Elder Chab's Adventures from the Tokyo South Mission: Week 6 DESU!

水曜日10-19-16
A great P-day! Crazy thing happened with Jones 長老's laundry. While doing our laundry, we sit and talk to each other. He went to go check up on his clothes; when he opened the dryer, some other person's clothes were in there. We thought someone mistook his clothes as their's and took off.We searched for about 15 minutes. When we were about to leave, we checked one more time. We found his clothes in the dryer next to the one we had first checked! Someone moved his clothes without telling him. That sure was a relief because it would have been pretty expensive to replace all those clothes. We went to the temple later on; it was great. TRC was amazing, as usual. We went in with no lesson planned, just vocab and a general idea of what we were gonna talk about. We taught about teaching the Sabbath day holy.One of the people we taught was in the Mormon Tabernacle Choir! It was so cool!

木曜日 10-20-16
We didn't do much today. We taught Ota-san about the Book of Mormon. He agreed to start reading it.

金曜日10-21-16
Japanese grammar is tough.Through out the week, we learned various concepts such as "ba" and "nara". Both are equivalent to the English word "if". However, "ba" is used for general "if" statements and "nara" is used for hypothetical statements. Word order is still a little odd; some things are said backward. The weirdest thing is the passive form. Passive form in English is already a bit odd but in 日本語, its even harder. I have hope that we can learn though. Cuff 長老 had to go to BYU's student health center to get an x-ray. Earlier in the week, his thumb and knee were swollen so the MTC clinic said we should get it checked out. During exercise time, we left the MTC and walked down the block to the health center. It was so weird leaving the MTC. The MTC is like a bubble. I felt like the main character in The Giver when he left his "utopian" world.

土曜日10-22-16
Strauss 兄弟 told us about "iijou desu" or いいじょうです. It roughly translates to "that is all". It can be said when you have finished saying what you have to say. It basically means you have nothing else to say. We were joking around and said we'd use it in our investigator lessons. Also, my senpai (which are the dai senpai) are getting ready to leave on Monday. They passed around their bye-bye books for us to sign.

日曜日10-23-16
Another departure sacrament meeting. The senpai sung "I'll Find You My Friend" in English and
日本語. I didn't tear up as much as when my dai senpai left; probably because there was 4 special music performances that meeting and there was only one this time. Either way, I'm gonna miss them so much. They have served as great examples to me and the rest of the zone. For devotional, Stephen B. Allen spoke to us. It was great.

月曜日 10-24-16
We woke up early to see our senpai off. We went to travel center with them and said our last goodbyes. I miss them already. Whenever we played volleyball, Howell 長老 would say "Avatar yip yip!" when he served the ball. It's gonna be strange to not hear that anymore. We went to the health clinic to view the results from the x-ray. Thankfully, nothing was wrong with Cuff 長老's thumb or knee. For Yamazaki-san's lesson, we didn't plan anything at all. We decided to focus more on her needs and rely on the spirit. We ended up talking about faith in Jesus Christ. We made her tear up a little; the spirit was so strong during that lesson. Ota-san's lesson was great too; we were gonna teach about the Great Apostasy and the Restoration but he wanted to know more about the Book of Mormon so we did that. As a district, we are singing "Come Thou Fount" for next Sunday's sacrament meeting. District 5D is singing this coming Sunday. And the last Sunday that we are here, district 5B and 5D will be singing "I'll Find You My Friend". Its crazy to think that I'm a dai senpai now. When we went back to our dorms we had some amazing pistachios...we finished the whole bag within 20 minutes lol.

火曜日 10-25-16
Elder Nattress spoke to us about Christ. One of the things that really stuck out to me were these 5 words "Be not afraid, only believe". Every missionary goes through the "I'm not good enough" phase, including me. The most important thing to remember is that we need to forget ourselves and depend on the Lord. So that's something I've been working on within the last week.

It's weird to believe that I'm a dai senpai now. I feel like I don't know enough to be one, and I'm not the only one that thinks that. We are getting more missionaries today, some are Nihonjin.I'm excited! I love my district and zone so much. I'm glad I decided to serve a mission when I did. I believe this is what I needed in my life. In a couple weeks, I'll be in Japan. It's an amazing opportunity to serve the Lord. For those that are able to serve, do everything that you can to do it. I promise it will change your life as well as the lives of others in miraculous ways. I'm not perfect and no one else is. We've all made mistakes. But don't let that keep you from serving. Christ didn't perform the Atonement for nothing. Repentance is very important. So once again, live the gospel and go on a mission! 愛しています！

－チャブ長老