No better way to celebrate the day of the birth of Christ than to preach His word

hope all goes well in America. 

Uh... So ya. This last week was Christmas in Japan.

Just so you can get an image of Christmas, and what it is, I'll explain some history. 

So Japan was ruled by warlords back in the day one smart guy worked the system and got the emperor on his side, and unified much of Japan. 

(Oh, by the way, the first emperor was the son of God apparently, so the current emperor has the blood of a god in him, which gave him a bunch of power- because no one likes to fight against God) 

So yep, white people and stuff started coming to Japan to trade and stuff, and brought guns and it threatened to destroy their society and culture- so they cut off their boarders for like 200 years. 

So while the rest of the world was progressing through the industrial era, Japan had Samurai sword fights and stuff. So, they were a little behind, but they liked it. So like in the 1870's an American guy shows up on a steam boat and demands that the Japanese trade with them. First of all it freaks all the Japanese out, because they've never seen a seam boat before, calling it the 'ship with black sails'- but the Japanese are suborn and like the way Japan was- (I'd rather hang out with samurai and ninjas too.)

so they naturally rejected them. The American said in effect, 'alright, I'll kill you all'

So he got in his ship, and let loose the cannons on Japan blowing up the port-

So ya, that did two things for Japan, 

1. they started trading with America, and 

2. they realized that unless they modernized they'd get taken over. 

Japanese people don't like getting taken over- 

So they changed their ideals, tried to preserve their culture while growing- 

The United States refused to trade with Japan, they got angry, and yep. 

The attack on pearl Harbor, and then the Atomic Bombs

then the U.S. occupied them, tore down their military, and America became their military. 

And then random aspects of American culture like the commercialized aspect of Christmas (and Halloween etc.) all soaked in but only on the surface level. 

So everyone knows Santa gives gifts to kids and has elfs, 

But no know he lives on the north pole, or let alone anything about Christ. 

So we put on Santa hats and we passed out all of the these little bags with candy canes and chocolate, (the physical food) and put a card about where Christmas really comes from and the Japanese missionaries in our district wrote little notes on another card too, wishing people a merry Christmas and stuff. 

We passed out probably a little over 100. which for this small town is a pretty big deal. 

{We got our pictures taken by some high school girls, so if you're surfing some Japanese girls facebook pages, don't be surprise if you see us.}

Christmas was good. No better way to celebrate the day of the birth of Christ than to preach His word. 

I love the Gospel. 

I love ya'll! 

Elder Wheelwright