皆さんこんにちは!
What a blessing it is to be on a mission! To spend 18-24 months of your life serving our Heavenly Father! There is so much to learn in so little time! But there is no other greater experience! I turned 19 on Sunday(May 7)! Around this time last year, I was struggling and here I am now on a mission, serving people I've never met ! I am so thankful for the gospel!
What a blessing it is to be on a mission! To spend 18-24 months of your life serving our Heavenly Father! There is so much to learn in so little time! But there is no other greater experience! I turned 19 on Sunday(May 7)! Around this time last year, I was struggling and here I am now on a mission, serving people I've never met ! I am so thankful for the gospel!
This past week was kind of weird. We had to prepare for transfers; by that, I mean cleaning the apartment. That was great haha! This was Golden Week in Japan. The reason they call it that is because there are 3 holidays in one week; Constitution Day, Greenery Day, and Children's day. Lots of events happening all over Japan, although it wasn't as crazy as New Years.
On Wednesday, my companion and I went over to the Yamate open house. The church had lots of "exhibits" set up that had church history and church teachings. For those that don't know, Yamate is the place where Japan was first opened for missionary work! How cool is that!
英会話 was different this week because people were out of town. We had a great discussion about holidays though! After 英会話, we had a tour of the church, 10 people came!
We got to talk this guy named Ryu on Friday. He used to go to a Christian church with his mom when he was little, so introducing Christ was no problem! He seemed pretty excited about church and we exchanged contact info! He seemed pretty promising. Unfortunately he didn't come this Sunday and didn't contact us. Hopefully we hear from him soon!
Despite all those amazing experiences, I had a rough Saturday morning. I just wasn't feeling as energized as usual. I had flashbacks of the past and I guess what you'd call minor depression. After a good talk with my companion, I felt better and we got out and went housing. We passed by a father and his two sons in a park and knocked on a couple doors. Then we decided to go back to those guys. The father was playing baseball with the younger son and the older son was practicing his tennis swings. We talked to the older son for a bit and then the dad came over and told him it's time to go and they left. Guess he didn't want to talk :( But at least we tried!
We walked a bit more into the neighborhood and found a guy sitting in a lawn chair, selling a house. We said hi to him..We had no idea what we just got ourselves into. He had this weird 雰囲気(funiki-atmosphere, feeling). I asked him if he liked English and he said of course. He said he was ペラペラ(perapera-fluent) and then spoke a little bit in broken English. But shortly after he switched back to Japanese, so much for being fluent haha. He told us that Mormons aren't Christians and that he didn't believe in God, at least not one god. He mentioned that there are 8 million gods. He then quoted stuff from the Bible...I don't really understand how that works when you don't believe in God but hey, whatever floats your boat. During our conversation, he kept referring back to his bike. He prayed to the bike god for it and thanked him after. He also mentioned he was a best selling author which doesn't make sense because he was sitting in a lawn chair, in the hot sun, "working". He talked to us for about 40 minutes and we understood about 30% of it. He said he likes to talk to others and learn more about religion but when we tried to give him a Book of Mormon(cause he likes to read) and exchange contact info, he refused. So yea, a very interesting experience.
Today, we went to Panda Express in 川崎! I love their chow mein and orange chicken! My fortune cookie said "You will soon receive help from an unexpected source". *sarcastically* Hmmm I wonder who that might be ;) If you are LDS or not, if you sincerely ask God for help, he will give it to you. I know that's true. I am so excited for this upcoming year in my life. I am so glad to serve along side my brothers and sisters, doing God's work. We then went to Costco, which I'm not gonna lie, if someone knocked me out there and told me I was in America when I woke up, I'd believe them. I just love it out here! Lastly, I realized I make a lot of typos on these weekly's. I hope you were able to figure out what I meant if there was an error. I love you all! またね!
-Elder Chab
チャブ長老 or 茶武長老
愛しています^_^
Here are some pictures I forgot to send from two weeks ago!
Meeting Kenshin-san with the Machida elders!
Sato-san! He shot and cooked a deer for us to eat!
Deer is way good!