Sherwood Chourou - Week 28 in Japan

Konnichiwa, Mina-san!

Not much of particular note happened this week, but all is still well. We met with our new friend from a couple weeks ago again just yesterday. We didn't end up talking about the gospel at all, but we had a solid conversation. We've got high hopes for him. This week is zone conference, so I'm actually in Sapporo right now. We played an assortment of games like shogi (Japanese chess) and mancala, among others.

But yeah, that's pretty much it. Can't expect every week to be a blast and a half, but that's just fine. Hope you all are still doing great back home! Matta ne!

Photos:

 - Finally took some scenery shots

 - I got snowed on

Sherwood Chourou - Week 27 in Japan

Konnichiwa!

Sorry for the late email, I ran out of internet access before I could send. Today was District Pday, so we went to a zoo in Asahikawa (I took many photos which will be included in this and following emails.) Last week, Murakami Chourou and I got to perform in a traditional Japanese dance! I couldn't get a video or picture of the actual dance, but I have one of us in our costumes (included here). On a more general note, it has begun to snow up here in Hokkaido! I haven't lived in this much snow in years (If ever)! We're going to have to put away our bikes for the winter this weekend.

Speaking of weekends, we're meeting up with our new friend I mentioned last week this Saturday! Hope that goes well. We've had a decent amount of appointments and visits lately, which is always good, but nothing really stuck out in particular.

Anyways, that's pretty much it for me. Hope you all have a good week! Matta ne!

Pictures:

 - Us in costumes

 - Us in snow

 - Many animals

Sherwood Chourou - Week 26 in Japan

Konnichiwa!

It's been good up here in Wakkanai. It's been a bit cold, a concept likely foreign to my Arizonian compatriots, but fun nevertheless. Theoretically, we'll be getting snow this weekend! Whether I'll survive that or not, we'll just have to wait and see.

For the most part, this week has been a lot of simple lessons with various persons. Keeping up with the japanese is still difficult, but I'm getting the hang of it. One of the people we were teaching was doing some woodwork, so we got to help out. We got to use a saw and drill, which was pretty cool. Brought back good memories of the pinewood derby (sweet, sweet nostalgia~). We also went to one of our investigator's dance classes. Not sure how, but I managed to imitate the people in front of me well enough to earn the praise of the many grandmas and grandpas there. After that, we went and got icecream with everyone. T'was yummy.

Final announcement of this week: we got a new interested friend! He's from Texas (that made things ridiculously easier, let me tell you) and he's agreed to read a bit of the Book of Mormon! At first he was kind of meh about religion in general, but apparently the Spirit did us a solid and boosted my teachings and testifyings. High hopes for this guy!

That's all for this week, folks! Hope you're all doing well, and have a good week! Matta ne!

Photos:

- The Japanese skies are particularly heavenly. Not sure why.

- Yummy iced creams

- Tiny pretty village

- Me and Murakami Chourou

Sherwood Chourou - Week 25 in Japan

Konnichiwa, Mina-san!

I moved again! This time, I've been transfered up to Wakkanai, the northernmost part of Hokkaido. If you look out from the shore, you can actually see Russia! My new companion is Murakami Chourou. He actually flew up to Japan with me from the MTC, so that's cool!

Traveling up here was actually a bit of an adventure (not much, but more interesting than usual). First off, getting from Hakodate to Wakkanai takes twelve hours by bus, which meant I was pretty much riding all day. To add up, we actually misunderstood our travel plans and had to take a later bus, pushing my arrival time an hour or two back! From there it went pretty smoothly, until the last stop when the bus driver almost left before I could get off (a member who came to give me a ride to the apartment saved me). That was pretty wild, overall.

Anyways, last Friday, the branch had a Halloween party which I had the privilege to dress up for (I started making a costume for the Hakodate Halloween party two weeks ago, and I was infinitely relieved when I learned that Wakkanai would have one, too)! We did some english games like Telephone, Charades and Pictionary, after which we had some refreshments while the kids beat up a piñata we made (I was well satisfied with the results). The members took many photos, so I'll be sending a Google Photos album link for those.

That's the bulk of this week. Hope everyone is doing great back home! Matta ne!

Photos:

https://photos.app.goo.gl/8jgWPrmCfDLVHUfBA

Sherwood Chourou was in Hakodate and is now in Wakkanai - the map below shows the locations.

Sherwood Chourou - Week 24 in Japan

Konnichiwa!

We have once again arrived at the final week of the transfer! It's been a bumpy ride these last five weeks, but the last stretch looks like it'll be smoother. This week, we had splits, so I got to spend a day venting my English-withdrawal on my temporary companion. That was satisfying. That day, a cat followed us around for a bit and I named him Dave. Dave was goodly. I actually managed to get two decent contacts this weekend, which was a real boost from my previous stagnation of successful dendou.

Anyways, that's pretty much it. I wasn't able to get much in the way of pictures, but I found a fish sitting on a windowsill in an apartment, so I took a pic of that. Hope you all have a good week! Matta ne!

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