Knowledge & Faith

Well, 

So one of of two investigators is looking like he might be a drop. 

I called him up and he said he had a customer, so I told him I'd call back later- 

Called back later and--- I asked him if he could meet with us. 

He said "What business do you have?" 

"Uhhh... We want to meet with you?" 

"Then I'm busy." 

"What about this week?"

"I'm busy." 

"Alight, we'll call you next week."

On Sunday coincidentally President Domon said "When a Japanese person tell's you that they're busy, 80 or more % of the time they aren't."

But on the flip side, we had some good news. Our chubby little 12 year old investigator... with him lesson did! ahhhhfmmn. 

(I used to have this problem in reverse. I would often start a sentence in Japanese with the English order... Now as we can see.)

But ya, him with lesson did! He's a 12 year old kid, so we did a power-punch lesson. The goal is to make it as interesting, spiritual, and QUICK as possible. But the traveling Assistant had come that day to split with Koide Choro, so we had a Sannin doryogumi (Three person companionship). 

So ya. Teaching lessons totally changes with three. I spoke at the first making it fast and intense 

So we'll keep doing good stuff. 

Uhh... For finding- we figured housing just ain't the way to go, because everyone has already been housed, so we've been going to the community center trying to build friendships with people and teach them. 

I'm on the search for young people so some of the activities have been hit and miss. 

I go to a table-tennis activity expecting to get pounded down by some high school kids, but instead it's like twenty grandmas.. The sad thing was, we were pretty even. But we got to talk with them about what we're doing here. 

We checked out a guitar group (though we decided rather then just spend time there if we thing there's no hope, just to sneak in at the end of the 'class' if you want to call it that. We walked in guitar-less and the teacher looked at me. 

"Play me some guitar" And he practically threw his classical guitar at me, and pointed at the sheet music. 

I gulped. 

"Well, guys... I uh, actually can't read guitar music. I just play chords." 

The Sensei (which translates at both MASTER as well as teacher) came up to me and said "Give me your left hand."

So I did, and he stabbed my fingers with his finger nail. 

"mmmm.... kekko yatteirundane" ... (that's hard to translate, but ya, pretty much I passed. ) 

He said he doesn't know chords, just sheet music, so he wants me to teach him. 

Another good one that we had was the shogi group. (Shogi is Japanese chess, and it's both simple and crazy difficult. The pieces don't move as fast or far, but once you take an opponent's piece you can place it anywhere on the board that you want.... yerp.) So I got creamed. My mind just can't imagine them coming back and how to prevent them from killing me. 

But surprisingly THERE WAS A YOUNG PERSON!!!!! 

I found probably the only person under 30 (besides us) in all of Odate!!! (oh ya, and besides myuto kun) YAY!!!

He seems way cool. I came into the room watching the young kid and a shogi 'master' playing. There were a few people watching- they apparently thought that we couldn't speak Japanese and jumped when I laughed at one of the jokes that one of them said. I left the kid my number and an eikaiwa flyer. 

Well, that... and uh.... Zone Conference?... Was that last week? Ya, on Thursday. Not that I'm getting trunky or anything, but it's just super weird to think that I have only one left. 

It was way good. We got to watch the Meet the Mormons movie. It was pretty sweet, except for I think my brain and body had a melt down. 

I haven't watch a full movie for... a long time... and it was excellent, but it never seemed to end, and gave me a headache. I loved it though. I would recommend it.

This last Sunday was way cool. Everyone gave sweet talks and lessons.

After church we had a fireside about family history. 

Many people here are converts and still haven't done their family history or temple work. I'm the only missionary in our district that has ever done it before, 

the branch family history consultant asked me to teach her how to do family history. 

Yep. I love it here. The thought of returning makes some people want to give up on their mission for some reason, and as to why, I don't understand in the slightest. The thought of ending makes me want to push though all the more. 

In every other thing, like running a race or getting to the end of your life, people push all the more. The final sprint with a push of energy, or some of the death bed repentance's; 

I've got all the knowledge, all the Japanese, and more faith then I've ever had- 

(Now when I say 'all' I mean the most I've had up the this point) 

If you've got any questions just shoot them to me!

Love, 

Elder Tyson Clark Wheelwright

  

Drunk People

"Will you tell me about the people you are working with in your area?"

Well, we got transfer calls again so.... Half of the district is leaving so I don't really know,  but I can tell you what I've heard.

My companion is getting transferred-- So instead of Elder Hill, I'm getting a younger missionary named Elder Hanson (I think.) Apparently he's really nice. It's crazy, he'll be youngest missionary I've served with (besides when I was young). (Young as in dendo age young.)

Fukuchi Choro is leaving his bean (green bean) and he's going to be... the third AP?.. He was confused. Apparently things in the mish are getting crazy so we need three Assistants to handle it all. We've got two zone trainings, (the first I've ever heard of) mission taikai (huge meeting), and two or threeish zone conferences with in the next two months- so they're pretty busy. He'd just finished being a zone leader for 6 transfers before he became Odate's district leader (6 transfers 9 months) Now's he's going back. Otsukare- ('honorific tire'- as in tired)

Uh, Koide Choro is now in his second transfer- he was taking a ton of notes on the split we went on this week. He fell asleep in a lesson we did to a member, but I didn't even notice (he told me after). Laugh. He's funny. We were walking back home and there was a pack (a flock? a heard... a gang?) of middle school girls so I did what I do and walked up to them, and spoke English- 

"Hello!" 

"Herro!"

"How are you?"

"I fine, shank you!"

And it pretty much ends in all of them wanting to come to eikaiwa. (English class)

Koide Choro was freaking out, "That's so cool! You are a super missionary!"

"How do you do that?" He asked. I explained simply- 

"Elder Koide, I'm white." He thought that was funny.

But I told him that he could still give out Chirashi (flyers) and stuff, but he might have to take a different approach. 

It was funny because it made me remember when I was a bean, and every day was kind of a challenge. Now it's just 100% normal. America sounds like a challenge.

Well, then there's the Sister's Sakuma and Fujiki Shimai. They're pretty nice. They pretty good friends with their investigators and stuff, and like doing things independently so we don't have too many chances to talk with them. But they're great! Fujiki Shimai is transferring and we're getting another Gaijin Missionary named Carr Shimai. 

That's the district. 

"We know very little of your comp and of the branch. "

Well, so do I- I haven't met him yet............ man, I'm so funny. 

Elder Hill is great. He's smart. We've had fun. He's a good cook. :D we're friends.

 "Is it time consuming to be in the Branch Presidency." 

No, I don't do a whole lot. Next week I conduct the meeting for the first time. (President Smith is coming to our little branch) Other than that there's not a whole lot going on so... Pretty normal. 

"How is that whole thing going over?" 

It's going pretty good. The branch president and me are buds, so it's going pretty good. He took us all out to ramen the other day. 

"Did the District Pres accept you and everything?"

Ya, they love me. He came here a little while ago and we chatted it up. He's a nice little man, who has a whole lot of respect for everyone. In the church it's hard to find people that actually have evil intents. They're all so good.

Okay- Thanks for the boots and stuff. They work great! (I had Koide Choro and Fukuchi Choro try the twislers, Koide Choro just said "oohp" when he ate the black one. He said he was going to be a challenger and ate a whole piece. They said it wasn't gross, but it wasn't good- it just... was. 

This week was pretty good. We had zone training meeting and it was great to see everyone (the missionaries) from Hachinohe again. It was a good meeting. Moffat Choro (My 2nd companion in Tsuruoka) is our Zone Leader now, and he's grown so much, especially in Japanese. He did the whole thing in pretty good Japanese. 

Uh, Eikaiwa was good. I only have two students who are about at the same level, so I can teach them like crazy. I decided to do a review week, and they didn't remember anything that I had taught them up to that point- I decided to make them do Mogi's (role plays) like the missionaries always do, but in normal real-life situations. They were freaking out. I made them pretend we were at a bus stop, and they had to start a conversation with me. (at some point it became less of an english class and more of a social skills class for a bit.

'You normally say 'Hi' before you start talking to someone' 

'Asking for people's age could have some odd implications' etc. 

I repeated what they did in English to them in Japanese, and they cracked up laughing. 

'tashikani, tashikani- sorewa ienaimon ne' 'you're right, you're right- we shouldn't say that' )

We were housing it up again on Sunday, and for the third week in a row we got to give out a Book of Mormon. 

It was blizzard like crazy, and I laughed to my comp and said "Housing is always better in a storm. They just feel bad for you." 

So, some people did. 

 We got into two different houses. 

One's an old guy who likes to talk about less pleasant things, but I've mastered steering him to the gospel. Hopefully we can get him. Though he doesn't really care for religion or God. He's a good guy though. I love him. 

Then the other was way weird/ scary. 

The door flung open after we rang it and there was a giant of a Japanese guy standing there. (He was taller than me- I'd say he was 40 years old or so?)

"What do you want? What are you doing here?"

"We put this flyer into your post the other day-"

"What is it?"

"It's about the after life" 

"Well, I've got cancer so, come on in!" 

And we just jumped inot this guy's apartment. 

We found out shortly that he was drunk. He said a lot of things, but it was hard to tell if he was joking or not, but I decided to play it safe and split. (After of course playing guitar for him- he had like five or six electric guitars on the wall.) He seems like a cool guy, but I just stood up and told him we'd come back later. 

then what made me stand up to go is when he said 'Everyone thinks that Japan is full of just good people, but that's not true. There are a ton of evil people in this country...' then he leaned forward and whispered 'I'm the most evil of them all' 

So, ya, joke or not, we left him a Book of Mormon with our number- he was half-creepy half super nice. Hopefully we can help him.) 

Ya!!! 

Now we've got transfers this week, so we're headed to the big city. 

I'm going to make Odate the sickest. Every missionary has been saying that Odate is just waiting to blow up, and I think the time is coming soon. 

If I can just get everyone to focus on dendoing at all times, and becoming like Christ then we can get some work done. 

My theme will be Like-Christ. We will dendo as He did, serving others and teaching along the way. I love this mission. I love missionary work. 

I'm in the fourth quarter, and I've finally figured out the rules of the game. 

Love ya'll!

Keep on keeping on- 

Elder Tyson Clark Wheelwright