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
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