Hey everyone,
This has been a week of adjustment for sure. I think I spoke more English in the first two hours of my new companionship, than in the last twelve weeks with Tsuchida Choro. It feels so weird. We talk about our study in English, practice in English, and speak English
around the apartment. Now my brain is all confused and starts going in
and out of English and Japanese at random times. I found that I really
can't teach that well in English. Sometimes when I am praying I will
start in one language and be talking, then suddenly realize I switched
somewhere along the way. It's really confusing haha because all the
grammar and pronunciations switch up.
I am in a threesome now. It is me, Nukaya Choro from Idaho Falls, he
is full blood Japanese but more American than me, and Horne Choro from
Orem Utah. They are both really good guys. I am so thankful to have
elder Nukaya here to help train while I train and try to be the
district leader. He is on his last transfer so we are killing him (sending him home) in
five weeks, but that means he is ped (fluent) and knows how to do
missionary work, which I still don't. Horne Choro is sooo funny. He is the
typical Utah boy who has never seen anything but home and never tried
anything to crazy haha. He talks SOOOO LOUD hahaha. He will say hi to
people and basically shout at them, from their point of view. It's so
hilarious, and he is fearless so it makes for some really funny street
contacts. He's a good guy and is out here for all the right reasons.
Has a great attitude as well. I'm excited to work on being more
unified with them from here on out and working together for these
people.
Having these new responsibilities has been pretty stressful. Doing
call in reports each night, and thinking about the district vision,
meetings, trainings, and also planning each day since I "know the
area" has been a little bit of an adjustment. I definitely have no
time to do or think about anything but what is needed by our people, and
missionaries. It's nuts. I didn't think I could focus so strongly on
one thing for such along time, but I woke up today and honestly I forgot
I needed to email all of you. Sorry. We received some training from
the zone leaders, but it wasn't really training. They talked about
their vision for the Matsudou zone and they pretty much left
everything else up to us. I really have no idea what I am doing, but
I'm doing my best so if it's not good enough, then somewhere along the
line of revelation someone goofed! Just kidding, I know hat being asked
to do this means I have something to offer, but more importantly I have
something to learn. One thing is for sure I have never before been this
tired for along time haha. You slowly adjust to what you are asked to
do, and then the Lord decides it's time for you to hit the gym again and break
down your foundation to build something new. It's a beautiful, painful
process, but understanding that concept has really made me grateful
for these times and it makes it much easier and more fun to go through
trials, challenges or changes. Anyway, for the missionaries sake,
please pray that I can figure out how to be a missionary, and district
leader, and how to be a trainer too, haha.
This past weekend we had stake conference. It was soooo great.
Yamashita Choro from the Seventy came and THREW DOWN. His talks were
the exact opposite of how a Japanese person "should act.” He was loud,
animated, and so funny. The talks he gave were pretty much all geared
toward lighting a fire underneath the members seats. In Japan sharing
the gospel is so hard for the members because of their culture, and he
took that delicate culture and smashed it with a piano. It was
perfect. BEFORE he came Nagano Kaicho taught us his mission culture
which is geared toward serving the members and in particular the
bishop. So we ask all the members what we can do to help them,
sometimes four or five times in a row, and they refuse, because they
are Japanese. Yamashita Choro told about how important they are for us
missionaries and how we need them to do this work. It fed perfectly
into what Nagano Kaicho has been asking us to do. Basically missions
are lead by God and we should all do what mission presidents say. An
easy concept some would think, but you would be surprised how timid
people are to really commit to and follow, truly follow the council of
church leadership. I know I definitely didn't in the past. Anyway that
was really great and I understood a lot of it. Church has gotten to
the point where I understand probably seventy five percent of the
words, but putting all the words into sentences is still tough. I get
all the main points now though so that's nice. At the meetings they
had an English translation room, but Horne Choro was pumped to test
out his Japanese so we went to the chapel. Within ten minutes he was
out hahahah, we let him sleep. Poor guy has taken jet lag pretty
hard. Each night at ten forty exactly he rolls over, shouts,"Jesus!"
mumbles a few things and then proceeds to snore for ten minutes.
Exactly. Then it's quiet again. It's soooo funny haha. Love the guy.
Anyway, after the conference when I called the zone leaders for my
nightly report in the district, I was told that that very night, in
every area, ours included, the members fed the missionaries and had
really cool lessons with them. Hopefully their attitude continues to
become strengthened.
Already Horne Choro has talked to more people than I did my first two
weeks here, he's a great example and I feel like he is training me in
a lot of ways.
This week we had a few really cool experiences. So Tsuchida Choro and I
had called through the area book for hours over the last twelve weeks
and never found a single person who wanted to meet again. The first
time Nukaya Choro tried to call someone he agreed to come to church
and meet with us. I was blown away. Something like that has not
happened the whole time I have been here. Since I cam to Kamagaya we
have slowly lost all of our investigators and dropped even more due to
disinterest, insanity, or inability to contact. Hopefully this is the
start to a new trend, we have cleaned the area book enough in my
opinion, but then again I'm not the one in charge. Still it was a
great tender mercy to at least talk to someone who wants to see us
again.
Training a missionary is pretty stressful, but it's so funny with
Horne Choro. He always forgets to take off his helmet so we will get
off our bikes and start trying to contact people, look at him and
just start laughing hahaha, he is tall and fairly well built but hasn't
really grown into his body yet, so he is a little clumsy. In a country
where everything is super close, he is always bumping into people and
hitting random things when he bends over hahaha. I feel bad we laugh
so much, but I can't help it! We assure him that he is doing great (and he really is!) and he is always really good natured about it. I often feel just as out of place and helpless as him, so I sympathize with him for sure.
Not sure what else to say. Have fun camping family! Danielle I'm sorry
to hear about Weston and his schools, I'll pray for you all. The story
about Mazer was awesome hahaha. Lisa that's is so crazy!! Such a small
world. Tell me his name one more time so I can tell bishop about it.
Thanks for all the birthday (insert English word I can t really
remember, not wishes). I love you all so much.
Viehweg 長老
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