Week 35- 5/30/16 I Only Eat The Highest Quality of Instant Noodles

Well hello hello everybody it's boku. In case you were wondering about

the subject heading, it's totally true. Let's get down to my week

shall we?

You all heard about my Monday last week so there's nothing to go over

there. On Tuesday I went on splits with Elder Wilkes. He goes home

this transfer and is probably one of my favorite missionaries. I've

noticed I always get attached to the missionaries who go home after I

know them. We biked around and went some places. Such is life. We

found two people that day, which is great because we haven't been

finding people all transfer. Both are Chinese, which poses some

problems, but they were very nice people.

Wednesday, Elder Masterson and I didn't have much time for things. We

taught Hitoshi, who is increasing in leaps and bounds in the gospel.

He pretty much testifies to us whenever we teach him. He doesn't even

talk about Muhammed anymore. Although, I enjoy listening to the

stories of Jesus that were written down by the Muslims. We also taught

Eikaiwa, and our hook-up Ukai came in clutch with the tiny butters and

jellies.

Thursday was weekly planning and we took the train to the farthest

part of the area to dendo it, because missionaries probably go there

like once a year. The members were super happy to see us there because

they wanted friends in the area. They then gave us some high quality

instant noodles and chocolates.

Friday was zone conference. We biked per to the next area in a

torrential downpour and got totally soaked. We had a great conference

and started splits with the zone leaders. Saturday we finished splits

and went home. Sunday was a busy day. I gave my first talk in

sacrament while in the field, and we also taught primary. After, we

went to FHE with the ward mission leader, taught like three lessons,

and pounded in a law of chastity lesson in the last 15 minutes of the

day.

That's pretty much it for the week. Thanks for listening!

Picture 1- zone Pday. Elder Gonzalez, Gibson, and I were in the MTC together

Picture 2- hazama sushi, eat plate of sushi only costs a dollar. Some

members took us and told us to eat however much we wanted, then

insulted us after saying we didn't eat as much as the other elders

used to

Picture 3- zone conference

Week 34- 5/23/16 Drunk Turkes and National TV

Well hello hello it's me. I'm going to tell you about my life in Japan now.

So this week I have literally nothing to talk about. We had one lesson

with our investigators (of which there are 2) and just did a whole lot

of missionary work. However, it was one of the most exhausting, and

fun weeks of my mission for some reason.

We started in the hospital. I talked about that. Tuesday all our

investigators canceled on us so we did a whole lot of surprise dendo

(missionary work). We also had a zone conference, but it rained so

hard. I forgot to mention that we found out that Elder Mastersons bike

got a whole in the tire, so we just so happened to get to walk around

everywhere in the pouring rain. If you think we'd find investigators

just for doing that you're wrong. Japanese people are scared of the

rain and nobody was outside.

Wednesday was Eikaiwa, where we teach people English. I swear by the

time I get back to the states I'll be a certified English teacher. We

also went back to the hospital and found out Elder Masterson actually

doesn't have diabetes. Thursday was weekly planning and Friday was

normal. We scheduled a dinner on Friday though so that's nice. We get

to go over in two weeks.

Saturday we had the beach clean up. Eyes one tiny beach in our eared

and once a month we clean. There's always a butt ton of garbage. Like,

we found half of a scooter. Moped scooter. Then two mascots showed up.

Totally huge publicity stunt. I got pictures.

I'll tell you about today as well. We had a zone p day and played

capture the flag at yoyogi park, right next to Meiji jingu. After, we

went to a kebab place in roppongi. There's a rule that we can't be in

roppongi after six but I think I'm just going to avoid it forever.

While at the kebab place, the shop owners love missionaries (because

we eat kebabs and they're investigators) but the normal crowd doesn't.

We got some pretty nasty stuff said to us. We also went to ameyoko,

where I almost got to be on national television. I got my palm read

and he said I was protected by a sacred power because the middle of my

ha d has a cross on it. Well duh I'm a missionary. We told them we

were missionaries so I guess you could say I almost shared the gospel

with all of Japan but we told them they couldn't publish the footage

because one of us lost their tag during CTF. However, they recorded my

hand after that, so my hand is famous.

Well that's it everybody! Hope you all had a wonderful time!

Picture 1- Trash mascot and I

Picture 2- Both trash mascots, Hitoshi, and I

Picture 3- Tokyo East Zone- one of the smallest in the mission.

Week 33- 5/16/16 Goodness I'm So Tired

Yes it's me again. I hope everybody had a good week because mine was

long and tiring. I'm stuck in the hospital right now because every

time my companion eats sugar he gets dizzy so we decided to tell this

to sister Nagano today on p day instead of when it started and now I'm

here. So I figured I'd write my emails!

Really not much happened this week. It just felt really long because

of transfers. Even if the transfer doesn't affect you they still feel

taxing. We had a few lessons this last week but other than that,

nothing terribly exciting.

Recently we found out we need permission to teach our sixteen year old

investigator, Andy. So we called him up on Saturday and told him. He

said he already talked to his parents and they said that "it's good to

be looking for a religion" which is really strange for Japanese

parents. Usually they're super anti against religion but not these

ones. We can continue to teach Andy.

We had a district leader training in Koiwa this week as well so we

took the train over to the next area. As we were leaving, we saw a man

laying down on the ground in front of the entrance to the station with

a bunch of people surrounding him. We got closer and it seemed like he

was overdosing on something, so we told people to call the ambulance

(because they hadn't yet) and stayed by to make sure he's okay. That's

when he threw up everywhere and started shaking and coughing and

grunting. Scary stuff. Koiwa isn't the safest of places.

That's pretty much it. I've been so tired lately and just want to

sleep. This last transfer wore me out and by the looks of it, this

will be another rough one. Hopefully we'll start seeing some more

success because this is a rough area. Hospitals are so boring. Also

the Japanese is really hard. I figured out that 内視鏡室 means endoscope.

The literal meaning of the symbols are inside, inspection, speculum,

and room. Also, this hospital skips the numbers 4 and 7 because you

say "shi" which means death. That's pretty much it for the week. One

thing I've noticed is that Japanese people follow medical instructions

to the letter. I'm listening to old people say "yes. Yes. Roger that."

To all the instructions the nurses give. No wonder they live so long

here. Oh by the way I'm running on my 5th hour waiting in this

hospital. There's so many old people in Japan.

So we finally got out of the hospital. It's been six hours, our p day

is gone, and we have no new news on what's going on medically. Waste

of time.

Week 32- 5/8/16 Hey I'm Transfer 5 Now

Herro everybody it's time for me to talk.

We had transfer calls the other day, and I'm pleased to announce I'm

staying in Urayasu with Elder Masterson. Unfortunately, Elder

Abercrombie is heading out, but he's going to Adachi, which is two

areas over, and we'll see him at zone activities.

Here's what happened this week. We started this week with P-day, not

much there. Then on Tuesday I went on splits with Elder Abercrombie.

We ate at a place called katsuya- which pretty much sells katsu and

rice. Katsu is my favorite food though, and the katsu don is heavenly.

So katsu don is a bed of rice, with fried pork or chicken on it. Then

on top of that, they crack an egg and sort of cook it. It's better

than it sounds.

Wednesday we went down to the mission home, and had a big conference.

Elder Yamashita from the area presidency gave us a huge training on

pretty much everything. The humidity has been hiking up lately, so it

was a bunch of us sitting shoulder to shoulder wearing suits for seven

hours. I got a lot of good points, but it was so hot. After we booked

it like a librarian back to our area for Eikaiwa.

The rest of the week was pretty futsu (normal). I did get to skype my

family for Mother's Day which was really nice. Glad to see everybody

is doing well. I hope you have a good Mother's Day everybody! I'm

feeling super tired right now so this email probably doesn't sound too

good. I'll attach pictures at the bottom.

Picture 1-Tokyo and Chiba zones at the Yamashita conference

Picture 2- koki-kun. Easily the cutest kid in the ward

Picture 3- the sick American flag I found on splits