Elder Brett Moore: Week 9- 11/29/15 My companion is Genki

No really. His name is Genki (which means good in Japanese) Yoshino

Weekly email

こんにちはみなさん！！

My first few days in Japan have been pretty dang awesome. Let's start from the beginning, shall we?

So, we wake up at 2 last Monday to get ready to leave for the airport, after waiting in the cold Utah air, they piled into a bus, to a train, to the airport. All of us are dead tired, a group of 40 something missionaries all freezing their butts off. We get to the airport and part ways from the people going to different missions, and hop on a two hour flight to Portland. After that flight, our plane to Tokyo got delayed a few hours so we did some talking and ate our fist meal outside of the MTC which I have to say was pretty awesome.

Anyways, they pack us on a plane and 10.5 hours and a few restless naps later, we arrive in TOKYO! The moment I stepped off the plane and felt the difference in humidity I just knew I was home. So we go through customs and meet President Nagano, head to the mission home, eat, and hit the hay.

The next day, we got assigned our areas and companions. My new area is Okegawa, in Saitama city. My new companions name is Elder Yoshino and he is pretty awesome. He speaks decent English so a lot of our conversation and planning is in Japanese and English. I share an apartment with another companionship, Elders Jensen and Templin. We usually make rice and whatever we can put on it like curry. We had ramen the other day. Despite the lack of cooking supplies, the food we make is still way better than the MTC, and sometimes we get some yummy snacks. The members here are totally awesome. Yesterday, Yoshino 長老 and I were invited over for a huge lunch, and afterwards, dinner. We went to Brother Kakiki's house. Brother Kakiki's is the ward mission leader. I was able to meet his family and a lot of the YSA members. I introduced myself and showed pictures of my family and the MTC. It was a really fun time. I ate so much food. Turns out the Japanese put carrots in their lasagna. Oh well, it was good. I also had some home-made yakisoba yesterday and it was amazing.

Our area is a little slow when it comes to finding. The people just aren't all that interested. However, we have a few progressing investigators, including one with a baptismal date in December! His name is Tonagi. So, as I was saying, finding is slow, but we teach English on Wednesdays and Saturdays. We get a pretty big show for that. I teach the advanced English class so it's pretty nice to have a conversation in English for a change. We handed out a ton of pamphlets and even a Book of Mormon though. We also contacted some of our investigators, and after a pretty sketchy bike ride at night past a cemetery, we contacted one of our PIs named Nihei, and contacted a referral named Shirota. Both are really nice guys.

A few days ago we had to go to the Mission Home for flew shots. While there, I saw Elders Banks, Oldham, and Hugo. It was good to see them again and talk about our respective areas.

I also figured out that there's no such thing as a smooth street in Saitama. My butt is so sore from riding my bike. Not to mention we ride really fast. It's actually safer to ride our bikes in the street, because in some places on the sidewalk, it's easier to be hit by a car.

Well, it's good to be here. I'm glad I'm not anyway freezing cold but it certainly is cold here. Our apartment is relatively large for Japanese apartments. I'll post pictures! Thank you for tuning in everybody, this is Elder Moore, signing off.

モア長老