Teaching Tokyo South

Sunday, December 11, 2016

11 December 2016

Well. Transfer calls have arrived and my incredible dōryō is leaving me behind unfortunately. I'm going to miss him. He really was amazing.

So yes, I shall be in Kōhoku for the next eight weeks. I guess that's the good news. I really like the Kōhoku ward, they are all so friendly and kind.

We sang Angels We Have Heard on High in seisankai(sacrament meeting). It was nice. We sang it in English, despite plans to sing first and last verse English and second verse Japanese. But we did sing the last verse a capella which I thought was interesting. Especially since the last verse is an invitation which goes along with our purpose as senkyōshi. Our dendo shunin (ward mission leader) joined in just that morning because he got there when we were practicing and the bishop joined in as well. So it was the three pairs of senkyōshi, a recent convert, the dendo shunin and the bishop in total.

So last night we visited with a member who converted when we was 18. (He is much much older than 18 now) He is super kind and he told us to come drop by whenever we wanted. When we did he gave us rootbeer and cream soda. We talked about his life and his conversion a bit (or rather, Draper Chōrō and he talked and I just tried by best to follow along). When it was about time to share our message, Draper Chōrō shared Alma 13:24, a scripture we had talked about recently. Apparently he really wants to share the gospel as well but isn't sure how. I shared 2 Nephi 21:11, 12 and 2 Nephi 29:7. We talked about how there are many people in Japan who are and have been prepared to hear the gospel. Draped Chōrō encouraged him to pray for the opportunities to share his knowledge of the gospel.

Then we had possibly the strangest experiences I've had so far.

We were invited over to a Bolivian families home in our ward. All six missionaries. They are a great family. So but at the table we had De Chōrō speaking Portuguese to this brother who is using Spanish back to him and then the rest of the table is using Japanese to him and English to each other while we ate some Brazilian food. It was the weirdest culture mix I've ever experienced. Haha. It was pretty exciting.

It was a pretty good week. We had a few really good contacts with some people, I went on splits with 太田(Ota) Chōrō, Pearce Chōrō, Nelson Chōrō and Burnham Chōrō all in one week. Had a first real lesson with Burnham Chōrō with a less active member. We talked about having sincere prayer. It was really good.

I'm excited to meet my new companion, sad that I have to say goodbye to Draper Chōrō so soon, and ready for another eight weeks here in Kōhoku with this fantastic ward.

I totally forgot to talk about going to this brothers okonomiyaki
shop/home where we made some okonomiyaki. It was really good.

Here are the pictures of making okonomiyaki -

Christmas time!

Time to buy a bike to get around

Sunday, December 4, 2016

4 December 2016 videos

I am posting the videos separately. I should have figured that Peter would make videos . . . One of these is just spooky and there was no info about it. Not sure what was going on . . .

Can you say coolest fridge ever?

Spooky

Futuristic Japanese hobbit hole is what he called this one

Obviously they don't have strict regulations in their construction in Japan . . .sketchy

Surrounded by scaffolding

4 December 2016

We are finally moved. The new apartment has had quite a few issues. In fact it still has a lot of issues... But I love it. I think it's awesome. Things we gained: WAY more space, an actual kitchen table, a sweet tatami room with a place to put our family shrine (which now has a Christmas tree in it, its great) more sliding doors but really old style ones (we think it was actually really old but now refurbished) and new dishes and normal stuff like that that we needed. The current issues are that we still don't have any lights in the study rooms, kitchen and tatami room. Also, only one heater in the whole apartment works so it's been pretty cold. But everything is slowly being worked out, it's great.

I'll probably buy a bike today since my companion just got his delivered this week. So that should be fun.

The miracle of the week is that yesterday we went to visit a less active member, but we got a little bit lost. Suddenly, the ward mission leader comes down the road. He points us down the right street. So then, we are in the correct neighborhood but can't for the life of us work out which way the house is. So we are standing trying to decipher the map when suddenly a sister from the Kōhoku ward comes over the hill. She showed us exactly where the member lived (which we never even got close to finding) and so we finally made it. That was pretty funny, and we kept joking that it might happen again when we spent most of the rest of the day lost again trying to finds less active members we decided to try to visit.

The weather is weird. It's definitely on the colder side now, but sometimes it still just feels like fall. I don't know when it will start to get really cold.

The Kōhoku ward is great. I sure hope I don't get moved this transfer because I feel like I'm just barely getting to know these people. It's been kinda frustrating not finding anyone to teach but I guess that's just how it goes sometimes.

I saw the banners for the new Star Wars movie going up. That was weird to think that it's been that long already. I am also trying to get my facebook up to the mission standard so that I can use that so you may see some short posts I share there from time to time.

Oh, also we live next to the futuristic-Japanese version of Bag End. They are the landlord I believe.

Hmm I do believe that may be it for this week. Everyone should get involved with the Church's Christmas theme thing this year "Light the World" because it's awesome. Try to do one of the challenges everyday!

Ready for picture/movie overload?