It (like every single one of my areas) is right by the ocean. It smells like fish.
It's not like Iwaki at all. It Iwaki was like a city popping out of a jungle- with towering hotels and sky touching malls.
Hachinohe is like some one painted a thick layer of one and two story buildings over the entire bay.
Our apartment is across this huge bridge from the church. (the bridge is probably about the size of Richville lane).
Some firsts for me:
8 missionaries in a single area
50 members in the branch. (up to now, in all of my other areas if we had thirty, the members were happy)
Everyone complains about how hot it is here- and I just laugh. It's so much further north here dakara (and because of that) it's not hot at all.
This area is known for how many deaf members it has. (It has at least six) and about three or four other hearing members that speak Shuwa (Japanese Sign Language) fluently. (They translate during sacrament meeting and classes. It's pretty sweet)
We go to the classes that they have here at the church, and I've been learning. Sign-language is so easy. Japanese sign language just throws out every particle- so the only odd grammatical things are just the order and the expressions. Shuwa is a super new language. Before this point, deaf people in Japan didn't have an organized language, but thirty years ago a Japanese member of the church just mixed a bunch of different signs that people were using, (and some american sign language) together and a sweet new language was born. I can already pray in Shuwa. I love the deaf members. Stories are so much more fun in Shuwa. They make some of the most hilarious faces, when they tell stories. It's like acting.
We're clear up in Aomori, so we get to deal with some good old, feared by all Gaijin, Aomori-ben. (The Aomori dialect.) I haven't met anyone that's too bad, but apparently our investigator speaks it all the time, so we have his wife translate it into normal Japanese.
We went to visit. inakkata. (he wasn't home)
He was over in the far field, which is actually in another area. (Misawa)
It takes like thirty or so minutes to get to his house.
So you know our instead of saying 'apparently one of our investigators' I said 'apparently our investigator' yep. We've only got one. Yay!
And we had a meeting with one of the members (Yamanaka-kyodai) after church, and he told us in front of everyone to drop our investigator, saying he's hopeless.
Meh, I've got to meet him first.
I've been pondering a lot about what it means to 'talk with EVERYONE' because, when you think about it, that's physically impossible. There are a limited number of hours, and an almost unlimited number of people. So it's IMPOSSIBLE to talk with EVERYONE.... But wo, wait a second before you start throwing stones,
it redefines it in the PMG as talking to as many people as you CAN in each day.
But let's think about this. If you judge it purely based off of the number of people you talk to, you could probably just stand at the train station all day, saying hello to every person that walks by, and you've done it. You could probably get a couple thousand each day.
But, that doesn't fulfill our purpose.
So, maybe it's more about the quality of the conversation you engage in. Maybe, was my next thought, maybe it is the number of gospel conversations you engage in. You've got to talk to every single person you pass about the gospel, which sounds a little better, but that's still wrong.
Cox CHoro told me a story about a missionary who would have an appointment, but it would take him two hours to get there because he talked with EVERYONE along the way. So the members/ investigators got pretty ticked that he never made it. So, in order to keep his resolve to talk with every person he passes, he started taking back roads to avoid people, and he would still be an hour late.
That's not okay ether....
So I made a TWE MODE (talk with everyone mode), that turns on and off depending on the situation. If you don't have an appointment or an activity, (study time) or a service,(or a plan) then the TWE Mode turns on, and you talk to every person. (if you have a rough plan but it's not a specific appointment, like we want to get to the collage so we can sign up for a club to make friends to get investigators, etc. then you get in a different mode, SD Mode, Spiritual Discretion mode. When you talk with people purely based on the Spirit. If you feel the slightest bit of a prompting, then you go for it. And that doesn't mean that the normal TWE mode doesn't involve the Spirit ether.- - The TWE mode turns on right when an appointment cancels, or you go to visit someone and they're not there.
We've had some good experiences so far.
One- We saw a man wearing huge rain boots, just golfing in a field. We went up to talk to him.
Jones Choro started asking about golf, he cut him off
"You're missionaries aren't you?"
I smiled really big. "YA! We are!"
He stuck up his hand and turned away. (It's a sign that means 'I want nothing to do with you'.)
Jones Choro asks "Can I ask you a question?"
Then he just says it " I don't want anything to do with you."
"It has nothing to do with religion, just about golf."
"nope... can't" he did the sign again. with a look of disgust, walked away. "I don't want to hear your religion." and stuff like that.
And I used my favorite Japanese: "you know, were like still human and stuff."
Laugh. Then we shook our heads, shook the dust off of our feet (an inside joke... we don't really do it. We just houses an whole neighborhood, and we got rejected hardcore at every house, and we made the joke.) and we rode away laughing.
We've learned to laugh at the rejections.
A sister at church for some reason gave us a ton of flowers. We were headed home, (biking one handed because of the flowers). We decided the sisters could use them, and there was an old guy in front of his house, and when he saw us just brightened up and yelled "Konichiwa!" So we stopped and talked with him for a while. (invited him to take the lessons. he said "[Japanese that I didn't understand with an excuse tone]". ) I was holding a ton of flowers, so I pull out ten, and just give them to him. He cracked up laughing.
We rode away. Jones Choro asked "Did you smell any alcohol on him?" "No, why?" "That wasn't normal."
People don't normally say hello.
I saw a girl walking down the road eating some pokey (the chocolate covered biscuit sticks), and we started talking to her. She had no interest in anything, and seemed a little weirded out that two gaijin just popped out of nowhere)- but I asked her about pokey- she said she liked it,
"I love pokey too. What flavor is that?"
"Mint flavor."
"oh, cool. I've never had mint before."
"ippon, tabemasenka?" (Directly translated: Won't you eat one stick? (do you want one?))
I cracked up, and, then took one. thanked her, said we'll see her around, and we walked away.
Giving flowers and eating peoples' food. If I keep it up then we'll be able to go back to the no purse or scrip policy.
We had an activity on Saturday.
It was pretty awesome.
It's called nagashisomen.
Or flowing somen.
Now, men means noodle-
most Americans probably only know ramen-
but somen is a thinner stringier type of noodle-
This is something that we don't do in America, but it makes totally sense.
Cold noodles.
When it's winter, we like to eat hot things, right? Soup and hot coco, etc.
And when it's summer we are all about ice cream, right?
Cold noodles. The food of the summer.
So, nagashisomen, pretty much, you just take like a pipe that's sliced in half the long way, and put it up pretty high,, have some water slowly flowing though it, and put noodles down it, and you scoop it up with chopsticks and put it into your cup (which is a thicker cold soup made of tsuyu which is similar to soy sauce,) and just dig in.
It's probably the greatest thing that ever happened ever.
Okay.
Here's our district
Jones Choro: Our good old district leader. We're in the same transfer.
He's amazing. He always laughing, and trying to do his best with everything.
He's from Idaho- loves sports, and is a pro at Shuwa (Japanese Sign Language)
Fox Choro: He looks like a fox. He's got sharper eye teeth, and flashing eyes that look like he's going to cause trouble. He's small and fast too. He's awesome. He's from North Carolina, which he tells everyone is the 'real south'. Jones Choro constantly reminds him that it's got North in it's name, so it can't be the south.
Earl Choro: I've never heard a Japanese be able to say his name. So the just call him R choro. He's 6'4'' at least, and he's got the calmest lowest monotone voice. He's a stud.
Then the four sisters:
Morita Shiamai: She's... well. She's going to die after this transfer, so she's getting a little crazy. She wears these crazy contacts that turn her eyes completely black. She was a 'doll' or a 'plastic' before her mission. I'll explain that another day.
Sakuma Shiamai: She's the same transfer as me too. She's halarious. She's almost fluent in english, and says some of the craziest things.
Tuttle Shimai: She's from upstate new york, She's super nice. We were in the same zone. Her and her companion are going to die in two.
Kushi Shimai: Super quiet, super funny. She always has the calmest voice even if something crazy is going on. Just monotone, "oh no. wow. that's great"
I love it here. I love you guys.
You guys are great.
if you've got questions, let me know.
Peace. Elder Wheelwright
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