Religion? Culture? Tradition?

Today is the dreaded transfer call day! And one of the assistants just barely called us and had us FREAKING OUT about what's happening with transfers, but it wasn't even about transfers! He just had questions about some missionaries. Yeesh. This past week was a really good week. The cherry blossoms are slowly blooming, Investigators are wonderful, church members are basically my family, I passed off my lesson mastery, and being a missionary in Japan is great! We ended up having a super heart to heart with one of our investigators this past week who we just couldn't seem to help progress. She is a Catholic lady who LOVES our church, LOVES missionaries, and just fits in completely with the branch anytime she comes to an activity or to church. So this past weekend we just sat down with her, and asked her honestly why she won't commit to joining our church, or just what she thought about it. It was so interesting to hear her tell us that the only reason she actually goes to Catholic Church too is because her preacher is one of her best friends and she just likes the people. She admitted to us that she didn't join the Catholic church for blessings or for faith, but for the social aspect and because her preacher wanted her to. She also told us that after all she's been through in her life, changing to another religion at this point would just be too hard. She said that even if she came to understand that our church was better than the Catholic church, joining would just be too exhausting and she didn't think she wanted to change any time soon because she is content right now. It was one of the more interesting conversations I've had with an investigator and made me realize that we really don't know what is going on inside of these people's mind unless we ask. One thing about Japan is that religion here isn't really a spiritual thing. It's either a family thing, like something you do or say that you are simply because everyone in your family has been the same way for hundreds of years, or it's something you do for the social aspect of it. We have another investigator who's family has been Catholic for generations and generations and who openly admitted to us that she want's to join our church, but she just can't until her father passes away, because he is Catholic and being a different religion than him is unacceptable while he's still living. That's just a glimpse into how "religion" in Japan works. It's quite the strange concept to me. However, as I read in PMG just this morning, it is important to accentuate the parts of our beliefs and the parts of their beliefs that are similar. And one big similarity is their BIG focus on the importance of families here. Even though they have a lot of different ways of showing their family unity, they have some of the strongest family bonds I have ever seen. So my new goal is to try to really build upon that foundation and find other similarities in the principles of their culture and find ways to tie it into the gospel! Anyway, that's just what was on my mind today. Hope everyone is enjoying their March Madness and the warming up weather! Thank you for all the love and support! Ai shite imasu! Wells Shimai