It's the last week of the transfer. Man. That went by quick. But that's what everybody says. I love Tsuruoka. I really hope that I don't get transferred, but God's will be done.
This week I went on splits with our district leader. Before he came to Tsuruoka he had quite a few Japanese companions, so, from his own words "I hear the words, but only one language my brain inside. nope. That was wrong."
So he's usually fine for the most part, but apparently when he get's tired he just kinda loses his English. I think it's a common thing to lose language speaking abilities when you're exhausted, because my Japanese is the first thing to go.
None the less he said some pretty gunny things.
He said, "You guys are" Talking about my companion and me "geometric cereal."
Me: I paused "Hoops Choro, do you realize what you just said?"
Him: "Oh. Now that I think about it... Wait a second, cereal is like a food isn't it? Woops."
I helped him find his words. He meant: "Geometrically similar".
We had family home evening at the church. I was joyous eating my food, when I decided to be curious about what I was eating. I 'd eaten it before a couple of times, and it didn't taste awful, so I figured it was time to know what it is.
I turned to the guy next to me (Which happened to be the Secretary of the Area Presidency over Japan) and asked him what it was.
"What do you think?" He asked. And then we went into a guessing game, where every hint he gave me made me more worried. The hints were as follows "Animal. Pig. Pipe."
Yep. It's tripe. Pig intestines! Yay!
But it wasn't bad, because at least, as opposed to many Japanese delicacies, it wasn't raw.
And to be honest, the Japanese food is never bad. In fact it's usually good. but when it comes to ripe, I'd probably not ever whip it up myself of order it at a restaurant.
Man. My brain is a little fried.
We have seminary in the mornings now, There's only one student, who kinda doesn't want to be there, and then we have three teachers, and two of the missionaries that come to support. So, I never thought that extra hour of sleep would do so much for me.
We had the Secretary of the Area Seventy come and visit our branch. He taught me some things I didn't know.
he talked about salvation.
He asked us where salvation was? Of what our own personal image of salvation was.
There were hands shooting up "Peace" "Having hair!" "Being with my wife" "A perfect place with God" etc.
He explained that salvation is not some far away place, but...that it is a seed inside of us right now.
he went into a lot more detail, but I'd never actually thought about that before. Salvation is a seed inside of us that we must learn to cultivate and grow until it finally becomes as God is.
Kind of interesting. We not only need to get baptized, we need to do all that we can do, and become perfect. (2 Nephi 25:29-30) (3 Nephi 12:48)
So, anyways.
We finished helping this one member in our branch move. He's an awesome guy. He's deaf, so we speak Japanese sign language with him. He's teaching us little by little by signing something and then writing it on the board in (Hiragana, (mada, knji yomnai). ) Japaneses. For the first two months that I was here I only knew one sign in Shuwa (Japanese sign language) and it was the sign for Naruhodo, or 'Oh I see' or 'I get ya' or 'indeed'. so he calls me Naruhodo now. For some reason he thinks I'm absolutely hilarious. I'll talk to him a little bit in Shuwa, but mostly I end up acting out what I want to say. I try to make it as ridiculous as possible, and he just cracks up. He can't hear the sound of his own laugh, so he starts making a squeaking/screaming sound, that makes all the rest of us bust up laughing as well. Man he's great. Anyway, we helped him move.
He's not very good at cleaning.... So. it was kinda a little difficult. He hadn't dusted anything, of cleaned anything in the fifteen years that he's been there. So dust formed colonies that stacked up to two or three inches high at some parts. We helped him with the Elder's quorum President. It was a little crazy getting everything out and to his other apartment, because he had a ridiculous number of desks, tvs, and dressers. (probably more than our whole house.) But he had such a tiny apartment, so there was almost no room for him even to lay down. (In fact I don't think there was room for him to lay down...) Plus Japanese apartment buildings (this one especially) are super narrow, so needless to say, it was an adventure. It was long (From 9-3:30) but for some reason I never didn't want to help, or didn't even fell less than happy the whole time. :) Man. I'm guessing that means the Lord is boosting me up, or he's changing my character; because I'm pretty sure cleaning 15 years worth of dusty things and moving them down narrow hallways, wouldn't have caused me to be happy seven or eight months ago. (I don't even know how long I've been out here...?)
I love the Lord. And I love you guys. Thanks for everything you do for me.
Take care of yourselves.
Elder Wheelwright
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| I loving finding English in Japan |
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