pffts...

So much writing... Maybe I should do this letter first so I feel more in the writing mood. 

President Tibbitts wanted to hear from all of the missionaries for MTM to help the guys there, and I remember when I was there and got a paper with stuff that Austin had said, and remembered feel proud because my brother was so awesome, but wishing that it was just a little bit longer.... 

So I took too much time with that. 

Anyway, talking about useless stuff. 

KUDO MASATO-san IS GETTING SOME BAPTISM!! 

I spewed out a ill worded question and said 

"You still want to get baptized, right?" 

"Ya, if I have the chance to." 

Oh Masato-kun, you've got the chance. 

He loves the atonement and the forgiveness of sins aspect of the gospel. He's amazing. 

We play guitar after our lessons and he's teaching me some cool things about guitars, like harmonics, and how to tune it better. He's so amazing. 

We, after our lesson, invited him into the other room (which we were having an activity in) so he could meet some people, and he got a little scared. "Hazukashii" is what he said. I'm shy. Pft... 

is what he said, that's Japanese. He said he was Hazukashii. Man, I everyone sorry am. 

Japanese my way of thinking changed has. you like this think are not able to. 

I realized my Japanese is good enough to the point that I can translate just about anything that I can say in English into Japanese. But when you speak Japanese there isn't any time to translate, you just have to speak and hope it works out. So a lot of times in Japanese I say a lot of stupid things that I wouldn't normally say in English because I've built the Japanese speaking side of my brain from scratch, from the point at which I used to have no grammar and words to the point where I am at now. Obviously, when I first arrived in the field, there was a need for me to speak so much more simpler in Japanese before than I do in English, but now that I have sufficient words and grammars, I've been working getting the way I speak and think in English into the way I speak and think in Japanese. Sort of combining the two. Breaking down that barrier between my languages so I can get my personality and my way of thinking into Japanese.... But... because I've been doing that, my Japanese is getting more normal... but my poor little English isn't even sure what it is anymore. 

Meh... I can relearn English when I get back to America. 

My companion and I have only been speaking Japanese to each other, and last night I started writing in my journal in half Japanese, and half English. 

Bla... You probably don't care too much about that. 

(I've already written the important stuff once in my journal and once in my letter to the President, so now you get this... YAY!) 

We went and got doughnuts with two of our English class students. 

They're both around 45-50's. Both males. 

It's kinda sad how the males relationship or role in the family is viewed. They're on business working in Iwaki, living in a hotel for half a year while their kids all live in a different town far away. 

They're both nice guys. Who if culturally were raised as Americans would spend time with their families all the time. But, they both talked about their families and you could tell they loved them, but the way that the man is supposed to show his love if to work to provide for his family. 

Dad talked about how he didn't like the Japanese, and the way they did things. 

I love these people so much that I'd be willing to punch anyone who said anything mean about these people. 

They have reasons for everything that they do. They don't tell their boss that his idea might be bad because they respect authority and respect their leaders. 

You will never find a nicer people on all the face of the earth. It's safe here. Everyone tells us to keep on working hard, and every single person, if asked would gladly help us out. 

.... yep. punching people in the face... don't be mean to my people. 

:) I love missions. 

This morning for breakfast (and a couple weeks ago for dinner) a man named Kohata-san invited us over. He's around 70, and lived in England for a long time, so his English is pretty good. His wife was Catholic and kind made him convert. His kids and grand-kids live all throughout Europe. After his wife's death he moved back to his hometown in Japan. 

His English comprehention is perfect.... His speaking is... kinda gone. 

He says "Oh wee-wli" after nearly everything we say. (It's suppoed to be "oh really?") 

It's super funny because he has a mix of Japanese and British style. He holds himself and speaks like a brittish person, but has... the aura of a Japanese man. It's difficult to explain. 

He's an amazing cook. 

He asked us a lot about our church and we turned it into an opportunity to teach him. 

It was so funny... When they was a pause in the conversation he said abruptly with his Japanese accent "see you again." 

It made me laugh. It was like "This conversation is over..." But in a funny way. I love him. 

He says he'll call us and invite us to eat at his house next time. The past two times he's made brittish food for us. Laugh.. What a funny guy. 

Anyways.. .I love you all!
Elder Wheelwright

Iwaki

Every third week is an odd one.

First-

We have hyogikai, or Branch Council.

We aren't like normal wards that do Ward Council every week. Nope, we save it for one day...

It was two and a half hours.

Oop, a random man just walked up to us and started talking to us in English. He wasn't bad. He'd studied well, but he just needed more speaking practice. His grammar was perfect.

Well that's the English teacher in me. I love our English class.

Second-

The normal place that we email from, on every third Monday doesn't allow us to use their computers, so we're in a giant library/mall/business (?) place. Hense the English speak Japanese man.

Pffft...

This week.

Welp, I had splits with the Zone Leaders, which was excellent. Cox Choro pretty much blew my mind about missionary work.

Let me give you some of his insight:

A missionary is called to invite people come unto Christ by helping them apply the Gospel.

His branch mission leader a couple transfers ago said at their first correlation meeting,

"I don't want my missionaries to find, I want them to teach."

Member's image of missionary work is a little skewed. They picture missionaries walking down the road talking to everyone and knocking on doors all day. Nope... Many missionaries do that, but that's not how it's supposed to be. President Gorden B. Hinkley talked about what he called

"The Better Way"

The PMG says that the ideal situation is for members to do the finding and to be present for the teaching.

Members' Strength: They are good at finding.

Missionaries' Strength: They are good at teaching.

PMG "Nothing happens in missionary work until you find someone to teach."

The hardest part (sometimes the most fun) is building a relationship with the strangers that we meet, to get them to trust us. The hardest part is getting people to trust us.

We're weird Christians who don't have a smart phone, dress is suits (always), weird dorky helmets, and are from a different country....

A PI or Potential Investigator is when you know someone who you could teach, and you have their contact information.

Missionaries often work all day just to find that...

Members have lists of hundreds of them on their phone. And have a relationship with all of them.....

Do you see now why the Gorden B. Hinkley Daikaicho said that we could double the number of baptisms if we solely worked together as missionaries and members?

... Yep. So, now we're working on building the relationships with the members, and strengthening the members spiritually until they are willing to invite their friends to hear what we have to say.

Laugh... I love the members.

In church this week I sat by a sweet little lady named Sister Kowaguchi. (around 70 or 80) She kept falling asleep in sacrament meeting and would kind of curl up and lean against me. The top of her head only reached halfway down my upper arm. She would wake up quick, perk up again, and then in another two or three minutes sink back down. She did that all throughout the meeting.

We taught a lesson to another member named Hanawa Kyodai, (in case you guys haven't caught on, Kyodai is brother, and Shimai is sister. It comes after their name.)

He's a detective.

In priesthood I spaced out for a second (which is not a good thing to do when you're trying to understand Japanese, for they say the subject once, and then never mention it again.) and then I was in the middle of a story of which Hanawa Kyodai was explaining how there was blood and guts everywhere and that there was intestines stretched for thirty feet or more on the ground.

He's kind of bent over, and his hair looks like Hitlers. He's got beady eyes, and a kind of hooked nose... He looks just like you would picture a detective to look like. I love him so much.

He gave us a bunch of food, and explained to us all the similarities between Judaism and Shinto(ism?)

Man... Members are good!!

I love stop light conversations

with a 40 year old woman

me: "Hey!"

"hi..."

"how are you doing?"

"I'm doing so GOOD!" without a smile or change in her expression.

I laughed.

"Why are you doing so good?"

"Oh, your Christ people huh?"

"Yep."

She laughs "Good luck, ne" (ne is impossible to translate. It's like huh... or eh, but not really. Everybody uses it.)

I suppose it's not that funny of a story, because I thought it was funny how American of a personality she had... But... you guys are already American so...

THAT'S ALL!!!!!!!!

Life as a missionary

How is your District?

It's pretty good. Everyone is willing to help.

How is the area?

It's pretty big...

How big is your area?

Big... In a car going Japanese car speeds... It'd take three and a half hours to go from the north end to the south. And it's about a circle, so the same from the east to the west.

We have an ocean, but it's like a couple hours bike ride away.... Not like Ishinomaki, where it's 5 minutes away.

Radiation detector

Dear Everyone

So this week.... 

We went to visit some of our investigators, and it was super crazy. 

We road our bikes a little ways out of town went though a long tunnel, and found a house that had around twenty bikes parked outside the front door. 

The Nepal Jin.   Jin just means people. I just don know if they're call nepplaiese or something weird in English. So Nepal Jin it is. 

They all look like people from India, with dark skin and those sweet noses, but they're different... 

All of them speak a very rudimentary English, that I haven't gotten used to yet.

Ask me to do an example of how they speak when we skype next week. 

It seriously felt like we were in a different country. Milan, one of our investigators, when he saw that we were there yelled in Japanese upstairs "KINASAI!" 'Come!'. They are here. 

They all gathered around us and just talked and listened to us. 

Diness is our other investigator, and he's super funny. His English is so bad, but he feels like it is good. Laugh. So funny. 

It was only recently that Brienholt Choro found out that his name was Diness. They had been calling him Bokurell for some reason for the couple of months that they had been teaching them. 

Man... It was a different county in that house. It smelled different, everyone looked different, and they all acted different. It wasn't the Japanese way of having classy conversations, sitting around a table, drinking tea (mugicha, the OK tea) and eating rice crackers. 

Nope. Everyone just flopped on the floor, not in seiza (on their knees) but with their legs going every which way, some laying down some sitting. 

I think they call us 'God men'. And they all believe and listen to what we say. It's just difficult to get them to church because they work so often. 

We only met about six or seven of them, probably because the other ten were working or something. It was awesome. 

We visited this family that we'd gotten from a referral.... Yes, a referral.... In Iwaki, the members give referrals here. It's amazing. 

We visited them and talked about our church and religion for a while with the husband while the wife cooked dinner. We ate dinner, which was absolutely amazing.... I love Japanese food. We had Tonkatsu, breaded and fried pork.  

During dinner he told us, pretty bluntly for a Japanese person, that he didn't have any interest in our religion and that he really liked us. He said we could come over any time to "asobu" meaning "to play". Bla... It was kinda disappointing, and I felt like we had just wasted all of that time. Their house was in another town 45 minutes outside of the main town in Iwaki city. 

As we were leaving packing up our stuff, Brienholt Choro looked down at the Book of Mormon on the table, and reached down to scoop it in his bag, saying as a joke "It'd be funny if we left this." 

I looked at him earnestly and said "do it." So we did. 

Unfortunately as we were riding away, about fifteen minutes away from the house, on a freeway like road, a car sped past us, with a woman screaming holding something. "WASUREMONO!!" 

You forgot something! 

So... they pulled over and said that they were luck to catch us, so they could give us back this important book.... They got the important part right. 

It all seemed to kinda stick. We had to ride up hillish for around 45 minutes, on a pitch black road, with the wind blowing like crazy, and a light rain falling, me only wearing a short sleeve shirt. But for some reason I was still happy. 

I was shivering as I was riding, and prayed that God would keep me warm. Then a few minutes later I was warm as ever despite the wind and rain. Probably from going up the hills. 

Blessings!!!

Wheew... 

We visited this other investigator who lived, yep, forty five minutes away. Yosh... 

We showed up at their house and they practically pulled us in. 

The father and the son (our investigator) both smoke pretty heavily.  the father just went off rambling about all sorts of stuff.

He used to be an investigator, but then... well. He just wasn't progressing. Probably because the missionaries couldn't actually teach a lesson with him.  So now the key was to get his son to meet with us at the church, so that we could actually teach a lesson. 

We started teaching a lesson to both of them, then as I was teaching about the atonement I asked "Do you know what the atonement is?" The father screamed "YES! I can write it! Let me show you!" And went off for a good while. Brienholt Choro took one for the team and distracted him, as I taught Masato-Kun. I testified about Christ and how we can receive forgiveness from our sins though baptism, and his eyes filled up with tears. I got his phone number, set up an appointment, and committed him to read the first chapter of the Book of Mormon all in about 10 minutes or so. 

Then his father made him show me his electric guitars. Masato-Kun is awesome... He's so good. 

I tried to play, but.... It's just different. I was trying to do a nice plucking song that I learned on the acoustic, and... well. It's just not the same. 

Hopefully that all works out. 

I love his mission. I love the Lord's work. 

I love you all!

Elder Wheelwright

Tyson's mad acting skills in a training