The times and seasons of Elder Chase Wilcox and his experiences as a missionary in the Japan Tokyo Mission
Monday, May 29, 2017
Week #46: Transfer Week, Dodgeball and Kanji
The mission is doing great we are teaching four strong investigators and things are going great. We were a little busy this last week with transfers, this means more missionaries and needing to update things in the computer as well as help the new missionaries get set up with stuff. Things are going well one interesting thing that happened in the office is there is a person who on Facebook is causing problems an anti-Mormon rhetoric. He is posting negative posts on missionaries Facebook as well as reporting missionaries profiles as not using their real names. Because we use Elder and Sister on our Facebook page, we have blocked him for the most part, but he tries to message missionaries and sends his weird beliefs to people.
This week has been awesome we have done various typical transfer week stuff like training sessions and office work and then we taught some investigators that pretty much sums it up, we helped sister Nagano with her PowerPoint presentation for a conference where she will teach on organization and cleanliness.
Also this week when the new missionaries came we woke up to early the night after they came and went to play soccer, with President Nagano it was pretty fun half of us played dodge-ball half played soccer it was a blast. We won of course because well I was on President Nagano 's team.
You asked how my study of Japanese and Kanji is coming along, it it is still one of my daily tasks and goals. Though some missionaries never learn kanji, it really helps to be able to read it in many circumstances. But you can get by without learning it, I believe for you to be the most effective teacher and missionary you should learn it as much as you can. We read in Japanese multiple times a day, so in my opinion, if you invest in learning it now it will benefit you in the future. But I really just use kanji as the foundation to my learning because you can learn it, its simple as memorize the meaning of a <3 symbol means love really I just look at the kanji and keep trying to remember the readings in a kind of flashcard setting... ( in the beginning I focused on writing but that doesn't have as much use as a missionary so I have moved towards focusing on reading) You can type in this mission on your tablet so no need to learn to write but eventually i will get there.
Learning more and more each day, blessed by the opportunity to be here and hope to bless the lives of those I come in contact with.
Monday, May 22, 2017
Week #45: Mother's Day Skype and A week in the life...
It's a journal highlight letter as things are busy busy with transfers.
This week for Pday we called home for Mother's Day, it was awesome, it is always a joy to call home and see family. After that we headed to get groceries then we went home then to ikebukuro to meet Takadakyodaii. We went to a few restaurants before finding a good one we ending up going to this meat place I don't even know but anyways we ordered some hamburgs which is just like a ball of beef, its pretty okay I ordered a big huge 450g one the biggest they had there which wasn't too huge but definitely a big size, my companion got a normal Japanese 100g hamburg. His meal cost i think 800 yen, mine was 1800 yen. It was worth it. Anyways fun we talked with takada lyodaii and then we visited a hotel, I do not know what it is called but it has a garden inside it we took pictures and walked around and talked and it was free so why not. My companion had visited the hotel before and stayed there with his family he said, its garden its rated like top 6 in free tourist attractions my companion said, anyways super nice place. Was a fun day we came back ate and then went to family home evening with the single's ward where we made sushi rolls they are pretty good, i didn't put much fish in mine because I don't want to die, but ya it was a fun day.
Tuesday
So we started the day with planning then we did personal study, then went off traveling towards ikebukuro towards this music Daigaku, we probably biked around for about an hour and a half stopping people we passed and talking to them. We were biking and we saw this pretty long line outside this Ramen place called "Me toku"? Something like that so I told my companion I feel like some Ramen and that place had been suggested to us just yesterday when we ran into a return missionary with Takada kyodaii. Anyways we headed to the restaurant, our plan was to talk to people in the line. We hardly had to make an effort two people one adult working guy who worked and the office and his co worker friend talked to us, asked what we do, how we learned Japanese and other fun stuff, it was pretty good conversation for about 15 minutes while we were in line. Then they went it to eat. We were still waiting and we talked to the person behind us a teenage kid who knew English and we had a short conversation, we ordered and ate quickly. The people we talked to we have out Chirashis(flyers) to and invited them. From there we headed to the Music college, where we did our companion study, talking to people on the way there and then headed back. We did some office work some language study and other fun stuff. We finished the night with bible class reading and discussing in English Romans 8 and then watching 2 bible videos related to it. That was our day....
Wednesday
We met with an investigator we met a few days back, he was really nice, he is from Mongolia he has been living in japan for 8 years, he speaks very good Japanese he also speaks Chinese, Mongolian and French, he is very smart. He is actually Christian. We met him at the church, he came late because he couldn't find the church. He came in he walked in the church with us to meet and then as he walked he said( 神様の匂いです。) "Kamisama no nioi desu." Meaning it smells like god, he is a pretty funny guy he hadn't been in a church for about 8 years he said, so he was delighted to come. We talked to him about missionaries asked what he expects, and he said he hopes to come closer to Christ and God. He is a very nice and humble person he is 28 just graduated Waseda and now looking for a job. We asked him to read the restoration pamphlet and the Book of Mormon and he said he will and meet with us again. We also that day had our eikaiwa classes (english class) and we talk those we had a game and also worked in the office and that was our day.
Thursday....
Thursday the big thing we did was meet with a man we met who is Arabic he is very kind and interested in learning about Christianity he shared about his beliefs and we discussed with him asked him in depth what he believes and we shared the restoration with him and asked him to pray about it. He is very kind and willing to listen, so happy to meet with him again.
Friday
We taught English and went finding... we ran sports night and and played dodge ball with some students. 楽しっかた。😄
Saturday
We had district meeting in the morning we talked about the power of the Book of Mormon, also we talked about family history, we mogi-ed (roleplayed) we talked about the zone vision of a renewed understanding of our calling. After district meeting we had staff meeting, it was Elder Dibble's birthday so after staff meeting we went to Johnathon's and had a birthday lunch with Elder dibble, he is one of the senior missionaries who is the financial clerk, he is very jolly and full of joy, he is like 78 or something and still wakes up everyday and runs 4 miles, he has a log of all the miles he has ran and i think he has said he ran more then 40,000. Which is just like crazy. He is super nice and the jolliest old man you will ever met. Afterwards we headed to the office did some office work, updated the continuity book. Did some study... then had music night . It was a awesome day... things are going awesome.
Sunday, was a good old day we had our usual bunch of church meetings and then a devotional afterwards for recent converts and investigators, where people shared their testimonies and we ate pizza, it was a pretty cool experience. We got to hear a lot of testimonies born, and then we watched, a bunch of Elder Oak's devotional, we were a little busy with office work and this next week need to spend a little bit of time in the office, but things are going great, our investigators came to church. They are awesome guys and look forward to meeting with them more and seeing them at church, things are going great.
By the way transfer announcement was last night I am staying and so is my companion, the only change is I am district leader now. Which should be fun.
100g Hamburger patty - Normal Japanese Style |
450g Hamburger Patty - Five Guy Style |
Did I mention we went to the Zoo? |
Challenged this guy to read the Book of Mormon |
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