Elder O'Reilly in Kobe, Japan: Week 96: Climbing Mountains 山登り

It was a good week. We found another family to teach! that will make 3 families in our pool of investigators. The Lord is blessing us like crazy!

We had an address for a less active. And it was on top of a mountain. A big one. We climbed the mountain (395 meters vertical climb, 8 kilometers long path). It was way tiring. But we made it up. We got to the house and found this older guy. We asked him about the person we were looking for, and he said that she had moved away. Talking with the guy it was quickly apparent that he spoke with an incredibly think country accent and we didn`t understand much. haha. (accents are different here.... if you don`t know all the words that are in the area, you won`t understand at all) But we stumbled through the conversation and he told us to follow his car on our bikes. We thought it must be close.

Nope.

We followed him all the way down the mountain. (holy cow that was fun. 20 minutes of no pedaling.) and started heading further east. He stopped every 3 kilometers or so to see if we were OK.

My companion`s tire popped.

Well...... we are probably close. .....?

Finally we tell him. He doesn`t pause for a minute. grabs the bike and throws it in the back of his car and Elder Weir gets in the passenger seat. I ride my bike very fast as to stay in sight and sound and we are off again. We stop at a place to fix Elder Weir`s bike. (the old guy with us really likes all the attention we attract... haha. He was calling out to all the people on the street staring at us) The guy fixing the bike asks where we are going. The old guy says, "We are going to `honoki`, and then back to kochi city."

The bike repair guy pauses a second and then bursts out laughing. That`s impossible! haha.

We thought that was kind of funny.

The old guy wasn`t even phased. Nope, that`s what we`re doing.

so maybe we aren`t all that close.....?

We asked him how much further. He was like..... maybe 25 more kilometers..?

The bike repair guy was like, no, more like 15ish kilometers.

I look at my watch. We have a lesson at the church at 7:30. We are already 25 ish kilometers away. hmmm...... I don`t think we have time to bike 55 more kilometers.

The old guy thinks for a while and then he tells me to leave the bike and get in his car.

We hop in and he drives the remaining distance.

We arrive at the house, and the person we are looking for is outside with 2 of her sons.

She was impressed with our effort to meet her, and said we could come back on a Saturday and meet the whole family of 5 and share a message.

Alright.

Then car ride back to central kami city, and then bike all the way back to kochi city, just in time to teach a fantastic lesson about the restoration to our favorite TV reporter. (the lesson went great!)

So grateful for that guy that helped us out! He had no interest in the message, but was willing to help us out all day. haha. We had no idea that it would take all day to visit one person, but if that ends us up with another complete family investigator, I`d say it was worth it.

Looking forward to an awesome week, including an apostle on my Birthday. Alright!

Love you all
Elder O`Reilly