Hey Family!
How are you guys? Thanks for the email! It was good to finally hear from you, its been quite a long and busy week since transfers. So Ryan is finally going on the big mission now huh? I`m so excited! He`s seriously going to love it so much, I mean...its the best two years you could possibly spend! Tell him good luck and that I love him much-o much-o. I bet his farewell talk was amazing too, the concept of a mission changes peoples lives so much. Its the "grow up" period. You learn so much within such a short amount of time.
Oh, Elder Hinton came over and said hi? Saweet! I can`t believe he actually did that. Tell him "Otsukaresamadeshita" for dealing with me and that I love him! He was seriously a great missionary, I`m surprised he was able to deal with a wampsac like me. But anyways, yeah keep in contact with him, I know he`ll love to practice his Japanese with natives. Oh! I saw Emma during transfers too! I forgot to mention that! It was so nice to see her. When she saw me she kept on telling me on how big
I`ve gotten and how I look so much like a missionary. It was funny because I didn`t realize how tiny she was until now! haha
Well...right now I`m emailing you guys sitting on a couch in a internet cafe. Where you may ask?...Iwade-shi in Wakayama-ken that is! You may have to scramble for a map to know where I really am because its pretty inaka (country side). Compared to the tokai (big city)of Okamachi...this is a sleeply little town. I`ve constructed a simple equation to help you guys understand how its like here. Payson, Utah x rice fields - people actually walking on the street + farmers + Kindai University = Iwada-shi. The train that took us to Iwada was like...a one cart train...no, thats exaggerating. I meant two carts. Our apartment is literally ten steps away from the small eki. In the day, you`ll be lucky to find 10 people walking on the streets that you can actually contact so most of our dendo consists of housing. As of now, we have two investigators and our branch consists of about 10 active memebers. Pretty small huh? In fact, its the second smallest branch in Japan.
I LOVE IT HERE SO MUCH!!! This is exactly what I was looking for! A place where I`m going to have to work my hardest to get going. This place is nothing compared to Okamachi. This, is, the, INAKA (country side)! And everyone knows that the inaka is the land of faith and miracles. I like it because it makes me feel like I`m at home because there`s mountains that surround us so its kinda like Utah Valley. Seriously, this place is awesome. Our church is on the second floor of an office building next to a mall. We share floors with a resturant company called "Onions and Tomatos" and the church consits of two rooms, the sacrament and primary. Yesterday at church, we had about 12 people there (including the missionaries) and it turns out that missionaries have to give talks every week because we don`t have enough memebers. This place is great! The branch seriously becomes your family and people here are so nice. Oh and turns out that my last companion, Rahn Choro and Emma have both served here before! What a small world! So, my companion`s name is Elder Niven. He`s a really great missionary, a bit quite, but still a good missionary. He`s only a transfer ahead of me so we`re working as co-seniors together. Its a really good experience for me because I need to start stepping it up as a missionary!
Well, from the four days I`ve already spent here in Iwade, I`ve already learned a valuable lesson. And that happens to be patience. I never realized how much patience you really need when you`re working in the inaka. I`m so used to the fast moving enviornment of Osaka that I`ve forgotten about patience. But, now that I have the chance, I`m going to slow things down and work faithfully. Faith=patience. Without faith, nothing will work. I know as long as I go on the Lord`s time and not my own, we`ll be able to see miracles here in Iwade.
Okay, well I have to go. Hope you guys are doing amazing! I want you to know that I`m okay and transfers went by fine. Pray for the people in Iwade so my companion and I will start seeing miracles! I love you guys! Peace.
Mucho love love,
Elder Saito
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