Week 21- 2/22/16 I'm So Tired

Hey it's that time of the week again, and you know what that means?

You have to suffer through another of my emails. This last week was

quite the adventure. I'll fill you all in.

So the first two days of the week were pretty much getting Elder

Yoshino and Elder Jensen packed up to go home/other areas. The

apartment was so messy and we barely got any time for missionary work

in. On Wednesday I met Elder Sato at the eki (station) and we went to

the apartment. He's transfer 11, and goes home in November of this

year. A lot of things changed here in Okegawa because we are now five

people in the apartment instead of 4, all crammed together in a living

space for probably three. It's all actually pretty fun until night

time. We all sleep in the same room because the living room is the

only room big enough and one of the Elders in the other companionship

snores. Loud. Like it sounds like someone is moving a heavy table

across sandpaper. I have gotten very little sleep in the past few

nights.

All in all though, I'm enjoying Elder Sato. He doesn't speak as much

English as Elder Yoshino did but I'm okay with that. Having your first

two companions be native speakers is a huge blessing. I've learned a

lot of slang. Speaking of slang, I taught a 60 year old Japanese man

what the slang term "clutch" meant. Now he says it at every

opportunity at Eikaiwa and I absolutely die laughing. Just imaging an

old man with a horrible Japanese accent say "How clutch is that?" Or

"Dude that's so clutch." His name is Tiger Woods (seriously) and he's

a riot.

We've walked a ton this week. Our investigators have been busy this

week so we haven't taught. Because of this we have to do streeting. I

think in the first 2 days Elder Sato was my companion we walked 40km.

Our phone tracks our progress. We walked over 100,000 steps in the

space of like 7 hours. It also rained HARD on Saturday, so that was an

adventure. But things are going good with us. We're going to try and

set a baptismal goal with Koda this Saturday and meet with another

solid sounding investigator named Sugino this Thursday. I'll attach

pictures below. Thank you for tuning in everybody! Talk to y'all next

week!

Picture 1: Elder Yoshinos last dinner with Kazuhisa. We had kimchi

flavored Natto, which was not good. For this of you who don't know,

natto is fermented soybean with the smell and taste of sweaty gym

shorts, which mucusy strings like boogers holding it all together.

Picture 2: language study. I'm translating Preach my Gospel

Picture 3: I forgot to put the hood back on my raincoat. This was five

minutes of walking in the rain. I felt like I just got out of the

shower

Video: Elder Sato eating Sour Patch Kids sour dust

Week 20- 2/15/16 End Of Transfer Two!

皆さん！おはようございます！

Yes it's that time of the week again. I'm happy to grace your inboxes

with my presence. This last week was quite the special week. The

reason for that is it was the last week of the transfer! I'm

officially not a trainee anymore! I also have some news regarding my

transfer.

I am officially......................................................staying

in Okegawa!

My new companion will be Elder Sato, the current commissarian. He

helped us move last week and we all had a blast.

So about this week. It started kind of slow. We had dinner at

Kazuhisa's house as usual. He fed us hamburger. An interest thing

about Japan, is that they just eat hamburger. They don't necessarily

have to put it on buns.

The day after that we went down to Urawa for splits with the Zone

Leaders. I worked with Elder Broberg. We walked around 20 km in a few

hours and found a ton of people. Urawa area is about 1/3 the size of

Okegawa, so we walked pretty far. We also stayed at their apartment

that night.

The next few days consisted of us trying to make appointments and

lessons happen. Thankfully, we were fed pretty often this week. On

Thursday we went to the Kokai family's house and had yakiniku. I also

tried cow tongue for the first time and I must say it was very good.

Nice and firm with a good flavor. It was a little weird tasting

something that normally does the tasting though. The next day we had a

zone meeting down in Urawa, where we received training on lots of

stuff. We also had a lesson set with a college student named

Kozutsumi. He's pretty much the miracle of the week. We met him on the

train at the beginning of this transfer. He said he was interested but

very busy because he was studying for the college entrance exam, which

is a HUGE deal here. Instead, he gave us his number and said to call

him in February. Literally on the first of the month we called him up

asking to meet for lunch. We met near our old apartment for tsukemen,

which is ramen but the noodles sit outside of the soup so you dip them

in. After talking and getting to know home we asked if he was reading

the Book of Mormon we gave him. He said yes and wanted to meet more to

talk about it. Every week on Friday we will meet him and hold lessons

but that's not all. We invited him to church. Despite it being far, he

had interest and decided to come. He stayed for the whole 3 hours. He

said that it want what he expected, and that he liked it and will

continue to come every week! He's pretty much golden. Big thanks to

our members who did a lot of the fellow shipping themselves.

Oh so yesterday was Valentine's Day. I actually got stuff. I think

it's sad that as a missionary I got more valentines than before I left

on my mission but oh well. Japanese valentines is a little backward.

Because men are shy, the girl buys chocolate and gives to her

prospective Valentine. If the guys accepts, he buys her chocolate

back. If not, he eats the chocolate and the girl never gets any. Super

easy in my opinion.

Thanks for tuning in this week. I'm glad to be spending another

transfer (hopefully) in Okegawa. I'll update you all with my progress!

Here are some pictures.

Picture 1: Saitama zone- not really current anymore because transfers

but oh well

Picture 2: dinner with the Kokai family

Picture 3: picture with Elder Yoshinos "bouquet"- Hiroki is wearing

the blue in the middle. He's Kodas son

Picture 4: Eikaiwa!

Picture 5: dinner last night at the sugawara's- we had Japanese

kimchi, which was very good

Week 19- 2/8/16 We Moved Apartments

19 週

It's official, we finally moved! We will keep the same mailing address because our mail all goes to the mission office. I'm just gonna say it right now, the

apartment is wonderful. It's pretty big and probably the best part is

we have a heated toilet seat now, which is really good since we wake

up to snow sometimes. The only downside is we are literally right next

to other houses, so when we hang up laundry it gets kind of awkward.

It's an interesting way to meet the neighbors but missionaries are

weird anyways. I'll start my account from the top I guess.

Last Monday we didn't really do much. We had a Saitama zone p day and

did bowling but other than that it was a nice day to chill, which was

greatly appreciated. On Tuesday I went on splits with one of the

elders in the apartment. Since Elder Yoshino is the district leader,

he has to do splits with every elder in the district at least once per

transfer. This time I went with Elder Jensen. We taught a pretty good

lesson to a recent convert about 2 Nephi chapters 1 and 2. I strongly

recommend you read them. Chapter one is about strengthening ourselves

against trials and temptations, and chapter two is pretty much Lehi's

testimony of the plan of salvation. Read it!

Wednesday was a pretty basic missionary day. We walked a ton since we

knew we weren't going to get much missionary work done in the next few

days. We walked all over Ageo. Not much success but we did have a

bunch of contacts, and found a guy who met missionaries before, and

said he might contact us later, so that's something!

Thursday was the start to the madness. Our Thursday's are usually

pretty boring since they are also our weekly planning day. After

planning, we started the process of packing ourselves, and the

apartment. We cleaned, we scrubbed, we swept, we dusted, we packed.

However, Elder Yoshino and I took a break and met with an old

investigator from two years ago named Sugino. He's pretty much 金人

(kinjin, or golden investigator). We taught him about the spirit and

prayer and got to know him. Apparently we lived in the same prefecture

about an hour away! Crazy! He was so receptive and said he'd meet us

again!

Friday and Saturday was packing, moving, and unpacking. Really not

much happened there so I don't think I need to cover it. A couple

elder from the 本部 (head quarters) came down with cars to help. All in

all it took about 8 hours to get everything to the new apartment but

we all had a good time. Still no oven. We have a fish

oven but I didn't know how to use it. All the instructions are in

Japanese and I don't have time to study those terms

Also, our investigators are doing well. We haven't been able to

contact Tonagi directly but we call him everyday. We still need to

reset his baptismal date. Also, Koda is doing amazing. We've been

getting him and Hiroki introduced to the ward members. Brother Kakiki

is our ward mission leader and he's honestly amazing. He talked to

Koda for a bit after church and told us he's pretty much ready to be a

member. We just need to set a date. I really hope I don't transfer

this week. I really want to see this family through. I've grown to

love them so much. They're so honest and want to improve. They have

that desire. Anyways that's pretty much it. I've got pictures from our

last district meeting and from last night. Brother Kakiki invited us

to dinner. The Japanese really know how to make good fried chicken.

Best stuff I've ever had. And it's all home-fried! anyways I'll attach

those below. Maybe some pictures of the apartment in a seperate email.

We had an earthquake last night. We were at a dinner

appointment with the ward mission leader (picture attached). It actual happened as we were taking the picture. His family

is great.

Transfers are next week. I'll be getting a new companion for sure,

maybe transferring to a new area. I really don't want to leave though.

Our area is about to explode with baptisms. Combined, we have 4

serious investigators with tons of interest.

Thanks for reading everybody! まった来週！

Also please do read 2 Nephi 1-2. They're really good chapters

モア長老

My bed

My bed

Tiny kitchen

My study area

Ward mission leader Brother Kakiki and family

Picture from our last district meeting