That's a way sketch story....(Elder Wheelwright's brothers were in a Bicycle Crash)
We've had our fair number of close calls.
I've almost gotten hit by so many cars.
We go flying down the hill in front of our apartment everyday.
(Random but: there's a bridge right by the hill that's called the yuurei bridge. yuurei is zombie or spirit....
Japanese ghosts are not a pretty sight. And apparently a lot of people see ghosts here... They've got no legs and wear white kimono's and sometimes have these weird triangles on there head... Not sure why. Google search itね。)
That's scary. Hopefully he's okay. Did you give him a blessing?
I had an opportunity this week to give the Japanese sister in my district a blessing.... But she asked me if I could do it in Japanese.
So yep. I did it. The Lord helped me, just like always.
His grace is an unlimited power source that at ready access to all who are worthy of it.
We must be pure as missionaries and members (both representatives of Christ), so that we can conduct the power of the Lord to light the lives of other people. Pure like copper- a block of wood won't conduct. It's never been about the quantity, but always the quality. The Lord delights in the weak things that are willing to turn towards Him- He doesn't not look upon sin or imperfections with the least degree of allowance, but He knows as the weak rely on Him, there's no faster way to Godhood.
This week... ne. Well. We didn't get transfer calls, so it looks like Brienholt Choro and I partying it up in Iwaki... (That was ill phrased... Doing the Lord's work. Dendo (missionary work) is pretty much a party.- I never thought it would be so fun.)
I've gotten better at talking with people, and understanding... So whether it's a bad thing or not, my personality is starting to show more.
Ping-pong! (doorbell sound)
Us: Hello!!
(Old woman though the screen door): What do you want? Who are you?
Me: We're missionaries from Christ's church!
Her: We're Buddhist in this house. We're not Christian.
Me: I know. That's why where here.
Her: We really are Buddhist. We don't know about Christ's church of anything.
Me: You see, that's why we're here right now.
Her. We're Buddhist, you see. We don't know Christ.
Me: That's unrelated. (that's just how you say "that doesn't matter")
Her: But we're Buddhist! We're not Christian.
Yep.... My companion suggested that maybe we should go. But first.
Me: We've come to Japan to help people. Do you have anything that we could help you with?
Her: We're Buddhist!
Me: I like Buddha too. I studied a little bit of Buddhism before I came here.
Her: We're not Christian!
.... Then we left. I was laughing after. Man...
We talked with this guy the other day in the park, just smoking at this bench.
He said that in the past the Japanese government in order to protect that Japanese culture and way of live, propagated lies about Christianity and Christ in all of the schools, and taught that Christ was evil. He said people around their seventies and older still think that much of the time.
It was interesting... He told us some interesting things. He said that people in the rest of Japan "bully" the people in Fukushima.
"You would've thought bulling would only be a problem in elementary school, not with adults." is what he said. (That was way Japane-y. They always put と言いました, at the end of quotes.) He said that because because of the radiation that when people from other prefectures figure out that they're from Fukushima-ken (ken is prefecture) that they get kind of scared of them. And many of them won't marry anyone from here....
Kinda weird. Apparently it's still a problem. The radiation... We went to the beach to finish our companionship study before we did service at a hotel close by. You can't swim in the water because apparently there was some leakage into the ocean.
They're going to open the beaches soon is what I heard, but even then we probably won't go swimming. We're not really by the ocean too often on P-days. (man I so funny!!! :D )
So yep... I'm getting cancer... Or maybe I'll grow taller. :)
The other day as we were mapping out some old investigators that we wanted to visit at the church, we heard someone speaking on a loud speaker and the sounds of drums.
I got excited and opened the window.
"IT'S A PARADE!" I yelled. Pretty ignorantly happy.
People were holding flags with Kanji (Japanese) and marching down the street. I'd heard about the summer festivals, but didn't think that they'd be starting so soon.
Then... Slowly...
I noticed that everyone wasn't wearing traditional clothes... In fact, no one was. And they weren't marching in that pretty of a formation... And there were police cars and men trying to do something... Hummm... and then I understood what the man on the loud speaker was saying.
Yep. It was a riot- not a parade... But they're like the same thing, right?
They were matching because (I think) that they don't believe proper precautions were taken with the nuclear radiation problem. ... It was a long parade.
So yep. I'm having all sorts of fun. :)
We taught a man who's never prayed before how to pray this week. We're doing free family English program with him.
That's were we meet with the person, we teach them English for thirty minutes, and then for thirty minutes we teach them about the Gospel.
It's one of the middle aged Japanese guys from English Class. eikaiwa.
We went as a district this week to the eki (the train station) and I brought my guitar.
It was pretty fun. I just jammed out playing and singing Nearer My God to Thee, Hallelujah, and Country Roads.
Yep... a group of high school girls was kind of following me, so I turned to them and did my best to get them to come to English class... In English.
They didn't think I could understand Japanese for some reason... so they they started saying some... odd things.
They were all ichinensei (freshmen) and so were 15, and when they found out I was twenty they cheered and one said
"Yes! He's only five years older!" in Japanese...
Yep. They asked if they could take a picture with me. I said if they would come to English class I would let them.
They said yes. They took the picture- they didn't come.
Sasuga.
Yep. There's some funny moments... I usually avoid telling these stories, but since the topic is already up. Mom, you can decide if this is blog worthy or not.
I've taken a surprising number of pictures with high school girls or guys to try and get them to come to English class.
Yep. We were talking with some younger boys (13ish) who had a fake katana, and two high school girls were walking by.
Their eyes were fixed on us, so they didn't see the curb that was coming up... Laugh.. caught themselves, turned super red, but kept staring.
Enough temporal things- let's get spiritual.
We testified to a woman (a different one than above) that God was real, in her door step. She said she couldn't believe it.
We testified that Christ was real to two Nepal-jin (people) that we met at the eki (train station). He said that he believed that every God existed, and that he agreed, and that he hated how people would say that only their God existed. He also said he hated Japan- which made me kind of angry, because (if you couldn't tell from my last letter) I kind of like Japan.
I recently read the talk that Elder Boyd K. Packer gave in the last general conference. Dear everyone in the world, I would strongly suggest reading that talk. His writing is beautiful. When he spoke it was good, but a little slow, and difficult to understand entirely because of his age. When you read that talk... man. It's amazing. Kando shiteita.
The Lord is amazing. And He is blessing this land. These people, more so than many Americans, are spiritually inclined. They, like all people in the world, feel a natural yearning to be close to God. They feel inside of them their true potential. It just takes some time to show them the way.
Kudomasato-San slept though his last lesson. I was really worried. We didn't get any contact with him last week until Sunday, despite how often we called.
We sang a Japanese version of Now We Take the Sacrament. I did my best with the tenor part.
We had a student from Eikaiwa come to sacrament. Saki-chan.
I was so happy. She's a smart high schooler who answers all of my Japanese questions after English class.
I'm a little sad that I still have yet to have a Japanese companion. I guess my trainer counts, but he never spoke Japanese to us, only broken English.
I feel like I can speak decently well, and know a fair number of words and grammar (still not enough), but one thing that I like is how to speak/ phrase things like an actually Japanese person would. The only way that you can do that is be with a Japanese person, and though I learn a lot from talking with people everyday, it's not like everyday life kind of conversations. Japanese people speak a different language outside of their house than they do inside.
Meh.
Brienholt Choro is a good man. It's kinda awkward sometimes because he doesn't understand sarcasm. But we've developed a system. Whenever I'm being sarcastic I (like the badger does on fantastic mr fox) I made a sign by raising my arm. So that's helped a lot... Maybe I should give up sarcasm....
PFTTT>.. Nope. that was a joke.
I can give up sarcasm.
And irony.
(that was both sarcastic and ironic)
I LOVE YOU ALLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLL!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Elder Wheelwright
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