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
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