Elder Wheelwright: Spring cleaning

We taught Murakoshi-san this week. We decided to back off a little bit, and build her faith in Christ a little more. (So we just don't conflict and lose her)

So we taught her about service and shared the scripture in Mosiah. She loved it. We talked about how Christ's entire life was dedicated to serving others. She also liked that too. She showed us some of her family pictures and that really got her talking. She was surprised to find out that we were the same age as one of her grandsons. She said he couldn't ever live on his own, let alone go to another country and speak a different language. We gave her a cookie, and she gave us chocolate bars. I love it. The whole gift giving part of Japanese culture.

We also taught Ryutaro and Mami. They invited us over for dinner and we did the whole traditional 'Oni bean throwing thing'. We showed showed them two I am Mormon videos about two fathers who considered their most important job their family. Which is a problem often times in Japan. Another one of our investigator's husband is so involved in his work that he moved to Aomori, and only comes home about once a month, if even that, to be with his wife and two daughters. I was relieved to hear from Ryutaro (roughly translated) "Though work is important, I only do work for my family. If there ever comes a conflict between the two, family comes first. Every day after work I speed home to be with Mami." I love them both.

Takaya-san is progressing. He said his philosophy is changing. Which is amazing. I'll update you on him later.

Pretty much I am loving my mission. I'm having fun, but doing my best to work hard and focus on the work. I could always do better, but luckily, I'm always progressing.

There's no-place I'd rather be.

Anyways, I'll give you more detail next time. I'm exhausted.

I love you!

Wheelwright 長老

Japanese custom that occurs on the third day of the second month.

It's the "Day before the first day of spring". It's not very catchy in English.

So... Pretty much you do a spring cleaning in your house... except you cleanse it from demons... And how do you do that? Beans...

So you have someone (some people) put on a demon mask(s), in Japanese they're called the Oni. (like "O", my "Knee".) usually the kids put on masks.

You throw beans at the people with the Oni masks (we used peanuts) and say

"oni wa soto" Which means "GET OUT DEMON!"

and then say "fuku wa uchi" which means "Come in good fortune (or happiness)"

Then you do that in every room of the house. At the very end you throw beans at the oni in the room with the door to outside, and the people with the masks go outside, and come back in without the masks.... Then you eat your age in beans...

Why beans? Because... well. it was explained to me that they blind the oni, because they hit their eyes.

Yep. Demon spring cleaning... do it.