22 Nov 2011 - Happy Thanksgiving!

ＨＡＰＰＹ　ＴＨＡＮＫＳＧＩＶＩＮＧ　ＥＶＥＲＹＯＮＥ！

Well, it must be holiday season because all of the Colonel Sanders statues in front of the KFCs here are all in Santa costumes!  And man, what a way to start the week, WE HAD AN EARTHQUAKE!  Sure it was a small little earthquake, but still, it was my first one and I was excited. So this e-mail is a little late because we currently have one place where we can e-mail in the church, and 6 missionaries want to use it, and there is only 1 computer, so planning when we can get e-mails out has become quite the task. 

This week has been a weird week, this whole transfer so far actually.  So yesterday we finally got (just about) everything for our apartment.  We went to the old mission home for the Hiroshima Mission which closed last year.  Basically Okada 長老 and I just went in and essentially gutted the place.  We got futons, dishes, cooking utensils, pots, pans, a super nice Chopstick set with holders and everything, and a washer and a bunch of other fun things.  Letting two 20 something-year-olds in a house with free reign to take anything was a good plan in my opinion!  For the time being we've been staying with the Zone leaders in their apartment, which has been interesting because it is decidedly a 2 man (maybe 3) apartment, and to accommodate 4 I have been sleeping in the kitchen.  But it's all good now, especially because we just bought a light for the apartment, so now we can see again after 5:00!  It amazing how much you can see with just a little bit of light while surrounded by darkness.

So Tuesday we bought a sweet little train pass that lets us just swipe a card instead of having to buy a little train stub and feed it through the ticket taker.  I feel so Japanesey now.  I swear I'm secretly 10 years old, because I still giggle every time I swipe the card and it makes a little beeping noise.  But it's become almost invaluable because there have been many times where we've been sprinting to catch a train, and if I had to feed that little stub, there is no way we would have made it on time!  This whole “taking the trains back and forth from place to place, and having to go between two apartments” has made is so that we have yet to have a normal day in this Transfer.  We've not been able to super keep the missionary schedule due to extraneous circumstances and the area most affected has been sleep, and that's kind of an important thing.  I'm looking forward to getting a regular night’s sleep again. 

Eikaiwa (English class) this week was AWESOME.  We have been advertising a new refresh start eikaiwa for a little bit now and Wednesday we finally started it.  Our eikaiwa is usually 5 or 7 people, but on Wednesday we had over 20!  It was way cool.  Sure over half were members, but that's how growth starts.  If they like the classes, then they will bring their friends, and if they like it they'll bring their friends and before you know it the Eikaiwa will be bigger than anything that any of us can imagine at this time.  (One place with their refresh start grew to 100 students!)  The greatest thing through Eikaiwa is that non-members make friends with members, and the weird religion feel that most Japanese people feel vanishes and it suddenly becomes okay to have a religion.  It seems like that is one of the biggest obstacles here;  they seem to think that religion is a scary thing and is dangerous (Japan has had some rough patches with cults and from that they group all religions in there, as well),  so as soon as they see the name Jesus Christ on our nametags the door starts moving.  For us, finding investigators has been the hardest task.  All of our investigators suddenly became the Sister missionaries investigators because we split them female and male.  We had no male investigators so we are starting fresh again with hardly any time to actually be in our area.  But now with the apartment in order, the members’ help, and a chance to finally get a regular day, hopefully we'll find at least one person to teach! 

It's great to hear that everyone is doing awesome back in the States and the ward.  The 11 year old scouts seem to be having an awesome time (I'm so jealous that they get to go camping and do all that fun stuff) and weddings galore (what the heck is happening back there!?).  Oh, also everyone that gets their mission call, know that right away there are at least 10 missionaries in Japan that are rooting for you, and probably more to come!  Hey, make sure before you go to send me contact information so that we don't totally forget who each other are.

  

Well time is up and I have no time left!

GOOD LUCK AND GOD SPEED

エベレット長老

ＥＬＤＥＲ　ＥＶＥＲＥＴＴ

14 Nov 2011

4 hour basketball activity, a pizza party, black magic, spicy curry and fermented beans, a church full of crying people, and Calligraphy performance, swords dance, and a bowling activity!

 

 Hey, so it's now a week past and it's been super crazy!

 

So, let's catch up on the previous week:

Saturday!  We had a basketball activity, we hoped to get a bunch of part members to the activity and we ended up getting one member there and 2 of his friends.  We ended up meeting up with 10 other people and creating a bunch of  good relationships and hopefully some new Eikaiwa students!  We planned on playing basketball for 2 hours then leaving, but a bunch of people came late, so in order to make sure they had a good time, too, we extended it a bit longer, then a bit longer, and we eventually ended up playing for 4 hours.  That's rough after 6 months of not playing any basketball at all!  We were so sore for the next couple of days, but we weren't going to let the other people know it!  I’m still a little stiff.....

 

So every Thursday we have a daily planning session and for our last one of the transfer we cooked some pizzas and had a bunch of Chocolate and other fun stuff!  It may have made it a little hard to plan but I enjoyed it immensely.  Also the presence of a ping pong table didn't help either!  The last week was just full of fun activities.  Wednesday for Eikaiwa we played the game Black Magic; if you don't know how to play it, well I can't tell you … that's half of the fun.  Also, a room full of older Japanese people trying to think with all they can how the heck I know what they picked, oh man, we only got 2 people out of 13 to get the reason, and that was after 3 weeks of playing it!  Hey, I vote you all go to play it and find out how it works! 

 

Also, we let everyone know that transfers were coming up soon, so we got a dinner appointment (finally) with the Branch President.  They made us some awesome curry and I may have let it slip that my companion hadn't eaten Nato (fermented beans that essentially smells like a mixture of dead animals and spider webs)  and they were more than obliged to end his streak of avoiding Nato.  One of my favorite things has become introducing people to Nato (it's so cheap here, it's like 80 cents for 4 packs, in America it's $4 for 1 pack).

 

Then on Sunday we were super lucky!  Our investigator who we've been working with for all transfer finally made it to church.  It was raining a bit and she had to come by bike, so she came over on her bike while holding an umbrella going around the precarious streets that are Hiroshima, oh man, what a champ.  She made it for Fast and Testimony meeting which was super awesome that week because we also had one of the Less Active members that we recently reactivated and he bore his testimony for the first time in over 5 years!  He's been telling us that ever since he's started coming back to Church that all of the stress and bad feelings he's been feeling lately have all essentially disappeared.  It was because of this gospel and because of the invitation from the Elders that his life and his family’s lives have been changed.  He's only been able to make it to the first hour of sacrament meeting recently because his sons always have a basketball game that day and it almost always is at the same time as church.  So where he was before like, well, if I can't make for all, I just won't go; now he's thinking, well, I can at the very least make it to sacrament meeting. Things are turning to a sharp spike upward in their lives.  It's so important where you have you mind set.  Is church that important to you, that you will go hours away if you can just partake of the sacrament?  The power of the mind is an amazing thing, and once you have your determination set, as long as you stay on course you will receive help from Heavenly Father, because He wants you to succeed.  You are His sons and daughters and He only wants the best for you, we just have to live in a such a way that we can receive those blessings that are just hovering over our heads waiting for us to choose the right path.

 

After church that day we went with several of the members to a calligraphy performance of one of our former investigators and had a great time.  Sadly, we didn't get to meet with her but soon I think!  After that performance there was a traditional Japanese dance performance with 4 men and swords!  Basically they just walked around in circles swinging their swords, but it looked pretty cool.

 

Oh yeah, and our bowling activity got all thrown apart because apparently someone reserved the entire bowling alley, which might be a good thing cause that place was way sketchy.  It was in the same building as a Pachinko parlor (I vote you look that one up on the Internet...essentially a slot machine mixed with a plinko and pinball machine...) and just a whole bunch of other not quite missionary approved activities. 

 

So this week has been way interesting! It was sad to see Beckstrand go, but at the same time super exciting to get another Japanese Companion!  Okada is pretty sweet.  He's 22 years old from somewhere near Kyoto.  He's actually only on his 6th transfer, continuing my streak of only having super young companions! He's got to be about the funniest companion I've had so far too.  About all of the English that he has spoken so far has been roughly "Would you like a sandwich of knuckle?" and "That's poop" and "I like J-walking".  I'm not certain where he learned his English from but I find it hilarious.  But when we're in lessons it's amazing to see the almost immediate change in him!  He's so good, this is going to be a great 5 weeks.

 

So I said it was interesting, well, that's because, while we technically have an apartment, we are essentially homeless.  We walked in there and there was absolutely nothing.  Well, not nothing, we have a toilet.  But now it's not so bad, because we have a toilet, and hangers, and chopsticks .... and that is literally everything in the apartment, aside from our own personal items.  But hey, I'm learning the process of buying an apartment and living items in Japan!  That skill may come in handy in the future!  We've been making price checks all over for washing machines, stoves, tables, vacuums, lights, desks, beds, rice cookers, refrigerators, and well, everything else.  We should be able to get a bunch of help from the members though, or so we hope at least.  Right now we're staying with the Zone Leaders in their apartment because our new apartment isn't actually in our area. (I'm not sure what's going on with this transfer but it's not making sense anyway we spin it)  

 

The Sisters are having a great time, though, in the Apartment.  We've had a fun time moving and copying all of the information for the area and trying to figure out how Dendo works with 4 people.  Luckily, one of the Sisters was in a four missionary area before so she has at least some idea, but because everyone is new, for the time being I get to teach 3 Japanese missionaries about the area.....  My chances of speaking English this transfer aren't very high.

 

So far we've been talking to the members a bunch and it seems like we can get most of our essentials from them! 

Now, I'd like to take a minute and just talk about the blessings of paying Tithing.  So tithing is 1/10th of your annual increase.  It may seem a little bit steep at times, and really steep at other times, but as with every other commandment, it comes with a promise.  And the blessing of tithing is quite the promise!  The promise is that you will be provided for and protected as long as you will pay faithfully.  The scriptures say that the windows of heaven will open and the blessings will be so much that you will not even have room to receive it.  You may not see the blessings now, but they are there, just waiting; all you have to do is fill out that tithing slip.  I find once a month is a simple little practice that brings great results.  So, let's try it.  The Lord said Try me now if I will not pour you out blessings, so let's put to Lord to the test, I am sure that He cannot fail!

 

Good luck to you all and I hope you the best!

エベレット長老

Elder Everett

7 Nov 2011

Well, the first week of November is over and boy what a week it's been!

I'm not entirely sure where to start (well, I sort of am because I accidentally deleted the first post I wrote)  so I'll start off on Tuesday.  First thing, it was my birthday (!) so I brought a bunch of party stuff (balloons, tops, the blow out thingies, etc) and distracted everybody there.  Well, not really our district, but all of the other ones around us.  In Hiroshima all of the local districts meet at the same building and have their meeting there, so those balloons successfully distracted at least 10 19-24 year old missionaries.  It especially didn't help that we taught all of the Japanese elders the balloon trick with your hair and the wall.  By the end we had 25 balloons sticking to the ceiling, and a ton of spiky-headed missionaries.

In District meeting we learned all about faith and the perhaps principle.  You do all your work so that perhaps one person may come to the Gospel, that perhaps in the future they will remember how the times were with the missionaries and want to learn more, that perhaps though you may not see any effects now, that in the future the fruits of your labor will bless the lives of people that you could never have imagined being helped.  The Perhaps principle is a principle of hope, mostly that even though you don't see the results now, realizing that you can never know the full extent of all your actions and the knowledge that if you do good, good will happen, can give you the extra strength you need to conquer whatever your individual obstacle may be.

Tuesday we came back with the Elders from Hamada 浜田 and had Junkai (splits) with the 浜田　elders which was awesome.  Elder Stratford and Bagley are awesome (one of the more fun sleep-overs....I mean splits I've had; it definitely ranks in the top 5 of all 4 junkais I've done so far!)  We didn't see a ton of success that day; actually we were told to scram a couple of times from people we went out to meet, but the lesson we had on Wednesday with all 4 missionaries and our investigator was awesome.  From the lesson we got a commitment to read and pray more, she came to church (!) and has a desire to become closer to Christ than before.  4 missionaries is a good combination.

Speaking of 4 missionaries, we got an interesting call today from the Assistants to the President.  This week is Transfer week, so we usually don't know anything until Wednesday, but we got a special call today!  Elder Beckstrand and I are getting kicked out of our apartment and 2 sister missionaries are coming in to whitewash the area!  Well, sort of.  They are going to be in the Apartment by the Church and I am getting a new Companion (ANOTHER JAPANESE) and we are getting a brand new apartment about a 20 minute train ride from our area!  Elder Beckstrand is getting transferred to Okinawa and becoming a trainer and a District leader (he's so nervous) and we get to spend the next couple of days trying to figure out how to get enough stuff for four people!  So, for the first time I'm not getting transferred, sort of, but I am still moving (my suitcase is toast too, those wheels didn't even make it to Japan before they were busted, and now I'm on my 4th move with a busted case.... oops).

Oh man, so much cool stuff is going on in Yasufuruichi, I wish I had time to tell you everything this week but we have an appointment in 20 minutes and a 20 minute bike ride ahead of us.  Next week I'll fill you all in but here's a sneak peek: a 4 hour basketball activity, a pizza party, black magic, spicy curry and fermented beans, a church full of crying people, and Caligraphy performance, swords dance, and a bowling activity!

Good luck and I hope you all do great things in all you do!

Elder Everett!