Thanks for all the emails! I did get my bike, and it's got a light,
reflectors, a lock and of course I wear a helmet, don't worry =). And
yeah its pretty cool that they're splitting the mission! It takes affect
in July and I don't know how they'll choose which missionaries go to
the new one so we'll see. Also I'm curious to see if the Tokyo South
mission will also have computers, they're definitely convenient here.
People are so busy all the time and never are able to set apointments
when you talk to them and pretty much only do it through email. That
might just be because I'm in the heart of the city though.
Well I'll try to be more detailed with this email...
Last
monday: Bought the bike, did other chore type stuff, then went to ping
pong night at the church. One of the people we contacted on the street
the night before, Imai, actually came and we gave him a book of mormon
and restoration pamphlet.
Tuesday: Had a lesson with Brother Fujita, a nonactive member since
about age 10. His wife and 4 kids aren't members but they weren't at
the lesson. He seems really interested in the priesthood and we taught
about the restoration. He seemed really interested. He came to sacrament
meeting with his family yesterday but left after. They're family is
super busy all the time apparently so we still don't have our next
lesson set up.
We also had lunch with an older man, Mr. Kawawa. He took us out to
Chinese and bought a ton of stuff, it was pretty sweet. We talked to him
about his philosphies a bit. He has lds friends in taiwan. When we
started trying to talk about the plan of salvation a bit he kept talking
about how you shouldn't think about death and just focus on life. He
doesn't believe in an afterlife and didn't want to hear about it. Next
time I think we'll just teach him some more basic things and see if he
becomes interested later. Then in the evening we had a going away party
for one of our Eikaiwa students. Imai came to this as well and asked a
lot of questions about chirstianity and our beliefs. He seemed pretty
interested and we invited him to Eikaiwa and church. He doesn't have a
phone or email though so it's hard to get a hold of him and he had a lot
of tests this week too. He didn't show up to either so hopefully we run
into him at ping pong tonight.
Wednesday: Super weird day. We went to the mission home for
interviews and my companion left our phone on one of the trains. We
stayed at the mission home until they could track the phone which took
forever. We did get to meet a lot of people from our zone though that
came that same day for the interviews. Finally they tracked it and we
went there. It was in someones house and the man wanted nothing to do
with us. We got back right before "Eikaiwa" or English Class. I taught
the beginner class and we pretty much just listed words and worked on
pronounciation.
Thursday: Had a lesson with a recent convert. He's having a hard
time feeling the spirit and I shared some things that hopefully help
with him. We got a call from the mission home saying the phone changed
locations and was at the train station. We went and got it but it was
still under remote lock for the rest of the day. We went to a members
house for a scheduled role play lesson but he wasn't home. It was super
far from our apartment too. That's pretty much the jist of that day.
Friday: Had district meeting in the morning, that was fun. Then we
had a "study meeting" with a group of 4 recent converts. We studied
chapter 4 from PMG together. A couple of them are having a hard time
knowing whether or not the church is true or not. I wasn't able to
follow the conversation at all and every few minutes or so my companion
would ask me "how do you feel about that?" and I had no idea what to say
since I didn't even know what they were talking about. Then he would
kind of just keep going. I felt pretty useless. In the evening we had a
role play lesson with an older couple in the ward that fed us dinner. I
was able to participate more in that because it was more of a planned
lesson which I had practiced in the MTC.
Saturday: Did the usual morning routine: Wake up, excersize, eat,
shower, study, study, study, eat lunch, then started the real work. We
planned to go tracting with brother Ikari, a member of the ward. When we
met with him he decided he wanted us to go visit his childhood friend
instead. He was a bit out of our area but the Zone leaders okayed us to
go meet him. We took him on a tour of the church in his area which is 5
stories. The tallest LDS church in Asia. Bottom floor is parking, 2nd is
chappel, 3rd and 4th are classrooms, and 5th was gym and stage. Pretty
neat. We taught him Lesson 3: The Gospel of Christ, in the parking lot
afterwards. He thought it was interesting and he likes the missionaries
but he doesn't really want to apply it in his own life. Seed planted
though.
Sunday: Church meetings and Church in the morning. They had a ward
fundraiser after church where they made curry and it was delicious. We
got the leftovers too =). The Fujita family came for sacrament, and an
Eikaiwa member, Mari, came right after sacrament for an English sunday
school class we taught. She stayed for relief society which was cool. We
had Eikaiwa after the fundraiser but I didn't teach this one, just sat
and listened. We had an emergy transfer this week so one of the Elders
in the companionship we live with left wednesday and a new one came
thursday. The new one, Elder Bingham, from arizona taught the new class.
He entered the mtc Nov 16th last year so I wouldn't have been with him
then if I went to Nagoya last year. He's way smart and I learned some
good study ideas from him. After Eikaiwa we had another church meeting
then went to a members house for dinner.
Not going to lie from about Friday morning til this morning I was
feeling super down and really questioning my motives and desire to be
here. I didn't feel like I was doing anything special. This morning
though after reading some things I got a better perspective and a better
attitude. I might not be doing a lot right now, but I am doing
something and in time I'll be able to have some good experiences.
