Sherwood Chourou - Week 23 in Japan

Konnichiwa!

It's been a pretty uneventful week again. We watched general conference this weekend (which was fantastic) and a some simple lessons, but besides that, not all that much. For one of the lessons, though, we went up to a little kids amusement park thing. Apparently, it had Japan's oldest ferris wheel, which was pretty cool. There were also a bunch of little animal pens, including one with peafowls and one with a tanuki (Japanese raccoon dog). Unfortunately, this was late at night, so I wasn't able to get a good photo of any of them, but there was a cool lit-up fountain I did get a picture of.

Anyways, that's all I've got, sorry. Hope you all are still doing well and have a good week! Matta ne!

Sherwood Chourou - Week 22 in Japan

Konnichiwa!

So I didn't mention in my previous email, but last week was zone conference (and zone pday, hence the late email). We talked about how important it is to have joy while out serving, because who's going to believe a pair of grumps know squat about God's Plan of Happiness? That gave me a bit of an extra boost this last week, which I'd say is a sign that it fulfilled its purpose.

As for zone pday, we did ultimate frisbee for a good bit and played "signs" a little for a mid-game break. For those who don't know signs, basically everyone sits in a circle with one person in the middle. The people in the circle use signals they made up and showed everyone earlier to pass around "the sign" while the person in the middle tries to tag the person who has it. It's very fun, and very crazy. We accidentally threw the frisbee into a river at one point. Luckily, a very friendly man came by and fished it up for us. We thoroughly thanked him and took the opportunity to tell him a snippet about the church (always be proselyting). That was a pretty good day.

Two days ago, we helped a grandma in the ward move into a new apartment. We had to screw in two curtain rods, but it was way more difficult than necessary because the only screwdriver we had was too short and thick to fit it the space we were working in. Afterwards, one of the brothers took us out to a shabu-shabu restaurant (kind of like a buffet where you boil your own meat). It was very delicious, and I took a pic for this email.

Yesterday, I got to meet one of our investigating friends for the first time! His name is Bobby, and he's from America (which helped me out infinitely). He seems really prepared, and though he isn't feeling ready to commit to baptism, I have a feeling he's well on the way to finding the truth. Please keep him in your prayers!

That roughly sums up my week. It's getting kinda chilly up here, so I'm having to pop out my sweaters (a concept fairly foreign to all my pals down in Arizonia). I hope you all are doing well, and have a good week! Matta ne!

Pics:

- ninjas need help with vending machines

- shabu-shabu

- me in a sweater

Sherwood Chourou - Wee 21 in Japan

Konnichiwa!

I've been in a bit of a funk these last few weeks, what with my first transfer out of Iwamizawa and with a Japanese companion, but I think I'm starting to get my grip again. I think my main issue was that I convinced myself that the onky correct way to do dendou (missionary work) was the way we did it in Iwamizawa, a false concept. That's the moral for this week, kids: don't get stuck on how things changed, just go with the flow and you'll do fine.

I actually have some stuff to share this time! I mentioned in last week's email that we saw many cats, but little did I know that more was to come that night. We were housing along this neighborhood when we got to an apartment. When we went inside, we saw a kitten hide behind some snow shovels. We kind of ignored in at first, but when we finished knocking doors there, we moved the shovels to shoo it back outside (there are many wild cats in Japan, and apparently people don't like them chilling in the apartments), but when we did, we found like five more kittens behind the same shovel! Upon being discovered, they all bolted out the door, except for one which tried to escape up the stairs. We followed that one up, and once it realized it was trapped, it jumped to the stairs behind us from about 5 feet up and scampered out! It was wild. I took a pic of the one that went upstairs, but the others were to quick.

On a less exciting note, I also found a bottle of Sprite in a convenience store. This might not sound all that noteworthy, except I haven't seen Sprite since getting to Japan and I was going through withdrawal. Also, today, I had a corn pizza. Yeah. Japan has weird pizzas. Finding a pepperoni pizza frankly takes a miracle (aka a Costco). Pics included.

That's all the time we have for today, folks! Hope you're all still intact and doing well! Matta ne!

Pics:

 - I tought I taw a putty tat

 - Hehe, "hond"...

 - Do you want a Sprite?

 - Yumnums

Sherwood Chourou - Week 20 in Japan

Konnichiwa Mina-san!

Not much happened this week, but I'll do my best to make this email interesting. A couple days ago, we went back near the place we went on pday to meet with one of our recent converts. The weather forecast said there was zero chance if rain, but by the time we'd gotten there, we were getting dumped on. Moral of the story is, as warned in the scriptures: don't trust those who divine using the clouds. Incidentally, we got a lot of rain today, too.

Yesterday, while we were housing, we saw many cats. I tried to take pictures of them, but only 1 worked out (cats aren't very cooperative). I will be sending that with this email. One of them was dead set on slipping into someone's apartment while we talked to them, but it never got a chance. It was very funny to watch.

Anyways, that's all. Hope you all have had a good week! Matte ne!

Sherwood Chourou - Week 19 in Japan

Today is my first pday of the transfer, and my first pday in Hakodate, my new area! Four months in Japan and I've finally actually transfered. My new companion is Elder Ono, my first Japanese companion (there are an awful lot of firsts this transfer)! We're still figuring out how to work together effectively, but I have high hopes.

Unfortunately, I don't have much to report from this last week besides that I moved. We went up to Hakodate Mountain (key wording "up to" rather than "up"), which I hear has the world's 3rd most beautiful night view (which had no immediate bearing since we went during the day). We also checked out a nearby catholic cathedral, because it was cool, and the ocean, because we could see it. We took pictures, so I'll include those in this email.

That's about it, I think. Hope you all are still doing great! Have a good week! Matte ne!

Sherwood Chourou - Week 18 in Japan

Konnichiwa!

Sorry, I almost forgot to email! Anyways, my 3rd transfer is already almost over! Time has been going by so fast here, it's crazy.

This last week, I managed to hand out 4 Book of Mormons! I don't know if the people I gave them to are reading them or not, but I think I'm starting to figure out this whole missionary thing. Hopefully this trend continues to the end of the mission. We also had stake conference yesterday, which was fun. We got like 5 lunches from the members, and we're still not finished eating them! They take care of us very, if not too well.

We also got detained last Saturday for being white. We were practicing a lesson for a shinyuu we were going to teach, when a pair of officers pulled up and asked what we were doing. We showed them all of our ID cards, and all seemed well, but then one of them noticed that the addresses on our cards didn't match our current address, so they "took" us (a literal translation of what they said would be "Would you mind getting in the car, please?" because Japan is all about politeness) to the station. They put us in separate rooms to ask us some questions about what we were doing here and about the address situation. Quickly enough, after they called the mission HQ, we figured out that it had something to do with a deal that meant we didn't need to put our new addresses on the cards (because we move so often). After that, we were promptly and politely sent on our way.

That's about the extent of my happenings. Hope everyone has a good week! Sorry, no pics this week, but I'll try to get something sorted by next pday. Matta ne!

Sherwood Chourou - Week 17 in Japan

Konnichiwa!

Sorry, I almost forgot to email! Anyways, my 3rd transfer is already almost over! Time has been going by so fast here, it's crazy.

This last week, I managed to hand out 4 Book of Mormons! I don't know if the people I gave them to are reading them or not, but I think I'm starting to figure out this whole missionary thing. Hopefully this trend continues to the end of the mission. We also had stake conference yesterday, which was fun. We got like 5 lunches from the members, and we're still not finished eating them! They take care of us very, if not too well.

We also got detained last Saturday for being white. We were practicing a lesson for a shinyuu we were going to teach, when a pair of officers pulled up and asked what we were doing. We showed them all of our ID cards, and all seemed well, but then one of them noticed that the addresses on our cards didn't match our current address, so they "took" us (a literal translation of what they said would be "Would you mind getting in the car, please?" because Japan is all about politeness) to the station. They put us in separate rooms to ask us some questions about what we were doing here and about the address situation. Quickly enough, after they called the mission HQ, we figured out that it had something to do with a deal that meant we didn't need to put our new addresses on the cards (because we move so often). After that, we were promptly and politely sent on our way.

That's about the extent of my happenings. Hope everyone has a good week! Sorry, no pics this week, but I'll try to get something sorted by next pday. Matta ne!