Monday, February 25, 2013

2/24/13

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.
 
Alright, hopefully that's detailed enough! Love you all!

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