Week 31: Skype is a thing now (Week 22nd in the field)

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Hey,
    So even with the new announcement going out that I can now call home every week, I'll still make sure that I'm sending a weekly email to y'all.  
This week we got the announcement and we were all so stunned. I'm so excited to call home. Since I can only call my family, I unfortunately can't call all of you so this is my mode of communication.  I woke up on Thursday morning and I checked my LINE (It's like messenger or Whatsapp in Japan) and saw that the announcement was posted in my zone LINE group chat.  I was like "What?!? Wait, what?!? Yo, yo dude, Elder! Hear this..." and I told him about the announcement.  Among missionaries, some are hesitant to do so or feel like it's strange.  I see where they come from it's changed from skyping only 30 minutes for Christmas and Mother's day to every week.  Email's not gone but since the prophet is truly receiving revelations on how to strengthen the family, I feel like this truly will.  This church truly wants the gospel in the home, and if by any means we can do that, this serves our purpose as well.  I'm excited to see the miracles that are to come from this.
  
    Elder Larsen had his 3/4 mark on his mission so we celebrated by sliding down this intensely steep rocky slide and made a video.  I've heard that when a missionary hits their 3/4 mark, that's when they feel old... and when someone hits their 1/4 mark, the mission starts to go faster and faster.  Here's where my time starts to speed up!  Yikes!
That's probably it for now, other than the fact that I housed into a dude and while I was teaching a lesson, I used a word wrong that basically meant the same thing but this dude did not lighten up on me or anything and spent 25 minutes roasting me and telling me that I needed to improve my Japanese...   Well, it's true but still... Yeah.  He said the feeling was there but the words confused him.  The crazy part of this is that my companion and I both have had the feeling to go back and teach him.  While he was roasting me, I didn't fire back or get offended.  I just stood there and took his improvement point like an actual child of God.  I listened to a talk by one of the apostles in our church, Elder David A Bednar, and he said that being offended is a choice.  It honestly is.  He said no matter how people say something, we have the choice to either be offended and think of only ourselves and how much life is unfair or we can think of them with love and kindness.  Even if they don't necessarily love you, there is no need to fuel the fire. 
Love thy neighbor!!  :)

Love you,

Elder Jacob Wilson
 I received my Valentine's package



The package was twice the size of my first package in the field!

            



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