Merry Christmas to All!

MERRY CHRISTMAS!!  (I'm not sure how many times I can say it and it'll still be good …  Meh, every day is Christmas right?)

So, last week was a fun little time. We got our transfer announcement calls on Wednesday morning.  Transfer call day is a fun little day where the morning is filled with more phone calls on the mission phone bill than any other day.  Everyone calls everyone in their district to see where they are going, who's coming in, and everyone just wants to know what the heck is going on.  At this time it is very useful to have the District leader as your companion because, well, we actually have permission to make all the phone calls.  :D  So as far as our district goes, only one person transferred, and wouldn't you know it ... it wasn't me!  So now I'm here in Yasufuruichi until at least February 1!  And I'm even still with Okada長老 which is way fun!

So usually transfer day is just filled with packing and writing notes on the business cards that we all hand out; but when both stay, it just becomes another day of Dendo..... shoot, we didn't really know what to do with ourselves that day. We had lunch with this guy named Papa (well, really his name is Inoue but he insists that we call him Papa) which was delicious!  He's a way nice guy, but we just need to get him to start listening to our message, then it'll be the perfect situation! Eikaiwa was interesting, we had just a couple of people show up, I think only one of two of them realized it was transfer day, so it kind of just went over like nothing.  But, all 4 missionaries in Yasufuruichi stayed and things are starting to heat up here!

Now I say heat up, at least everyone's actions and activities are, but holy cow the weather is changing.  I thought this was supposed to be the warmest mission in Japan, but oh man, every night I’m in a hoodie and flannel!  Luckily we finally got a heater so the mornings aren't so bad but, man, bikes and cold? They are not the best of buddies.  However on Friday IT SNOWED!  I was so happy, I don't even care if it didn't stick; we got to Dendo in the snow!  I think Okada was just annoyed by it but, I rather enjoyed it. We'll just see what happens when we are going to have to start biking in it.  But it'll be warm!  This past Sunday all of the missionaries received hand-knit scarfs from the members and I have become a big fan of them!  Now if only missionaries could wear more hats, then I'd be good.  All I have right now is a Santa hat (surprisingly warmer than I thought it would be) but, something tells me that that isn't quite dendo appropriate.....

 Come Thursday and we get a phone call from the Sister missionaries asking for some Jell-O.  Okada and I were both like, "jello? why did you call us for jello?" Well, apparently Sister Miyagawa got a pretty bad case of the Nodo Virus (not a fun time for the stomach) and wanted something soft to eat.  By the time we met with them later that day with Jello, saltine crackers, ginger ale, and apple juice in hand it wasn't looking pretty.  Okada and I ended up giving her a priesthood blessing there, which is a way exciting thing to do in not your native language.  But it's all good now.  The Sisters were out of commission for a couple of days, but as of today they are all good! 

Friday (IN THE SNOW) we visited one of our less active part member families and got to talk to the son for a little bit.  He's our age and one of his hobbies is bowling!  Shoot, we just seem to be gathering a ton of people who are fans of bowling.  Smells like a bowling activity to me!  Next week’s district meeting got moved to Wednesday so we get to join Utsunomiya in his bowling league!

Saturday we were helping one of our members move when on the street we got stopped by this Woman.  She came up to us and was like "whoa, long time no see!"  (both Okada and I had no idea who she was) "Yeah, you guys came to my house right?" oh......we did...... I don't think Okada has a sense of faking it until you make it... she was convinced that I remembered her, but oh man, that was a bit embarrassing.  Hopefully she'll come to the Christmas party regardless of our mistake.... oops!

Sunday I had a very sweet opportunity.  One of our members called us asking if I could help her translate a letter for the Make a Wish Foundation of Japan.  I've never really had an experience translating for something like that, and it was way sweet to see how we get to help this kid make his wish come true!  Even if translating was kind of hectic!

Here we go for the thankful list for the week!

December 14: Not having to Move again

December 15: The Power of the Priesthood

December 16: SNOW

December 17: Meeting people randomly in the streets and have a good ability to fake it (it's not lying right?)

December 18: Being able to speak two languages

December 19: Nabe (a delicious soup from Japan) 

December 20: District Meetings and LETTERS (Thank you to all who’ve written me, I think I've sent most of the letters out.... I think.)

Merry Christmas to all!

Elder Everett

エベレット長老

It's CHRISTMAS! 13 Dec 2011

Hey there everybody!  So Okada and I are still in full force with our everyday Christmas thing going on.  I'm a fan of it, but it might be dying... so full force, maybe not so, but it's going!

Tuesday we had an appointment with one of the guys we found on a recent junkai (exchange) which was awesome.  We were talking to him for a little bit, getting to know him and asked him what some of his hobbies were and wouldn't you know it, his number one favorite thing to do is bowling!  Shoot, after that the conversation took a bowling route for like 15 minutes.  It was good though, we had a bunch that we could share and talk about (and I learned a bunch of Japanese bowling words, to boot).  He's actually a pretty good investigator; he has some really good questions that led to some great conversations.  Now we just need to get more people like that, that we can actually teach, that would just be awesome!

Later that day while we were doing some housing around a college we ran into this Chinese student that was super sweet.  She didn't seem really excited about the gospel aspect as far as the English class we offered, but was more than willing to refer her friends to us.  That's about the best response (well, probably the 2nd, but eh).  

I'm not sure what it is but Okada has been on a baking kick lately... we've made a bunch of cookies and pound cakes to give out to everybody.  I'm fine with it, baking's a way good way to do missionary work; I highly endorse it for everybody.  The cookies have been given out with an invitation to the branch Christmas party!  So far Okada and I have made it to maybe a quarter of our Less Actives here, granted a quarter is like 15 or 20 families  so, it’s a good number!

Thursday was a semi-weekly ping pong night which, sadly nobody came to again.... maybe next time people will come.  Maybe.  Friday we hit up the north a bit ( "north" more like a 40 minute bike ride up north, our actual north you have to take a train or a car or there is no way you're getting there)  and talked to a bunch of less active members that apparently haven't had any sort of contact in years from the church.  A bunch of them have just completely forgotten what it means to even be a part of the church.  It's really sad to see them just have no real direction in their lives and nothing that works as a focus for them.  The church gives us direction in our lives and really is there to help us make the decisions that we need to make in every day life.  We may not see it, but we are affected by what we have learned in every decision that we make.  And that's not a light, over-arching statement, it's really, actually true.

Our other activity as of late has been organizing our Area map and marking where everybody lives.  Have I told you have Hiroshima is a maze?  Well, finding houses is almost impossible if you have no prior vision beforehand.  So our goal has been to mark on our map where everyone lives and really getting it ready for everyone that may come after us.  It seems like a bunch of my mission lately has been directed to making it easier for the people that come after.  Maybe it's a good thing, we'll see.....

Oh, Saturday we finally got our Air conditioner!  (Well, it cools and heats, but in Japan the actual thing is called an aircon.... I'm a fan of not having 40 degree mornings anymore.  Sunday we had what could have been my last Sunday here in Yasufuruichi!  Tomorrow is transfer call day and I won't know until then if I'm staying or not.  This past transfer has been a flash, it feels like it just started and it's already over.  If I thought the MTC was a crazy time vortex, this field stuff is crazy!

Monday we had a zone p-day over at the Hiroshima Peace Park and Atomic bomb museum.  That's probably about the saddest museum I think I've ever been too, but it was way fascinating!  One of these days I'll send some pictures over if I can find a place that'll let me.  

Today for our last district meeting I somehow got the assignment to teach it!  We talked about Christ-like attributes and it was good ... I think.  We'll see how good it is if people actually keep the commitments I gave them: find what attribute you are lacking, study it, write your own personal definition for that attribute, and then do all you can to help develop it in your own life and in all that you do.  Those little attributes are so important and if you can master living by those, you’re set, man.

Hey, sorry this e-mail is a bit random and all out of sorts, I'm losing my grip on English and I couldn't tell you if any of this is grammatically correct or not.... oops. (note from Ben’s mom: I edit his emails to make the reading of them much easier!)

The EVERYDAY IS CHRISTMAS list for the week:

December 6th: Investigators who rather enjoy bowling

December 7th: The smell of pound cake coming from the oven

December 8th: listening to Christmas music as you study about the life of the Savior

December 9th: GLOVES

December 10th: AIRCONS!

December 11th: Church meetings that can make people cry and videos with the same power

December 12th: Peace

December 13th: PMG telling me how to conduct a district meeting.

Hey, have fun over there in, well, wherever you are!

MERRY CHRISTMAS!

クリスマスおべでとう！！

エベレット長老

Ｅｌｄｅｒ　Ｅｖｅｒｅｔｔ

Elder Benjamin Charles Everett

Japan Fukuoka Mission

9-16 Hirao-Josuimachi

Chuo-ku

Fukuoka-shi, Fukuoka

810-0229

Japan

Holy Cow, it's December! 5 Dec 2011

Happy December everyone!  Are the Christmas decorations coming up, are there toys in every store, a tree in the grand hotel, one in the park as well, (you know, the sturdy kind that doesn't mind the snow)?  Hiroshima is getting all ready for Christmas!  All around the Train station (eki 駅) we have a ton of Christmas lights and a cool little waterfall effect down the side of the Sheraton!  It's nice to have lights from something other than the Pachinko parlors. 

So, I think my theme for this week's e-mail is Miracles Happen, once in a while.... and it turns out that it's usually on Junkais (companionship exchanges).

So Tuesday we had missionaries from Hamada come over to work in Yasufuruichi.  (Normally for a Junkai you split up and have 2 work in each area but Hamada is about 2.5 hours away by bus so we kinda had to improvise)  I stayed with Bagley 長老　(from Utah) and Okada 長老 stayed with Thayne 長老 (He says he's from America but lived in Japan for 17 years and speaks Japanese better than most Japanese; English.... it's coming)  Elder Bagley and I had a list of Less active members that we wanted to visit that day.  The plan was to go to their house and see if we could meet them then try to contact the rest of the block, or at least most of the neighborhood.  So, in true Yasufuruichi fashion every Less Active member we went to visit either wasn't there or claimed that they had never even heard of the church.  So that was interesting, but in the act of finding them (Hiroshima is essentially a maze of streets (all of which have no names) and you have to kind of guess if you are in the right area)  we ended up teaching 2 other lessons and finding a new investigator.  That hasn't happened here this entire transfer.  We go 3.5 weeks without really being able to find anybody, and then on this one day the first house we went to we taught a lesson, the second one found a new investigator, and really, just set up Yasufuruichi to really start rolling! 

That was Tuesday; Wednesday became P-day because Monday we had Zone Conference.  It kind of just became Letter writing and eating (maybe some grocery shopping thrown in there too).  Which, I'm pretty fine with that type of day (maybe minus the letter writing, that's still probably my worst skill).  Later we had Eikaiwa which was a little bit smaller that day, but had several return students that I was pleasantly surprised to see there!  We now have at least one family coming regularly that aren't even members at all!  Speaking of Eikaiwa, this week we may have found at least 3 more Eikaiwa students (but I'll explain those later!)

Thursday was our planning day (as per every week) which kind of got pushed back due to some other various necessitated apartment woes that came up: namely the need for an Aircon (air conditioners in Japan do heating and cooling all together).  Mainly because it's cold here!  I've recently come to very much appreciate vests (even if they do seem a little silly "I'm cold, but only my torso")  and gloves and nice big ol' jackets!  To purchase an Aircon we received about $1000 or 10000円 which, may have been a little risky to give to two 20-year-olds in the middle of Japan... :)  Whatever, I'd much rather have warm nights and mornings than whatever else we could conceivably get.  That night we went out with the Branch President to visit less active members again, and again nobody was home.  So we just left some message cards from the previous conference and an invitation to our Branch Christmas party (which I really hope I get to go to... it's the week after transfers come so I still have no idea whether I'll actually be here or not to celebrate it with this awesome branch) We did get to meet with one of our part-member families and invited their son to the Basketball activity we had this past Saturday (!!!) I very much endorse basketball activity missionary work!

 

Friday came around and we spent the morning making cookies with the Sister missionaries in our ward for all of the members and less active members.  Surprisingly, the Sisters didn't have any cookie recipes so it kind of fell on the Elders to provide the recipe.  Essentially we made sugar cookies, but they kind of turned out more like vanilla wafers (no problem there).  That afternoon we had a junkai with Takasu.  This one we actually got to do the 'normal' way.  I ended up staying here with Mitton 長老 and Okada went to Takasu's area with Newman 長老.  That night we had one meeting with a less active at McDonalds (that was about the only place we could meet her) which is a rather weird setting for a lesson.  She seemed to enjoy it though (and she said she'd come to the Christmas Party!)

Then on Saturday we had our basketball activity! It's a good thing we had Mitton 長老 there because he is about 6'4" and that's quite the advantage in Japan.  We had 2 people come from the branch, 2 non-members come from families in the ward, and we met like 15 other new people at the gym!  When we got there, there were two Japanese kids playing Basketball, just practicing with one another.  Mitton and I go to get changed and come back and the two kids are talking in English to each other.  Over on the other side were a group of 5 or so Chinese men, and they were also all speaking English to each other (every once in a while, mainly Chinese)  I was not expecting to be in a room full of English speakers for the Basketball activity!  We ended up playing with all of them full court.  The two kids go to an American school here in Hiroshima and prefer English to Japanese, and the Chinese guys all live around here and are on local basketball circuit as a team.  So we had a blast playing with all of them, just chatting like normal and getting them all way interested in coming to Eikaiwa! 

One of the kids, Shin, is essentially a native speaker and lives very close to the church!  He said that he's look at coming to Eikaiwa whenever he can and that he would definitely give us a call whenever he wanted to learn some Basketball or just hang out with the Gaijijns (foreigners).  He's probably about one of the coolest kids I've met here, and his friend was awesome too.  Shoot, if we can set up a good relationship with those two, maybe get their families in, this would be one awesome contact!  I'm a fan of Basketball Dendo (mission work).

Well, time is kind of expiring, so I'll close with my list of things I'm grateful for so far this Month:

December 1: Having people to plan for finally in our Planning Session

December 2: The opportunity to make Cookies and listen to Christmas Music

December 3: Basketball!

December 4: Japanese/English Dictionaries that let me know what's happening in Sunday School

December 5: E-mails!

I hope your lists are growing and that you all can see just a little bit more how good life really is!

20 Days til Christmas … do you know where you family is?

Elder Everett

エベレット長老

28 Nov 2011 - Happy Thanksgiving or Merry Christmas!

Who can believe that November is already over!  How did this one happen?  Time is going by way too fast. (To all of you whom I've written letters to but haven't sent yet... sorry.  I think I have some letters now that have been sitting unsent for 3 months now...... the weird thing is that if feels like I wrote them yesterday.....ごめん) 

 

So, this was a week, man what a week!  So the big activity that we had planned for Wednesday was a stake-wide day of service for everyone in Hiroshima and the surrounding area.  Here in Yasufuruichi we got together at 10 in the morning to pick up trash around the church building and the surrounding parks and train station.  We had a really good turnout with somewhere around 15 people attending (that's a good number from our little branch) and had a great time cleaning up the area.  It looks way nice now and we were able to start several conversations getting asked why in the world we were picking up trash on a holiday.  (November 23 is a Holiday in Japan, not really sure what for, though, but people had the day off)  We ended up picking up 3 rather large trash bags full of various trash and other items which surprised most everybody because Japan is a pretty clean place, but the Branch President, Brother Schrubb and I found a little ditch off the beaten path that was just full of trash!  I'm pretty sure we won the trashy contest.

 

After the service activity everyone had Hot Cocoa and snacks before we all left.  We had another special fireside later that day at 4 that the missionaries were told that we couldn't arrive before 4 on the dot.  We've been expecting this fireside for a couple of weeks now and were told to invite several missionaries around our area and to come hungry and no earlier than 4.  Well, that gave us about 3 hours to do missionary work in between, so off we went.  We managed to finally meet one of our less active members that we haven't been able to meet with in several weeks.  She's a recent convert but is struggling with coming to church.  But the amazing thing is that as she had been studying recently (she just graduated from a computer school)  she's found peace and better study skills from reading the Book of Mormon.  So that gave us hope, now if we can just get her to pray and come to church, then she'll really be set for whatever comes her way! 

 

After that we were walking around a different part of town and decided to randomly visit one of the Sister's investigators.  (Ever since the sister missionaries came here we split up the investigators so that they have all of the women and we have all of the men, we previously only had women investigators so that kinda of left us with nothing.......oops)  She had been one that Beckstrand 長老 and I had been working with and had just started coming to church.  When we visited her I immediately realized why we were led to visit her at that time.  Her hands were shaking and she could hardly open the door, she apparently hadn't been sleeping for the past couple of days and was just feeling like everything around her was sinking and that she couldn't do anything.  She had no idea what was wrong with her but was visibly relieved to see the missionaries at her doorstep.  We taught her about the power of the priesthood and priesthood blessings and we ended up giving her a blessing right there on her doorstep.  I don't know if I've ever been so scared to pray in my life.  She was in a time of need and had full faith that whatever I would bless her with would happen.  I don't think anything can make a prayer better than when you’re scared out of your wits.  Well, scared isn't the right word... it's more of a full desire and hope that you won't mess up, because it's someone's life and well-being in the balance, and you’re the only one that can ease their burden.  I don't recall ever praying as earnestly as I did at that time, and the look of gratitude and peace that came over her, even now I can recall the moment clearly. The priesthood is real my friends.  There's no doubt about it, just let it into your life, you're the only that can control that.

 

Those two visits ended up taking a lot more time than we thought and it was about 3:00 by the time we were done, and we still had to make it back to the train station to show the other Missionaries the way to the church.  We were about a 40 minute walk from the church, so we booked it over there.  By the time all of the missionaries arrived (we had 10 missionaries and a recent convert from another ward) and we were all still confused about the mystery fireside.  We brought them all up to the church building (it's really just the second floor of an apartment building so people who don't know where it is never can find it) and walked in to a church that was just completely dark with the curtains closed.  That was a little weird.  I walked in leading the other missionaries and peeked around the curtain. (apparently I was supposed to just turn on the lights but, I didn't know that.... oops) I was quickly informed to open the curtain all the way and revealed to all the waiting, anxious missionaries that surprise from the Yasufuruichi Members. 

 

There was a long table in the middle of the room decorated with everything Autumn you could find in Japan, a table full of food from a full turkey, stuffing, gravy, mashed potatoes, corn, yams, Bean Salad, breads (oh man, I love Japanese bread) and everything you think of when you think Thanksgiving dinner.  These Japanese members had created a real American Thanksgiving feast for the missionaries!  Before that day I had been wondering what in the world Okada and I were going to do for Thanksgiving because we had no plan, and hardly any food.  I'm not going to lie, when I saw the table, the food, and everyone in the ward lined up to wish us a happy thanksgiving.... I cried a bit.  Their love, their appreciation, it filled the room and everyone, everyone was visibly touched.  The members served us as we ate and had made individual name plates for each of us.  We went around the room and everyone shared something that they were grateful for, and the prevalent theme, beyond friends and family, were feelings of gratitude and thanks for the work of the missionaries.  It just kind of hit me again like a sack full of bricks.  I'm a missionary.  We give love and service all the time without expecting anything in return, but when it does, when that love comes back, when all your hard work and sacrifice come to something.....the feeling is indescribable.  Joy is the closest I can come.

 

I LOVE BEING ON A MISSION! I love serving the people, I love everything they do, I love the language, the culture, the work, the ups, the downs, the time to improve, the growth in other people, the blessings of the Lord poured out over everybody.  It's the best.  To anyone that's toying around with going on a mission, wondering if it's the right road for you, just do it.  That's all I can say, just do it.  Shoot, it's going to be hard, but is anything thing in life really worth it if it didn't take at least a little effort to get there? And how much more sweet the joy the harder the work is!  Every day Thanksgiving! (at least until the 1st, then it kind of turns to Christmas)

 

That didn't even end the day!  We still had eikaiwa (English class) after that and our small little class of 5 people from a couple of weeks ago has grown to 28 people, and is roaring beyond what any of us could have imagined!  That was just one day, and man, what a day it was! 

 

Friday we had thanksgiving dinner again (all the food provided by the parents!!)  When making the dinner I turned on our only Christmas CD in the apartment (a collection from the London Symphony Orchestra) and was kinda of in my own little world for the next little while.  Who knew that I would enjoy making a green bean casserole so much?  Okada and I have been having a thanksgiving mood just about every day which has been so easy now.  Sunday was the Primary presentation in Yasufuruichi; which was awesome with the 3 primary kids and 3 sunbeams and nursery kids doing their program at church.  Man, kids are the best.  Then that night we met with the Mission President for interviews before the Zone Conference that was on Monday (which was amazing).  It's crazy, days will go by where it feel like nothing is happening, but looking back and seeing all the blessings over flow, it lets you know that those hard days really aren't so hard, after all.  There is always something that you can find to be grateful for.  So that'll be my challenge to each of you for this Christmas season:  Find something that you are grateful for each and every day.  It doesn't matter if it's finding a penny, you favorite movie, family, books, comfort, anything that you can think of, write it down and see what happens these 25 days of Christmas!

 

I love you all (sorry for the super long e-mail this time) and good luck!

Elder Everett

エベレット長老

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!