I like Valentines day in
Japan. Like in America people give chocolates and various sweets to
friends, and especially people that they like, but unlike in America, on
Valentines day, its only the girls who give chocolates and goodies. Guys
are just there to receive. Granted, Japan added a second holiday on March
14 called "White day" where all of the guys give chocolates to the
girls, but it more of a 'return' and takes a lot of the stress off of deciding
who to give valentines to. 楽だ！
This past week was really busy, and
for the most part we weren't even in Mihara! Monday and Tuesday we were
over in Kure for a junkai that went really well! I went around with an
Elder that I've known for about a year and a half now (he goes home in 2 days)
and had a great time finding. Since coming to Mihara I've been working on
getting myself out there and talking to everybody, which has been good, but
it's been really hard to get somebody that will talk back. We're pretty
lucky if we get 1 or 2 people to talk to us in a day. However in Kure,
only having a little bit of time to go finding because we had to make it
back to Mihara (nearly a 2 hour journey), we taught 6 lessons and
handed out 4 copies of the Book of Mormon. That's more success than we
see in a week most of the time, and it was all within 3 hours! As long as
you're out doing the Lord’s work, it doesn't matter how long you have, the Lord
with bless you with the time available. We just have to go and make the
most of it.
So that took us out of Mihara Monday
and Tuesday, so that left Wednesday to dendo in Mihara before heading over the
Fukuoka for a 4 zone conference with Elder Ringwood of the Asia North Area
Presidency. Wednesday we had to stop by the doctor's office (Elder
Urakami's been having some pretty bad eczema) which took out a good bit of time
from finding, and we had a lesson at 5 before having to hit a train at 7!
So this time, with even less time than in Kure, Elder Urakami and I set out to
go find somebody who will listen. After walking around for a good little
bit we felt impressed to go search down this one neighborhood to see if anybody
was home (usually limited to old men and women especially in the afternoon of a
random Wednesday) and found somebody in the very first house we went to! She
wasn't super interested in hearing any more than the first bit of the message
we taught, but she accepted a pamphlet and said she would read it. Then
continuing in that neighborhood we didn't find anybody else until we were
leaving it and started talking to this one young man on his way back home from
school. We talked for a good 25 minutes, gave him a Book of Mormon, and
set up a time to meet him at Eikaiwa next week (today!). 1 hour, 2
people, 1 Book of Mormon, and somebody who wants to hear more!
Wednesday night we stayed over in
Hiroshima so we could ride a Shinkansen (bullet train) early the next
morning. We stayed in the currently unused Hikari ward Sisters apartment,
which used to be the Yasufuruichi Elders apartment that Elder Okada and I had
opened a little over 1 year ago! That was an interesting experience going
back there after a year! I have to say, it's a lot cleaner when 1) nobody
lives there and there's no stuff and 2) after sister missionaries have lived
there.
Elder Ringwood's conference was
awesome. We learned that when he and his wife had just gotten married,
the bishop of the first ward they went to was President Gustafson! That's
got to be interesting, meeting up again in Japan, over 30 years later, as a
mission president and a member of the 70. We learned all about how no
effort is wasted and that really, whenever we teach, we're not only affecting 1
person, we're bringing the gospel to them, their children, their ancestors, and
generations on either side. What a great chance that is to bring the
Gospel of Christ to generations!
The rest of the week in Mihara was
taken up by a huge Festival that brought tens of thousands of people to Mihara
(I think tripling the population). A festival (祭り） here in Japan, is kind of like the State Fair back in North
Carolina. However in Japan they are always based off of the local shrine
and have a lot of traditional history. The food is awesome too. I
had tai-yaki (a type of deep fried pastry in the shape of a fish), karaage (japanese
style fried chicken), okonomiyaki (kind of like a japanese pancake with
cabbage, octopus, squid, and all sorts of delicious things inside), Fried
Octopus, and yaki-tori (grilled chicken on sticks). Festivals are a
great place to get dinner!
Well, I just want to let you all
know that the work is going great and it's so much fun here in Japan!
Today is the last day of the transfer and we get our transfer calls sometime
today. I'm not sure how it's going to work out but I'll be sure to let
you all know what happens next week!
Have a great week and go do
something good!
Elder Everett
エベレット長老
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