Dear Family,
Well it sounds like your week has
been crazy! If I haven't already said it, HAPPY BIRTHDAY DAD!! It sounds like
you had a good birthday and that you liked all your gifts! When you said you
got a Cam Chancellor jersey I did a fist pump and said "yosh!"
As uneventful as Halloween usually
is, it’s still fun though! Well we go to seminary every week on Monday that is
the day we have chosen to go. Sister Honda is the teacher and she speaks the
fastest out of any Japanese person I have ever met here, she is a bit the ward
busybody but it's all good. My bike works great and my legs are turning into
tree trunks with metal plating so that is pretty sweet! This week no real new
investigators that we found yet. And the work with our current investigators is
slow. Because most people have no idea about Christianity you have to go real
slow and explain A LOT of things. I am trying to do my best and be the best
missionary I possibly can. I am greatful for all the help you all give me.
The birthday and Halloween pictures
were great! Morgan's costume was a little creepy but that's good for Halloween!
But dad, WHERE IS THE GOATEE!?!?!? That news was left out of previous
emails! Hopefully the honbu (I think
that's how it is spelled) (mission home) can get that stuff sent real quick!
So to get here I shipped my 2 big
suitcases and brought my carry on (that I could have lived from for 2 ish weeks
/ I listened!) and my messenger bag. My companion carried my emergency bag that
the mission requires me to have and such so it wasn't too bad! We just rode the
train to Takao and walked about 10 minutes to the apartment maybe 20. Finding
is going well, we had some pretty good meaningful contacts this week and a
couple that were really weird... This drunk old Japanese dude started like
hugging us and slapping us on the shoulder and speaking in weird circles in
weird Japanese. It was kind of funny though! He couldn't walk a straight line
to save his life!
We had a few lessons this week,
some with less actives and some with investigators. Kai (the guy we met on my
first night) agreed to listen to the first lesson when we ate dinner with him
the other night. He is a cool dude and I think he really has felt the spirit in
our lessons. We taught him how to pray and about God at dinner. It was cool to
see the spirit teaching him! In most of our lessons there is a point when I
need to share an experience from my life and whether planned or un-planned it
seems to invite the spirit. There is an investigator that I think likes me now
because of one of the experiences I shared and he sees now that we are not just
here to tell people to join our church but because of how it effects our lives
we want everyone to have those blessings. So I think he will accept more
invitations now! We went to teach a less active named brother Mongen the other
day. He is Mongolian but is Japanese fluent. He LOVES cars, so he has his own
car business and stuff. Usually he can't find much in common with the
missionaries, but he really likes me because I understand everything he says about
cars and can talk about them too. If nothing else it gives us an excuse to stay
and visit! I got to use some cool car analogies too in that lesson. I likened
the things we do in the church like have faith, pray, and read our scriptures
to a stick shift (in Japanese even!) and we start with faith and that gets us
going real fast at the start but you can only get to a certain speed on just
that. Then 1st gear was prayer and so on and so forth! He
really seemed to understand a little better from that! So I am excited to keep
teaching him. There are random things like that all over that make me think, is
this why I am in this area at this time? And it probably is.
We visited an area called Fujino
yesterday. It is complete countryside and it was beautiful! It was when I was
on splits with Elder Loi-On. I will include some pictures! But I think that
about sums up my week! I am excited for my birthday but I don't really know
what to expect for it! It might be an interesting day, but I will just work
hard! I miss all of you and love you and I hope that you all are staying safe
and happy! Oh and in my mission I use Facebook and I was looking over the
mission policies and what not and there is nothing I have to change on mine so
all I have to do is change my name to elder on there and add a new cover and
profile picture. So I will be seeing what some of you guys are posting and you
can see some Japanese and English mission posts from me. Probably only 1 or 2 a
month though at most but I will be using that, so if you see me on don't freak
out!
The food out here in Takao is delicious too! There are a
few all you can eat places that are crazy good! I should try to leg press
Garrett when I get back! Hmmm weirdest thing I have seen... The fact that there
are a bajillion vans here and people modify them and stuff like they are going
to race them! A van!? It's weird haha, there are probably weirder things but I
don't know at the moment. I have eaten octopus already on sushi which was crazy
but not too bad! The worst thing I have eaten was a dried umeboshi. A dried
pickled plum. It was so nasty. It felt like I was chewing on a salty sweet
tongue... The other weirdest part is how bad everyone's teeth are. Especially
in such a clean country their teeth are nasty yellow brown, almost everyone is
missing teeth and or has metal fillings or teeth.
Oh Tokyo isn't actually a city at all. Weird I know but
actually it is an area. There are between 10-30 ish city's that actually make
up Tokyo. An AP said it really well when he said Tokyo never ends. My area is
the edge of Tokyo.
Love,
Elder Gailey
P.s. I can make some Japanese food
now! And I learned why no one is really fat here! Their snacks are veggies,
their meals are full of veggies, and their toppings and stuff are made from
veggies! So hopefully I will be crazy healthy when I get back!
P.p.s I forgot! We had a conference
this week from Elder Ringwood of the seventy! It was crazy good! It was long
but it was like our own personal General Conference! Everyone read and study,
like actually study a bit, of Moroni 7! That chapter is incredible! Thanks!
P.p.p.s. I will include some
pictures of me doing the king bowl at Sukiya over here in Takao. My pictures
weren't great of that challenge thing but it should be not to bad! It was HUGE!
P.p.p.s. The Temple was great! It
is very traditional Japanese looking on the inside like entry way and the rest
is kind of like most of the rest are. The celestial room was really cool! Lots
of stained glass and a cool looking chandelier. It was really small though, as
it is a small temple. The session was cool! So for translation in all temples
as far as I can tell (same in the Provo and Tokyo temples) what they do is give
you headphones and you tune into your desired language on a little radio
receiver thing and you have it translated in the headphones while the room is
in native language. The Japanese in the video is really cool and sometimes
really funny just because of how some of the words are usually used. It was
awesome though! It's about 6 trains and an hour and a half away for me but it's
cool! Oh and we won't ever ride the bullet trains because they are $200 an hour
and would cross our whole mission in like 10-30 minutes.
No comments:
Post a Comment