Goodbye My Brazilian Friend.

(Elder Mumford and Elder Stavi meet together one last time at the Tokyo, Japan LDS Temple)

Below is an excerpt from a letter dated September 1st, 2009

Dear Everyone:

Elder Stavi has been transferred.  He will be leaving and going to Ushiku.

VIDEO:

 Click "PLAY" above, to see Elder Stavi (The Japanese missionary from Brazil) proudly singing the Brazilian National anthem while taking down Brazil's flag, in Preparation for the upcoming transfer.  

I will be staying here in Kunitachi with Elder Chase.  He actually came to Japan about the same time as me.  He's from California.

(Elder Stavi was very sad to have to go!)

Well, a lot has happened since last week.  The ward had a huge Summer Festival Party, and many of our former investigators came.  It was lots of fun.  They had traditional Japanese Summer foods: Yakisoba, cotton candy, curry and crepes.  And all of our investigators had a good time.

(This is the Japanese version of a pinata:  Instead of everyone grabbing candy, everyone ends up with a watermelon slice.  This was one of the activities at the ward Summer Party)

I was especially happy that Ooishi-san could come, because she's been extremely busy lately, and hasn't been able to meet with us.  

Recently we've been having a bit of a downturn in visible success.  It's been a few weeks since we've had a lesson, so we are really focusing on trying to find someone, ANYONE who will listen.  Often times people are willing to listen to a brief 1-3 minute testimony/message, but don't want to hear more, or meet after that.

(Elder Stavi and Mumford with 2 of their investigators at the Ward Summer Party.  One of the members had given the Elders Japanese "Jimbei" jackets, so they wore them to the party.)

One person though, we met a few weeks back:  He's Ishiitsuka-san, and it turns out he is WAY interested in history, including religion history.  So we met, he already knew the whole history of the church, and was very skeptical.  He said the Book of Mormon isn't original because all the ideas in it were probably taken from all these other sources.  We talked a lot about world history, and he enjoyed talking to us.  So we gave him a Book of Mormon and tried to explain how you can come to know something is true, without physical proof.  He might try it.  I think we'll be able to meet with him again someday.  He has an extremely proof-evidence-based mind, so if he can learn to get over that, I think we can do it.

We also had a little typhoon yesterday.  Apparently it was going to be really big, and President Albrecht even recommended that everyone stay close to the apartment that day.  But it turned out to be a little bit smaller, and we were far enough inland not to feel the wind.  It just rained a lot.  So we are still just fine, just a little wet.

VIDEO: 

Click "PLAY" to view.

Also,there's this cat that lives in a tree, just outside our apartment window.  Recently he's been missing (which was good for us because it's a very loud cat at night.  (Always howling.)  But now he's back, just in time for transfers.  In Japan, there are a lot of stray cats everywhere! (in Japan they call them "NORA NEKOS")

If possible, can you send Elder Stavi a copy of the "Hymns That Sound Like Movie Themes" CD that you sent to Elder Morris?  He really wants one.

Speaking of CDs, we were cleaning the apartment, and we discovered this CD form the 80's or so.  It's in Japanese and it's a mini-disk (or whatever those tiny CDs were called in the 80's/90's.)  I'll send it home in the next package, and you can see how to listen to it.

Anyways, I love you all!  Things are looking up here in Kunitachi!  

Good luck and have fun!

Elder Martin Mumford,

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