bunch of questions and in no way like he was attacking us. So cool. He wanted to know why we knew the Book of Mormon was true, our favorite parts, how long it took to know it was true, why we came to Japan and so many other things. At night we went to visit less actives with a super funny old grandpa (Shinobu) who is actually super good at ping pong. (He’s going to a tournament this week). We couldn’t find anybody because the Japanese address system is crazy, but we had a good time and bonded with Shinobu.

On Wednesday we finished our office work and went to visit one of our investigators named Takagi. He kept trying to give us things like, money and food because he couldn’t figure out why we would be volunteering to teach about Christ without some hidden motive. He lives a little one room apartment by himself. He likes to steal and has some pretty rough addictions, but nothing that Jesus can’t help. We shared the Jesus “because of him” video and he just made goofy comments the whole time. I think it’s because he felt the spirit which he hasn’t felt before and he didn’t know how to react to it.

On Thursday I think, I took part in the most lessons in a single day than I have on any other one day in my mission. We had six planned and four actually took place. We taught about good and evil and Satan, the restoration and the Book of Mormon, a review of the plan of salvation and the Godhead focusing on the spirit and prayer. It was nice to be able to testify so much in a reverent environment.  Something fun from their day that wasn’t spiritual was talking to a guy on a $4000 bike who worked at a bike shop and was riding a brand new special mountain bike around. It had big fat tires, an assisting motor and other cool gadgets. He then let us ride it down the street a couple of times. Pretty fun.

One of my first photos from my mission in Japan with Elder Porter

On Friday we went to a different city and prefecture. Mie prefecture, Yokkaichi city. We went with the Zone Leaders. We met a nice lady while knocking on doors and sang “I am a child of God” to her. Her 4 and 6 year old daughters came out and we played Rock Paper Scissors with them and talked with the mom. She said she’ll have to talk with her husband but said we could come back sometime.

Happy Valentine’s Day next week! And it’s almost Dad’s birthday! When I meet people as old as you guys I say “my parents are the same age as you” and then they are super surprised.

Love you both,

Love,

Eli

February is Here!

This is cause we don't take pictures.

February is here!

But you already knew that, so here's some good news from this week!

We went to see our friend Mr. Hirano who lives by himself in his pretty sad little apartment. He gets happy when we come and visit so that's good. We prayed with him and wrote go to church on every Sunday of his calendar so maybe he will remember.

Second, we had a crepe party in place of English class and a bunch of new people came! Maybe we should just do that every week. A Japanese guy who played American football in college in Japan came so it was cool to talk to him. He will come have a church tour with us and check out the place.

Well, I'm grateful for my opportunity to be a missionary and for my companion (who I will send this to).

Elder Frisch

Hey Mom and Dad!

I hope you are having a nice Saturday morning as you read this. Maybe waffles or pancakes you are eating. Is it warm enough to have just a tee shirt on out side yet? In Meito it's still pretty cold. I think it'll start warming up somewhere in March. The sky is perfectly clear today and it's a great day to be alive.

It was fun to see pictures of you at conveyor belt Sushi (kaiten Zushi in Japanese). The Japanese ones look way more how you would imagine Japan. All high tech and lots of noises. Kind of. Japanese Sushi is super basic if you compare it to American Sushi. Most of the menu is just a sashimi slice of fish on the rice. They also have tempura, stuff with avocados, and lots of other stuff. Today we went to an Indian restaurant and got honey and cheese nan with Keema curry. Also tandoori chicken. Yum.

Elder Lyman and I also went to a recycle shop with old stuff and I got two more wall scrolls. 1 was ¥500 so that was good. They are cool Japanese landscapes. Maybe we can go to a cool antique store when you are in Japan and get a cool souvenir.

This past week went by quick but there were good points. First on Monday we got an investigator to come to church and have a lesson! His name is Kohara and it was his first time. We did a tour and he looked terrified the whole time but we sat down and starting telling him about what we are all about. He wasn't terribly interested but he didn't say he would never meet us again so that's a relief.

On Tuesday we got out and knocked on some doors. We found some crazy old guy who had met Elder Lyman and another elder on a companion exchange and he said he would come to church. We then had to get home quick for a phone conference with all of the Zone and sister training leaders about how the transfer was going. We have been focusing a lot lately on simplifying and getting back to the basics. Also everyone is talking to a ton more people than before which is helping the work to progress.

Wednesday was a good day. We had a transfer meeting and I learned I'll probably be going to Fukui which is on the opposite side of the island and is probably snowing right now. Woohoo! President Ishii said that'll I'll probably have one transfer with a young elder there and then get a fresh from America companion. I'm excited to be able to be outside all day. At night we had a crepe party in place of English class and about 30 people came with a bunch who hadn't been before. Our world champ arm wrestler friend also came which was fun. He will become an investigator soon.

Thursday was with a zone leader exchange so I took him to knock doors from 2:30 to 8:30 and then talk to people on the street. We had a couple of people say we could come back which was good.

Friday was kind of like a run errands day. We drove out to a couple of areas to drop off packages and get signatures for government paperwork. The night time was fun. We went around with a funny 74 year old member to visit less active members. He was super prepared and proud of using his smart phone to navigate us so it was awesome. We then went and had a lesson with another 70 year old guy and so they bonded well and we studied the iron rod story.

God is so patient with his children. I wish I could be as patient with them as He is. There are so many good people in Japan and I wish more of them would listen to God's word. Well, just got to talk to more of them.

I love you both!

Love,

Eli

Old man party

Old man party