letter sent 10.25.09: konnichiwa

hey everyone,

things are going good for me this week, its been actually a pretty amazing week. so ill explain but firts last week i wrote ch. f instead of alma chapter 5 my self evaluation chapter, its sweet. sorry i prob have tons of typos cause im no good at typing.

anyway so for this week it started with last tuesday we went to our district meeting mtg in Nagasaki and it was good, but after word the fufu (married missionaries) took us to the hypo center which is close to the church. the hypo center is the exact spot where we dropped an atomic bomb, of course atomic bombs dont hit the ground but the statue is where the bomb exploded over head. It was crazy being there, a crazy feeling and a special spirit there, it was amazing. we also visited peace park where tons of countries gave statues to for the bomb including brazil haha and this park was were an old prison used to be everyone died and now its peace park, pretty cool art. theres also paper cranes everywhere with a cool story behind it you should look it up, its too long to write, i felt i got a little closer to the japanese people by visiting the place it was really cool but chotto hen (little weird) at the same time. i want to go back and visit the musem sometime on pday.

also that day Elder healy a fufu, told me something about home, he said home is where you are. and thats the first time i realized my home for two years is japan. im home. its hard to grasp sometimes but this helped a little and the visit to nagasaki was pretty specail.

oh and on monday night we had a dinner apt with a family and an investigator it was really fun. i got to talk about family and prayer 2 things that are pretty important to me right now so that was good, a pretty good experience. the power of prayer really does bring comfort even though we are seperated by a huge ocean. The lord i looking over us and is here to comfort us...always. oh and that night i ate a lot of sushi ( just raw fish haha it was pretty good actually.

so the members continue to treat us well. Fujiwara brought us over spaghetti and soup and stuff at like 945 at night cause she thought we were hungry haha it was funny. um oh we had a another lesson with a different investigator saturday that went well but a little confusing for her. lessons are the best though. it builds my testimony as well. so what else oh the branch president took us around to vist some peopl tha lived far away and that was good to have a few lessons. after word he took us to taco place! not taco though but tako. my first expereience with tacoyaki ..octupus! yummy. it was actually in this good batter stuff but it was pretty good, little starnge feeling the tenacles and suction cups (didnt suction to me) but interesting texture but still good, haha

so yea this week has been really good. lots of onteresting things and this week should be good as well, we have a halloween party on wednesday so im looking forward to that. other than that thats my week so far. umm im reading in alma still and its awesome, ammon was the most amazing missionary. he saw a lot of messed up things , even believers burning in front of him, al kind of persucution and affliction he never once questioned th lord. He just focused on the work, missionary work and was truly concerned for everyones salvation EVERYONE, even people trying to kill him. he was fearless . im trying to be like him here in japan but that will take a while a long whil haha. anyway i learned alot from him this week, the scriptures are filled with things to learn, i encourage you to read them daily, and will continue to gain knowledge and help/guidance for your life and others. the BOM is truly the word of god, we can draw closer to god by it than any other book, im a witness of this as i use it to help me with my trials here in japan. use them often.

anyway thats about it for me. have a good week and ill talk to you all next week, thanks for the love and supprt.

peace
elder martinez