Hey everyone,
Kristin thank you so much for the army shorts. I think I loved your ghetto "card" more than anything else!
Once again, please do NOT message me on Facebook. If I can't even follow any of you while here, messaging me is NOT OKAY.
Ma, if you haven't sent a package already I would like another t-shirt or two, and maybe another pair of jeans. You may be able to find some in my boxes. Just casual stuff I can work out in and do service in. Thank you so much and if you can't do not worry about it!
So I want to start of with some pretty hilarious things from this week. First off you know how Horne Choro sleep talks at exactly the same time every night about Jesus Christ? Well, he still does it. But there is some new information that just makes this hilarious. I woke up the other night to him teaching about Christ in full blown nihongo! (Japanese) I couldn't believe what I was hearing. I laughed for a few minutes then rolled over on my futon and went to sleep. The next day I talked to him about it, and he looked at me and said, "I woke up at the same time to you answering questions in Japanese!!" So we are now practicing teaching about Jesus Christ, while sleeping, in a foreign language. If that doesn't help us then I don't know what will! So funny though. I always new I slept talked, but this is a new high point for my career.
Another funny story: each day in companion study we sing a hymn, recite the first vision, and read from the white bible (missionary rule handbook). The other day we read about bike safety. Horne Choro is an absolute goonbag and he loves to pop wheelies and try to get air off of curbs and sidewalks while we blitz around Kamagaya. I always hear his chain rattle, and his tire hit the pavement behind me. It looks ridiculous but we are ignorant gaijins (foreigners) anyway so whatever right? Anyway, he always follows a little too closely behind me and I have warned him several times about it to no avail. The day we read about bike safety and not riding to closely, we go out to work for the day, and I come to a stop at a crosswalk crowded with lawn mower sized cars. Out of nowhere behind me I hear bike tires screeching and have just enough time to know exactly what is happening, before being rammed into by Horne Choro. I turn around and he is tilted over trying to pick his bike back up. He leaned it over trying to avoid me, but it didn't really work hahahaha. He had such a sheepish look on his face and all the people around us were laughing I'm sure. It was pretty funny. He's a great kid, a little immature, and a little easily distracted, but a really good missionary in the making.., if I don't break him.
Last p-day we decided to visit a temple we found while out running. Kamagaya is basically all small Ekis and houses. There are no cool parks or tourist spots so most of the temples are kind of in bad disrepair and not really worth seeing. The other day we jogged past a small, but very pretty temple and decided we would go check it out. It turned out to be pretty cool. We got to this cleansing area where some crystal clear waters pools into a marble basin, where you are supposed to cleanse yourself before entering the premises. We didn't know how to do it, and we're just about to turn and leave when a tiny adorable obachan (elderly lady) wanders around this small building and beams a huge toothless smile at us and proceeds to explain how we can cleanse our hands and heart. She was super sweet and after washing our hands and sipping a little cool water, she then gave us a tour of the temple and explained all the shrines and gods and how to pray to each of them. I'm pretty sure she thought she was converting us hahaha. Anyway it was cool to learn about and I have some pictures I'll send.
Throughout the rest of this week we have had so many different responsibilities and things to do that we haven't really had a lot of solid finding time. Because of conferences, service, eikaiwa, and other things the whole transfer has been that way, and now we are already in week five. I feel bad for Horne Choro and wish I could get him out with the people more, or find more opportunities to teach for him. We are doing the best that we can, and we find good contacts each day, but we still can't seem to climb the wall they have built against meeting further with us. We'll figure something out I'm sure.
Wednesday was the church building's thirtieth anniversary so they planned an activity for that. It was a fun slide show, and the father of the CEO of Microsoft in Japan lives in our ward so he had his son come and address all the people who came to the event. It was okay..old people planned it so it was pretty boring. Horne Choro and I actually left and did some dendou (proselyting) while everyone else sat in the chapel. The bishop told us he had wanted to do something fun, he's a younger adventurous guy, but got outvoted by the old timers haha. Anyway we returned just in time to eat some food and talk to a bunch of people. The sisters managed to find a few contacts through that, but we did not unfortunately. It was still a good experience though.
Thursday Horne Choro got really sick. I felt a little crappy Monday night after doing the service, but since then I've been pretty genki (in good spirits) and haven't had any problems. But right after study Horne Choro basically passed out. He had some really bad head pain, and a lot of nasal congestion and a little bit of a fever. We called Nagano Shimai and she told us not to go out and work that day. So I became his nurse for about twenty four hours. Nagano Shimai gave me a list of things to make and do for him so I was busy doing that a lot of the day. It was funny, I felt kind of like a mom hahaha. I felt really bad for him though, he really wants to work and was pretty frustrated with himself. The guy must have been exhausted because he slept for like six hours. During that time I attempted to plan for the week on my own, which was okay. It's hard to do without a companion. I also went through the entire area book again and tried calling people. This transfer I have slowly become able to talk on the phone with people. I'm super awkward and have to have them repeat themselves a lot, but I understand and we make it through. Anyway, I have called so many people in the area book, when the next elders come through they will see my name and report on every dropped person and potential investigator I swear. It felt good to work though despite being in the apartment. I about went nuts after three hours of that at which time Horne Choro dragged himself out of bed and tried to help me plan. After about ten minutes I look over and he is passed out on the floor. I just told him to go back to bed hahaha. From there I studied a bunch. I have been learning a lot of kanji (Japanese writing characters) and trying to read and comprehend the Book of Mormon lately, so I worked on that a lot. It was really helpful. I'll read one or two verses at a time, break them down, look up definitions and then move on. Since then I have noticed that I actually understand most of what is happening, which is nice, because I remember how when I first started, I could hardly make sense of one or two ideas per page. Gotten through the first three chapters of first nephi. Such a struggle hahaha.
After that Horne Choro again dragged himself out of bed and we tried housing and working at an Eki for the evening. I would look back at him from time to time to see him staggering and looking pretty dizzy. After a while we called Nagano Shimai again because I was worried that his head was hurting so badly he couldn't even walk strait. She had the area physician call him and after talking just prescribed him a ton of ibprofen. Since then he has improved and is about normal again.
Saturday we had eikaiwa and then study, then went back to the church to set up for an activity the sisters planned. We played ping pong with some members and non members and ate some food with them. After that we played games and did other fun things. At the end of the activity the sisters came up with a great idea to do book of mormon skits. We split into groups and read the story together, then chose roles we would play. My group decided I should have the role of Ammon in teaching King Lamoni about God, it was pretty funny. Everyone of course acted ridiculously and we all had a lot of good laughs. At the end the sisters gave a small thought on the Book of Mormon and what they learn from it. It was such a productive non-threatening way to introduce the gospel. Really effective I thought. From that activity the sisters were able to make a few contacts and set up an appointment with someone and we handed out several Books of Mormon. It was a good night. From there we cleaned and set up the chapel for Sunday.
Sunday was a pretty good day. Horne Choro is really good at the piano and he has an awesome arrangement of IF YOU COULD HIE TO KOLOB. We had called and planned with bishop to have him play in sacrament meeting several weeks ago and he had the opportunity to do that yesterday. Out of the blue an area seventy and the stake presidency showed up right before he played so he was a little nervous, but he did really well and the members drooled over him for it of course. We have really been able to strengthen a lot of relationships with the members lately and this was definitely one way to help with that. All of you at home, I was a HORRIBLE member missionary. Please go out of your way to help and work with the missionaries. Refer EVERYONE to them. It is such a blessing to have members do missionary work with us. We see so much more success when that happens.
After church a nice older woman invited us to come to her house and meet her non member friends she had in town. We showed up and there was a good crowd of people there. Unfortunately she asked that we not teach anything (not right in my book, but we have to respect what the members want), but simply be happy and show a good example. It was really fun and I ate sooooo much good food. I kid you not I woke up this morning and still felt full of food. I'm not exaggerating it was incredible haha. Anyway one funny thing was we ended up a little behind on the ride out to her house (a good fourty minute bike ride ) so we just started booking it. I think we made the ride out to Shiroi in record time, like fifteen minutes or something like that. We were sweaty and puffing when we rode up, but we were on time! And that's important here. After that I had to go to the church and do reports for the week on key indicators and my letter to the president about the district, so that ended the night.
Of course there are always so many things I forget, and what I describe doesn't do justice for how busy we really are. We still don't have any investigators. All three transfers I have been here we have been cleaning out the area book. It is full of people who don't want to learn and are not committed. It's been frustrating because before I got here they taught plenty of people weekly, but now we are struggling to find just one person to teach. The sisters are really doing well and have a progressing young mom who they will invite to be baptized tomorrow! Please pray for Suzuki San! Despite the challenges our faith is strong and things ARE changing.
I love you all very much and I appreciate all your letters. Lisa I have seen the Mormon video a lot! I use it to practice listening to Japanese. I talked to Takara bishop and he was happy to hear about his friend. Sorry it took me so long haha. Thanks for all you love and support.
I love you all, and I love my mission. I really do love Japan and these people.
Viehweg 長老
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