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