6 MONTHS?? WE CAN SMELL LIKE JESUS??

皆さんこんにちは！

Tomorrow (the 14th), I hit the 6 month mark! I can't believe it! I feel like I've learned and accomplished a lot within that period but then I also feel like I haven't.  It's a weird feeling. Either way, I am still going to strive to do my best and make the most out of the mission. 

We had a mini conference on Wednesday at the Fujisawa(藤沢) stake center in Shonandai. It was 懐かしい(natsukashii-memorable, nostalgic) because I hadn't been there since Christmas. I was able to get a picture with ALL of my companions! Anyway, Sister Warnick talked to us about 英会話 and how to improve the quality of it. President Warnick talked about some goals and the new missionary schedule. We also watched the training broadcast for mission presidents. 

We had zone meeting early Thursday morning. Then Friday night, Gutierrez 長老 and I went to the Kanagawa(神奈川) area so we could start zone leader splits. I was with Murata(村田) 長老 and Gutierrez長老 was with Molen 長老。The next day, 村田長老and I tried to street after studies but there weren't too many people around. So we began housing. Again, not too much success; people either weren't home or didn't answer the door. However, one of the few people that did answer, came out to talk with us. We had a good discussion about God and how he can help us. We also talked about prayer a little bit. She was involved in the little discussion; she seemed super 金人(kinjin- golden investigator). But at the end she said she wasn't interested :( That's okay though; she wasn't as ready as we thought. There are other fields ready to harvest :) 

We had a special sacrament meeting on Sunday. Elder Choi(Area Presidency), Elder Whiting(of the 70), Elder Gong( of the 70), and President Warnick along with their wives came to sacrament meeting. Most of them shared their testimony. Then Elder Gong talked about the strengthening power of the Atonement. All of their messages were amazing! You could definitely feeling their spiritual presence as they were in the room. 

Gutierrez 長老 and I taught the English doctrine class. The lesson was about "The Only True and Living Church". When we talked about the importance of sacrament, Sister Esther made a comment, with no offense intended, "Indians always eat curry, so they smell like curry. If we keep taking the sacrament, we will smell like Jesus".  What an example haha :p The implied meaning was "By taking the sacrament often, we can remember Jesus and become like him". Always remember our Savior when taking the sacrament!

Later in the evening, I did some contacting as Gutierrez長老 finished backing up his iPad. He hasn't had the email app on his iPad for almost this whole transfer and the iPad would act up every now and then. He wiped everything off it after backing it up and restored it to almost factory settings and lo and behold, the mail app came back! 

It was an odd week. Especially since our P-day was on Tuesday and we had all those meetings. But it was good nevertheless. I also tried to focus on being more optimistic this week. Even if the day was slow and no one wanted to listen to us, I tried to maintain a positive attitude. I wasn't able to do it 100% of the time but I can honestly say that by just trying, there was a huge difference. Helaman 5:12 states:

" And now, my sons, remember, remember that it is upon the rock of our Redeemer, who is Christ, the Son of God, that ye must build your foundation; that when the devil shall send forth his mighty winds, yea, his shafts in the whirlwind, yea, when all his hail and his mighty storm shall beat upon you, it shall have no power over you to drag you down to the gulf of misery and endless wo, because of the rock upon which ye are built, which is a sure foundation, a foundation whereon if men build they cannot fall."

Make Christ your foundation and the adversary will have no power over you. Go to church because you actually want to, not because you have to. Read the scriptures, especially the Book of Mormon, because you want to. Turn off that autopilot mode and remember the reasons for doing these things. God knows what will help us in our lives and he has given it to us. We just have to take that first step with real intent before we receive all his blessings :) I know that is true ^-^ I hope all of you have a splendid week! Remember to make Christ your foundation! またね!

-Elder Chab

チャブ長老 or 茶武長老

愛しています^_^

All of the companions I've had out in the field! Coleman長老, Gutierrez長老, Jödicke長老, and Lind長老!

Maeda兄弟！Our investigator cancelled on us so we texted Maeda兄弟 but he didn't read  it and thought the lesson was still on so he showed up at church. We had a mini lesson/testimony meeting with him instead!

Some of our amazing 英会話 students!

Zone meeting!

Suit coats serve as great pirate jackets!

I got meishi(business cards)!

I GOT SICK :(

皆さんこんにちは！

Yup. You read the title right.Last Tuesday I caught a cold. Because of it, I had to take some time and rest in the apartment. We also studied a lot. And unfortunately, our investigator Raki姉妹 cancelled our appointment on Wednesday night(I was feeling well enough to do it of course). So we didn't really get to 伝道 much this week :( And I'm still recovering from the cold; I just have super annoying coughs now.

However, I went on splits with 紺野長老 from Sunday night to Monday night. We visited 川崎 City Hall and asked if there was any community service we could do each week. They gave us a booklet and we looked through it and found a nearby senior citizen care home that we could work at. We went there and told them that we wanted to help. They said that would be great but they will have to contact us later about that. But yay! Community service!

I went to the temple today!!! Hence why my P-day wasn't on Monday. I love the temple! It's soo beautiful! Other than still being sick and coughing like crazy, it was a great experience! 

Before I wrap things up, I want to share something that stood out to me while studying. I've been reading a lot from Teachings of Presidents of the Church: Gordon B. Hinckley recently. In chapter 8, it talks a lot about Jesus Christ. Section 3 asks the question, "What shall we do with Jesus, who is called the Christ?" Notice that is the same question Pilate asked the people before Jesus was crucified. This is President Gordon B. Hinckley's response to that question: 

"Learn of him. Search the scriptures for they are they which testify of him. Ponder the miracle of his life and mission. Try a little more diligently to follow his example and observe his teachings."

I love that. I am so thankful for the opportunity I have not only to learn more about our Savior, but also to share that knowledge with others. It has changed my life for the better. It truly is a great blessing! I invite all of you to take up President Hinckley's challenge! 

That's about it for this week. I only got about 3 hours of sleep last night because I was coughing up a storm and we woke up early to go to seminary, which was 久しぶり(hisashiburi-It's been a while). Hopefully I recover soon because I just wanna get out and go to work! As always, feel free to email me! Let me know how you're doing! Thank you for the love and support! またね!

-Elder Chab

チャブ長老 or 茶武長老

愛しています^_^

I'm officially Japanese now! (Masks are commonly worn if you are sick)

Just Gutierrez 長老 with his clone :)

District dinner before splits!

This is just some of the food we got from the ward fruit basket! I love the ward!

What's a temple P-day without a district photo?

Squats for days!

Gorillas!

Temple magic.... flying!!!

田中姉妹

WE BELIEVE IN BLOOD TYPE! OSU!!!

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