22 January 2017

22 January 2017

I had a sad but interesting culture experience this week. The less active that we were serving? His mother passed away. We were invited to her funeral which presented quite a few problems. To go to a Japanese funeral (a church member funeral might be a bit different) you have to follow some very strict rules. It was a Buddhist funeral of course. Black is absolutely necessary first of all, with nothing flashy or shiny on. It's inappropriate to smell to strongly (which American deodorant is known for being too strong smelling here), and then of course there is the ritual stuff we had to do. 

Luckily we have three 日本人 (Nihonjin or Japanese person) that were able to teach us all the things that we had to do. For everything else we were left to mimic the other people. It was pretty crazy. Got to hear lots of Buddhist chanting from the monk doing the ceremony. I don't think we messed up too bad. Also, everyone just kind of did their best when it came to the wearing all black.. haha.

The other interesting thing I did was find an investigator. He works for Nu Skin and two years ago saw missionaries on the street, jumped out his car and asked them if they were Mormon. He really respects his boss(es) who have served as mission presidents now and he really wanted to know more. The problem is that he does not have time. He works from8:00 to 9:00 every day except Saturdays. It's really frustrating and we aren't sure how he'll be able to be taught. He says that his schedule changes in March and he will definitely come to church then. That's good. We told him he could call us anytime as well. So, I'm still investigator-less kind of. 

I can't really remember what else happened this week. It's been a strange week.

I hope everyone has some good experiences with their PMG! Or maybe it's too early eh? Until next week I guess.

In response to my questions about the guy that he ran into that works for NuSkin:

He is a distributor. He works from 8-9 every single day except for Saturday so unfortunately he just doesn't have time to meet. It sucks. He says that his schedule might change in march or something I guess. He is such a great guy and really has interest though.

Look I organized everything now that we finally got the stuff we needed.