Week 25- 3/21/16 I have no witty name for this email

Oh yes, it's that time of the week again. However this next week is

very special. I hit my 1/4 mark this Wednesday! It's tradition for

missionaries to burn something but I don't think I'll do that because

I'm in Japan, and don't really have room to burn things. I'd rather

not ruin our new apartment as well.

The weather this week has been kind of weird. It's been in the high

50's but it'll rain for hours and hours on end. Or it'll be extremely

windy. I don't know what's worse, biking into 20mph winds all day, or

being buffeted by 20mph winds from all directions all day. The thing

about the wind here is it doesn't just go in one line like in America.

It comes from everywhere. At once.

So we did a lot of teaching this week. The members are a little mad at

us but there are more that think we're amazing so that's okay. I don't

think they understand that as missionaries, we will be bringing new

people to church, and these people will not understand our culture or

rules until it is explained to them. I don't really like going to ward

council, especially big ones because it pretty much turns into a "this

is how you should do missionary work" lecture towards the

missionaries. Yesterday was a pretty big deal apparently. A bunch of

stake representatives came down and there was a big meeting.

But we do have some progress to update on. Our teaching is going well.

This is the last week of the transfer so we're trying to set up a

whole bunch of appointments or teaching things before anybody leaves.

Next week I will learn my fate about whether I stay in Okegawa or

finally transfer. Honestly I kind of want to leave. I'm the most

likely to be transferred so it may well happen.

Our friend Noda is progressing very well. It's definitely a different

experience teaching someone with a Christian background. We don't have

to do much explaining. He doesn't even bible bash. He'll read

something from his bible and we'll match it and explain it and he'll

be like "oooooooohhhhhhhhh." He really likes the book of revelations,

so we spent a lot of time there last lesson. The only problem is the

language barrier. He speaks Japanese but it's a little hard to

understand because of his Spanish accent. He's Peruvian and speaks

Spanish. Luckily, we have an entire family in the ward from Peru, who

speak perfect Japanese and Spanish.

Koda is also doing very well. We had a lesson on a bunch of the

commandments the other day and he took them all very well. Our main

focus is now helping him to have a testimony of the Book of Mormon,

because once that happens, he will be baptized.

I ate a bunch of good food this week (for cheap too!). We found a

kara-age tabehodai which for you gaijin is translated as "all you can

eat fried chicken" for about 8 bucks. We also found a roast beef shop,

where you can get a massive bowl of roast beef on rice for 8 bucks as

well. The put a raw egg yolk on top though. It's actually pretty

tasty. I've eaten so many raw eggs since getting here. This week,

we're hitting up a hottokeeki tabehodai, which is all you can eat

pancakes since Elder Alder has one more week till he goes home. I'll

update you all next week, when I will be a transfer 4 missionary and

probably going to a new place!

モア長老

Week 24- 3/14/16 Sickness and Rain

Week 24

こんにちは皆さん！今は私のメール時間です！ごめんなさい、皆さんに私のメール時間はたぶん大変けど皆、耐え忍んで下さい。

Yes it's that's time of the week again already. Sorry to have to put

you through this but everybody will just have to endure. How's

everybody doing this week? We had a zone p day yesterday so sorry

about getting this email a bit late.

I'll tell you how I'm doing. I'm sick. Also my companion was sick.

Last Wednesday we literally spent all day in the apartment because

Elder Sato was sleeping. I was recently hit by a cold last Saturday

and I'm still feeling bad. We took time after church to rest up a bit.

Those 3 hours in church, surrounded by a bunch of germaphobic Japanese

people were grueling. However, I've noticed a recent break through in

my Japanese before church started. I can formulate sentences and

answer pretty quickly now. That's a big step for conversation. I

attribute that to the fact we have 2 Japanese elders and a last

transfer missionary in the apartment, so not only am I the youngest by

far, but pretty much every conversation is in Japanese.

So I guess I'll recap this week. We actually had some cool things

happen. I'll start with our most promising investigator Kouda. He's

honestly awesome. He's reading and praying everyday and we're just

blowing through the lessons because he just accepts them. We haven't

had any problems so far. A big problem with Japanese people is the

word of wisdom because smoking and drinking are big parts of the

culture here but he realized about 2 years ago that none of those

habits are helping his family, so he quit. Like straight up. He's

pretty much a member. I probably won't be around to baptize him but

I'll come back for the baptism for sure. I've worked a lot with him.

Our big miracle of the week is with a Peruvian guy we met last

Saturday. We arrived to the church for sports and we saw the sisters

talking to some guy we've never seen before. We took over and found

out he'd been waiting at the church for a pastor to come out. We

explained we don't have pastors and that the members talk on Sunday's

while the bishop oversees everything. After we invited him in and got

his Facebook (because we're allowed to use it here) and talked for a

while. He's a seventh day Adventist but loves the bible and prophets.

He used to be Catholic but his own words were "the Catholic Church is

bad." We gave him a Spanish Book of Mormon and told him to contact us

when he has questions. He was very happy to receive it.

So this week we were all pretty sick. Not much was done but I'm glad

to see some miracles. This transfer has been pretty rough. I've been

focusing a lot on the members and my relationship with them. Let's be

honest the only way this church will grow in Japan is when the members

start getting active in missionary work. Two gaijin walking up to you

on the street and saying hello asking you if you want to learn about

God and Christ can be pretty scary to a Japanese person. However, when

the members start to reach out to their friends, a lot of success will

be made. My goal is to strengthen the members and get them excited for

missionary work.

Lastly, I'd like to direct your attention to 1 Nephi 17:49-51. In this

section of the chapter, Nephi is chastening his brothers after they

mocked him for building the ship. I exhort you all to read and ponder

it this week.

Well I hope everybody's been good this week. Please email me back! I

love seeing emails. I won't respond right away but I'll get to it! If

you have any questions you want answered, or words translated, I'd be

willing to help. Thank you for tuning in this week!

Picture 1- it was like 70 degrees that day so I took a picture

Picture 2- our church building

Picture 3- a jacket we saw on splits

Video- We found sparkling grape juice that requires you to actually pop the cork. 

モア長老

Week 23- 3/7/16 Everybody's Sick

こんにちは皆さん！元気ですか？

Yes P day has rolled around once more. Time for you to be subjected to

another of my emails. Let's start at the beginning. This week was

honestly a blur. Not because it went fast but because I don't remember

anything. Everybody was getting kind of sick this week. Our District

leader Elder Alder has had a pretty bad cold, and Elder Sato caught

one too. On Friday we took a few hours to rest during the day because

none of us were feeling very well.

We haven't had much success in the way of missionary work either. We

changing our approach to working through the members. We haven't found

anybody this transfer. It hard though because the Japanese don't like

to share personal aspects of their lives, so getting them to invite

friends to church or activities is haaaard. We've been focusing a lot

on the younger generation. The church is actually dying in Japan.

People just aren't getting married or having kids. A big number of

members here is old people. We've been focusing super hard on

strengthening the younger generation and its working pretty well.

Anyways, as I said not much happened this week. We were fed by a

member family. They bought super high quality sushi for us. Honestly

it was all so good. I felt kind of bad the next day though. I think I

shocked my system by not eating raw fish for a few years then suddenly

eating a ton at once. I'll attach a picture of what we ate.

We also got in a few lessons win Koda and he's doing great! During

planning I prayed for two things to happen on Saturday. I wanted a new

person to come to English class (because the only people that come

have been coming for years) and I wanted Koda to show up for ping pong

night. Well, on Saturday we got three new people at Eikaiwa, and Koda

with his kids showed up to Eikaiwa. He's reading everyday, and we were

able to teach, and set up a lesson for the net day which he showed up

for and accepted easily and readily. He's so awesome.

Well that's all. I don't have many pictures this week but I have some

from last week I forgot. Thank you for tuning in! まった来週皆さん！

Week 22- 2/29/16 Ghostbusters

So in case you're wondering about the subject, don't worry. I didn't

watch ghost busters.

Hello once again everybody! It's that time of the week (sort of).

Sorry for being late. This last week was temple p day so we had our p

day on Tuesday instead. This email might be a little short. I'm going

to be honest this was the most difficult week of my mission so far. At

the end of the week elder Sato and I had zero lessons, zero new

investigators, and zero contacts. I have no clue how nobody in the

biggest city in the world wouldn't talk to us but it happened. We had

literally nothing to report. All our lessons were canceled literally

the hour they were supposed to happen.

We did have zone conference this week however. It really boosted my

confidence and I'm pleased to announce we've already had 4 street

contacts, which is 4 times better than we did last week. I guess I'll

get to explaining my subject since I don't really have anything else

cool to talk about. This last Sunday we were called to ride down to a

recent convert named Namatame's house. She had apparently been feeling

weird and seeing and hearing things that aren't there. So we went down

and blessed the house to cast out any "thing" that might be there.

This isn't actually the first time I e done this. We had to do the

sisters apartment as well about 2 transfers ago. That was something

else. After we blessed the house we left. I don't think anything was

here and she was being paranoid but we were glad to help. However,

it's a whole other story with the sisters apartment, which I'm not

going to get into over this email. I just say it was kind of scary. If

you want to know email me. I'll tell you about my other ghost stories

(I have a few since getting here). Well sorry for the lack of anything

cool. I have pictures to make up.

Picture 1: Takoyaki at Kazuhisa's

Picture 2: Elder Sato and Elder Murakami always take naps during lunch

Picture 3: Elders Sharon and Oldham. We were all in the MTC together

Picture 4: Elder Sato and I at the temple today

Picture 5: The temple with Elders Sharon and Oldham

Tokoyaki at Kazuhisa's

Elder Sato and Elder Murakami always take naps during lunch

Elders Sharon and Oldham. We were all in the MTC together

Elder Sato and I at the temple

The temple with Elder Sharon and Oldham