Elder Benny Yamagata: Happy Easter (Well it was Easter at least)

Mom and Dad,

Hahah This week has been crazy! I dont have my planner on me so I dont remember much but Ill give the run down!

Monday: Easy and relaxing pday, after email went home and watched the RM for the first time, Hilarious!!! Especially as a missionary! Definitely had some fun, ate some cookies, cracked some jokes. "Can I get some Nefries and a Waters of Mormon with a lemon?"

Tuesday: Met with a new investigator, had lunch with him. Really easy and nice! Free lunch too, sweet! Then we had to go Jundo for a couple of hours ( The only real time we got this week) And then dinner and calls.

Wednesday: Madness begins. Met with another man named charlie who also speaks perfect english. Had lunch with him and then went and had baskin robbins with him too. Sick kid! At the restaurant, I met a waitress whos family lives in Buena park off of Knott and Crescent! Crazy! She ended up giving us service because of that! Super cool. Then We met with a man who was a rich dentist, rocking the rolex and 500 suit coat, who found out Elder chisholm wants to be a dentist.... Talked with him for over an hour about dentistry. Yay.... Sat in a nice park for a bit and debated about the Korean School System... Fun.... (BTW the korean school system is crazy, starting from about 3rd or 4th grade, the students start at about 7 and go till 4 in the afternoon, and then have whats called academy at about 5 till 11-12 at night! Then when you go into highschool its gets more intense, culminating with GoSam, or the last year of high school. Kids start about 6 and go till 5 then have to go to academy till about 12 or 1. They practice all year for the Korean SAT. Only difference is, it only happens once a year, and you have to get a certain score on it or you cant apply to college, and you are forced to take it! Crazy) I dont remember what else happened Wednesday, but lots of lessons

Thursday: I still cant remember, too many lessons.....

Friday: Weekly planning, and then we had a lesson afterwards with Some random guy, felt like I got hit by a Mac truck ( wasnt the first time this week). We taught him about Adam and Eve, then said that the gospel was available to everyone in all ages. He then told us that before adam and eve we lived in the trees and the first language was sanskrit.... Dont care man!!! We went home had dinner and then did calls, we were all dead

Saturday: 4 lessons back to back! First one we taught the first lesson and then gave a baptismal date! Very nice! Second one was cool, fluent in english, taught him the first lesson and he loved it (more on him in a second) Third was coincedental, we were walking out of number 2 and number 3 walked up to us, over 3 miles from where we were supposed to meet him, at the church. So we rode to the church with him, the bishop came as our member present and then gave the whole lesson to him.... I almost expected him to give a baptismal commitment too! hahah then we had to teach english class immediately afterwards! Sick! Then Saturday night PIzza night! Got a potato pizza, was ok haha

Sunday: Easter, although it didnt really feel like it! We went to church, had some talks, none were about the Resurrection, or Jesus really. Wahtever, we only sang the Easter Hymns. We met with Charlie, our most progressing investigator, after church and gave him President Uchtdorfs talk from last conference about reasons why people should join the church. He loved it, but we might have to move back his baptism, hes not ready and we are pushing wayyyyy to hard on him to be, no bueno. And then we had to do some crazy exchange stuff afterwards because elder chisholm had to go to seoul for the Stake Presidents meeting. We only worked for about an hour that day and then had to go home to switch back companions and such.

So crazy week! All in all we taught 25 lessons this week with 13 of them being sit down lessons! Really nice! Also just had some crazy experiences with sharing my testimony and teaching and meeting people on the streets! Very fun I love it here!

I hope everyone else had a great easter though! The spirit is definitely strong and he always testifies of truth! So listen to it! And make sure that you are ready to listen to it and follow its promptings when they come! If you do so, the Spirit will be more inclined to help and give you more guidance and direction. It is one step at a time that we follow the path back to our Heavenly Father, and one of those steps is listening to the promptings of the Holy Ghost.

I love all of you so much! enjoy the rest of your easter holiday! Be safe and remember the savior!

God Be With You Till We Meet Again!

Elder Yamagata

I said that I would mention later.....

He text us on sunday and said that he didnt want to talk about religion or missionary work, that he just wanted to meet with us just to talk and work on english, but because we are missionaries and MORMONS, we cant meet again. I took a picture of the text and will be emailing it