Dawn

Last night, my companion and I walked to the church after dinner, and there we saw a police car sitting in the parking lot.  (The church parking lot is not a normal place to see a police car!)  We walked in the front doors, and found a large gathering in the foyer: the other two elders, their investigator, our bishop and our ward mission leader, and two police officers who were getting everyone's names and addresses.  

Turns out that what happened is that while the other two elders were walking to the church before us, they stopped at a crosswalk because the light was red.  There was another guy standing next to them waiting for the same crosswalk, so they asked him how he was doing.  The guy responded that he was not doing well, he had no money, he was coming home from trying to jump off a bridge, and he was planning to kill himself at home.  And then he walked away, and then the elders called the police to go get him.

While the officers at the church were collecting everyone's information and the details of the story, they got a call from another officer who said they'd found the guy (still alive).  I suppose it turned out all right.  

A few days before, we had a lesson with a young man.  We taught him about our premortal family--how we all lived together and knew and loved each other before we were born.  He said it was a miracle that we met.  We taught him to pray (Alma 34:17-27), and he said his first prayer to Heavenly Father.  The Spirit filled our hearts with joy--and a testimony that God, too, was rejoicing to hear from His child again.  

Holiday Season in Japan

So, transfer calls were today, and I'm staying in Atsugi with Elder Parks for another six weeks.  :3

We didn't do anything really interesting for Thanksgiving.  Japan just doesn't celebrate it.  Christmas lights started going up about a month ago.  I don't know how many people actually do anything special for Christmas Day here, but the stores are all doing Christmas decorations like American stores do.  They put up a Christmas tree at the church, too.  They also put colored plastic paper on the front doors to make it look like stained glass.  It looks really cool.  :3

The new year is a really big deal in Japan, but it'll be a few weeks before I know much about what goes on then...

These are the Christmas decorations they set up at the church.  Apparently the Primary added more decorations to the tree since I took these pictures, though...

I want to study Spanish

So.  Last Saturday night, we had a first lesson with a man from Bolivia.  This man testified to us about prophets, about the Bible, about God's unconditional love for His children, about discerning truth through the Holy Spirit, about the Atonement, and about faith and repentance.  It was amazing.  He seemed a little skeptical about Joseph Smith and the Book of Mormon, but I'm sure he'll recognize very quickly how true the Book of Mormon is.  This man is very spiritually strong!  It's really different teaching someone who already has a Christian background.  o.0  He was really glad to meet us, and he said he wants to have us get together with him and his friends and talk about the word of God and eat Peruvian food together.  He speaks pretty good Japanese, but his Spanish is better, so during the lesson he spoke mostly Spanish with interpretation.  I want to study some Spanish now so I can communicate better with him and his friends.  o.0

Halfway

I passed my one-year mark about two weeks ago.  We happened to have a special zone conference on that day with Elder Ringwood, the Seventy who presides over Japan and Korea.  One of the things he talked about was identity.  As we teach people, we ultimately want them to change their behavior, and there's a lot of things that go into that, like values and attitudes, but it all starts with identity.  Among the first things we teach people are that they're sons and daughters of God with divine origins and potential, and how to communicate with our Father.

I liked that.

We had a ward Halloween party on Halloween, but it ended up not being quite a ward social activity like I'm used to seeing in America.  Everyone from the ward's kids' English class came, and I think one of our English class students who's a kids' English class teacher brought all of her students, too, and it ended up being a huge group of moms and kids, most of whom only had a relationship with the Church through English class.  It was strange.  o.0  We also had our ward mission leader come (he dressed up as a half-zebra-half-okapi) and a couple of our investigators.  We also found out right before it started that the ward decided that us missionaries were in charge of most of the activities, while we'd assumed that the ward was taking care of it.  o.0  It ended up turning out well, and everyone had fun, so, it worked out.  :P

The other weekend there was a huge street-performing festival in our area.  I saw a guy juggle a knife, a torch, and an apple -- while eating the apple he was juggling.  o.0  Street performers are really cool.

Mountain Climb

Last Saturday we hiked Mount Tonodake as a ward English class
activity.  It was a long, beautiful hike.  My legs are still sore.  At
the top of that mountain there's a lodge where hikers can stay
overnight and watch the sunrise the next day.  They also sell
delicious udon noodle soup.  We played some games on top of the
mountain and ate udon and took pictures of Mount Fuji.

It was good time spent with our English class students, too.  One of
the Atsugi ward members invited one of her calligraphy class students
to come to the hike, too, and Elder Parks and I made really good
friends with him.  It's really helpful when people have time like
this to warm up to us.  We now have someone who we're going to start
teaching soon, thanks to that hike.  ^^

Yesterday, we felt like it would be a good idea to call every phone
number we could find in our area book, even though the missionaries
who were here before us said they did that every week without success.
We actually got to talk to a few people and invite them to the ward's
Halloween party this week, and we found out which numbers were bad.
Then, that night, we got a call from Elder Soto, my MTC companion who
just got transferred to Yamato.  One of the people we talked to on the
phone earlier that day is a Spanish person (also speaks Japanese) who
was referred to our area by missionaries in Yamato.  We only talked
for a minute, but later that day he called the Yamato elders to tell
them that he got a call from missionaries in Atsugi and that he felt
bad because he was busy and couldn't talk much.  Elder Soto (who
speaks native Spanish) was the one who talked to him, and he felt like
he should talk to him about the Light of Christ.  From that
conversation the Spanish person decided he wants to take the
missionary lessons.  :D

[I attached a couple pictures from the top of Mount Tonodake.  You can
see Mount Fuji in the distance.  ^^]

Typhoon Stole My Helmet

There was a typhoon last weekend, from Sunday night to Monday morning.
The most intense part was while we were asleep, but on Sunday night
the rain and wind was still strong enough that all the books in my
waterproof bag got wet. >_< On Monday, after it cleared up, all of
the bikes had fallen over, and we couldn't find my helmet. The only
thing we could think of was that it probably blew away in the typhoon
during the night. o.0 We had to rearrange our plans for the day so
that I could buy a new helmet, and then that night after we'd done all
our shopping and emails the other pair of elders found my helmet.
Apparently I accidentally left it sitting on the umbrella rack at the
church. 0.o Fortunately I hadn't bought a new helmet yet. ^__^

I loved General Conference. :3 I was a little anxious last week
because it had happened and I hadn't seen it yet. Japan doesn't get
the broadcast until a week later.

There's another typhoon coming tonight, and I've got my helmet inside
the apartment this time. ^_^

Emergency Transfer

Well. On Thursday morning around 7:30-ish, I got a transfer call from President Wada. Around noon on Friday, I was in Atsugi with all my luggage. On Saturday, I was harvesting rice.

President Wada did hint at the Wednesday morning staff meeting that he might need another elder in Atsugi and that the new elder would probably come from the mission office, and somewhere in the back of my head I knew that I was the most likely pick. It was still a little bit of a surprise when it actually happened. I spent Thursday packing and saying bye to my district, ward members, and investigators, and then on Friday the assistants to the president drove me and my luggage down to Atsugi.

From having been in Atsugi for two days, it seems to be a fairly normal "countryside" city. There is a river that runs through it, with some awesome bridges. I'll have to see if I can get some pictures sometime.

On Saturday, we went out to another area to help harvest rice as a service project. About ten or so missionaries put on rubber boots, picked up little scythes, and tromped out in the muddy rice paddies. There were places where we'd sink down six or eight inches in the mud just by stepping on it. There were also so many spiders, beetles, little green frogs, praying mantises, crabs, crawdads.... Someone told me that there are fish that live there in the mud, too.  o.0   We didn't get bit by anything, though. One elder did the whole thing barefoot because there weren't boots big enough for him.

Rice grows on a plant looks kind of like wheat, but a bit shorter. We bent down and cut the stalks down at their base, bundled them up, and hung them from racks that were made of bamboo poles lashed together.  We might go back in a couple weeks to help with the next phase, where we actually remove the grains of rice from the plant.

Elder Parks is my new companion. He likes ninjas and samurai. A lot. He's also really good at reading & writing Japanese. I feel like we're going to get along very well.

For all I know, I might stay in Atsugi for a few transfers, or I might get called back to the mission office in three weeks when they have the normal transfer, or I might get transferred somewhere else. o.0 Elder Gammon is handling the tech staff work on his own right now (he's companions with the other office elders). In the meantime, I have this feeling that I want to work with the youth and YSA in Atsugi Ward.



Golden rice fields, all ready to be harvested

Rice stalks hanging in the sun to dry

Elder Bennion (barefoot with baseball cap) & Elder Parks (my new companion)

It's very muddy work.