"I'd get baptized if it wasn't for the word of wisdom"

So... 

The Week

MONDAY 月(The day of the Moon)- 

We did district P-day. We just all get together and have fun as a district to build district unity. 

(In some missions, like in South America, it's dame (against the rules) to be friends with those in your district. Here we're told to do one or two district P-Days a transfer.) 

So we asked a member and she dressed us up like ninjas a samurais. I'll send you some pictures. 

We could've killed people with that spear. 

TUESDAY 火(The day of Fire)-

We ate some sushi for Tuttle姉妹's birthday. (that kanji means shimai or sister). Hill長老 ate twenty-four plates of sushi.... That's $24. ooh.... (He did it to win a prize, because every five plates you eat you slide them into a slot at the end of the table and then a 5 minute cartoon plays, and if your character in the cartoon wins then a prize comes down from above you.... Wow. that actually sounds way cool... But it's... more normal in Japan. Anyway. I ate 10 and I got a prize. (the only one out of the four elders.) It's a little plastic sushi... YAY! 

We taught Fukagawa-san. He had a hard time understanding prophets, but he wanted to so bad. 

I looked at the clock and said 

"Hey! Your train comes in like nine minutes!" 

He looked at time on his phone, thought for a moment and replied:

"I can do three more minutes. Is that okay?" 

I've never had someone want to learn so bad.... 

WEDNESDAY 水(The day of Water)-

We had district meeting and 英会話 (English Class). 

We had a new girl come to class. We've also just split classes so now I have my own intermediate class that I teach. It's sweet. We only have like 3 people right now, but we'll get more.

(Fukagawa-san's in my class. He taught me how to play a crazy Japanese board game, called Igo. )

THURSDAY 木(The day of the Tree)-

We weekly planned. We taught a member. 

I also taught a piano class and Elder Mo taught a guitar class at the same time. We use our talents. 

FRIDAY 金(The day of Gold)-

We did a newly started church activity called 'FUN FRIDAY' which is pretty much an FHE for members and non-members alike. Fukagawa-san came. :) 

SATURDAY 土(The day of the Earth)-

We woke up and went with the other Elder's PI to an early morning fish market. 

We all bought respectively fishy things; each of which I ate- 

Cox Choro- Raw Shrimp 

Hill Choro- Raw Shark

Mo Choro- A Mix of Raw Fish

Me Choro- Boiled Squid (I love me the squid. If you cook it right it's no longer super chewy, but has a nice little cartilage-i feel to it)

We then went to a funeral of a member. It was way sad... Brother Kame. 

At the end as we were walking out I shook his non-member wife's hand after bowing to her- she told me to come to her house to visit sometime. Hopefully we can teach her. 

We had Eikaiwa (English Class) again. It was good. We played Uno after with everyone to build our relationship with them. We spend so much time trying to convince people that we're normal. Once we do that though things get moving. 

SUNDAY 日(The Day of the Sun)-

I report to the PEC, and was asked to do the 手話 (Japanese Sign Language) for the sacrament prayer, because the member who normally does it couldn't because he was conducting the meeting. So.... I had to lean that during the two hymns. 

I thought to myself. This is impossible. I'm going to mess up, or not do it fast enough- 

So I prayed my heart out that the Lord would help me. 

So there I sat in front of the whole congregation... and the prayer started- magically I could do it. 

(the words flowed right out of my... hands!) and I did it exactly in line with the person praying. 

The "Amen" of the sacrament prayer is the coolest. Normally a men is putting your two hands in front of you and kind of... tapping two of your fingers together, but for the sacrament you use all of them because it's a heavier Amen. I felt like a champ. 

After I got really stupid and instantly started thinking, "Man, I'm so good a shuwa (Japanese Sign Language) I probably the best in the ward. I could probably translate the talks." But then it hit me that the only reason I did it was because I had the Lord's help. 

We're like that though as humans, when we get desperate we turn to the Lord, and once we make it we congratulate ourselves on how good WE did and forget the Lord entirely. I repented quickly, and thanked Him for carrying me through it. 

Then... the guy stood up and said that it was my turn to talk in sacrament meeting... I was just so busy that I'd forgotten. 

I wrote a talk the day before, but it was in my bag, which in my stress for PEC and the Shuwa, I had totally forgotten where I had put it. 

Laugh... Then the funnest thing that I have never seen happen in all of my years of going to church- I stood up, and asked if anyone knew where my bag was, and a committee was formed to find my bag. It ended in like five seconds because I found it in the copy room. 

We all got a good laugh out of it. 

Most people feel like they need a spoken joke to start of a talk. I'm a walking one, so I can just be myself and forget my bag to wake everyone up and break the ice. Laugh... It was pretty funny. eeeh.... 

We also had a PI now an investigator named Tasuku-San come to church. He's up here in Hachinohe because his mother got cancer and passed away, and before he even had the chance to go back home to his daughter, his father got cancer pretty suddenly and looks like he's going to pass away as well. So now he's working on a boat and he never knows when he can have a day off, so it's been hard to teach him. But he showed up wearing a perfect black suit, with a Bob-Marly like rainbow colored beanie. 

He sayed the whole time, we taught him a lesson... And he said the subject line of this email. 

He knew all about the first vision even before we told it to him. He told us he was like Joseph Smith who has tried every single religion in the world and doesn't know which is right. He said he'd ask God, and thought it was too bad that God and Christ probably wouldn't appear to him. (Like he says Buddha has) 

So.... Yep. After church we had a shokujikai... what's that in English... a... meal meeting...? where we all eat after church... but ya we had that, and he went around asking all of the members about why we have the word of wisdom because he didn't think our answer of believing in the prophet's words and trust in the Lord was good enough. 

Luckily he asked Ono Shimai (A sister who's husband is a previous branch president, (who actually built the church building that I'm in now) and now her whole family except for her is less active and hates the church because it asks too much of us. ) 

She just layed it all out. Every argument for why we have it in the most perfect way... After all Tasuku-san could say was "naruhodo" which mean, "I see". 

THEN WE PASSED OUT FLYERS ON THE COLD STREET TO DRUNK PEOPLE WHILE I WAS PLAYING THE GUITAR!!!! 

and that's my week! 

AHHH.... That was too long. My hands are cramping. I love you guys. 

Keep doing good. 

Elder Wheelwright

Dear Family and stuff

Well, let me tell you what I did last Monday, 

So you expected me to eat some weird foods when I got called to Japan- 

So did I, 

But last Monday I ate something that I'd never expected... 

-raw horse meat-

Yep. 

we ate horse tongue too, but it wasn't raw so.... We're all good. 

My cowboy ancestors were crying... 

The other missionaries stopped at about one or two pieces, and it's pretty expensive and pretty rude not to eat it, so... I ate four or five. :) It doesn't even phase me anymore. I've eaten so many odd things that it's normal now to eat one more. 

Our mission got an Onegai (an honorific request) from the Area Presidency.... We're supposed to teach twenty lessons a week. (or at least try to) 

So to prove that it's not impossible, we decided to do it. We did. All twenty of them. 

I feel dead.

"Speaking of His work, we were able to work with our new investigator Fukagawa-San this week three different times. He listened intently, and when we were teaching him about God and prayer, he just paused for and second and his eyes got wide. 

He said in effect: "Let me get this straight. You don't believe that religion is a once a month at a shrine kind of thing, but rather, you all believe that you have a constant connection with God all the time! That He's always watching and willing to listen and that you can talk to Him anytime! That changing the whole meaning of religion!" 

Those are the kind of moments that make a mission worth it.  "

I love Ya'll!

Elder Wheelwright

Well, That was different.

The first of the week was crazy and I went on splits with Hill Choro twice while the other two (Elder Earl and Elder Fox) went around visiting people. 

Hill Choro's a good guy. Apparently in one of the transfer schedules last transfer, I was supposed to be Elder Hill's companion instead of Elder Fox's. 

But then one missionary from America didn't show up and it kinda mixed up the whole mission. 

My new companion came! 

He showed up on Wednesday night right after English class.

Let me tell you a little about him: 

He's a tiny bit taller than me- 

French and Tahitian are his native languages. 

(Which is crazy, because when he got into the MTC he was required to learn Japanese from English- two languages that he didn't know. All of the texts and missionary vocab lists and grammar books are all in english- he told me he gave up trying to learn ether language from books, and learned from listening to other people speak. He would hear what people would say, he'd repeat it, and if they gave him weird looks then he knew that he was doing it wrong. Now he's almost fluent in both English and Japanese.)

We've been in Japan exactly the same time, we go home exactly the same time as well. 

He's probably the nicest person on the entire planet. 

He always is laughing and is so sincere in everything that he does with everyone. He's humble, oh so humble. 

He shared some candy that his family sent him from Tahiti. It was so weird. 

He was dryed mango covered in salt and spices. I guess it's chinese. But it was good. 

When he was in Japan last winter, it was the first time he'd seen snow. He says in Tahiti the lowest it gets in 26 C and the hottest is 36 C. 

He says he's not sure why, but they don't have screens on their windows, and everyone sleeps under mosquito nets. 

He told me the haka dance is a war dance that sacred, and means that you are going to eat someone. 

There are places on the island that are taboo where no one can go, where they used to sacrifice and kill people. (He says that the islanders a long time ago were cannables (people eaters)) 

He told me this morning that no one in his entire ward plays piano. They sing accapella. (their hymbook is in French and Taihiti(go) and the conductor just tells everyone what language he wants them to sing.  He says lessons are too expensive, and only rich kids can play. 

I'm teaching him to play. He can play guitar and piano better than I can by ear, but he can't read music. 

I probably didn't tell you but here's a shout out to people that think playing the piano is useless: 

I played piano in church in the:

MTC

Tsuruoka (every other week) 

In Iwaki 

At the priesthood session of district conference in

Koriyama 

Aomori 

I teach piano every week here to an investigator's daughter. 

I've played in church for missionary musical numbers, 

And now I'm slowly teaching my companion to play so he can play in his ward in Tahiti. 

The Lord will use your talents.  

Speaking of talents my companion is amazing at drawing. He's teaching me little by little. 

One tip he gives me is to hold the paper up to the light and see how it looks with the image reversed, then you can see what's wrong. 

So up to this point in my whole mission, I'd always joked around and talked about how I'd never even seen a baptism up to this point on my mission. 

Well, up in Misawa a little old Japanese woman (who was Mo Choro's (mycomp)'s investigator that he found when he worked in Misawa. 

The Misawa District Leader called me up and said he could find anyone that could play the piano--- (Learn piano everyone- I'm not even good, and they use me all the time) So we took a train up there. 

I love train dendo. I talked to this high school girl, and her friends almost died. For some reason they thought it was the funniest thing in the world. 

But it's rude to laugh at people, (they always cover their mouths when they laugh for some reason) but this time they were cracking up so bad that all four or five of them just slammed their faces onto the windows of the train at each other. I commented, "They're going to die" and it made it all the worse. 

(when you say American expressions in Japanese it just cracks them up. Like yesterday I said "I've eaten so much I'm going to explode" in Japanese and they(the members) thought that was the funnest thing.)

So yep. She got baptized. Put under water and all that... And it was special, but it finally instilled a thought in my mind that had been brewing for such a long time.

Here it is: 

BAPTISMS DON'T MEAN ANYTHING. 

Now, let me explain why it's not true- 

obviously baptism is a very important step in coming unto Christ. It is an amazing and sacred commitment that people make with God. The more people that get baptized the better, so long as they are willing and ready to make that commitment with God. 

However, 

often times people that don't understand the importance of every other step , or the real purpose of a mission. 

Our purpose is to invite others to come unto Christ- though faith in Christ and His atonement, repentance, baptism, receiving the Holy Ghost, and enduring to the end of it all. 

Baptism's one of five. 

Don't get me wrong, and important one of five. 

But if anyone asks the question: How many baptisms did you get? 

They don't understand the purpose of a mission. 

It is to INVITE!!!!! 

How many people did you INVITE to come unto Christ? 

Laugh. So basically what I'm getting at is that it wasn't as intense as I was expecting it to be. I've felt the Spirit so much inviting so many people to come unto Christ, trying as hard as I can to help them build faith in Christ- and that's what missionary work is. Of course we are to get as many as we can, and never give up- but even if you never see someone get into the water, doesn't mean you lose....

Baptism is just another step along the road to back to God. 

It's just as marvelous to tell someone about who Christ was on a train. 

They're just different steps along a path. 

It was still good though. 

We missed our train home by one minute- and then met people that Mo Choro had taught in Eikaiwa, They were so excited to see him. 

So--- then that night we had our second English class- and at the very end a new 25 year old student came. 

His name is Fukagawa-san. 

Mo Choro talked with him and gave him a pamphlet about our English class, and he read in it that we had church on Sundays, so we were getting ready to report to the PEC and then he showed up in the hall. 

He stayed for all of church (we taught gospel principals and I had everyone act out a play to explain the gathering of the tribes of Israel. It was pretty funny. Cox Choro got to scatter them.... by himself) 

and we taught him about prayer and God. 

He prayed at the end of the lesson. 

At one point he got super quiet, maybe for like two or three minutes (which felt like a straight Ammon long hour.) and he asked us if he had to convert. 

I was tempted to say yes, but then Mo Choro answered and said, "We do desire all people to come unto Christ and be part of the church because we know it is a good thing. But we respect everyone's agency. All we will do is teach, and you can decide what you want to do with it." 

He sighed really big. 

After church the members invited him to go and eat dinner with everyone at Nakajima-shimai's house. 

(She's the grandma of the branch and sometimes just throws dinner parties. She's kunio san's wife. ) 

So we all headed down there, had a party. All the members loved him so much. Etc. It was great. He'll probably come back to church next week. He want's so keep meeting with us. 

(We had the party for a missionary named Money Shimai, who is going home. Her parents came to Japan to pick her up, and she's visiting all of the branches that she went to before. So, Saito Kyodai wanted to talk to Brother Money- so I got to do some good old translation. And it was pretty great. I took what they said, made it sound fancy in the other language, and bam! It was an awesome conversation. 

I could've changed everything if I wanted to... but I'm nice. 

ppppfff......

It has been busy. We're going to teach twenty lessons this week by the way. 

well that's all folks... it wasn't pretty English, but it resembled it... blaa. 

Elder Wheelwright- out.... 

PS I finally got a name tag that just has Light written on it in Japanese... Now people actually remember my name. Yoshi. 

Dear Everyone

So, if you all of you at home feel like you can't keep track of who's my companion and what, don't you worry: I hardly can ether. 

So Elder Fox is transferring to Tsuruoka (my second area). Elder Earl is going to Yonezawa. And Sister Konishi is going to Hirosaki. 

And in their place- 

Hill Choro is getting Elder Cox- (my older Zone Leader)

Sister Tuttle is getting Iwahashi Shimai (from Iwaki) 

And I'm getting Elder Temanaha Moo (ta ma na ha mo O) (Everyone calls him Elder Mo)

Yep. He's not American. (nor is he Japanese. He's from Tahitian. He speaks four languages fluently. And I'm told that he's the nicest missionary in the mission. He's over six feet tall- 

So that's pretty cool. Maybe I'll learn some French. 

This week... Fox Choro got back from Sendai getting his tooth (they only took one of his two wisdom teeth that were coming in) out on Wednesday. 

We had interviews with the mission president on Thursday, (and prepared for the Halloween party)

 on Friday we had Zone Training Meeting in Aomori (almost a two hour long train ride) then we came back and did our Halloween party here, and headed out for Aomori once more on Saturday for the the Saturday sessions of Branch Conference went home (it took so long that we got home at 10:15 that night. (with the President's permission)) Then for the Sunday session, yesterday we went to Misawa...

Whew... Yep. 

There was a lot of good talks, and I understood all of the Japanese except for President Smith's talk where he talked about one of the medical tests that he had to go though where he said a word in Japanese that took at least a good five seconds to say. 

Sister Smith too was amazing and stood up in front of everyone (only been in Japan for three transfers) and gave a talk in Japanese. It was understandable! She did awesome. 

I've been sick.

I've got a cold and a cough and had a fever for a bit. In Japan it's pretty gross and rude to blow your nose in front of people (or so I'm told, and I've never seen anyone do it... so...) but's it's not rude at all to sniffle all the time.

A kind member gave me a cough drop. 

But it didn't do much. 

Earl Choro was telling me that when he had Japanese exchange students come over to America and stay with them, that they weren't supposed to give them Ibuprofen and stuff, because it's too strong for them or something- and so I guess that Japanese medicine just don't have quite the kick that Western Medicine. (Ibuprofen is actually illegal to buy or sell here.)   

Yep.............

On Tuesday or Wednesday we visited an older member who's confined to her home, named Matsuda Shimai. She's an angel. 

She gave us juice and senbe (rice crackers), and was just amazing. She apologized for the war and stuff, which I kind of surprised me, because she was maybe 19 or so when the atomic bombing happened.   and War is often bad on all sides. 

She's so cute. She said she expected to be dead already but she just (to her own regret) kept on living and living. 

Yep.... 

What else... 

(Side note: As you can see he is so busy the letter just ended)