From: Elder Conner Carlini
Date: Feb. 9, 2015
Subject: What a WILD Experience!

Hello everyone! I'll tell ya what, this whole experience is wild
sometimes. Even though we do a lot of the same type of things
everyday, there's always new things happening. This week had a few
memorable things to it and the craziest was right at the end. So I'll
go real quick and in order.
First, on Tuesday, we went down into the train station to begin
walking around and talking to whoever we could, and we saw the usual
break dancers practicing in the corner. So, I suggested we go over and
see if we could talk with them and that ended up being awesome. We
went over, started up a conversation, and the guy was shocked that we
spoke any Japanese. And so he called his friend over and we had a way
sweet conversation about what we do and they thought we were way cool.
They're in their late 20's and one didn't seem to have much interest
in religion, but he thought we were way awesome and said we should
meet again. And the other, actually seemed a bit interested in what we
thought about heaven and stuff like that. So we had a little deep talk
with him and now have planned to meet them tonight at the station
again! They practice breakdancing there a decent amount so they said
we could join in if we want. And this last time we got to learn a bit
of breakdancing from them so that was fun. I'm terrible at
breakdancing though, haha. I hope to learn bit by bit about
breakdancing as we teach them bit by bit about the gospel, haha.
That's the Funnest way to do it! Be friends, and teach what we
believe.
Next day, Wednesday. We were going to do a District Blitz but it
kind of fell apart. So, me and Elder Fenton just headed down to Katase
Enoshima and had a great time proselyting. I love that place! It looks
way nice and there has always been people to talk to. We talked to
some more old guys this time so that was kinda cool to hear what they
had to say. Yeahhh, good day.
On Saturday me and Elder Hernandez were on splits and we walked
down towards a College in our area and talked with some cool students.
They didn't seem interested a whole lot but we were able to get some
numbers and it would be sweet to see them again!
And lastly, the crazy experience to finish off the week. This
happened yesterday and I'll try to give the full story without making
it too long. Basically, we met this guy about 3 weeks ago who gave us
his number and said he wanted to meet. We finally were able to set up
a time and met with him yesterday. We actually had another
investigator named Toguchi who came along because he was heading in
the same direction anyways. So we sat down at a place to talk and I
initially tried to ask him some questions about what he's interested
in and what he wants to learn more about in the church. But he just
kind of ignored me and started telling us this long story about
something that happened 700 years ago in Japan. And that because of
this occurrence (sorry, can't say too much detail) it meant that there
wasn't a lot of time remaining for Japan. So I asked him some
questions to try to figure out what exactly he was saying and we
discovered that he was a part of something called "Nichiren ShouShuu"
which is a crazy religion type of thing in Japan. It's an offshoot of
Buddhism but they normally don't consider it a "religion". I had heard
stories about these guys, and until yesterday, that was all I had. But
now I have experienced the infamous people that essentially sit you
down somewhere, bash your religion and tell you it's all a lie. So
after asking more questions and him going on about how America could
be destroyed by the Chinese (this was all a very well prepared thing
and he had materials/newspapers to try and prove his point) I asked
him about his beliefs and why he was telling us this anyways. And holy
heck this is where the spirit started to kick in. I knew that this was
taking a wild turn and after him using more strong comments, I put out
some questions that I'm sure were brought about by the spirit. He
mentioned how in our church we believe Jesus Christ to be great, but
he said that he died on the cross. And that Buddha cannot die, so he
is more powerful. I told him about the resurrection of Jesus Christ
and he told me strongly and suddenly that it was a total lie. And then
he went on to tell us that we were being deceived by our church... And
dang, I probably bore the most strong and simple testimony on my
mission to this man and my Japanese just went. I told him I knew God
lived, and I can't remember much of what I said after. But it was a
heated exchange and he told us that we had to test his power by coming
with him to a nearby Buddha and try to see who has more power. And let
me tell ya, you don't just compare something to God. And you
definitely don't say to me that Buddha or anything is more powerful
than him. So we said things were going to far, grabbed our stuff, and
walked out. At first I thought this wouldn't be so great for our man
Toguchi but I think him hearing my testimony to this man could help
him out in the future. We booked it out of there and Toguchi knew it
was a bad situation too. So dang, there are definitely some wild
religious stuff going on out there and it makes me feel good knowing
that I'm happy giving people just a chance to learn. And not being
like this guy trying to tell people they are being deceived and you
need to come with them. Phew. Crazy experience. This experience was
over the course of about an hour but that clears up most of the
content I think.
That's all I have for now. See ya later!
I know God lives.
神様がいると知っています。

Elder Carlini
カーリニ長老