Japan Tokyo South Mission: Just hold on I'm going home🎶

I really don't know how to feel or really what to say about this being my last one, but this last week was pretty nuts. Kurenuma was looking super solid. I felt like we had tried our hardest to help him be ready for baptism. I've never tried so hard to listen, ask the right questions. It seemed as if we had answered all of his questions and concerns. He didn't know at the time we had planned to his baptism. We tried calling, no answer. He sent a text and told us that he is super sorry but that he doesn't have the qualifications to be baptized. We decided not to visit him and make him feel pressure. We just told him that we love him are are ready to talk when he is. He called us after the baptism and asked if he could go to church! We were pretty surprised, usually when something like this happens the investigator stops talking to the missionaries. He came to church and we had a great talk with him. He had the BEST reason for not getting baptized. He really understands the gravity of baptism and feels like he hasn't fully repented. I won't lie I was stressed and disappointed when he didn't show up but it's not about me. The thing I really didn't like was people apologizing to me, feeling sorry for me, or checking up on me. This is his salvation, not mine. It will all be ok, he is still coming to church, meeting with us and we still love him and so does God. I know we have helped him come closer to God and be more happy and that alone makes me smile. We saw him smile and laugh for the first time this last week, that felt good. It's looking like we will meet with him nightly before I leave.

We have met some awesome people recently, one of which lives right next to Kurenuma. He is a recent college graduate and originally wasn't down to meet again but the more we talked and the more he understood about Heavenly Father the more he lit up. By the end he was saying, "I want to go check out the church!" His dad came out of the shower and as he walked by gave us a bad look, we said hi and told him who we are. He said, "no, we're fine." tries to step in front of our buddy Adachi and shut the door. I don't think I have seen this my whole mission. He stops his dad and says, "no dad, it's ok." His dad did not look happy and basically said, "I don't want you talking to any weird cults." Adachi stuck up for us and said, "it's not a weird cult!" It felt so good :) He then in a hush tone exchanged numbers with us. The sad part is, we talked to a kid right after that. I didn't get around to saving his number and lost it :( We had a lesson appointment set up but Adachi didn't make it and he wasn't home when we tried to visit him. Hopefully they can get ahold of him after I leave. That happened a ton though this week. Lots of lost contact & lesson appointments missed. The day Kurenuma didn't show for his baptism we had 3 other lessons that all fell through! It's sad but out of our control.

This week while we were walking on Sun Road (busy, famous, shopping road) coming back from eating some soba in Kichijoji an older man stops about 10 feet away from us and with a fully extended arm flips us off hahaha. He comes over and starts tapping me asking me where I am from, I look at his cigarette and realize he has it in backwards so I help him flip it so the filter was in his mouth and he says, "F you!" We just walked away busting up so hard.

See you guys later this week! :)

1. My funeral at zone meeting