Mission Prep 2

Emotional Preparation:
1. Practice not getting your way.
When you're on your mission, your self-independence can often be a hindrance.  Now, instead of being on person , with one thought and will, you're two:  Your companion and you. (Did you see how I put "Your companion" first? Do the same.) There are many battles not worth fighting, We're not talking about all of WWI, but Rather it's the little things like, who gets to teach which part of the lesson or who gets the last instant ramen, etc.
Contention is of the devil, and it's a weed that always springs from the soil of pride.
2. Practice talking with (random) people.
You, more than anything else, will need this skill.  Preaching of the Gospel, as the creation of the world, occurred by word of mouth.  That is the medium through which you will be working.  This skill is vital as a missionary, it is better to learn it now than later.  Even the weakest thing (Ether 12:27) through the power of the Christ's Grace, can be made strong.  The quietest and most insecure person, through the Lord, can be made into a bold and powerful servant, but only upon the Lord's conditions. (D&C 4; D&C 84:85; D&C 42:14)
Just go up to someone and talk to them, rejection and awkwardness aren't going to kill you.  When it comes down to it "Fake it till you make it."  It's difficult at first, but it gets easier, and you must never stop trying.
3. Learn to laugh
This isn't just a tip for Missionaries, but for life in general. (I talked about this before in detail in one of my previous letters) but we all possess the ability to turn anything awful and embarrassing into something hilarious. A lady runs away from you and slams her door, laugh.  You fall on your face on the way to a teaching appointment, just laugh.  Don't be childish, or uncaring about the Lord's work. just accept and laugh at the situations you can't control.
4. Learn how to relieve stress a different way than you normally would.
On a mission you won't have your normal "stress-relievers".  When you're exhausted and emotionally drained, you can't just walk away and go play basketball, video-games, or piano. You'll have to learn to manage stress in a different way.
This is vital.  I dare say this is the 2nd biggest reasons why certain people can't make it through their mission (the first being worthiness, but we'll talk about that later).  In fact, it's so important to learn how to manage stress that the Church just put out a new booklet that every missionary gets called: "Adjusting to Missionary Life".  They just put it out during my 2nd transfer here; I'm not sure if it's available for non-missionaries, but if at all possible get your hands on that.  It teaches various methods for how to deal with stresses of missionary work.  Just for an example: For me, my stress reliever was playing the piano before my mission, and now I've just learned just to stand still for a moment, block out everything else and just focus on the good.  Prayers of gratitude and rejoicing in the little things have helped me out a ton too.

MISSION PREP (physical prep)

So, you're prepping for a mission.  You've heard countless stories and phrases: Knocking on that last door, baptizing in the muddy river, 'It's the best two years', etc.
But to be honest, despite how much people tell you and how much you hear, you can't ever exactly be sure what it's going to be like.  If you're anything like me, you hear tips from a random Mom for Georgia, or a link to Mission-impossible.
WELL NOT ANYMORE!!!!
Real advice on how to prep for a real mission from a real missionary on a real mission, this is gonna be real.
This is:
HOW TO PREPARE FOR YOUR (LDS) MISSION!!!

Physical Preparation:
1. Make sure you can walk. (Go ahead, practice.)
2. Make sure you can ride a bike. (Really, make sure, a missionary fresh from Utah just came to our mission who had never ridden a bike before in his life.  After a short five minute lesson, he was shooting down a hill with concrete buildings two feet to his left, and Japanese cars whizzing by two feet on his right.  he made it to the apartment trying his best not to cry....)
3. You might as well learn how to drive a car. (A useful skill, you may or may not need it... They knew the food was so good that in order to keep the image of missionaries from becoming two fat guys in tight suits they didn't give us cars.)
4. (Speaking of fat) Make sure you can eat all kinds of food. (You might think it's a good idea to use the "I'm allergic" excuse, but when you're reading scriptures like 2 Nephi 9:34 every day, you'd rather stab your leg than lie. (Though if you're lucky you'll get a comp that'll help you pull through and secretly eat some of your food for you.)) Depending on the culture you might really offend someone if you fail to finish off your plate.
5. See if you can survive a regular sleeping schedule.
I'm convinced that I'm not alone in this, but many younger people of today engage in an activity called
"Sleep Sluffing" and "Sleep Binging" It's where you go throughout the week surviving on anywhere from 0-6 hours of sleep and then Saturday morning hits and you "Sleep Binge" and it's 12:00 in the afternoon and you're finally crawling out of bed.  It's actually quite different to get the proper amount of sleep every night.  You're not tired when you should be, and you're exhausted when you shouldn't.  My suggestion is to do the missionary 6:30 wake-up 10:30 turn-in, but to just establish a standard schedule of when you're going to wake up and when you're going to go to bed, and keep it constant throughout the week.
6. Clothes
Though you may desire to look stylish, keep in mind efficiency as well as looks.  A suit that fits you perfect when you leave, after working out every day and eating MTC food (which might be against the Word of Wisdom. :)) you're perfect-suit, will now be your plain-suit, or your torn suit. But, you know. Whatever SUITS you...pfft. (I'd give advice to sisters, but I seriously have no idea how to help you. Good luck. :)
       -RANDOM TIP #1: So, the MTC takes a toll even on the skinniest Elder of Sister alive.  To avoid getting fat, remember: Even though it's all you can eat, doesn't mean you have to eat all you can.  If you're really that hungry, then just really don't eat that much. (They do have a salad bar! Also, beware the orange juice...)

So Desune

The most interesting Japanese mistake of the week:
Boden Choro told a lady if she has any questions about Mormon.org,
then to call his dinner. (Bango is number, and Bangohan is dinner.)
Also he told me a golden story:
He was teaching someone and he was teaching about Christ, and he
didn't congigate the verb at the end of the sentence into passive,
which determines who the subject and the object are in the sentence.
(the one who is acting, and the one who is being acted upon.)
Intending to say "Christ was killed by wicked people"
"Christ killed wicked people." He told them.
The person was confused and said "But I thought Christ was nice. I
thought he liked people. Why did he kill them?"
Boden choro thinking he said "Why did they kill Christ?" replied:
"Christ killed them because they didn't like His teachings."
(He meant "Christ was killed by them because they didn't like His teachings.")
It's funnier in Japanese.

So this week!
It's becoming spring! (I'm speaking Japanese style English)
Haru ni nariteimasu
So we can ride our bikes everywhere. :) so wonderful.
On Monday:
We went with Ryutaro to go and see the Meikosan. The Japanese dancer
women. They looked like geisha's.                                                            Wear crazy old kimono's in a crazy old house, and one plays a
crazy old guitar thing with three strings, and they sing Japanese
that Ryutaro didn't even understand. They paint their faces white
and... We got pictures with them. I'll send you one.
The dance they did... So. Just imagine someone doing the robot... but
with flowing, but not flowing motions, and... It's like a poorly made
machine that's supposed to look graceful but in a good way. It's
difficult to describe. It was cool. We checked out the 100's of years
old, house. The little Meikosan said only one thing to me, and I
thought she could old speak in old Japanese, but as I walked past her
down the hall way she said with a smile, "Don't hit your head." The
house is super short.... I only hit my head once. :)
Good stuff.
We headed to Sakata this week and taught Kimura Shimai's sister. I
turned to Kimura
Choro at one point in the lesson, while the Kimura Shimai and
Nagoiya-San (her sister) were talking, and asked "Should we invite her
to be baptized?" He said in the funniest way in English "Sure, why
not?" Boden Choro asked her. She got quiet, and told us she wasn't
ready yet, but she'll get there.... bla. It took the Kimura Couple two
years of meeting with missionaries before they accepted baptism.
Hopefully it will happen sooner with that then Nagoiya-San. But our
purpose is to invite other to come unto Christ, it never says anything
about how long it should take.
We were teaching Murokoshi-San again this week. Again, I was fretting
(but in a good way) about the lesson. We were going to bring it back
to Baptism to she if she could understand it this time, having gained
back her confidence. I asked her to read 2 Nephi 31 about the Gospel of
Christ, and she did. Kimura Choro sent her a postcard with a picture
of the Salt Lake Temple, so we talked about work for our ancestors,
and brought that back into baptism. She wrote in her little journal
that we gave her to keep her spiritual thoughts, and read it out loud
to us, because we can't read Japanese. It was like this (about
2 Nephi):
"I didn't understand all of the words. But I did understand this much,
Baptism is important. We need it to get the Holy Ghost and to be free
from sin. Then we need to endure to the end, so we can return to live
with God."
In the Church, especially in Utah, this sounds like a boring primary
answer, but for this 71 year-old Japanese woman who previously had
never even heard the word baptism, and only heard the name of Christ,
but a no more idea of who is was than you probably know who
ocyaka-sama is. It was amazing.
I testified like I'd never had before, and invited her to be baptized.
She got quiet. Looked down at the temple and the book she held in her
hands. And looked back at me and said "I have one wall.... There's one
wall."
I paused, an odd feeling in my gut, "What's the wall?" I asked gently.
Then using her Japanese super powers, she worked her way around the
question and didn't answer anything definite at all. Maybe it's her
husband? She won't invite us in past her genkan (door step). Maybe
it's the split from Buddhism, or fear that she can no longer pray to
her ancestors. We're going to continue to teach her... Pray for her.
On Sunday something odd occurred.
The Sato family invited us over for dinner the day before, and I'm at
church, in the front row (the place for the those passing the
sacrament) and I hear a girl's voice speaking in English. I whip
around so confused, wondering if the Sato's high school daughter could
suddenly speak English, when I saw a blond-haired blue-eyed american,
with gauges and two other earrings in each ear.
"Hey?..." It was the oddest thing. She's a high school exchange student
from Washington, staying with the Satos. Weird. We translated for her
in young-women's.  

Maybe the Gospel will slowly sink in. Who knows. She's Catholic, and
says she has a stack of Book of Mormons at her house, in
Washington,(that the missionaries helped them build) that she builds
towers out of. I  asked nicely if she'd ever actually
read one before. She hasn't really. Oh well. She's nice enough. ]
The Sato's made us some amazing sushi, and Sato Shimai made us
brownies, American Style. Amazing. We tried not to eat too much. (It
was the most amazing sushi I've ever had!) We biked back quick, so
Ryutaro could pick us up, and we went to Sakata with him and his wife,
and met Ryutaro's mom and dad. They were amazing. His dad would speak
Japanese really slowly and loudly and gesture at things. It was funny.
When he found out we could speak, he started using the most difficult
words. Just random things. We showed them our family pictures [mine
were a little boring] they loved them. We ate dinner which was a big
pot of noodles with squid and vegetables, boiling in front of us, then
you pull some out and drop it in your bowl full of natto (rotten
beans) and raw fish. (It was actually a cross section of a fish, with
skin and everything that we chopped up with our chopsticks and mixed
it with the natto.) It was actually way good. I'd totally forgotten
that I'd told anyone, but out of no-where Ryutato turns off the lights
and Mami brings in a cake with candles on it. Turns out my birthday is
coming up. So, I guess it was mine. It was amazing. I love them both.
We taught them the first lesson, from Prophets on, and everything I
said in Japanese, just came out smooth. It was amazing. When I'm
testifying with the Spirit, I can all of a sudden speak. I testified
with power.
It was amazing.
In the middle of the lesson Boden Choro gets a call. He looked down at
it to see who it is, before he turns it off, and "President Rasmussen"
is flashing across the screen.
He answers "Hello, this is Elder Boden."
"Hey Elder Boden, is your companion there?"
"Yes."
"What about the rest of your district? Are you in the apartment?"
"Um. No, we're actually teaching a lesson right now."
"Well. You give me a call when you get back, okay?"
TRANSFER CALLS!!!
So we called him back later. He didn't answer, and we went to sleep
not knowing what was going to happen to the next six-weeks of our
mission.
This morning the phone started ringing on Boden Choro's desk.
I answer it calmly. "Moshi moshi, Wheelwright Choro desu."
"Hello Elder Wheelwright, is Boden Choro there?"
"Ya, just one second."
He was on the pot. I knock on the door. "It's the President."
"Are you serious?!"
Then he jumped off and was out in less than 5 seconds.
I put the phone on speaker.
"Boden Choro, You're getting transferred up to Aomori, and you're
companion will be Malmrose Choro. Okay, and Elder Wheelwright, you're
going to be senior companion, and your companion will be Elder Moffet.
He's one or two transfers below you. Take good care of him."
Yep... SO that's what's going on.
Now everything is crazy.
BUT!!! I love it here. :) Hopefully my Japanese is good enough to be a
decent leader.
Alright. So.. I'll let you know what my new companion is like next
week, when I finally meet him.
I love you all!
I'm finally sending the elder wheelwright's mission prep. It's four
weeks. This week is physical. Hope you enjoy my little brother. :)
I love you all!

Breaking News: Things and Stuff

Whoop!
So it's nice to hear that everything in the family is going well.
So, this week..
On Tuesday, we met with Minami-San. So she said she had a few minutes

and came over to church so we could

talk with her. (Kimura Choro was at the church, so it's was all good)
She got lost, and texted us in Japanese, telling us so. We figured it
out, and ran towards the main road, hoping that just standing by it
she might be able to see us. We were there for a couple of minutes,
worrying that she couldn't make it, or would give up, but I looked up
and I saw her in her car, just waving at us like crazy. We jogged back
to the church to show her the way.
We got inside and Kimura Shimai showed her the building. Minami said
she felt peace. We took her in the other room and taught her a lesson
with Kimura-Shimai. We started off with a prayer, and our relationship
with God, and then Kimura-Shimai and her took off in Japanese, and the
amazing thing was, I understood (just about) all of it. The problem
is, I'm not quick enough at speaking Japanese just to jump into the
conversation naturally.
Amongst the many things they talked about, I gathered that Minami-San,
had been secretly reading the Book of Mormon, and had to hide it at
her house so no one would find it, because it says "Jesus Christ" on
it in big letters.
She says she wants to keep meeting with us.. She really is amazing. I
don't know what's going to happen though. She told Kimura-Shimai
straight out that she couldn't join because of the situation she's in.
But... I don't know. The Spirit's working on her.

JAPANESE HOLIDAYS: Valentines Day
So, it may be a little late, but I'll give you a quick run down of how
Valentines Day works in Japan.
Just like America they buy little gifts and give them, but... only the
girls give gifts to boys. And the gift specifically (and usually) is
Chocolate. :)
Guys don't have to worry about anything but their calorie intake for
the holiday. (Though they have a holiday that's the opposite (where
only guys give chorolate to girls) in March. I believe it's called
White Day.)
Boden Choro and I got about five or six Valentines. Yosh.

So, I've gotten better at soccer. This last Saturday, I scored two
goals. It was intense. I shot for another three. Two were blocked, and
the last one went high. BUT THERE IS PROGRESS! Boden Choro and I were
on different teams, and one of the guys said that this next game the
losers were going to have to buy juice for the winners. Boden Choro
didn't catch the Japanese, so he was just playing like normal,
everybody else went crazy. I'm better at defense, so I hung back and
blocked some goals. It was up 3-3 and then in two minutes we scored
another two on them. Then just passed it til the time was up. It was
fun. (Though deep down I'm worried about the productivity of this.
Sure we're building our relationship with our investigator, but we're
not getting really any appointments with the other guys... so... we
might just stop, unless we can figure something out.)
Ryutaro is taking us to Sakata today to go to a restaurant by the
Ocean. :) I'm excited.... raw fish. ?
I love this mission, and I love the Lord. I've been reading Jesus the
Christ recently, and I'm getting towards the end of His life. The
calmness and tenderness (especially) in the face of trials, is an
impressive example to all of mankind. He, as tender and as innocent as
a lamb, took upon every pain and anguish for sin and weakness that
He'd perfectly avoid His whole existence. He's amazing. I'm working
hard to incorporate His character into me.
Anywho, I love you all. Thanks for writing 
Love,
Elder Wheelwright

Alright!

Here's what's going down this week. I am going to tell you a little quickly, so I can finally finish the mission prep letter. It's gonna be good. Maybe.

Boden Choro
 being eaten by a street fish

So NEW INVESTIGATOR!

That's the Japanese equivalent of three baptisms in a Spanish speak mission. :) just joking... kinda... 

Her name is Yuko-san. She's this girl who is Tsugiyama-san (our other investigator)'s friend. She's super nice, but... We're not sure if she's interested in us, or the Gospel right now. I just asked her last week if she could come an hour early to English class so we could teach her about why we're here in Japan. She accepted. We did a joint lesson, with Sister Hirayama, and Brother Nomura. Brother Nomura bore a sweet testimony, and I could tell she was interested in what he was saying. He told a story about how he worked at a noodle shop, and one day he was really tired, and his hand got caught into the noodle making machine, and 'became\turned into' a word I didn't know. I looked it up on my dictionary. It meant 'in chunks or in pieces' He showed us his scar on his wrist... Nasty. But he said that God comforted him though the pain, and other amazing stuff. I love him. 

Takeya-san came to church, but said he can only meet with us on Sundays because of the way winter affects him. He gets super tired. 

I was sitting by Takeya-san, and we were just having a light conversation about sports. He said he loved Judo, and since he was a cop in Tokyo, I assumed he was pretty good. Plus he's huge. I told him he should teach me sometime. 

He stood up. "Now," And walked to an open part of the room. 

'Well, now I done it....' was my only thought, and I pictured him breaking me in half. 

But, none the less, I let him grab my collar, and my sleeve. He showed me how to throw someone to the ground, (without throwing me to the ground thankfully) and he had me try it on him. He had me do it hard, so he almost went to the ground.

So on splits Hoops Choro and I visited Murokoshi-san. 

One of the first things she said:

"Hey, I met with some of your friends." 

"What friends?" -I asked, expecting exactly what happened. 

"Um.. they gave me a pamphlet, do you want to see?" 

She grabbed it. Hoops Choro flipped it to the back. The good old JW was looking back at us. 

"They're... a different church." Hoops Choro said. 

"Oh, well. I invited them back." She said not knowing, with a smile. "They're both Japanese, so it's pretty easy to talk with them and understand." 

Dahhhh..... It was time to activate phase two. 

We taught her about the Spirit, and helped her recognize that she's felt the Spirit's promptings before. Challenged her to read and pray to God to ask if it's true. She accepted. 

Phase two is to do a joint lesson with the Kimura Couple. So that's the plan. 

Whew... I've gotten a cold and I'm all achy all over, so... Hopefully it doesn't get worse. 

I love you all.... 

Elder Wheelwright

Us in our Oni masks

Weekly Update

Dear Minasan,

(Minasan is how you refer to "Everyone'.  There's this poor girl in our English class, whose last name is Mina... Unfortunate.)

Well, this week!

We read a children's book with Murokoshi-san. Taisetsuna kimi. (In English the book is called 'You are Special') It's the book about the little wooden puppets, and one, Punchanello, who's not very good at anything, finds out his relationship with his creator.  It's amazing.  She loved it.  We explained to her that our relationship with God is similar, that He knows our names, and He is just waiting to talk to us.

She still believes that Christ is the Savior, but Ocyaka (whoever that is?) is also a religious leader from God.  Boden Choro worked his way around and then testified that there is one God and one way.  She is caught between the two worlds.  We're just trying to build her faith, until she's ready to make the jump.

Played soccer with Ryutaro again.  A couple of the guys taught me how to do rainbow kicks etc.  Granted, I'm not very good at all but it was really fun.

Spring cleaning

We taught Murakoshi-san this week. We decided to back off a little bit, and build her faith in Christ a little more. (So we just don't conflict and lose her) 

So we taught her about service and shared the scripture in Mosiah. She loved it. We talked about how Christ's entire life was dedicated to serving others. She also liked that too. She showed us some of her family pictures and that really got her talking. She was surprised to find out that we were the same age as one of her grandsons. She said he couldn't ever live on his own, let alone go to another country and speak a different language. We gave her a cookie, and she gave us chocolate bars. I love it. The whole gift giving part of Japanese culture. 

We also taught Ryutaro and Mami. They invited us over for dinner and we did the whole traditional 'Oni bean throwing thing'. We showed showed them two I am Mormon videos about two fathers who considered their most important job their family. Which is a problem often times in Japan. Another one of our investigator's husband is so involved in his work that he moved to Aomori, and only comes home about once a month, if even that, to be with his wife and two daughters. I was relieved to hear from Ryutaro (roughly translated)  "Though work is important, I only do work for my family. If there ever comes a conflict between the two, family comes first. Every day after work I speed home to be with Mami." I love them both. 

Takaya-san is progressing. He said his philosophy is changing. Which is amazing. I'll update you on him later.

Pretty much I am loving my mission. I'm having fun, but doing my best to work hard and focus on the work. I could always do better, but luckily, I'm always progressing. 

There's no-place I'd rather be.

Anyways, I'll give you more detail next time. I'm exhausted. 

I love you! 

Wheelwright 長老

Japanese custom that occurs on the third day of the second month. 

It's the "Day before the first day of spring". It's not very catchy in English. 

So... Pretty much you do a spring cleaning in your house... except you cleanse it from demons... And how do you do that? Beans... 

So you have someone (some people) put on a demon mask(s), in Japanese they're called the Oni. (like "O", my "Knee".)  usually the kids put on masks. 

You throw beans at the people with the Oni masks (we used peanuts) and say  

"oni wa soto" Which means "GET OUT DEMON!" 

and then say "fuku wa uchi" which means "Come in good fortune (or happiness)"

Then you do that in every room of the house. At the very end you throw beans at the oni in the room with the door to outside, and the people with the masks go outside, and come back in without the masks.... Then you eat your age in beans... 

Why beans? Because... well. it was explained to me that they blind the oni, because they hit their eyes. 

Yep. Demon spring cleaning... do it. 

Boden Choro and Wheelwright Choro being Oni

Mami and Ryutato as Oni

Me in my Soccer stuff