皆さんこんにちは！！
Interesting week, hence the title. But I won't get into that right now, you'll have to read until the end :)
Last P-day, we had dinner with the Fukuma family. Getting there took a while, especially because it was raining so the buses were slow. But they had some amazing food waiting for us when we got there! 紺野長老 and Morris 長老 shared a message about Elder Holland's talk about mothers. Fukuma 兄弟 then drove us back because it was kind of late. I then started splits with Bradford 長老.
We had lunch with Takahashi(高橋)姉妹 again on Tuesday. She's so sweet; she always feeds the missionaries and then cleans up the church afterward. Bradford 長老 and I went to a park around 武蔵小杉 to street/house. There were too many people around because it was quite cold. We saw some super cool statues though :p We went back to church around dinner time so we could unsplit. Gutierrez 長老 and I had a 食事(shokuji-meal appointment) with the Ishikawa(石川) family. His wife's sister and the Urata(浦田)family was there too. 石川兄弟 served a mission in New York back in 2012; he had to learn Spanish/Portuguese and English! He definitely worked hard because he can speak perfect English and doesn't have an accent. His wife also served a mission; she was somewhere in Japan, I can't remember exactly haha. I believe most of them are return missionaries! For the message, we discussed the area plan and their goals. We then talked about focusing on others, having faith, and how we can strengthen our conversion. 石川兄弟 then shared something that hit me hard. He had a hard time during his mission, especially because he had to learn so many languages. He said in English, "The mission is about you. It starts with you. The mission will be what you make out of it. Our attitude about the mission will influence the quality of your mission. We may not baptize a ton of people but sometimes we have to strengthen our own conversion before others.That doesn't mean we focus on ourself though. Continue to press forward, submit yourself to God, and he will take care of everything". I felt the spirit as he said that. I've been having a hard time recently and I think that's what I needed to hear. They are a super amazing group of people and I hope to be like them some day!
On Wednesday night, we had a lesson with Raki姉妹。 She hasn't met with missionaries in a while because she got married and has been super busy. Mitsubayashi(光林)兄弟 and Yokoyama(横山)姉妹 came to 同席. We taught Raki姉妹 English first because she is doing the Free Family English Program(FFEP). We then asked her why she wants to meet with missionaries. Other than to learn English, she said she wants to believe in Jesus Christ! We shared that through Christ, our lives can improve and we can see miracles. We shared personal experiences and talked about the importance of reading the Book of Mormon. 光林兄弟 then shared something. He originally said he couldn't 同席 for us when we asked him last Sunday because he was going to the temple. But he prayed about it and the spirit told him he should come to the lesson instead. Raki姉妹 thought that was amazing! What a great blessing!
I had my first blitz on Thursday! It was a stake blitz! Simply put, a blitz is when a bunch of missionaries gather in one area and then 伝道 around that area. All the missionaries in the Yokohama(横浜) North zone and Yokohama South zone gathered at the Yamate(山手) church building in 横浜. It was about 35 missionaries or so. The 山手 area felt like home! It looked like Los Angeles; there was a lot of tall buildings, parks, and foreigners haha. For this blitz, we focused on the Book of Mormon. For the first hour, I was with Nielson 長老! I haven't seen him since the MTC. Within the first 5 minutes, we talked to two people. One of them was Christian so he knew a lot about Christ. After talking with them for a while, they both accepted Book of Mormons! For the second hour, I was with Abe長老 and Walter長老. We talked to someone playing Pokémon Go in the park and he accepted a Book of Mormon too! Blitz was a lot of fun!
Saturday was full of events. We had river cleaning again. But this time was different. We met at a local children's daycare center. There were about 50 kids between 5-10 years old waiting for us. They helped us clean the river! It was way more exciting than the last time! Some of those kids were pretty wild haha I love Japanese children :p I'd love to have Japanese kids in the future! We went back to the daycare center to eat lunch with them; we had curry and rice! They were pretty excited having a bunch of 外人(gaijin-foreigners) talk and play with them. It was a fun experience! Later in the evening, we had a lesson with Tanaka(田中)姉妹. Nakahara(中原)兄弟came to 同席. 田中姉妹's husband is a big car enthusiast; he had a super nice Nissan and bunch of miniature car collectibles. Anyway, we talked about prayer and the role it has in helping us to know truth. We read some scriptures from the Book of Mormon. As of now, she doesn't really have the desire to know if the gospel is true. She said her life is good right now. We'll just have to find out how to apply the gospel in her life :) After the message, she made miso ramen for us! It was super good!
Sunday was exciting as well. Onda(恩田)兄弟 was the ward mission leader and Yamashita(山下)兄弟 was the bishop's second counselor. 山下兄弟 is moving to Chiba so he was released from his calling. 恩田兄弟 was called as the new second counselor! 恩田兄弟 is super awesome. He always "Osu!(おす)" which is his way of saying "Good morning", "Hello", "Good luck" and other similar phrases. We shook his hand and said "Osu" back to him haha. We tried to visit an investigator before dinner but he wasn't there. We then went with the other elders to 恩田兄弟's house for dinner. We shared a very simple message, mainly for their kids. But they weren't really focused. 恩田兄弟 then made taco/taco rice. It was super good! He also shared stories from his mission. He served in Sendai and his wife served in Tokyo. Now about that title... We randomly started talking about blood types. Bradford 長老 asked 恩田兄弟 and 恩田姉妹 if they knew their blood types. They did and then told us. We were surprised! We asked why they knew and he said most Japanese people do. We asked why again and he responded with this in English "Hmm.. We believe in blood types". We all thought that was super funny :p I love the 恩田s a lot! Another great family! The members here are too awesome haha!
Sorry for being a bit long this week. We had something going on each day and I couldn't bring myself to skip any of it. The weekly depression still hits me but I am learning how to deal with it. Next week is temple P-day, so you won't hear from me until Tuesday. Also, I am curious. Are the pictures I send blurry? They look fine on my iPad but I've heard that they are blurry. If they are, please let me know so I can fix it! Thank you for everything! また来週ね！
-Elder Chab
チャブ長老 or 茶武長老
愛しています^_^
A statue Bradford長老 and I found on splits! It looks 3D, but it's actually flat!!
Left to Right: 石川姉妹's sister, 石川姉妹, 石川兄弟, 浦田兄弟, 浦田姉妹