So I just experienced my first full week here in Japan. I did a lot of stuff this past week. First off, no one can pronounce my katakana name to save their life(Ha-dokyassuru). It usually takes them two or three tries to get it right. Some people call me ``Ha-do`` or ``katai`` (means hard) or ``katai shiro``(hard castle). I wish I just had a kanji name tag because it would solve that problem.
So last P-Day I ate the dreaded natto which is fermented soy bean paste. It is friggin gross and I hope to never eat it ever again...hopefully. I`ve had a lot of really good food and I take pictures of a lot of the different things I eat. My favorite thing to eat here is katsu(fried meat) and curry.
I`ve been to a couple different shrines. I was on companion exchanges with Tuakoi Choro and we went to a shrine on Halloween night. The shrine was one where they used to behead people. It was raining and super dark and there were a bunch of statues without heads. Pretty neat right? Later today we`re going to the mountains into the jungle to go to another shrine. Adventure Time!
I went to Okazaki for Zone Conference and got to see my buddy Cowan from the MTC. I also went to Seto yesterday to buy a bike. I`m getting to see some different places which is cool and apparently we get transferred a lot in this mission, except for Toyota. Most missionaries who serve in Toyota end up being here for 5 months.
As for dendou (missionary work) I`ve tried to keep my personal goal of talking to two people a day. I can usually get an approach started and Bills Choro finishes it up. He`s super good at OYMing. We do a lot of housing (tracting). We will usually bike to someone we`re going to visit and if they`re not home we house the apartments next to them. Most have what are called ``keko boxes`` which is a camera on the doorbell. I hate them. I would much rather talk to a person.
We had 16 investigators. We dropped 5 of them and 5 more are in danger of being dropped because they`re not keeping commitments. We have about 5 promising investigators so we`ll see how it goes as the week progresses.
I taught my first real lesson this week IN ENGLISH! Tuakoi Choro had an investigator who went to a year of college in Washington and wanted to practice his English. Miranda hardly speaks English so Tuakoi asked if I could be prepare to teach about The Restoration and the Book of Mormon (Lesson 1). The guy was super cool and it was a really neat experience and it was going well, I could feel the Spirit and asked him if he would start reading the Book of Mormon. I had a greenie moment and thought that he would be super excited about it and say yes...but he said he didn`t feel like this was the right time for him to get into religion. He kept the Book of Mormon and we bore testimony on the truthfulness of the Gospel and that if he had any questions he should call. Hopefully he will have that drive to listen to all of our lessons someday. It was actually had to teach in English because I had to keep it simple. Tuakoi told Bills later that day (to my surprise) that I led the lesson. It was a great experience.
I understand about 10% of what people say. The ward has really nice people and others who are hard to work with. Some don`t like that I don`t understand Japanese. Tough for them, I`m learning. I feel like I understand more and more everyday.
Hope everyone is genki. I am so thankful for your prayers. I love all of you
スピイドと天使
ハードキャッスル長老
Pic: Shrine from last P-Day
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