Elder Terry taking to a guy on his own, the beach, jumping with the Japanese, Japanese Harley Davidson, more Japanese friends
Monday, April 28, 2014
Extra pictures!
Elder Terry taking to a guy on his own, the beach, jumping with the Japanese, Japanese Harley Davidson, more Japanese friends
Hisashiburi
Hello everyone!
This is what I did this week. Sorry it's kind of long, Pday was all funky last week. Luckily it's all fixed today! Enjoy!
Thursday was interesting after waking up and kind of working out we all quickly had to get dressed and eat and out the door in order to catch the train that would take us to Yamato in time for our transfer Zone conference. Zone conference was about three hours long. We did a lot of trainings and a lot of different things as a a zone such as reading from the Book of Mormon together and talking about how we can help the people of Japan better. Elder Christensen and I demonstrated how to teach the first half of the 'Gospel of Jesus Christ' pamphlet in Japanese to the whole zone. Considering how little time we had to practice teaching together, it was amazing to see just how well we were able to teach through the guidance of the spirit! In the middle we took a quick five minute break. I took that as an opportunity to play the piano to ensure that everyone was able to retain the spirit that was present in the meeting as well as keep quiet. It's amazing how well music is able to impact people! The training as a whole was really good. The Zone leaders clearly put a lot of time and effort into preparing the meeting and making sure that it was a success. I was glad that I was able to help out with just a small portion. After the meeting, on our way out we passed by the relief society sisters who were making some Melon Pan. It was AMAZING. Melon pan is definitely my favorite pastry that I've had here in Japan. It's definitely something that I want to learn how to make and continue to make after the mission. On our way to the Train station we decided that we were going to have lunch in Yamato. We went to an Udon noodle shop. I couldn't read any of the signs. So I just pointed at something. Turns out I make a good guess. It was udon thankfully. After lunch we went to Ofuna to proselyte. There in the station we met a couple who were members visiting from Atlanta. The wife served,in Japan back when she was a missionary and they were visiting her old mission areas. They were really nice. ElderTerry and I decided that we wanted to be more effective with our proselyting than normal so we changed our streeting tactics slightly. The results were amazing. People were much more readily available to talk and converse about religion and the Gospel. We were able to give out a Book of Mormon and even set up an appointment to meet with another man on Saturday! Our afternoon was filled with Miracles. We then came home, had dinner and then went to the church in order to plan for next week. In all, it was an amazing day!
Friday was a good day. We went to the church after lunch to watch the first District using the church's wifi. After watching it we went out and hit the streets to talk to everyone! We decided that since it was nice out that we needed to go to the beach. We stopped by the bank to withdraw some money. While waiting we talked to these toe people from Texas. They were really cool. They were part of some English Tour of Kamakura however they must have gotten lost because there was no tour in sight. We then walked over to the beach and talked to a group of college sophomores. I think they might have been on a group date to Kamakura. But oh wells. They received us well and we talked a lot about college and Kamakura and Japan. I'm still amazed about how well people speak English in this country. It's really a blessing for me and even more so for Elder Terry who is still struggling with the language. I'm still struggling with Japanese, but on a whole completely different level of confusing. We walked some more down the beach and found a group of middle school students. They were really cool. They wanted to take a photo. So naturally we all had to jump. We took several photos until we had a good one where everyone successfully had accomplished the jump. We then talked to our friend Merrick from Poland for about 40 min about various things. We talked mostly about Russia and Life as a missionary. He says that it would be hard to be a Mormon Missionary and thus he could never ever join the a church. I think that he is a little bit too old to be a regularly proselyting missionary anyways. He is really really cool. I would definitely come back and hang out with him on the beach after the mission. After we finished talking to Merrick on the beach we doubled back and walked down the beach some more. We called the day before Brother Kamei to see if we could come and visit him a little bit and share a quick message. He drew us a map last Sunday so between the map and the GPS on our iPads we were eventually able to find the house of Brother Kamei. We stopped by, shared a quick message about being member missionaries and headed back home for dinner. The walk back seemed so very long. We must have walked at least 6+ miles between going to the beach, going to Brother Kamei's house and then going home. It was nice that Elder Busteed and Christensen had already made dinner because we didn't have to spend the whole time cooking and could relax for a little bit. After dinner we spent the rest of the night inviting investigators and potential investigators to the "Lets spring night!" Activity that we were planning on having on Saturday. A lot of them said that they would come so it should be a really really good turnout!
Saturday was a lot of fun. We woke up and watched the entire district for both personal and 12-week study. I think that it would be odd being a missionary and being filmed while doing normal missionary work. I don't think that I would enjoy it at all. After language study in the afternoon, we walked outside and saw that the weather was really nice. We had planned the night before to walk to the Big Buddah and return for spring night, but as we passed the beach we saw a ton of carp kites flying over the beach some took a detour and decided to see what has happening over by the kites. Turns out Kamakura has a kite flying club. We hung out with the kite makers and our friend Merrick. We didn't have to go around seeking to find people to talk to. People came to us and it led to natural conversations about the church and why there were two white guys flying giant Carp-kites on Kamakura Beach in Japan. It was a lot of fun and we got some cool pictures from it too! The only downside was the obnoxious amount of sand in my shoes from walking around the beach. I didn't get it all out until I returned home with Elder Terry. We were running low on time so we had to leave and start walking to the church to help set up "Let's spring night" We got there and decided that we really wanted to print off a copy of "The Questions of the Soul" Paper that we use in conjunction wih the Book of Mormon in English for Tai when he came to church for "Let's spring night" but as it was printing, the printer became jammed and it no longer worked. Elder Terry and I spent about 15 min trying to figure out where the paper disappeared to. We finally found a secret lever that exposed the innards of the printer to us. We finally fixed the printer and went down to the room where we were going to spring the night. Katsu and Ookubo showed up. However Tai and Alexandru never showed up. The spring night was a blast, people did a lot lf things for the talent show such as singing or playing some sort of instrument. We sang Scatter Sunshine as missionaries in Japanese and in English. I'm glad that we weren't being judged. We also split into two teams and had cake making competitions. It was 'who can make a cake as fast as you can without making a gigantic mess in the church' type of contest. I think they announced the winner, but it was in Japanese so unfortunately, I didn't really understand. At the end we had some soup and some snacks. It was a great experience for all who attended.
Sunday was a whole lot more normal than last weeks' Sunday. We woke up, did a little studying and went to church to have DCS with the Ward mission leader and one of the Ward mission leaders. We talked about our investigators and the success of the "let's spring night" event on Saturday and talked about the possibility of having other events like it in the near future. Church was really good. During sacrament meeting, the speakers talked about how the atonement of the savior has influenced their lives. The sacrament meting was really well done. The Kanagawa sisters came for sacrament meeting and brought Ykiko, a 19 year old girl who lives in our area but came to introduce us to her. Her English is really really good. The entire Ward thought the Kanagawa sisters were the new Kamakura sisters. I guess Kamakura Ward really wants sisters. They weren't this excited when they got four elders. Oh wells. I guess I'll never understand. But Yukiko is super cool. We traded numbers and she is coming to English class early so we can get to know her a bit before we start meeting with her and talk about the church and teach her. She seems pretty keen on learning about such things so it should be a fun experience. After church, we went to the apartment and ate some mochi mostly because we ran out of food Saturday morning and didn't plan accordingly. Luckily we had enough food to sustain us until Monday morning! Thank goodness for food storage and pasta! Once lunch was over we walked over to a park that we found on the area map in hopes to find people interested in the gospel. We got pretty lost and nothing really came out of us walking over. Although we were successful in talking to people along the way. Some man stopped his moped to come over and talk to us. Apparently he used to be a student of our English Class and wants to come back. Maybe we were supposed to be close to that park to meet him. You can never know! We walked back home, then had dinner and wrote our weekly emails to the president.
Well that's a week in the life of Elder J. Alan Farr. I hope you enjoyed reading!
V/R
Elder Farr
Pics: koi kite, regular kite, me with one of the koi for size reference, Katsu our crazy English student and the cake we made in ten min.
This is what I did this week. Sorry it's kind of long, Pday was all funky last week. Luckily it's all fixed today! Enjoy!
Thursday was interesting after waking up and kind of working out we all quickly had to get dressed and eat and out the door in order to catch the train that would take us to Yamato in time for our transfer Zone conference. Zone conference was about three hours long. We did a lot of trainings and a lot of different things as a a zone such as reading from the Book of Mormon together and talking about how we can help the people of Japan better. Elder Christensen and I demonstrated how to teach the first half of the 'Gospel of Jesus Christ' pamphlet in Japanese to the whole zone. Considering how little time we had to practice teaching together, it was amazing to see just how well we were able to teach through the guidance of the spirit! In the middle we took a quick five minute break. I took that as an opportunity to play the piano to ensure that everyone was able to retain the spirit that was present in the meeting as well as keep quiet. It's amazing how well music is able to impact people! The training as a whole was really good. The Zone leaders clearly put a lot of time and effort into preparing the meeting and making sure that it was a success. I was glad that I was able to help out with just a small portion. After the meeting, on our way out we passed by the relief society sisters who were making some Melon Pan. It was AMAZING. Melon pan is definitely my favorite pastry that I've had here in Japan. It's definitely something that I want to learn how to make and continue to make after the mission. On our way to the Train station we decided that we were going to have lunch in Yamato. We went to an Udon noodle shop. I couldn't read any of the signs. So I just pointed at something. Turns out I make a good guess. It was udon thankfully. After lunch we went to Ofuna to proselyte. There in the station we met a couple who were members visiting from Atlanta. The wife served,in Japan back when she was a missionary and they were visiting her old mission areas. They were really nice. ElderTerry and I decided that we wanted to be more effective with our proselyting than normal so we changed our streeting tactics slightly. The results were amazing. People were much more readily available to talk and converse about religion and the Gospel. We were able to give out a Book of Mormon and even set up an appointment to meet with another man on Saturday! Our afternoon was filled with Miracles. We then came home, had dinner and then went to the church in order to plan for next week. In all, it was an amazing day!
Friday was a good day. We went to the church after lunch to watch the first District using the church's wifi. After watching it we went out and hit the streets to talk to everyone! We decided that since it was nice out that we needed to go to the beach. We stopped by the bank to withdraw some money. While waiting we talked to these toe people from Texas. They were really cool. They were part of some English Tour of Kamakura however they must have gotten lost because there was no tour in sight. We then walked over to the beach and talked to a group of college sophomores. I think they might have been on a group date to Kamakura. But oh wells. They received us well and we talked a lot about college and Kamakura and Japan. I'm still amazed about how well people speak English in this country. It's really a blessing for me and even more so for Elder Terry who is still struggling with the language. I'm still struggling with Japanese, but on a whole completely different level of confusing. We walked some more down the beach and found a group of middle school students. They were really cool. They wanted to take a photo. So naturally we all had to jump. We took several photos until we had a good one where everyone successfully had accomplished the jump. We then talked to our friend Merrick from Poland for about 40 min about various things. We talked mostly about Russia and Life as a missionary. He says that it would be hard to be a Mormon Missionary and thus he could never ever join the a church. I think that he is a little bit too old to be a regularly proselyting missionary anyways. He is really really cool. I would definitely come back and hang out with him on the beach after the mission. After we finished talking to Merrick on the beach we doubled back and walked down the beach some more. We called the day before Brother Kamei to see if we could come and visit him a little bit and share a quick message. He drew us a map last Sunday so between the map and the GPS on our iPads we were eventually able to find the house of Brother Kamei. We stopped by, shared a quick message about being member missionaries and headed back home for dinner. The walk back seemed so very long. We must have walked at least 6+ miles between going to the beach, going to Brother Kamei's house and then going home. It was nice that Elder Busteed and Christensen had already made dinner because we didn't have to spend the whole time cooking and could relax for a little bit. After dinner we spent the rest of the night inviting investigators and potential investigators to the "Lets spring night!" Activity that we were planning on having on Saturday. A lot of them said that they would come so it should be a really really good turnout!
Saturday was a lot of fun. We woke up and watched the entire district for both personal and 12-week study. I think that it would be odd being a missionary and being filmed while doing normal missionary work. I don't think that I would enjoy it at all. After language study in the afternoon, we walked outside and saw that the weather was really nice. We had planned the night before to walk to the Big Buddah and return for spring night, but as we passed the beach we saw a ton of carp kites flying over the beach some took a detour and decided to see what has happening over by the kites. Turns out Kamakura has a kite flying club. We hung out with the kite makers and our friend Merrick. We didn't have to go around seeking to find people to talk to. People came to us and it led to natural conversations about the church and why there were two white guys flying giant Carp-kites on Kamakura Beach in Japan. It was a lot of fun and we got some cool pictures from it too! The only downside was the obnoxious amount of sand in my shoes from walking around the beach. I didn't get it all out until I returned home with Elder Terry. We were running low on time so we had to leave and start walking to the church to help set up "Let's spring night" We got there and decided that we really wanted to print off a copy of "The Questions of the Soul" Paper that we use in conjunction wih the Book of Mormon in English for Tai when he came to church for "Let's spring night" but as it was printing, the printer became jammed and it no longer worked. Elder Terry and I spent about 15 min trying to figure out where the paper disappeared to. We finally found a secret lever that exposed the innards of the printer to us. We finally fixed the printer and went down to the room where we were going to spring the night. Katsu and Ookubo showed up. However Tai and Alexandru never showed up. The spring night was a blast, people did a lot lf things for the talent show such as singing or playing some sort of instrument. We sang Scatter Sunshine as missionaries in Japanese and in English. I'm glad that we weren't being judged. We also split into two teams and had cake making competitions. It was 'who can make a cake as fast as you can without making a gigantic mess in the church' type of contest. I think they announced the winner, but it was in Japanese so unfortunately, I didn't really understand. At the end we had some soup and some snacks. It was a great experience for all who attended.
Sunday was a whole lot more normal than last weeks' Sunday. We woke up, did a little studying and went to church to have DCS with the Ward mission leader and one of the Ward mission leaders. We talked about our investigators and the success of the "let's spring night" event on Saturday and talked about the possibility of having other events like it in the near future. Church was really good. During sacrament meeting, the speakers talked about how the atonement of the savior has influenced their lives. The sacrament meting was really well done. The Kanagawa sisters came for sacrament meeting and brought Ykiko, a 19 year old girl who lives in our area but came to introduce us to her. Her English is really really good. The entire Ward thought the Kanagawa sisters were the new Kamakura sisters. I guess Kamakura Ward really wants sisters. They weren't this excited when they got four elders. Oh wells. I guess I'll never understand. But Yukiko is super cool. We traded numbers and she is coming to English class early so we can get to know her a bit before we start meeting with her and talk about the church and teach her. She seems pretty keen on learning about such things so it should be a fun experience. After church, we went to the apartment and ate some mochi mostly because we ran out of food Saturday morning and didn't plan accordingly. Luckily we had enough food to sustain us until Monday morning! Thank goodness for food storage and pasta! Once lunch was over we walked over to a park that we found on the area map in hopes to find people interested in the gospel. We got pretty lost and nothing really came out of us walking over. Although we were successful in talking to people along the way. Some man stopped his moped to come over and talk to us. Apparently he used to be a student of our English Class and wants to come back. Maybe we were supposed to be close to that park to meet him. You can never know! We walked back home, then had dinner and wrote our weekly emails to the president.
Well that's a week in the life of Elder J. Alan Farr. I hope you enjoyed reading!
V/R
Elder Farr
Pics: koi kite, regular kite, me with one of the koi for size reference, Katsu our crazy English student and the cake we made in ten min.
Monday, April 14, 2014
ハロー from Japan!
Hello Everyone!
I hope everyone had a fun week. This is what I did this week...
Tuesday was a lot of fun. I went on splits with my old companion Elder Christensen and our trainees went on splits together (I bet that was fun). The day started off relatively normal, we went and did study and then went to the church to use the internet for our iPads to teach Elder Busteed and Elder Terry how to use Family History while proselyting. Afterwards Elder Christensen and. I went to Higashi Totuska because I've only been there three times before. We walked around for a little bit and found this park hidden in the middle of the city. We went there and talked to this old man who had no teeth for maybe 40 min about our church and where it is. He said that he was going to come to church so we'll have to have faith and hope that he will remember, and be able to make it this up-coming Sunday. We went back and met a woman who LOVED America. She was really adamant about her love towards America. She also said that she loved Ellen Degeneres. I think that that might have been the first time I've heard anyone in Japan say that. We also ran into one of our base friends named Malcolm. He was with his fiancée hanging out in Kamakura. It was super weird seeing him since we only ever talked to him for maybe 20 min like four weeks ago. He was super impressed that we still remembered his name. After dinner we went and street end around towards the beach. We met a man from Arabia who speaks fluent Japanese. It's crazy seeing how many people come to Japan for various reasons. I froze to death on the walk home. Luckily we don't have to live in Sapporo where the floors of their houses freeze over. He was really cool, he said that he was going to school in Japan to learn Japanese and is studying international business.
Wednesday was a lot of fun. Elder Terry and I reunited as a normal Missionary Companionship and resumed proselyting as normal. We went to Zushi and walked around the Zushi Ginza trying to talk to people. We also talked to some kids who played soccer. In Zushi there is this big bridge that over looks the river that leads to the Ocean. It was a lot of fun, but we then went home, had some food and afterwards we went to English class to teach some English. It was really fun. This wild man named came and it was a blast because he kept saying all these silly things to practice his English. He is really really good at English. Apparently he used to come to our English class back in the day, but no longer. Hopefully he comes again this following Wednesday! A lot of our normal students didn't show up to English Class so it was kind of Boring, hopefully EVERYONE shows up!
Thursday was really warm out. By then most of the Sakura trees are starting to lose their Cherry blossoms and bloom leaves. In the afternoon Elder Terry and I decided that we needed to go somewhere else for the day to try and find people who would be open for our message. We decided to travel down this really narrow road for a while until we came to this community of houses. It was Really Hot but we went throughout the neighborhood and knocked on every house door. We met a couple of people who were nice and willing to talk but weren't really all that interested in what we had to offer. We left the nice community and headed back toward our house and the the Church. We decided that instead of passing out flyers for an hour or so we were going to walk to the beach and see what was going on around there. We talked to a few people on the way, including this old man who was really keen on talking about whatever. After parting ways we eventually got to the beach. We met two Nepali men who had been living in Japan for many years and were attending school for international business management. They gave us some Japanese learning tips and then we walked around the beach for a bit. We saw some kids picking up trash so we asked them why and they told us that they were part of a service club. We asked if we could help. They seemed absolutely awestruck by such a request. They got us trash bags and grabbers. We picked up trash for about 29 min with the big group and then we parted ways. Were going to try and come back next week to pick up trash off the beach! We walked home quickly, had a very quick dinner, and spent the rest of the evening doing our weekly planning session. Thursday was long, but it was fun!
Friday we got up, and ran around to mark out the streets so that we can train more effectively in the mornings and know where we're running to instead of just having the watch tell us when we need to stop. I think it's better to have a visual maker, but that might be a personal opinion. After working out, we cleaned the apartment a bit. We showered, ate breakfast and then studied until about 9:40 where we had to catch a tran to Hodogaya so we could make it to the district meeting. The meeting was a lot of fun, we had the Zone leaders and the Sister training leader in the meeting so it was a packed house. But needless to say, it was loads of fun. Afterwards I went on splits with Elder Otsuka. We went to his house, had some chicken nuggets and then hit the streets after doing a quick mandatory apartment check. We walked around for a couple of hours and talked to a bunch of people. We gave out several copies of the Book of Mormon and then walked to a park. We met a man who loves to golf and we talked to him for really really long time. Then all of a sudden he got up and left us sitting there wondering what happened. He probably forgot to do something. We spent a lot of time just walking around and talking to people, it was a lot of fun. We make a pretty good team. I would enjoy being his companion. Unfortunately his companion doesn't think the same thing...Haha. We came back to the apartment and had rice with some cheese and chicken sauce that I created. It wasn't half bad either! We finished eating and then we went out and headed to the train station to go and pass out English flyers. Apparently the Hodogaya Elders got banned from passing out flyers in a certain spot so we tried to find an effective spot to pass out flyers. We didn't really find any but did talk to a few people too so our efforts weren't in vain. We found a guy who really wanted to come to church, he said that he would come the next opportunity he had! For dinner I experimented a bit with chicken and the whole time Elder Otsuka was questioning my decisions. I guess the Japanese don't like to experiment as much with their cooking as I do. We had a lot of fun proselyting in Hodogaya. We saw a lot of miracles and helped progress the work. Hooray!
Saturday and Sunday we travelled by train to Shonandai to watch General Conference at the Stake Centre. It was a lot of fun! It was good being able to listen to the leaders of the Church in English. The Spirit really strong. Instead of the normal two hours in between sessions of Conference we only had one! Unfortunately none of our investigators came, but I'm sure they will come to Church this following Sunday!
Have a great week! Stay 元気！
Very Respectfully,
Elder J. Alan Farr
Pictures: New Japanese plebe friend, cleaning up trash on the beach
I hope everyone had a fun week. This is what I did this week...
Tuesday was a lot of fun. I went on splits with my old companion Elder Christensen and our trainees went on splits together (I bet that was fun). The day started off relatively normal, we went and did study and then went to the church to use the internet for our iPads to teach Elder Busteed and Elder Terry how to use Family History while proselyting. Afterwards Elder Christensen and. I went to Higashi Totuska because I've only been there three times before. We walked around for a little bit and found this park hidden in the middle of the city. We went there and talked to this old man who had no teeth for maybe 40 min about our church and where it is. He said that he was going to come to church so we'll have to have faith and hope that he will remember, and be able to make it this up-coming Sunday. We went back and met a woman who LOVED America. She was really adamant about her love towards America. She also said that she loved Ellen Degeneres. I think that that might have been the first time I've heard anyone in Japan say that. We also ran into one of our base friends named Malcolm. He was with his fiancée hanging out in Kamakura. It was super weird seeing him since we only ever talked to him for maybe 20 min like four weeks ago. He was super impressed that we still remembered his name. After dinner we went and street end around towards the beach. We met a man from Arabia who speaks fluent Japanese. It's crazy seeing how many people come to Japan for various reasons. I froze to death on the walk home. Luckily we don't have to live in Sapporo where the floors of their houses freeze over. He was really cool, he said that he was going to school in Japan to learn Japanese and is studying international business.
Wednesday was a lot of fun. Elder Terry and I reunited as a normal Missionary Companionship and resumed proselyting as normal. We went to Zushi and walked around the Zushi Ginza trying to talk to people. We also talked to some kids who played soccer. In Zushi there is this big bridge that over looks the river that leads to the Ocean. It was a lot of fun, but we then went home, had some food and afterwards we went to English class to teach some English. It was really fun. This wild man named came and it was a blast because he kept saying all these silly things to practice his English. He is really really good at English. Apparently he used to come to our English class back in the day, but no longer. Hopefully he comes again this following Wednesday! A lot of our normal students didn't show up to English Class so it was kind of Boring, hopefully EVERYONE shows up!
Thursday was really warm out. By then most of the Sakura trees are starting to lose their Cherry blossoms and bloom leaves. In the afternoon Elder Terry and I decided that we needed to go somewhere else for the day to try and find people who would be open for our message. We decided to travel down this really narrow road for a while until we came to this community of houses. It was Really Hot but we went throughout the neighborhood and knocked on every house door. We met a couple of people who were nice and willing to talk but weren't really all that interested in what we had to offer. We left the nice community and headed back toward our house and the the Church. We decided that instead of passing out flyers for an hour or so we were going to walk to the beach and see what was going on around there. We talked to a few people on the way, including this old man who was really keen on talking about whatever. After parting ways we eventually got to the beach. We met two Nepali men who had been living in Japan for many years and were attending school for international business management. They gave us some Japanese learning tips and then we walked around the beach for a bit. We saw some kids picking up trash so we asked them why and they told us that they were part of a service club. We asked if we could help. They seemed absolutely awestruck by such a request. They got us trash bags and grabbers. We picked up trash for about 29 min with the big group and then we parted ways. Were going to try and come back next week to pick up trash off the beach! We walked home quickly, had a very quick dinner, and spent the rest of the evening doing our weekly planning session. Thursday was long, but it was fun!
Friday we got up, and ran around to mark out the streets so that we can train more effectively in the mornings and know where we're running to instead of just having the watch tell us when we need to stop. I think it's better to have a visual maker, but that might be a personal opinion. After working out, we cleaned the apartment a bit. We showered, ate breakfast and then studied until about 9:40 where we had to catch a tran to Hodogaya so we could make it to the district meeting. The meeting was a lot of fun, we had the Zone leaders and the Sister training leader in the meeting so it was a packed house. But needless to say, it was loads of fun. Afterwards I went on splits with Elder Otsuka. We went to his house, had some chicken nuggets and then hit the streets after doing a quick mandatory apartment check. We walked around for a couple of hours and talked to a bunch of people. We gave out several copies of the Book of Mormon and then walked to a park. We met a man who loves to golf and we talked to him for really really long time. Then all of a sudden he got up and left us sitting there wondering what happened. He probably forgot to do something. We spent a lot of time just walking around and talking to people, it was a lot of fun. We make a pretty good team. I would enjoy being his companion. Unfortunately his companion doesn't think the same thing...Haha. We came back to the apartment and had rice with some cheese and chicken sauce that I created. It wasn't half bad either! We finished eating and then we went out and headed to the train station to go and pass out English flyers. Apparently the Hodogaya Elders got banned from passing out flyers in a certain spot so we tried to find an effective spot to pass out flyers. We didn't really find any but did talk to a few people too so our efforts weren't in vain. We found a guy who really wanted to come to church, he said that he would come the next opportunity he had! For dinner I experimented a bit with chicken and the whole time Elder Otsuka was questioning my decisions. I guess the Japanese don't like to experiment as much with their cooking as I do. We had a lot of fun proselyting in Hodogaya. We saw a lot of miracles and helped progress the work. Hooray!
Saturday and Sunday we travelled by train to Shonandai to watch General Conference at the Stake Centre. It was a lot of fun! It was good being able to listen to the leaders of the Church in English. The Spirit really strong. Instead of the normal two hours in between sessions of Conference we only had one! Unfortunately none of our investigators came, but I'm sure they will come to Church this following Sunday!
Have a great week! Stay 元気！
Very Respectfully,
Elder J. Alan Farr
Pictures: New Japanese plebe friend, cleaning up trash on the beach
Monday, April 7, 2014
Hello Everyone!
皆様、
On Wednesday, Elder Terry and I studied normally. We got out around 1pm and I decided to take Elder Terry to the Big Buddah. The weather was absolutely gorgeous. The Sakura in full bloom, we headed out down the back road to the Big Buddah. We talked to a couple of people on the way over. Nobody seemed really interested, but were nice none the less. We got to the Buddah and walked around talking to several tourists. We ended up talking to this woman who was running a kanji joke t-shirt store right by the Buddah. I explained to her that I couldn't buy any since they wouldn't fit me and I don't understand Kanji. She was really nice nonetheless. Down the road we talked to a man who owns an Indian goods import store. He talked to us about his life in India, the food, and his experience here in Japan. He was really cool. He talked a little bit about religion with us, but customers came in wanting to buy stuff and since we were just hanging out talking we left. We then found a man who was trying to sell people honey. He was a beekeeper and traveled all over Japan taking his hive with him to have them create different different flavors of honey. He gave us at least ten different honeys to try. The best ones were the Sakura flavored honey and the mikan flavored honey. I wanted to buy some but they were all wayyyyyy too expensive. The rest of the day was uneventful, we mostly ran around talking to people but had many really cool
Thursday we woke up to rain. Lots and lots of rain. It rained the whole entire day. Luckily for us, Thursdays are the days that we do our weekly planning. Because of this, we spent much of the day indoors trying to,set up the next week for success. After lunch, Elder Terry and I went to the church and sat down in the Primary and went to town with planning. We essentially planned out what we were going to do each day for the next 7 days. We talked about how we can help our friends come closer to Christ and how we could serve the people of Kamakura Better. When we were finished, it was raining hard so we decided that instead of walking around and talking to people while being cold, wet, and miserable. We were going to go through the old area Book and call people that had previous contact with the missionaries. We did this for about an hour or so. I was only able to get a hold of one man named Dieter and then we broke for diner. Afterwards, it was raining so much that that we didn't want to go outside p, so we called our investigators, set up appointments for the coming week and then proceeded to continue calling people who had previously met the missionaries. What happened next was nothing short of a miracle. As we continued to call people, people started picking up! And then people started talking, and listening! By the time the night was over, we had several appointments, commitments from people who said that they were coming to church, and I even taught the first lesson over the phone from a man who called back and said that he had time to listen to our message over the phone. It was absolutely miraculous. Here in the Tokyo south mission, President Wada is always talking about working Hard, smart, and Inspired. I think that we were definitely led by the spirit that night to find the people were prepared. This has definitely strengthened my testimony about the truthfulness of our message and how it can help the people of Japan!
Friday morning the rain stopped. Elder Terry and I went and ran sprints along a Sakura tree-lined cobblestone road that nobody was driving on. It sucked. After our morning stuff, we went out to the church to make some phone calls. Along the way to the church we talked to about five different people about our roles as missionaries a and even talked to this one man who lived in the next city over about the history of Kamakura and Japan. He told me that I should go and visit Kyoto and other places here in Japan. It's really cool swing all the history in this country. I am so blessed to be living here in Historic Kamakura. We made a few phone calls and then left the church to go and try our hand at talking to people on the street. It was absolutely AMAZING outside. The great weather gave me and my companion and I an Energy boost and we talked to just about every person that we crossed paths with. We walked to the beach to see if our English-speaking friends were there but the wind was so intense that it was blowing sand into my eyes causing them to hurt. We returned back to the apartment, ate some dinner and then went back out. We decided to go and knock on houses. I threw Elder Terry under the bus a few times But, he's really improving. It's crazy how quickly he is. We finished the day off with some more phone calls and retired for the night.
Saturday was super busy. We went to 保土ヶ谷 so I could conduct District meeting. That finished after 90 or so minutes and then we had to rush back to Kamakura by 2pm so we could meet Alexander one of our friends to hang out in Kamakura with. He texted us that he was going to be a little late so we went to a seven eleven type store and bought some onigiri and then went and bought some bread at the next-door bakery. We sat and ate our onigiri. The thing with onigiri is that I can't read the kanji or know the hiragana meaning even though I can read it. So every time I bite into one it's the rice based equal of Russian-roulette. Usually I win, but every so often I lose and get something absolutely disgusting. We went and saw the Sakura with him, then we went to the biggest shrine here in Kamakura 八幡宮 (Hachimangu Shrine) and took some cool pictures. In a few weeks they will be having a spring festival all full of Japanese archery and Kimonoed people and other super cool traditional Japanese things. After we hung out we trained over to Higashi Totsuka where we met Brother Sasa for a practice lesson. We were there for about 39 min teaching the first discussion and afterwards he gave us plenty of good advice and constructive criticism. We went back home after for dinner, then we went to the church to type up some stuff for Sunday missionary meetings. It was a long day, but I'm glad.
Sunday was pretty good. We woke up. We went to the missionary correlation meeting with the Ward council and the Ward mission leader but had to peace out rather quickly because we had to meet two people at the train station and walk to the church. Unfortunately they never showed up. We tried to call them, but they didn't pick up. So with five minutes until the start of sacrament meeting, we sprinted back to the church and snuck in as the opening prayer finished and the opening hymn began. I'm sure the members were wondering why the missionaries were sweating so profusely. Church was uneventful, we talked about the sacrament and passover and their similarities. In elders quorum we talked about bearing a proper testimony. After church, we went to the apartment and got umbrellas and spent the rest of the day in the pouring rain talking to people and ringing doorbells. After dinner we went to the church and took care of some things that we had to do there. Even though it rained, it was a really really nice day. We definitely helped improve the lives of people here in Japan.
This week was a fun, miracle-filled week. I'm so excited for what's in store next week!
Very Respectfully,
Elder J. Alan Farr
On Wednesday, Elder Terry and I studied normally. We got out around 1pm and I decided to take Elder Terry to the Big Buddah. The weather was absolutely gorgeous. The Sakura in full bloom, we headed out down the back road to the Big Buddah. We talked to a couple of people on the way over. Nobody seemed really interested, but were nice none the less. We got to the Buddah and walked around talking to several tourists. We ended up talking to this woman who was running a kanji joke t-shirt store right by the Buddah. I explained to her that I couldn't buy any since they wouldn't fit me and I don't understand Kanji. She was really nice nonetheless. Down the road we talked to a man who owns an Indian goods import store. He talked to us about his life in India, the food, and his experience here in Japan. He was really cool. He talked a little bit about religion with us, but customers came in wanting to buy stuff and since we were just hanging out talking we left. We then found a man who was trying to sell people honey. He was a beekeeper and traveled all over Japan taking his hive with him to have them create different different flavors of honey. He gave us at least ten different honeys to try. The best ones were the Sakura flavored honey and the mikan flavored honey. I wanted to buy some but they were all wayyyyyy too expensive. The rest of the day was uneventful, we mostly ran around talking to people but had many really cool
Thursday we woke up to rain. Lots and lots of rain. It rained the whole entire day. Luckily for us, Thursdays are the days that we do our weekly planning. Because of this, we spent much of the day indoors trying to,set up the next week for success. After lunch, Elder Terry and I went to the church and sat down in the Primary and went to town with planning. We essentially planned out what we were going to do each day for the next 7 days. We talked about how we can help our friends come closer to Christ and how we could serve the people of Kamakura Better. When we were finished, it was raining hard so we decided that instead of walking around and talking to people while being cold, wet, and miserable. We were going to go through the old area Book and call people that had previous contact with the missionaries. We did this for about an hour or so. I was only able to get a hold of one man named Dieter and then we broke for diner. Afterwards, it was raining so much that that we didn't want to go outside p, so we called our investigators, set up appointments for the coming week and then proceeded to continue calling people who had previously met the missionaries. What happened next was nothing short of a miracle. As we continued to call people, people started picking up! And then people started talking, and listening! By the time the night was over, we had several appointments, commitments from people who said that they were coming to church, and I even taught the first lesson over the phone from a man who called back and said that he had time to listen to our message over the phone. It was absolutely miraculous. Here in the Tokyo south mission, President Wada is always talking about working Hard, smart, and Inspired. I think that we were definitely led by the spirit that night to find the people were prepared. This has definitely strengthened my testimony about the truthfulness of our message and how it can help the people of Japan!
Friday morning the rain stopped. Elder Terry and I went and ran sprints along a Sakura tree-lined cobblestone road that nobody was driving on. It sucked. After our morning stuff, we went out to the church to make some phone calls. Along the way to the church we talked to about five different people about our roles as missionaries a and even talked to this one man who lived in the next city over about the history of Kamakura and Japan. He told me that I should go and visit Kyoto and other places here in Japan. It's really cool swing all the history in this country. I am so blessed to be living here in Historic Kamakura. We made a few phone calls and then left the church to go and try our hand at talking to people on the street. It was absolutely AMAZING outside. The great weather gave me and my companion and I an Energy boost and we talked to just about every person that we crossed paths with. We walked to the beach to see if our English-speaking friends were there but the wind was so intense that it was blowing sand into my eyes causing them to hurt. We returned back to the apartment, ate some dinner and then went back out. We decided to go and knock on houses. I threw Elder Terry under the bus a few times But, he's really improving. It's crazy how quickly he is. We finished the day off with some more phone calls and retired for the night.
Saturday was super busy. We went to 保土ヶ谷 so I could conduct District meeting. That finished after 90 or so minutes and then we had to rush back to Kamakura by 2pm so we could meet Alexander one of our friends to hang out in Kamakura with. He texted us that he was going to be a little late so we went to a seven eleven type store and bought some onigiri and then went and bought some bread at the next-door bakery. We sat and ate our onigiri. The thing with onigiri is that I can't read the kanji or know the hiragana meaning even though I can read it. So every time I bite into one it's the rice based equal of Russian-roulette. Usually I win, but every so often I lose and get something absolutely disgusting. We went and saw the Sakura with him, then we went to the biggest shrine here in Kamakura 八幡宮 (Hachimangu Shrine) and took some cool pictures. In a few weeks they will be having a spring festival all full of Japanese archery and Kimonoed people and other super cool traditional Japanese things. After we hung out we trained over to Higashi Totsuka where we met Brother Sasa for a practice lesson. We were there for about 39 min teaching the first discussion and afterwards he gave us plenty of good advice and constructive criticism. We went back home after for dinner, then we went to the church to type up some stuff for Sunday missionary meetings. It was a long day, but I'm glad.
Sunday was pretty good. We woke up. We went to the missionary correlation meeting with the Ward council and the Ward mission leader but had to peace out rather quickly because we had to meet two people at the train station and walk to the church. Unfortunately they never showed up. We tried to call them, but they didn't pick up. So with five minutes until the start of sacrament meeting, we sprinted back to the church and snuck in as the opening prayer finished and the opening hymn began. I'm sure the members were wondering why the missionaries were sweating so profusely. Church was uneventful, we talked about the sacrament and passover and their similarities. In elders quorum we talked about bearing a proper testimony. After church, we went to the apartment and got umbrellas and spent the rest of the day in the pouring rain talking to people and ringing doorbells. After dinner we went to the church and took care of some things that we had to do there. Even though it rained, it was a really really nice day. We definitely helped improve the lives of people here in Japan.
This week was a fun, miracle-filled week. I'm so excited for what's in store next week!
Very Respectfully,
Elder J. Alan Farr
Wednesday, April 2, 2014
Hello Friends!
Friends and Family,
I think that this is how I'm going to do the weekly emails from now on, at the close of each day I'll write a little bit about what happened and cool stories from that day that way when it comes time to email I won't blank out on the previous weeks activities And you'll be able to get a better glimpse of how we do things as missionaries here in Japan.
Monday was my birthday. We really didn't do much since it was Pday. We woke up and had a normal morning, then we went out and bought groceries for the week. The weather was really nice so we rode our bikes. The streets and roads were packed with people so it took longer than normal to ride back from the grocery store to the apartment. As soon as we got back, we got a surprise phone all from Elder Call, the AP for our zone. He had our transfer informations for us a whole day earlier than expected. Elder Barker transferred to Kawasaki and is training a new missionary with Elder Berube. I and Elder Christensen are staying here in Kamakura and also getting new missionaries straight out from the MTC in Utah. It's very exciting hopefully I get a cool companion. Maybe a native speaker! After transfer calls we cleaned the apartment and also set up tables and desks that had been sent to a Farr "Cool-San" by the comissarian in the mission office. We set them up and I made a huge batch of scotcharoos. It was a lot of fun being able to make and share such a delicious treat with elders Barker and Christensen. We ate too many scotcharoos because we got pretty sick later in the evening. After dinner, we went out and hit the streets. I guess I partied too hard and was absolutely exhausted by the time we got back. Monday was a lot of fun.
Tuesday was just as much fun as Monday. We studied in the morning and after lunch we rode our bikes to zushi city to proselyted there for the day. We walked around for a while and talked to a lot of people. We went and visited a less active member but he wasn't there and we left him a message reminding him to watch general conference. He email us in the evening that he got our message and would watch general conference in two weeks! Even though he wasn't there we were still able to have fruitful labors! We passed out a lot of flyers for the free English class that we teach and also saw one of our English students that been in town buying a CD. We came home, had dinner and went and played table tennis at the church. It was a lot of fun! One of the guys who came is really into the military and especially guns. He wants to join the Japanese self-defense force when he is old enough. He showed me some pictures of his guns and his shooting team and I showed him some pictures from my time at the Academy. He's taking us to a curry festival on the Yokusuka Naval base in a month or so. Apparently in the Japanese navy every Friday on the ships is curry night! Anyways, Tuesday was a lot of fun. We did our best and brought lots of people closer to Christ!
Wednesday we prepared to take in our new Trainees. We cleaned the house until it shone while Elder Barker packed. Afterwards, we walked around to the beach and talked to a bunch of really cool people. There were a lot of Americans walking around. But it started to rain so only the people left at the beach were the wind surfers.
Thursday, we got our new trainees. Elder Barker, Christensen and I woke up around 5 to take a train all the way up to Tokyo and then back down to Kichijoji for the Trainer/Trainee meeting. We got there around 8:00 to a wonderful Pancake and fruit breakfast made by Sister Wada. The whole day we did a lot of trainings and talked about expectations and responsibilities as trainers and trainees. President Wada talked a lot about raising the bar and setting the standard for the incoming missionaries. Younger and younger missionaries are being expected to step up to larger leadership positions earlier on. We had lunch with our trainees, took some pictures, and then left Kichijoji around 5:30. We got home, had dinner, and unpacked a bit. It was pretty chaotic on Thursday, but the new Trainees in this area, Elder Busteed and Elder Terry both look like they're going to see a lot of success in the up and coming 6 weeks!
Friday was really interesting. We got up and studied as a companionship and then after lunch we went to the church to plan for the week and the rest of the transfer. It was a really really really good planning session. Afterwards I felt impressed that we would see many miracles in these upcoming weeks. We went out and walked around Kamakura not really talking to anybody since people didn't seem to want to stop for a bit and talk to Americans today for some reason. We ate dinner and We wrote a small note for one of the members who lives close to us. We took her the note and I introduced Elder Terry to Sister Aoki who has done so much for the missionaries. He said hello, bore a brief testimony and we said goodbye. The rest of the night we went from house to house spreading the message of the restored Gospel. I felt kind of bad for Elder Terry. I threw him into the deep end of the pool with regards to talking to people in Japanese. It was awesome to see how much better his Japanese is coming out of the MTC than mine was. He and Elder Christensen's new companion are both super awesome missionaries. They might be young, but they're full of faith. I'm so,excited to be serving in Kamakura with such amazing Missionaries. My first full day as a trainer went unscathed. Well see just how the rest of the week goes by. But in all honesty I think I'll be fine training wise.
Saturday, I conducted my first district meeting of the transfer. It was interesting to say the least. The zone leaders were there and pretty much took over the meeting. They left 2/3 of the way through and the whole meeting fell to pieces. My entire district lost total focus and wasn't taking the meeting seriously. It was very frustrating. I'm still trying to figure out how to make the meetings interesting and effective. As district leader I have to cover a lot of things in a short amount of time so often everything gets rushed. It's an interesting balancing game. After the district meeting Elder Terry and I went to a nice cream store to meet two guys that said they wanted to get ice cream and talk about our church. Unfortunately, they never showed up. It's probably because it was super duper hot in the afternoon. Elder Terry and I went to the apartment and had lunch and wrote a quick spiritual thought in Japanese and gave it to one of the members. While trying to find the members house, we got really lost, but were able to talk to lots of people. We turned a "Crisis" into an "Opportunity!" Later in the evening, we went and passed out flyers at the train station. On our way back I spotted a man who looked like he spoke English waiting for a bus so I approached him and asked how he was doing. We talked for a bit and he said that he wanted to come to church. Of course, we invited him! Hopefully he comes on Sunday!
Sunday was super interesting with four missionaries. Elder Terry and Elder Busteed both bore their testimonies in Church. They were much better than mine was coming straight out of the MTC. Elder Christensen and Elder Busteed both went to Normal Sunday school and Elder Terry and I went to Gospel principles class. We talked a little bit about the word of wisdom. The member leading the discussion kept asking us all these questions about deep doctrine and got annoyed when we could understand what he was saying, or even trying to get at. I still have no idea what anyone is saying. I don't think that that'll change any time soon. Japanese is a very hard language. After church we set up several Practice lessons with members and went out to the street to proselyte. We met a bunch of cool people, one Guy who spoke fluent English but was crazy kept asking us all these silly questions trying to trip us up. We didn't give him anything to work with and he gave up. We ended up having a great conversation about the church. He wouldn't give us any contact information, but I feel like we will cross paths soon!
Since Tuesday is temple Pday we proselyted as normal on Monday. The morning was not very eventful with studying and lunch and more studying and what not. However, afterwards Elder Terry and I wandered the back roads of Kamakura. It was interesting to see how much houses and their states change only a few blocks away from the tourist parts of Kamakura. The Sakura is pretty much in full bloom and as a result the streets were packed with tourists. This morning, they were filming a movie on the Main Street and hundreds of people were watching. We couldn't really see what was going on but it looked cool since they had lots of cameras! Perhaps another Wolverine movie in the making? But with missionary cameos. In the evening we went to go visit one of our investigators Ōkubo but when we finally visited his house, he rushed out on us and said that he was super duper busy and would talk to us later. I introduced Elder Terry and we left him a small spiritual thought on a piece of paper we finished the night with housing. Elder Terry kept scaring old women because whenever they walked past he would yell "こんばんは!" and nothing is scarier than two white men saying good evening to you on a dark street. That comprises the things of nightmares. Well that is what we did this week, we talked to a lot of people. A lot of people talked back to us. We tried to understand. In all, we had a blast this past week spreading the message of the restored gospel to those who live in the Greater Kamakura area. Thanks for all the birthday wishes and emails last week!
がんばてください！
ファー長老
Pics: Sakura x4, New trainee Elder Terry eating Nattou
I think that this is how I'm going to do the weekly emails from now on, at the close of each day I'll write a little bit about what happened and cool stories from that day that way when it comes time to email I won't blank out on the previous weeks activities And you'll be able to get a better glimpse of how we do things as missionaries here in Japan.
Monday was my birthday. We really didn't do much since it was Pday. We woke up and had a normal morning, then we went out and bought groceries for the week. The weather was really nice so we rode our bikes. The streets and roads were packed with people so it took longer than normal to ride back from the grocery store to the apartment. As soon as we got back, we got a surprise phone all from Elder Call, the AP for our zone. He had our transfer informations for us a whole day earlier than expected. Elder Barker transferred to Kawasaki and is training a new missionary with Elder Berube. I and Elder Christensen are staying here in Kamakura and also getting new missionaries straight out from the MTC in Utah. It's very exciting hopefully I get a cool companion. Maybe a native speaker! After transfer calls we cleaned the apartment and also set up tables and desks that had been sent to a Farr "Cool-San" by the comissarian in the mission office. We set them up and I made a huge batch of scotcharoos. It was a lot of fun being able to make and share such a delicious treat with elders Barker and Christensen. We ate too many scotcharoos because we got pretty sick later in the evening. After dinner, we went out and hit the streets. I guess I partied too hard and was absolutely exhausted by the time we got back. Monday was a lot of fun.
Tuesday was just as much fun as Monday. We studied in the morning and after lunch we rode our bikes to zushi city to proselyted there for the day. We walked around for a while and talked to a lot of people. We went and visited a less active member but he wasn't there and we left him a message reminding him to watch general conference. He email us in the evening that he got our message and would watch general conference in two weeks! Even though he wasn't there we were still able to have fruitful labors! We passed out a lot of flyers for the free English class that we teach and also saw one of our English students that been in town buying a CD. We came home, had dinner and went and played table tennis at the church. It was a lot of fun! One of the guys who came is really into the military and especially guns. He wants to join the Japanese self-defense force when he is old enough. He showed me some pictures of his guns and his shooting team and I showed him some pictures from my time at the Academy. He's taking us to a curry festival on the Yokusuka Naval base in a month or so. Apparently in the Japanese navy every Friday on the ships is curry night! Anyways, Tuesday was a lot of fun. We did our best and brought lots of people closer to Christ!
Wednesday we prepared to take in our new Trainees. We cleaned the house until it shone while Elder Barker packed. Afterwards, we walked around to the beach and talked to a bunch of really cool people. There were a lot of Americans walking around. But it started to rain so only the people left at the beach were the wind surfers.
Thursday, we got our new trainees. Elder Barker, Christensen and I woke up around 5 to take a train all the way up to Tokyo and then back down to Kichijoji for the Trainer/Trainee meeting. We got there around 8:00 to a wonderful Pancake and fruit breakfast made by Sister Wada. The whole day we did a lot of trainings and talked about expectations and responsibilities as trainers and trainees. President Wada talked a lot about raising the bar and setting the standard for the incoming missionaries. Younger and younger missionaries are being expected to step up to larger leadership positions earlier on. We had lunch with our trainees, took some pictures, and then left Kichijoji around 5:30. We got home, had dinner, and unpacked a bit. It was pretty chaotic on Thursday, but the new Trainees in this area, Elder Busteed and Elder Terry both look like they're going to see a lot of success in the up and coming 6 weeks!
Friday was really interesting. We got up and studied as a companionship and then after lunch we went to the church to plan for the week and the rest of the transfer. It was a really really really good planning session. Afterwards I felt impressed that we would see many miracles in these upcoming weeks. We went out and walked around Kamakura not really talking to anybody since people didn't seem to want to stop for a bit and talk to Americans today for some reason. We ate dinner and We wrote a small note for one of the members who lives close to us. We took her the note and I introduced Elder Terry to Sister Aoki who has done so much for the missionaries. He said hello, bore a brief testimony and we said goodbye. The rest of the night we went from house to house spreading the message of the restored Gospel. I felt kind of bad for Elder Terry. I threw him into the deep end of the pool with regards to talking to people in Japanese. It was awesome to see how much better his Japanese is coming out of the MTC than mine was. He and Elder Christensen's new companion are both super awesome missionaries. They might be young, but they're full of faith. I'm so,excited to be serving in Kamakura with such amazing Missionaries. My first full day as a trainer went unscathed. Well see just how the rest of the week goes by. But in all honesty I think I'll be fine training wise.
Saturday, I conducted my first district meeting of the transfer. It was interesting to say the least. The zone leaders were there and pretty much took over the meeting. They left 2/3 of the way through and the whole meeting fell to pieces. My entire district lost total focus and wasn't taking the meeting seriously. It was very frustrating. I'm still trying to figure out how to make the meetings interesting and effective. As district leader I have to cover a lot of things in a short amount of time so often everything gets rushed. It's an interesting balancing game. After the district meeting Elder Terry and I went to a nice cream store to meet two guys that said they wanted to get ice cream and talk about our church. Unfortunately, they never showed up. It's probably because it was super duper hot in the afternoon. Elder Terry and I went to the apartment and had lunch and wrote a quick spiritual thought in Japanese and gave it to one of the members. While trying to find the members house, we got really lost, but were able to talk to lots of people. We turned a "Crisis" into an "Opportunity!" Later in the evening, we went and passed out flyers at the train station. On our way back I spotted a man who looked like he spoke English waiting for a bus so I approached him and asked how he was doing. We talked for a bit and he said that he wanted to come to church. Of course, we invited him! Hopefully he comes on Sunday!
Sunday was super interesting with four missionaries. Elder Terry and Elder Busteed both bore their testimonies in Church. They were much better than mine was coming straight out of the MTC. Elder Christensen and Elder Busteed both went to Normal Sunday school and Elder Terry and I went to Gospel principles class. We talked a little bit about the word of wisdom. The member leading the discussion kept asking us all these questions about deep doctrine and got annoyed when we could understand what he was saying, or even trying to get at. I still have no idea what anyone is saying. I don't think that that'll change any time soon. Japanese is a very hard language. After church we set up several Practice lessons with members and went out to the street to proselyte. We met a bunch of cool people, one Guy who spoke fluent English but was crazy kept asking us all these silly questions trying to trip us up. We didn't give him anything to work with and he gave up. We ended up having a great conversation about the church. He wouldn't give us any contact information, but I feel like we will cross paths soon!
Since Tuesday is temple Pday we proselyted as normal on Monday. The morning was not very eventful with studying and lunch and more studying and what not. However, afterwards Elder Terry and I wandered the back roads of Kamakura. It was interesting to see how much houses and their states change only a few blocks away from the tourist parts of Kamakura. The Sakura is pretty much in full bloom and as a result the streets were packed with tourists. This morning, they were filming a movie on the Main Street and hundreds of people were watching. We couldn't really see what was going on but it looked cool since they had lots of cameras! Perhaps another Wolverine movie in the making? But with missionary cameos. In the evening we went to go visit one of our investigators Ōkubo but when we finally visited his house, he rushed out on us and said that he was super duper busy and would talk to us later. I introduced Elder Terry and we left him a small spiritual thought on a piece of paper we finished the night with housing. Elder Terry kept scaring old women because whenever they walked past he would yell "こんばんは!" and nothing is scarier than two white men saying good evening to you on a dark street. That comprises the things of nightmares. Well that is what we did this week, we talked to a lot of people. A lot of people talked back to us. We tried to understand. In all, we had a blast this past week spreading the message of the restored gospel to those who live in the Greater Kamakura area. Thanks for all the birthday wishes and emails last week!
がんばてください！
ファー長老
Pics: Sakura x4, New trainee Elder Terry eating Nattou
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