I was on splits with Battaglia Chōrō on Thursday and we began looking
for a less active we intended to visit. We both mentioned the place
where we ended up did NOT feel like Japan. It looked like some third
world country or something. All the buildings were haphazardly puzzled
together, there was junk everywhere, super dirty. We were standing
there talking about this when a garbage bag was flung from the roof of
a three story building and landing in the back of a giant crane/dump
truck thing. We could hear them welding something (probably a new
extension to the building) on the roof.
It was super weird and we were pretty excited to just house it. We
were able to have conversations with everyone that opened the door.
And only one of them was Japanese (which is probably why we talked to
so many people..). The first door was a Mexican who spoke Spanish,
English, Portuguese, and Japanese. Pretty cool guy but said they
weren't really looking to change their religion and wasn't really
interested in learning more. He wished us luck and went on to the
Alpha Female. There was a door that had a paper on it that said "here
lives an alpha female" we knocked but she immediately opened the door
cause she was leaving for school. Turned out she was Chinese and had
attended a Christian school in Korea and was here now working on some
school stuff I can't remember. We traded Facebook info and moved to
the next door. Now don't get me wrong, there were a lot of doors, it
was just people that weren't home.
Next person we talked to was a Japanese girl who studied religion. She
said she had heard of our church before but not much more. We left her
with a restoration pamphlet. Next door was a Muslim woman from
Ethiopia currently working on her phd. We had a good talk about
religion and such and she said she was interested in hearing more
because we were nice people. She said she didn't know anyone in
particular but that a lot of student foreigners lived in these
apartments and so there were a lot of people who might be interested.
The next door was our new Indian friend. He is studying civil
engineering from one of the best schools in Japan. He said he was
interested in coming to church sometime to hear more. Then our last
experience was even more crazy. We thought it was just another
Japanese person because there were some kids we could hear playing
inside. Then, an African woman answered the door. We tried Japanese
first, it didn't go super well, so we went to English which was better
but then she said she would go get her husband instead. He came to the
door and immediately said, "please, come in." ... "could this be what
a not-Japanese mission is like??" We were both thinking haha.
He was a super awesome guy who was also here for school. They were
from a place in Africa that I can't pronounce or remember and French
was their first language. We talked for about an hour and had a great
conversation. He essentially believes that the Holy Spirit is the only
way that we can really find out truth and every church (that he has
been to) has mistake doctrine. We taught the restoration and he liked
our message and was grateful for it and we thanked him for his
testimony and such. Unfortunately, we didn't have an English Book of
Mormon, left alone a French one to give him at that time. After that
he said that the food was ready and we were shocked. We said it was ok
and we were thankful for the offer but we didn't want to bother them
and then take their food and such. So we prayed and bid them farewell
for now. (Not knowing African culture, we are not sure if we offended
them by refusing. But it's also just Japanese culture to refuse our of
politeness first sooo... yeah.)
That was our adventure.
Oh I forgot to say that Elder Oaks spoke to all of Japan yesterday. Broadcast. He was in Osaka.
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| Oh, here is a picture of the creepy Yamato church building. |
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