Dear Family,
First off, thank you for all the
Happy Birthdays!! I was glad to hear from all of you! Sounds like is has been
busy back at home! Good job Morgan! Keep practicing driving and maybe I will
have to teach you some Japanese racing things! I'm documenting everything
pretty well, I haven't missed a day in my journal and I have been taking some
pictures.
We have been eating well I think,
my companion is a good cook and when we go out to eat it is delicious and has
yet to be more than $10. We have a stove and a microwave and a microwave oven
looking thing and a toaster. Oh and a rice cooker. That is a necessity when I
get back.
Well this week was pretty normal,
it was a shorter time between p-days because of temple p-day. This week we had
something every night, English class (ekaiwa) on Wednesday night,
art night on Thursday night and game night on Friday night.
Before ekaiwa we taught a guy named Uki. Uki San is 60s and had a stroke a
while back so he has some paralysis, his left leg mainly. We taught him this
week and read the Book of Mormon with him and he was struggling with it. But I
felt we should show the “Because of Him” video in Japanese and relate it back
to the scriptures and why we have and read them. Christ is the center of our
church. He is what the prophets wrote about and is what we read them to learn
about. After we showed the video and I had my testimony significantly
strengthened as I saw the spirit working on him during the video and it was
just amazing. But after the video I bore my testimony and asked him some
questions and he said he now realizes that through Christ he can change. And he
thinks he wants to and will be able to finally do it. I would love to see him
get baptized. It would bless his life like crazy. Then the days have been spent
doing a lot of meeting stuff and lots of finding.
On Thursday night we got a
knock at the door and it was the YSA brothers who brought me a cake and sang Happy
Birthday to me right after I had been writing in my journal that I wasn't sure
what kind of birthday it was going to be. It was crazy delicious and it was
very nice of them. Then the next morning on my birthday we got up at
5:00 to teach Nakajima San but he didn't show so we waited from 6:00
to 7:00 but he didn't come. Then on the way back my companion bought me
Mountain Dew. There is a machine right outside our apartment that I found the
other day... I am keeping a tally of how much I drink and what it costs for my
mission... Then we had study and during that president and sister Wada called
and sang Happy Birthday to me - which was really nice. Then the day was normal
and we went to game night where more surprises awaited. At the end it turned
into a birthday party for me and everyone gave me cards and presents and a
little brownie cake. One present had sparkles all over so that was a little
sketchy to open, but I did it. I don't have any pictures of that right now but
I will get some from one of the sister missionaries soon. Then that night we ate
my cake and it was a great day! Now I'm 19! And I got all your emails on
Saturday (I can read emails whenever wherever as long as it doesn't interfere
with my work, so I check and read it often).
Yesterday we walked from 5:30
to 9:00 up and down hills doing streeting, so I was crazy tired last
night. I have been exercising every night and surprisingly have had to make my
belt one loop tighter... Opposite of the MTC, but in a healthy way! I am
getting more and more fit from biking so that is good! My legs aren't sore
anymore! Japanese is going well, it is always hard, but some things are
starting to be easier. I am understanding more of what I am reading and more of
what I am hearing, speaking isn't really a problem, just speaking fancy and in
long sentences doesn't happen too often. In that bowl was a ton of rice, some
kind of meat, cheese and some veggies! It was delicious!
This week the best and most
spiritual thing is that story with Uki San. The funniest thing was probably
watching everyone that was at game night try and sing Happy Birthday in English
- make your worst Japanese American accent and add a lot of mumbling and that
is about it. And a crazy thing is that last night we found a couple of Nepalese
men by a convenient store sitting on the ground who I almost tripped over so I
started talking to them and they were way nice and want to come to church!
My companion hmmmm well his goal is
to get married in a year at least and when we do street contacting he is really
good at teaching a short lesson right there. I will have a better one for that
next week! Oh and Mom, no the seminary teacher is still crazy hard to
understand. Most nihonjin pause at the particles like wa and ga and o and ni,
but she makes no pauses. It's just a constant string of sound! Very hard
however it is getting better!
That about sums up my week! It is
getting crazy cold here so today we are getting me some thermals or something.
The sweaters do help though! I miss all of you guys and love you and I hope you
all have a great week!
Love,
Elder Gailey
Additional questions and answers:
1. You haven't said anything about
grocery shopping or the stores there. Do they have any American food
like peanut butter and jelly or just Japanese food?
They have it, like peanut butter
and stuff like that but for the most part it is expensive and everything else
is either Japanese versions of American food or is Japanese food. Fruits are
crazy expensive here! So we eat a lot of veggies and not many fruits unless
people give them to us.
2. Didn't you have a couple of other
investigators that your companion was working with when you got there?
Yeah we do, uki San is one of them,
but there are some others just most were busy this week or are kinda shaky
usually! But we have lessons most days with the exception of this week
3. You said it is cold there.....
how cold? How is the weather in general?
Do you write these email while you
are doing your laundry? In your pictures, I did not see a washer.
Where is it?
Are you doing anything fun for your
p-day today? Do you ever do things with the other elders in the area?
I think so. It is like 50 ish, it
is a lot like Washington. It's very dry right now, but very grey and I like it.
The washer is in the bathroom with the shower and Japanese squirty toilet
(toilet and bidet combined – added by mom) . Today we are going to go buy some
warmer clothes and stuff and yeah, there is another companionship in our
apartment so we do a lot with them but all 6 elders do a lot together. We are
playing football later today with an investigator
4. Any other plans for the
day? Shopping? What is your favorite food so far?
6:00 pm is when pday ends, just
chilling, some shopping, probably hayashi rice.
Info on the pictures:
One was of some crazy stairs to
some houses we knocked on, one was a Buddhist statue and one was a Shinto temple, umm those spiders are huge
We don't really know if they are
dangerous... But most of them are palm sized and we watched one eat a fly
yesterday in a matter of 3 seconds. Not just killed and wrapped up, it
legitimately opened its mouth and ate the fly live and whole... So yeah... There
are tons, they are everywhere, literally.
Elder Gailey
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