Dear Family,
This week I decided to send a couple pictures along for a change...the first one I thought Dad might enjoy in particular. Elder O`Hara and I were going to meet up with Elder Gottfredson and Elder Larkin after our exchanges a couple weeks back, and we happened to stop in a place called the "German Bakery" on our way through the Kanazawa train station. I saw that sign, and it reminded me of good old times :) The second picture is one we took a couple weeks ago at a place called Komaruyama Park with three of the brethren in the branch. From the left, it`s Brother Nakamura, Brother Kyumizu, and Brother Okazaki. Actually, speaking of Kanazawa...met Elder Gottfredson`s new bean, and he is great! His name is Elder Gibb, and he is from Arizona...he actually had one of the same teachers in the MTC that I did (Sister Mcyntire) and so it was fun to hear a little bit about how things are going with her. She apparently got married recently, and is still going strong teaching lots of the new missionaries for Japan. Pretty crazy to think she taught both I and Elder Gibb, but with a two year gap in between.
This past week we had a great success with our branch picnic! We had it on Saturday afternoon, and two non-members came! Most of the people that we invited were pretty withdrawn about going to a gathering of people that they didn`t know, but a guy that we met on the train last transfer, and his friend came! We had invited the one guy when we ran into him on the train again a couple weeks ago, and he apparently invited his friend...they were waiting there in the parking lot when we got there...way awesome! They were fellowshipped by the members really well, and we were able to learn a little bit more about them and their religious backgrounds. Maybe one of the best things of the whole activity though, was that the first counselor and his whole family were able to come! Everyone in his family besides himself has been inactive for a long time, and this was the first time that either Elder Larkin or I had the chance to meet them. They are a beautiful family, they really are. The father is one of the most humble and sincere men that I have ever met, the mother is really friendly and kind, and their kids are adorable. (even if they are tremendously shy) They came towards the end of the activity, so we weren`t able to talk with them for all that long...but our branch president has expressed that they are one of the families that he wants to work with the most for re-activity, so we are hoping to be able to meet with them more soon.
We had a little bit of a larger congregation yesterday than usual! We now have a set of couple missionaries assigned to Nanao! They are from Kanazawa and seem way cool. We also had another couple from Kanazawa who will be coming to Nanao once a month from now on to teach a class for LDS Family Services...and the husband is actually half German! I was way surprised...I thought there was something a little bit unusual about him (taller than the average guy, and different eyes) and then as we were talking a little bit after the class was over, we started talking about ancestry and he said "Yeah, I`m half-german!" then he heard that I have German ancestry and he got all excited and started asking me whether I`d been there or if I can speak German. Of course, sadly I had to say no to both of those questions...but actually he HAS been to Germany and can speak the language. He has been living in Japan for his whole life, but went there on a vacation once. Anyway, I`m not exactly sure why I wrote about that, but I thought it was pretty neat moment.
In answer to your question Mom, yes I think that would be a lot of fun if we had a Family Home Evening with the Mayo family...actually I would love to hear more about how Elder Mayo is doing as well. Oh! And another question...the voting that we do doesn`t get us all that involved...we basically just fill out a form online to receive an absentee ballot, and then after receiving that, we fill it out, send it in, and we are done.
Well, actually recently I have been having a harder and harder timing thinking of what to tell you guys about...there are lots of things that I could write, but often I just think "Ah, well I`ll be able to tell them about that soon...I`ll just wait" Terrible thought process, I know, but if there is anything that you would particularly like to hear about how things are going in Nanao I will do my best to answer those questions :)
Hope you have a great week, I love you! The gospel is true!
-Elder Voss
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