Week 16 - January 23, 2012

Mission Letters Home

Hello,
I hope you're all still doing great out there! I didn't get a very detailed letter out last week because we've been so busy, so I'll try to write about the past two weeks in this one.

Well, last week Tuesday was a pretty normal dendo/finding day. We visited a less-active man named Inaba kyoudai, that went really well. When we were first talking to him through his kekko box, he didn't seem very excited at all that the missionaries were outside his door. But he let us into his genkan (doorway) and we visited a little and shared a quick message . He ended up really enjoying it . After that, we housed a little more and went to eat dinner at a place called Popoki's (Yeah, like cat in Hawaiian.) It's a really small place (only about 9 seats around a bar right when you walk in) and the walls are covered with pictures and things from the owners (just a husband and wife’s) travels. It seems like they've been everywhere. It would definitely be a lot easier for them to say where they haven't been rather than all the places they have. But their favorite is Hawaii... which they've visited a whole lot. The food's great and priced really good. And I guess missionaries have been eating there regularly for a while now. I'll have to try and get a picture out to you sometime.

Sakanaka call to meet
Mori kyoudai new job/birthday
Eikaiwa with Oyama kyoudai
Sakanaka kyoudai Plan of Salvation
Mori kyoudai can't come to church
Church tour with Yoshitaka Tamba
Single adult activity
Spanish branch
Church
Sakanaka kyoudai questions about Book of Mormon
Tsuchida and Morgan visit
Mori kyoudai drop
Takei shimai visit
Temple

On Tuesday we had the opportunity to go to the temple. So the three other elders in my apartment and I got up early to catch a train to Shibuya. Shibuya is pretty much the center of the world, and we were at the eki (train station) around the morning rush time, so the trains were packed full. Guys with white gloves making sure everyone was able to get fully into the doors, and when it seemed like nobody else could possibly fit, the trains pull up to another station and another big group of people get on somehow. So everyone's just standing packed in next to each other, not able to move. The train makes its turns and hits bumps and what not, but everyone's packed in so tight that nobody moves. And a bunch of people just look at us strangely because we're big gaikokujin (foreigners, "gaijin") in suits with name tags. It's pretty funny.

Shopping
Taikai with President Stevenson
Eikaiwa
Mori kyoudai apartment visit
Rainy cold weather
Sakanaka kyoudai kaze
Mori kyoudai's letter
Outreach in yachiyo/Mizuguchi dinner
Sunday

Sunday was a fun day with the Spanish Branch, DCS meeting, and our regular ward meetings. Sakanaka kyoudai was still not feeling well so he stayed home to sleep. After our regular ward sacrament meeting we were asked to teach a Sunday School lesson. So we taught a simple lesson on the gospel of Jesus Christ with an emphasis on strengthening our faith. That went really well. Then we had a little bit of time before teaching a little mini lesson to the middle-aged primary kids. They had some sort of special program going on where a bunch of different people from the ward taught them for about 10 minutes each. We were the last ones so we did an object lesson about using our agency to choose to strengthen our testimonies and be happy. They loved having a hands-on sort of lesson.

This morning we had a zone p-day activity.

Package
Scriptures/spiritual thought