Week #11: Churros, Mochi and carrying my bike

So arriving in Japan, getting  new companion and being assigned my first area, lots of excitement.  We are out and about doing stuff, and doing great!  My companion, Elder Rogers, is great, love him, totally cool.  I am trying really hard to help in every aspect, but I can definitely can tell the 10 or so month gap between us in mission experience, but all is good.  I am getting there and enjoying this. 

Anyways this week, we got to help a sister move in. By move it I mean mostly clean her new house, as she had hardly anything she needed to move in to the house, and everything in japan is bite size, meaning the houses and their stuff is simple and easy so moving her stuff in was cake.  But cleaning and scrubbing, oh boy did I work up a sweat, I was already sweating on the like 40 min car ride to her house but then boy do you get used to being wet here. Like covered in sweat that looks like my arms are all nice and shiney, or sweaty and stinky I know how every you want to say it. And then the bike rides in the rain, it hasnt rained hard but its a constant drizzle that gets you wet for sure. As the rain comes down, I like to stick my tongue out and catch it, but got to be careful I'm not going too fast or else the water from the street that my wheel is shooting up will get in. Anyways love it here, it is pretty hot sometimes, and apparently I missed the summer so the worst is next to come next year, we will see maybe good I missed the summer but just means ill get 2 more!  

I love our little cute house, we live in.  It's small, but everyone in Japan is small. 

Well everything is small except for our area we work in.  One day last week, we got on a train for an hour, then we biked for an hour or two, then my bike broke (not my bike actually since we had to special order a bike because I am too tall,  some old one handed down) so we walked for an hour and then arrived at miyu's house.  She is an elderly lady and is awesome, she is so nice she made us mini jelly sandwiches, a bunch of vegetables as a salad, with some muigicha( tea most Americans wont like, I dont like yet, very common though). Anyways then we studied in the mall tried some tako (octopuss ) which was actually really good because it was encased in a sweet bread with chocolate on it and some sweet sauce on the octupus, would easily try again loved it. Anyways did some study, some eikiwa (English class) and it was a blast. Oh ya and all day its been raining, they say its like a typhoon or something, but I would just says its a bunch of wind and rain. Fun to get all soaked, my bike broke again so had to carry it. But not heavy so ya. Had a blast teaching, eikiwa they are always so much fun.   

Mom, I am actually making meals, for example I made some churros today it says I am suppose to deep fry them, but i just put it in the toaster and it was... well... ok. Yes I bought churros in Japan as one of my first purchases, it was a dollar for a bag so im like why not...

My shirt today is very dirty and black because carrying my bike and trying to fix it, so we will see how that goes...

We also met with the mission president and his wife they are awesome!  They told us what to focus on and make sure we are eating our fruits and veggies, seriously they are awesome and gave some good advice and some direction of what we should start doing.  They also left us with some brownies and cookies afterwards which always make us happy.

We  went to a Matsuri again, a Japanese festival thing they were playing bingo I thought it wass pretty funny, the place was super muddy like literally a swamp normally they are on the street but anyways talked to tons of kids and was fun.  Oh so there were please making mochi and they let us smack the dough with a giant hammer, it was cool I took some pictures ill send eventually just dont got time.   It was cool because this mattsuri had a ton of free stuff. This clear sugary sap, then some mochi with some jam. The lady there saw me eating it and was like be careful,  if you swallow too much you choke and die because mochi is super sticky.  There was one lady there who actually just came by to look at the church, and our is just kinda like 10 rooms decent sized church part of an apartment, church is two floors and well we showed her around and talked.  It was a good contact.

I am getting more and more comfortable with everything every day.  My companion is great and I feel the spirit strengthening me and helping us every day.

Tokyo Japan

We heard "about" Chase today, with an email from his mission president, President Nagano and a video of him getting assigned his first area and companion.

Chase will be serving in the Kisarazu area, in the Chiba Prefecture that is south of Tokyo.  It is the southern most part of the Tokyo Mission.  We can't make out his companions name but will 

He looks good, and you can catch a smile on the video and his "excited face"!

Kisarazu - Elder Wilcox first area

About Kisarazu

About Chiba Prefecture

Click here for a link to  Short video of him being assigned new area and companion if the video above doesn't work, especially with your mobile streaming devices.

Week #8: Travel Plans

Travel Plan Day: About to Wrap up 9 weeks in the MTC

This last week as usual was a busy week.   Our Pdays is full where we wake up early to workout at 4am then laundry at 5am, then we moved building/rooms at 6am because they are going to do some construction or something on our dorm, and then prepare lessons, playtime at 8am; volleyball and yada yada.  Pdays are great, nice change of pace and we also go to the temple.  Always awesome to go to the temple though was a little hot specially wearing a suit to the temple.

We also got to do "people in our purpose" which is awesome.  It is for new missionaries that are entering the MTC that are learning how to teach and is awesome.  Basically my companion and I started out a visit with an investigator then a room full of missionaries ask questions trying to help and testify of truth.  There are awesome missionaries and some that definitely more green, or those that try and be funny or try too hard.  For example, one of my favorites and funniest, in a way, but worked.

So it's his turn and he got the microphone and asked,  "So you are in college right now?"
She says "yes".
"What are you studying?"
"Economics."
"So you got a lot of important things going on in your life right now like marriage and college. Do you know what Sarah means in hebrew ? (that was her name)
She replies, "No, do you?"
He say, "It means princess. You are royalty."
She says, "me?"
 He says, "yes!"

It was a bit awkward, everyone was silent, but trying not to crack up, the approach was so different. This missionary was totally serious, at least when he taught he was focused on her and helping her it was just a different approach that took everyone by surprise.

We also teach some Skype TRC's where we taught Mirau Kyodai a lesson we talked simply about faith and shared it in relations to Alma 37:41,42,44  it was really cool and funny it was this gentleman from Kobe Japan he was super cool. He said he wanted to take a picture of us to put in on Facebook, Mom see if you can find it.  (Mom found it, and you can see it below)

Having a tablet helps greatly with scripture and language study, it also allows immersion in the work.
For example, I like to end everyday just sitting in my bed watching bible videos I always find joy in listening to them, they are all on gospel library and I just downloaded them all, plus of course the countless other church videos but I like bible videos the best.   I am studying hard, almost more nihongo: right now I study mostly just the romanji PMG and english PMG, trying to understand how they make sentences, or how I can potentially, definitely have a long way to go no doubt... continuously going through the phase where you feel oh I am good at this, I think I am getting this language, and then oh I am really bad at this and then oh I am doing good, and ya just constantly being humbled and confident.  I guess soon, very soon as we leave for Japan I will be even more humbled when I find out I know nothing of this language. :-)

By the way we got our flight plans, I leave next week (Tuesday morning for Japan) there are 30 of us here all traveling to the different Japanese Missions that day!

Interesting rumor...so apparently we moved out of the building we were in, but they didn't say exactly why, we assumed because of all the construction, because their is tons outside our residences. Turns out the problem was that there were bats in one of the shimai's buildings on the upper two floors so they moved into ours. Probably didn't tell us why or else the chorrotachi would obviously leave surprises of who knows what for the shimaitachi. Though all is good, this residence seems the exact same, but older, though definitely more crowded and noisy and definitely some hyper eigo senkyoshi.

From the only in the MTC department. . .

One guy here was sent a Shrek script.  The whole thing and he just randomly quotes it in his Shrek and Donkey voices and sings the song, kinda nice to have someone to entertain you...I want to challenge him to teach a whole lesson in his Donkey voice.

Anyways this is going the last week here so that is awesome... gonna be awesome to get to work...

There so much i want to write but so tired and no time, honestly these days are amazing!

This is how we practice our Japanese accents to sound like a native Japanese speaker.

30 missionaries leaving for Japan next week

Purple Day Celebration: When in the MTC you celebrate what you can...

Celebrating "Red" Day