Email November 27, 2017

Email November 27, 2017 – Elder Jackson Kenneth Burton

Snow!

Hey Everyone!

      Things are going great here! It's definitely winter now. There's quite a bit of snow and ice on the roads and sidewalks now, and it's pretty cold. I'm staying warm enough though. This has been a pretty good week, although we have one investigator named Shouma-kun who told us he won't be able to meet until after Christmas because he's studying for a big test to get into high school and he's super stressed. He's a great kid and he could benefit from the gospel so much, so we're going to try and still pay him short visits once in a while.

      I did splits this week with another elder in my district, Elder Harvey. He's definitely got a different style than my trainer, so it was good to learn kind of a different approach. I'm slowly improving with the language, one thing I've noticed is that I can usually understand a decent amount of what other missionaries are saying, but when natives speak it's so much harder to understand! They'll say a simple sentence to me using all words that I know, and I don't recognize any of it. But I'm working on it, I've just got to get used to the way they speak. Earlier this week, a Japanese missionary in my district who's a black belt in karate did a class for some of the kids in the ward. It was way fun. Until then I thought I was fairly flexible, but now I know I'm not at all :) Those kids are like rubber!  

   One thing I find really interesting about Japan is that everyone is really polite, but people aren't very friendly. They're not mean at all, they just all kinda keep to themselves. People are always surprised when we say konbanwa (good evening) as we pass, or if we hold the door open or anything like that. But I guess that means we stick out more, which is good, although we already get stick out quite a bit. But it also means that these people need the Light of Christ! I hope all of you have seen the new video for Light the World! It's so good! I think it's gonna be a great tool for missionary work. There are so many people searching for light, so we need to give it to them! As we strive to be a light to the world, people who are searching for that light will see the light in us and want to find out where it comes from. So Light the World this Christmas season everyone! And have a great week! I love you all!

Love,

Elder Burton