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| Shinkotoni (Sapporo) |
A new Transfer has come :) I got my Transfer call yesterday.
First however let me tell you about this week. I'm sorry for not sending an
email last week. I was rushed in email last week, because we had a District
Activity. The week before was actually fairly slow, and not a lot happened...
It was kind of. Bummer week, because we tried hard, but didn't see much from
it... Those are kind of hard weeks, but I know that we are still doing what we
are supposed to do, and God will bless us, and this area for it. So anyway back
to this week, I'll just give you a play by play, day by day.
Monday: This day we went to Kitami for a district activity.
On the way down, we met one of our friends that works as a police officer in
Abashiri. We talked to him, and were able to teach him about the restoration.
After that we got to Kitami, and went to email for 20 min. Like I said I was
rushed. And then for our district activity, we went to a recycle shop called
Hardoff. We, all using no more than $10, found something interesting, and
bought it. Then we brought that back to the apartment, and went to play soccer
with one of the Kitmi investigators. It was a lot of fun, but I was reminded of
how much I suck at soccer :) We went and ate Ramen for dinner that night. After
that we all came back and did a gift exchange, white elephant style. In the
end, I wound up with this really cool One Piece (a popular anime series in
Japan) umbrella. It has a handle that is swordish, and it's way cool. It was a
good day, but I wish I had had more time to email. Sorry bout that.
Tuesday: Had Splits today. I went with Elder Stevens, and we
did some housing. Didn't find to much, but we were able to find one person they
can teach. It was very awkward though, because she was wearing almost zero
clothes. I wound up just hiding behind the door, so I couldn't see her. Then we
went back and had English class in Kitami. Fun and good day.
Wednesday: I was on splits again, this time with Elder
Tsutsumi. The first thing we did was go with an investigator to an
All-you-can-eat place. It was basically just all you can eat meat, while we
talked to him about the gospel. It was way cool. And delicious. Then we went
and visited one of their investigators, who could talk. A lot. She was a
talker. We wound up teaching her about the word of wisdom,
and then talked about crows, and Japanese sign language, and how young I am,
and literally just everything. We talked to her for about 1 hour and a half,
and then had to go back to the church, for a ping pong activity that the Kitami
elders set up. A few of their investigators came, and 2 of the members. We had
a lot of fun. One of their investigators had a little girl, that is probably 6
or 7 years old, and she had so much fun trying to play ping pong, and all the
other goofy games we made up. Towards the end she started drawing on the board,
and I would tease her by making her cats male (I would write the Japanese
character for boy on them when she wasn't looking 男) She had a blast. That
night, before we went to bed, we all played D&D (Dungeons and Dragons)
together. I don't know why I haven't played it before, because it is one of the
funnest games ever. I currently have a pretty cool Level 3 True Elf Thief. We
have taken on several zombies, a Dire Wolf, and a Thunder God. It is honestly
real fun (yes I know I'm a nerd. Laugh it up).
Thursday: Today I was on splits with Elder Dobashi. Except
Elder Dobashi is dying, so I just stayed at the Kitami apartment all day. I
watched some episodes of the Joseph Smith Papers. It is way cool, this project
they are working on. Basically they are compiling all the documents they have,
that have direct affiliation with Joseph Smith, and they are publishing them.
All I know is I'm going to have a copy. They have documents of his journal, and
court cases against him, and they even still have some of the original
manuscript that Oliver Cowdrey wrote the Book or Mormon on. Way cool. Other
than that, I slept about 3 hours, I took all of my D&D characters info and
digitized it (put it on my iPad) and I cleaned their
apartment a little bit. I tried to study some kanji, but my brain just wasn't
focusing on it so I gave up. Then they came home, and I made Dinner for them.
So far the most interesting meal I have ever made was this night. I made fried rice,
but they didn't have rice (I know, Japanese
apartment without rice. Crazy.) so instead I used SPAGHETTI.
It tasted just fine, and was pretty cool, but it made a huge mess. I made too
much spaghetti, and it barely all fit in the pan. So we ate dinner, I cleaned
their kitchen (again) and we wrapped up the day with some more D&D.
Friday: Fairly bland day. We woke up, and went back to
abashiri. When we got there we got showered, and studied, and then we did
weekly planning. We realized, we didn't keep the best area book, or PI records,
and we were a little stressed about that so we updated it a little bit, and
then we went to English class. I haven't talked about how that works yet so
maybe I'll do that. Usually what I do (I teach the more advance classes, so I
can speak all in English) I start off with pronunciation. Give them some words
that Japanese people have trouble pronouncing that are similar to each other.
Like "sludge" and "slush". In that they always want to know
what the words mean, and then they are usually pretty good at pronouncing the
words, but sometimes listening is harder, so I will cover my mouth, or turn
around, and then I wouldn't enunciate, and stuff like that. After that I will
teach vocab based off of a theme every week. This weeks theme was
"Opposites, and similarities" this one was a little special, and I
normally just teach them vocab from a book, and then add a few harder ones
myself. After that I do "Conversation" this is supposed to be the
main part of the class, because it's called 英会話 (eikaiwa) which is literally
English Conversation Class. We just have a topic based off of the theme, and we
talk with them about it. Then to finish it up we'll play a game that has to do
with English. This week it was special, and for vocab what I did was I had
words like "dark" or "white" and then they would have to
tell me the opposite, and any similar words for it. We would use them in
sentences and such, and then there were really hard ones. Ones that I didn't
even know. I had to use the book to find out what they were. They had to figure
it out, and then tell me all the words in Japanese so I could learn. At the end
of class, I said good bye to everyone. It was sad. They were way cool, and I've
been there for half a year and made real friends in that group. It's a good
thing I transferred, because if I hadn't, it would've been embarrassing. I
mean... What... Who said I transferred.... *evil laugh*
Saturday: Today we went to a further away area, and tried to
visit one of our investigators who unfortunately moved. Not only did she move,
but she moved to the one area in Hokkaido that doesn't have missionaries
currently. Hopefully we got a good seed planted, and when missionaries bang on
her door she'll listen again. Then we did some housing, and didn't find anyone,
and then we went to our investigators house. She fed us dinner right in her
Genkan, and we talked. It was nice. We taught her about the Atonement, and then
showed her a Mormon message. The problem with the video though was they didn't
have it in Japanese, so I spent the whole morning translating it, and then read
my translation as the video played. It was rough, but it was good. We showed
her the video "The savior wants to forgive" I think she liked it.
Then we went home.
Sunday: Church. Really sad church. My last time in Abashiri.
There cats out of the bag. I'm leaving Abashiri. ああマジか... I don't want to leave, but
it's time to move on. Anyway at church, I got up and bore my testimony, and
thanked everyone for being really kind and awesome, and then everyone else got
up and thanked me. I wish I had been able to see something more in Abashiri,
but didn't get to. Oh well I was there for something, hopefully I did it. But
then after that, we stayed at the church to practice some music, and then went
home for Transfer calls, so we could pack and go to Kitami. Well I got a
transfer call. Now you are all wondering what it is, so I won't hold
you back anymore. DRUM ROLL
*budududududududududududududusududududududududududududum*
I'm going to an area in Sapporo called Shinkotoni!!!! My new
companions name is Elder Fujisaka!!! An old district member. I'm excited. I
know a little bit about him, and have had the opportunity to dendo with him
before, so I'm looking forward to it. And then Shocker for you. Elder Francis
is also Transferring. He is going to Asahikawa, as a Zone Leader with a
missionary called Elder Horne. Abashiri is being White Washed (all new
missionaries.) Luckily one of the missionaries coming to Abashiri has been
there before, and actually had a really good relationship with the investigator
we were focusing on. So there's that. Yup that happened.
Well. I think that's my email for this week. We are
currently on our way to Obihiro, for a zone training meeting tomorrow (that's
why we got transfer calls early), and then we'll head to Sapporo, for
transfers. I'll email more next week! Until then, everyone wish my uncle (Kyle)
a happy birthday. Well until next week. Don't forget to clean your ears out
every once in a while :)
愛しているよ
襟夫長老
