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
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