Christmas was a real blast. I was able to spend Christmas Eve over at the Mission Home and eat Christmas breakfast with the Mission President and his wife, which was a real treat. I was also able to talk to my family, and they are the same as usual, which was nice to know.
Time does some crazy stuff when you are on a mission. Hours last for an eternity but weeks fly by. Days drag on and suddenly months have passed. You feel like you've been out here for an eternity but you haven't even been gone 3 months. It's pretty bizarre. Turns out the rest of the world continues at a regular pace, and your family has not gone crazy without you.
Reassuring.
We taught some great lessons this week! We met someone who has been very difficult to get ahold of, but we were actually able to teach her today. She is wonderful! She's been taking the lessons for a while and told us rather frankly that she wants to get baptized and is just working towards that goal as best she can.
It was very refreshing, honestly. I know she'll get baptized, even if I'm not around for it.
Speaking of which, transfers are in 3 days. Any predictions as to whether I will stay or go? I've been in Shibuya for 2 transfers thus far, with my trainer who will die* after next transfer.
*She will go home from her mission.
I don't have a lot of time (what's new) so I just wanted to tell you a little of what we've experienced for New Year's thus far.
1. They start an "Official Non-stop party" from the 28th of December until the 3rd of January. I do not know many details about that.
2. New Years is considered a holiday from the 1st until the 3rd. Most people celebrate from the 31st to the 4th.
3. Spring Cleaning is done for New Years. EVERYONE will do it, and when they say deep they mean DEEP. The church is doing it too, and it's down to refinishing the lining around the carpets. It's INSANE, and it is pretty much impossible to schedule meetings with housewives for 2 weeks.
4. It is suggested not to do any housing during this holiday. We are still allowed to meet with investigators and members, and we can still street, but housing would be insanely rude.
5. New Years is a family holiday. Extended families will gather in their hometown and have a 3-day celebration.
So, yeah. Christmas was like another working day, but New Years is a real celebration. Happy year of the tiger!
Wednesday, December 30, 2009
Tuesday, December 22, 2009
Merry Christmas to all!
Merry Christmas! I hope you enjoy this season when everyone tries to be a little better. The feelings sometimes wear off by January 15th or so, but I pray the intents and the memories will stay for much longer!
For those who might be wondering, missionaries don't celebrate Christmas as a holiday. We get to call our families and speak with them for an hour, and the mission will usually get together and throw a small party on a non-Christmas day. Besides the phone call Christmas is just like every other day for a missionary. Which is okay because Christmas is just like every other day in Japan, save a few more light displays and KFC being flooded with customers buying their KFC Christmas Dinner, which is a bizarre misunderstanding. Japan made it a tradition because they thought Americans did it, and KFC isn't owning up because they couldn't be happier. Anyway.
This week has been curiously fascinating. My electronic dictionary has been a source of immense fascination and curiosity. It contains many textbooks used in junior high and high school, and the Japanese sister staying in our apartment is just as fascinated as I am. Whenever I am trying to cipher menus she is invaluable, and I am having fun with this puzzle game where you have to match haiku together. If you need a hint the dictionary will sing the haiku at you, which is EASILY the most hilarious part.
Thanks to the Christmas season, we are able to do some pretty creative dendou (missionary work). It's a great excuse to visit all the less-actives and former investigators. My companion recorded a CD of Japanese hymns and some Christmas songs, so we deliver some candy, a CD, and a Book of Mormon as their Christmas gift and visit them. There is also a lot of other musical talent in the area, so an impromptu brass band meets a few times a week and plays by Shibuya station. We are able to talk to people who come listen, and we've met some awesome people doing that!
We're going caroling on Christmas Eve, and our mission home is throwing a Christmas party for us. I am very excited!
I have to go soon, but I have a quick story before I take off. We are teaching a family (I think I mentioned them, they are the family that walked into church and said they wanted to become a stronger family so they wanted to learn about us) right now, and we were able to teach them with some AMAZING members. They had a hard time following some of the stuff we were saying. After a while, the wife finally told us,
'All this Christianity stuff is new to us. We like what you are saying, but we are going to have to study some more.I think if we read the Book of Mormon and pray we'll be able to understand better.'
Best. Conclusion. Ever.
They are going to read as much as they can and pray two times a day and meet with us again next Sunday.
Smiles all around! I really need to go, but have Happy Holidays!
For those who might be wondering, missionaries don't celebrate Christmas as a holiday. We get to call our families and speak with them for an hour, and the mission will usually get together and throw a small party on a non-Christmas day. Besides the phone call Christmas is just like every other day for a missionary. Which is okay because Christmas is just like every other day in Japan, save a few more light displays and KFC being flooded with customers buying their KFC Christmas Dinner, which is a bizarre misunderstanding. Japan made it a tradition because they thought Americans did it, and KFC isn't owning up because they couldn't be happier. Anyway.
This week has been curiously fascinating. My electronic dictionary has been a source of immense fascination and curiosity. It contains many textbooks used in junior high and high school, and the Japanese sister staying in our apartment is just as fascinated as I am. Whenever I am trying to cipher menus she is invaluable, and I am having fun with this puzzle game where you have to match haiku together. If you need a hint the dictionary will sing the haiku at you, which is EASILY the most hilarious part.
Thanks to the Christmas season, we are able to do some pretty creative dendou (missionary work). It's a great excuse to visit all the less-actives and former investigators. My companion recorded a CD of Japanese hymns and some Christmas songs, so we deliver some candy, a CD, and a Book of Mormon as their Christmas gift and visit them. There is also a lot of other musical talent in the area, so an impromptu brass band meets a few times a week and plays by Shibuya station. We are able to talk to people who come listen, and we've met some awesome people doing that!
We're going caroling on Christmas Eve, and our mission home is throwing a Christmas party for us. I am very excited!
I have to go soon, but I have a quick story before I take off. We are teaching a family (I think I mentioned them, they are the family that walked into church and said they wanted to become a stronger family so they wanted to learn about us) right now, and we were able to teach them with some AMAZING members. They had a hard time following some of the stuff we were saying. After a while, the wife finally told us,
'All this Christianity stuff is new to us. We like what you are saying, but we are going to have to study some more.I think if we read the Book of Mormon and pray we'll be able to understand better.'
Best. Conclusion. Ever.
They are going to read as much as they can and pray two times a day and meet with us again next Sunday.
Smiles all around! I really need to go, but have Happy Holidays!
Saturday, December 19, 2009
Thought of the Week
Our greatest glory is not in never falling, but in getting up every time we do.
-Confucius (551 BC - 479 BC)
Thursday, December 17, 2009
A quick note
Happy birthday to me!
The electronic dictionaries finally went on sale, so I bought one. In fact, they were on a super sale. That model I'm holding usually sells for $270.
I spent 17,500 yen. It is a pretty sweet dictionary. I am pleased.
I wish I had more time but we have had an insane week and I need to go out and talk to some people. The stories will have to wait, I'm afraid.
To tide you over I'll give you a picture. Our mission decided to give us lightsabers for Christmas:
For the record? I didn't edit this picture in any way. That's really the photo. It's not the best positioned so you should be able to work out how we did it. Go do it and have fun!
We have a cool family that we are working with. We have trouble meeting with them for lessons because the members keep inviting them over to dinner. It's an amusing problem.*
*I'm being vague from lack of time. Rest assured we are going to be at some of those dinners. Not all of them tho'. I still think it's a funny problem.
Just in case I don't get a chance before next week, Merry Christmas!
Peace out,
C
P.S. Final Fantasy XIII was released today. Every train showed the opening video as an ad. It looks pretty sweet, and I look forward to playing it in 18 months or so.
The electronic dictionaries finally went on sale, so I bought one. In fact, they were on a super sale. That model I'm holding usually sells for $270.I spent 17,500 yen. It is a pretty sweet dictionary. I am pleased.
I wish I had more time but we have had an insane week and I need to go out and talk to some people. The stories will have to wait, I'm afraid.
To tide you over I'll give you a picture. Our mission decided to give us lightsabers for Christmas:
For the record? I didn't edit this picture in any way. That's really the photo. It's not the best positioned so you should be able to work out how we did it. Go do it and have fun!We have a cool family that we are working with. We have trouble meeting with them for lessons because the members keep inviting them over to dinner. It's an amusing problem.*
*I'm being vague from lack of time. Rest assured we are going to be at some of those dinners. Not all of them tho'. I still think it's a funny problem.
Just in case I don't get a chance before next week, Merry Christmas!
Peace out,
C
P.S. Final Fantasy XIII was released today. Every train showed the opening video as an ad. It looks pretty sweet, and I look forward to playing it in 18 months or so.
Saturday, December 12, 2009
Tuesday, December 8, 2009
A story that needs telling
Editor's note: You can click on each photograph to enlarge it to its original size.
Greetings from Shibuya! I wanted to show you some pictures before getting into my awesome story of the week.
(That's my companion and me. She's doing the peace sign, I'm holding the camera.)
Japan celebrates Christmas season, that's for sure. We get to see a lot of "Holiday Light Displays."
Man, I have a lot of photos on here. What else do we have? This is my district right before transfers. The two elders in the middle (the one in the chair and the one standing behind him) got transferred, but everyone else stayed.
(Right before the picture I shouted, "That's my camera! Do something weird!" but I didn't give much notice, so this is what you get. The Elder in the chair smiling brightly IS doing his weird face, he normally doesn't smile like that.)
Also? Just in case you didn't know, Japan is kinda strange.
That is a fish hat.
In Shibuya we try to do some different types of missionary work. When I say missionary work, I am referring to our efforts towards finding new people to teach. The Elders decided on using sports pretty early in the game, so we go play basketball occasionally:
This is surprisingly effective. I also have about 100 action shots of them playing (some of them are rather good, surprisingly), but I don't want to sort through them all for the best ones.
Members in Japan can be...interesting. These two fellows are AWESOME. (speaking of awesome...)
Also, we played football on our day off with some members to celebrate Thanksgiving. There is an American School in Japan (ASIJ) here so they let us use a real football field. I think I look terrible in this picture, but it's a good shot overall.
By the way, I wasn't kidding when I said Japan looks like fall weather right now. This was taken near the Emperor's Palace (across the street, in fact) two weeks ago (two days before December, I think):
I also have some really gross pictures of dead fish but since my sister Shana is uploading this blog and I think the pictures would make her cry (they make me want to cry, too) I will skip them. You can have these instead.
I suggest looking at my face closely. That Japanese sister isn't my companion, but she is one of the other two Shibuya Sisters and she rocks.
Japan celebrates Christmas with some rather different traditions. Christmas Eve is the big celebration, first of all. Christmas is kinda the Valentines of Japan...kinda. Christmas Eve is for dates. The main traditions for families are Christmas cake, which is usually bought and brought home by the dad Christmas Eve, and KFC is successfully introducing a bucket of fried chicken as the Christmas dinner. The real family gathering is the New Year celebration. Christmas really isn't made for families. They don't even get the day off work (and neither do we!).
We went caroling at Shibuya station. It was ridiculous. We passed out something like 10 Book of Mormons (we usually get 2-3 per week), got many new investigators, and those crazy awesome Young Men and Women passed out somewhere in the realm of 600 fliers/pass along cards in the span of 45 minutes. We normally average 10 a day. That was so COOL.
I think that will suffice for now, don't you? Life is good.
Speaking of life being good, I have a story for you. No pictures, but I really like this.
Last week we called one of the members to ask about an appointment the next day and she excitedly exclaimed that there was a referral for us. A less-active member had been inactive for MANY years (about as long as I've been alive), but upon meeting an old friend (who is also a member) she indicated that her life was not so hot and she requested that the missionaries come teach her. This old friend's friend works for the member in our ward, so we were told about her. We got her information from this member, and discovered she lived about an hour away by train. We called this less-active woman and she sounded very excited to meet with us, and asked us to come as soon as possible. We were able to come on Saturday, her only day off.
Well, we prepared a lesson about Christ, with a few fallback plans depending on her needs (ironically we didn't use any of them, keep reading). We set off to her apartment, and found it relatively quickly. We rang the doorbell and heard her call for us to come up over a dog barking (yay, dogs!). From what we could gather, she lived alone, apparently with a dog.
Well, when we got to the apartment a man opened the door, much to our surprise. This man turned out to be her 21 year old son. When we made our way to the kitchen to greet this woman, she enthusiastically hugged us and ushered us into the living room. There sat her son and his two friends. She whipped out her phone and called her sister. "Sister! The missionaries are here. Grab your daughter and come over." She then told us that her sister would be here in 20 minutes. If we didn't mind, could we talk to everyone?
Yeah, sure. Of course! We smiled, and greeted everyone in the room. I guess when they mentioned the inactive they forgot to mention her whole family was inactive, or something. The woman dashed back into the kitchen to prepare snacks, so we chatted with her son and his friends. After a while we asked them how they felt church, and what they could remember about the last time they'd been to church.
"We go to church every week," the three youth responded, a little confused.
"Really?" we responded enthusiastically (albeit rather surprised), "That's wonderful! Doesn't church feel wonderful?"
"Yeah, I guess." The two boys and one girl were still looking at us a little funny.
"Do you read your scriptures and pray, too?"
"Yeah. We read and pray every night." One of the youth crossed himself while saying this. I grinned enthusiastically and was about to praise them when--
...Wait a second. He just crossed himself, didn't he?
The mother walked back in, "Everyone, I have an announcement! I'm not actually Catholic like you, I'm Mormon!"
EVERYONE in the room stared at her. Some mouths dropped. One of them was mine.
"These are the Mormon missionaries! They are going to teach you what I believe, and we are going to go to the Mormon church together from now on!"
My companion and I looked at each other. The three youth stared at this now-deemed-insane woman. They looked a little angry.
This inactive woman had raised her son and never told him she wasn't Catholic. They had been going to a Catholic church all their lives.
Everyone stared at us now. We looked at each other again. After our initial shock and shared look of 'we are about to get martyred by angry Christians' we determined what to do.
"Lesson 1?"
"Lesson 1."
So we taught them about our beliefs, and how/why the church was founded. At first we were given cold stares as we discussed the nature of God (Heavenly Father), how He speaks with us (Prophets), and Jesus Christ's Ministry on earth. We pointed out that our beliefs regarding this are generally the same as the Catholics, and they begrudgingly agreed. Then we discussed Jesus Christ's resurrection--
The doorbell rang. The dog barked. One of the three kids (I say kids, but they were our age) needed the bathroom. They all three dashed off. Eventually it got quiet again and they came back, to my initial surprise. I thought they'd be hidden away elsewhere, from how they were acting before. Huh.
We discussed the resurrection, and the Great Apostasy. We pointed out the need of an Apostasy and the predictions of the Great Apostasy, and how Christ's church would become slightly distorted and bara bara, or split into many different churches, and that's why there were so many today. Then we talked about Joseph Smith. We began the First Vision--
A cell phone rang. Not just a beep beep ring either, but the full nine yards dirty-dancing-rap song. It was...awkward, to say the least. I had never had this many interruptions before. The dog went crazy again several times, whenever we talked about living prophets or Christ. People kept coming and going through the house. The long-awaited sister arrived, noisily.
But what was amazing is after each interruption they all came right back. They were leaning forward over the table, like this was the most fascinating thing in the history of the world EVER. Which it is, y'know, but it's nice to have it appreciated. We were able to complete the First Vision, explain the Book of Mormon, and we read from it. The dog barked some more but was now ignored. We gave them a Book of Mormon and more information about what we had discussed. After the lesson they exclaimed that it was amazing, and started reading the Book of Mormon before we could even get up to leave. We arranged to meet them again, and left--much later than planned and much happier than ever expected.
That was, by FAR, the coolest lesson I have ever taught. I had heard that Satan does his best to interrupt our message, but I had never seen it in such shocking abundance. I also could never have imagined how unsuccessful he was.
And that's my story, in essence. The inactive woman who never told her family her religion, the coolest first discussion ever, and the curious phenomenon of getting interrupted when discussing spiritual things---particularly the First Vision. I think that fits rather neatly as a missionary story, wouldn't you say? It's not the first and definitely not the last, but I must admit, it's a favorite.
I still laugh whenever I think about how she made that announcement. "Guess what, I'm a Mormon!" Heh.
I better trundle off to do other things. I was planning on finally picking up that Birthday present today. I will treat myself to some much needed clothing, including a hoodie, a t-shirt, some socks, and a new skirt/blouse combo if I can get one. We found the Japanese equivalent of Wal-Mart (no, seriously, it's owned by Wal-Mart) and we're going to go give it a shot today. Go, Seiyu!
Love you, miss you, can't imagine anything else I'd rather be doing,
Me.
P.S. I cannot believe how many members in the Tokyo Foreigner Wards are CEOs/CIOs/CFOs of companies around here. It is INSANE. We just met the President of Nuskin. We know the CFO of Shell and the one of Seiyu. We have gotten Tupperware from the Tupperware president. We have met the former and current President of a very prominent Japanese bank. He gave us cookies. Who knew they were regular people? Who knew they were Members? I love Shibuya. I love our church, and I LOVE the gospel.
Greetings from Shibuya! I wanted to show you some pictures before getting into my awesome story of the week.
(That's my companion and me. She's doing the peace sign, I'm holding the camera.)Japan celebrates Christmas season, that's for sure. We get to see a lot of "Holiday Light Displays."
Man, I have a lot of photos on here. What else do we have? This is my district right before transfers. The two elders in the middle (the one in the chair and the one standing behind him) got transferred, but everyone else stayed.
(Right before the picture I shouted, "That's my camera! Do something weird!" but I didn't give much notice, so this is what you get. The Elder in the chair smiling brightly IS doing his weird face, he normally doesn't smile like that.)Also? Just in case you didn't know, Japan is kinda strange.
That is a fish hat.In Shibuya we try to do some different types of missionary work. When I say missionary work, I am referring to our efforts towards finding new people to teach. The Elders decided on using sports pretty early in the game, so we go play basketball occasionally:
This is surprisingly effective. I also have about 100 action shots of them playing (some of them are rather good, surprisingly), but I don't want to sort through them all for the best ones.Members in Japan can be...interesting. These two fellows are AWESOME. (speaking of awesome...)
Also, we played football on our day off with some members to celebrate Thanksgiving. There is an American School in Japan (ASIJ) here so they let us use a real football field. I think I look terrible in this picture, but it's a good shot overall.
By the way, I wasn't kidding when I said Japan looks like fall weather right now. This was taken near the Emperor's Palace (across the street, in fact) two weeks ago (two days before December, I think):
I also have some really gross pictures of dead fish but since my sister Shana is uploading this blog and I think the pictures would make her cry (they make me want to cry, too) I will skip them. You can have these instead.
I suggest looking at my face closely. That Japanese sister isn't my companion, but she is one of the other two Shibuya Sisters and she rocks.Japan celebrates Christmas with some rather different traditions. Christmas Eve is the big celebration, first of all. Christmas is kinda the Valentines of Japan...kinda. Christmas Eve is for dates. The main traditions for families are Christmas cake, which is usually bought and brought home by the dad Christmas Eve, and KFC is successfully introducing a bucket of fried chicken as the Christmas dinner. The real family gathering is the New Year celebration. Christmas really isn't made for families. They don't even get the day off work (and neither do we!).
We went caroling at Shibuya station. It was ridiculous. We passed out something like 10 Book of Mormons (we usually get 2-3 per week), got many new investigators, and those crazy awesome Young Men and Women passed out somewhere in the realm of 600 fliers/pass along cards in the span of 45 minutes. We normally average 10 a day. That was so COOL.
I think that will suffice for now, don't you? Life is good.
Speaking of life being good, I have a story for you. No pictures, but I really like this.
Last week we called one of the members to ask about an appointment the next day and she excitedly exclaimed that there was a referral for us. A less-active member had been inactive for MANY years (about as long as I've been alive), but upon meeting an old friend (who is also a member) she indicated that her life was not so hot and she requested that the missionaries come teach her. This old friend's friend works for the member in our ward, so we were told about her. We got her information from this member, and discovered she lived about an hour away by train. We called this less-active woman and she sounded very excited to meet with us, and asked us to come as soon as possible. We were able to come on Saturday, her only day off.
Well, we prepared a lesson about Christ, with a few fallback plans depending on her needs (ironically we didn't use any of them, keep reading). We set off to her apartment, and found it relatively quickly. We rang the doorbell and heard her call for us to come up over a dog barking (yay, dogs!). From what we could gather, she lived alone, apparently with a dog.
Well, when we got to the apartment a man opened the door, much to our surprise. This man turned out to be her 21 year old son. When we made our way to the kitchen to greet this woman, she enthusiastically hugged us and ushered us into the living room. There sat her son and his two friends. She whipped out her phone and called her sister. "Sister! The missionaries are here. Grab your daughter and come over." She then told us that her sister would be here in 20 minutes. If we didn't mind, could we talk to everyone?
Yeah, sure. Of course! We smiled, and greeted everyone in the room. I guess when they mentioned the inactive they forgot to mention her whole family was inactive, or something. The woman dashed back into the kitchen to prepare snacks, so we chatted with her son and his friends. After a while we asked them how they felt church, and what they could remember about the last time they'd been to church.
"We go to church every week," the three youth responded, a little confused.
"Really?" we responded enthusiastically (albeit rather surprised), "That's wonderful! Doesn't church feel wonderful?"
"Yeah, I guess." The two boys and one girl were still looking at us a little funny.
"Do you read your scriptures and pray, too?"
"Yeah. We read and pray every night." One of the youth crossed himself while saying this. I grinned enthusiastically and was about to praise them when--
...Wait a second. He just crossed himself, didn't he?
The mother walked back in, "Everyone, I have an announcement! I'm not actually Catholic like you, I'm Mormon!"
EVERYONE in the room stared at her. Some mouths dropped. One of them was mine.
"These are the Mormon missionaries! They are going to teach you what I believe, and we are going to go to the Mormon church together from now on!"
My companion and I looked at each other. The three youth stared at this now-deemed-insane woman. They looked a little angry.
This inactive woman had raised her son and never told him she wasn't Catholic. They had been going to a Catholic church all their lives.
Everyone stared at us now. We looked at each other again. After our initial shock and shared look of 'we are about to get martyred by angry Christians' we determined what to do.
"Lesson 1?"
"Lesson 1."
So we taught them about our beliefs, and how/why the church was founded. At first we were given cold stares as we discussed the nature of God (Heavenly Father), how He speaks with us (Prophets), and Jesus Christ's Ministry on earth. We pointed out that our beliefs regarding this are generally the same as the Catholics, and they begrudgingly agreed. Then we discussed Jesus Christ's resurrection--
The doorbell rang. The dog barked. One of the three kids (I say kids, but they were our age) needed the bathroom. They all three dashed off. Eventually it got quiet again and they came back, to my initial surprise. I thought they'd be hidden away elsewhere, from how they were acting before. Huh.
We discussed the resurrection, and the Great Apostasy. We pointed out the need of an Apostasy and the predictions of the Great Apostasy, and how Christ's church would become slightly distorted and bara bara, or split into many different churches, and that's why there were so many today. Then we talked about Joseph Smith. We began the First Vision--
A cell phone rang. Not just a beep beep ring either, but the full nine yards dirty-dancing-rap song. It was...awkward, to say the least. I had never had this many interruptions before. The dog went crazy again several times, whenever we talked about living prophets or Christ. People kept coming and going through the house. The long-awaited sister arrived, noisily.
But what was amazing is after each interruption they all came right back. They were leaning forward over the table, like this was the most fascinating thing in the history of the world EVER. Which it is, y'know, but it's nice to have it appreciated. We were able to complete the First Vision, explain the Book of Mormon, and we read from it. The dog barked some more but was now ignored. We gave them a Book of Mormon and more information about what we had discussed. After the lesson they exclaimed that it was amazing, and started reading the Book of Mormon before we could even get up to leave. We arranged to meet them again, and left--much later than planned and much happier than ever expected.
That was, by FAR, the coolest lesson I have ever taught. I had heard that Satan does his best to interrupt our message, but I had never seen it in such shocking abundance. I also could never have imagined how unsuccessful he was.
And that's my story, in essence. The inactive woman who never told her family her religion, the coolest first discussion ever, and the curious phenomenon of getting interrupted when discussing spiritual things---particularly the First Vision. I think that fits rather neatly as a missionary story, wouldn't you say? It's not the first and definitely not the last, but I must admit, it's a favorite.
I still laugh whenever I think about how she made that announcement. "Guess what, I'm a Mormon!" Heh.
I better trundle off to do other things. I was planning on finally picking up that Birthday present today. I will treat myself to some much needed clothing, including a hoodie, a t-shirt, some socks, and a new skirt/blouse combo if I can get one. We found the Japanese equivalent of Wal-Mart (no, seriously, it's owned by Wal-Mart) and we're going to go give it a shot today. Go, Seiyu!
Love you, miss you, can't imagine anything else I'd rather be doing,
Me.
P.S. I cannot believe how many members in the Tokyo Foreigner Wards are CEOs/CIOs/CFOs of companies around here. It is INSANE. We just met the President of Nuskin. We know the CFO of Shell and the one of Seiyu. We have gotten Tupperware from the Tupperware president. We have met the former and current President of a very prominent Japanese bank. He gave us cookies. Who knew they were regular people? Who knew they were Members? I love Shibuya. I love our church, and I LOVE the gospel.
Saturday, December 5, 2009
Tuesday, December 1, 2009
Happy super late Thanksgiving, everyone!
Once again, I have come to tell you about my week and I am without a camera cord. Which is a shame because I have some gorgeous pictures this time. I will simply have to have a very picture oriented post in future. Sorry, Shana. I also have a flash drive full, so I need to send it home. This scares me, as I am worried it will break. I will break down and ship it eventually---I really need space.
I had a wonderful birthday, thank you everyone who wished me a happy birthday! It was awesome. I woke up to find that my roommates had heart attacked my desk. They also hid little presents all over the apartment. I have a pencil that writes in 5 colors at once, a bubble-blower that blows bubbles that don't pop (really!), and I learned a few new magic tricks. I love magic tricks, so if anyone has any other ones, I would love to hear it! I know how to do the Royal Flush, the 3 piles of 3/ 3 piles of 7, Aces on top, Travelling Aces (also known as the invisible ace), and guess the card on top. I love it when people send me their ideas and tricks, especially with instructions, so thank you!! I used to be able to do This That and the Other but I can't remember some of the bits of it now...I am working on it, though.
Thanksgiving was so cool. Some people found out about the mission comic I have been doing and asked me to do a comic for the mormon.jp website [Editor's note: Remember that you can use Google Translate to translate web pages.] No one has officially requested it, but it was a thought. I think it's a cute idea, we'll see what happens.
I love hearing from all of you, and I wish I had a lot to say in return! We are still teaching and still meeting with members. We had one sweet woman come into our ward accidentally thinking it was a Catholic church. She's interested in being "healed" and wanted to hear more about our church, so she became an investigator. I don't want to give too many more details, but it was pretty cool.
Oh, yeah, so. I don't normally talk about lessons I gave or people we've met in any sort of detail. If you would like me to do so I can, but I figure this is a public blog so I could happily talk about the more mundane and random but it might be a little bimyo to talk about people I'm teaching or very spiritual experiences I have had. I recorded those in my journal, so they aren't lost, I just haven't opened them up here. Thoughts?
OH. So, some of you asked about Christmas. Uhm. This is awkward, but I am just going to tell you what I would like for Christmas here, okay?
Letters.
I LOVE getting paper letters from you all. I love coming home to a thick envelope with lots of information and occasionally photos. BEST GIFT EVER.
Just print out your blog and send it, that is so great. Send me some favorite poems and tell me why you like them, an update about the mundane, tell me about your NaNoWriMo, whatever. I just love hearing from you!
Okay, I am done.
Today I am super exhausted. Why? Because the Sisters heard about the fish market down in Tsukiji. They auction off tuna at 5 in the morning. Visitors are allowed to watch. "Let's do it!" they cried. So we woke up at 3 and left at 4 this morning so that we could get to Tsukiji.
There are no trains at 3AM, so we rode our bikes for nearly an hour in order to get there in time. Huzzah! The fish market. The fish were huge! I had no idea that tuna could get that big. They were probably around 4 feet long and supremely fat. It was so crazy.
It was actually sorta creepy. Those of you who do not eat meat or want to hear about fish selling please skip this paragraph to the next one. They had cut out huge holes where the gills usually are, so you could see the spine of the fish. All the fish were frozen and had numbers on them. The tails were hacked off and the belly, tail area, and neck area were wedged open so that people could inspect the meat. They then were sold. I didn't really enjoy looking at the fish. I can eat beef and chicken because it doesn't look a thing like a cow or a bird, so I can happily chomp away without thinking too hard about the animal itself. Fish actually look like fish when they are eaten and sold, and it was really sad to see rows upon rows of dead creatures waiting to be hacked into with ice picks and crow bars so that people could buy them wholesale.
I felt kinda ill after a while so I asked one of the other sisters to leave with me. I cannot eat fish today. I want to be a vegetarian, and if I didn't love beef so much I would be one right now. I seriously don't think I can eat fish without feeling super sick after today.
Oh, speaking of which, my Japanese Food Fast is over! I was able to eat Japanese food at a Japanese member's house on Sunday. Woohoo! I normally love Japanese food, especially ordered in restaurants in America. We were told we were having "curry pot." Sweet, curry!
We get there and there is a big post of boiling food in the middle of the table. You use chopsticks to grab food and put it into your bowl and eat it.
You'll never guess what I ate on Sunday.
Seriously, I have never eaten this 'authentically' before.
I have now eaten the following, right outta that pot:
-Cabbage
-Carrots
-Potato
-Chicken
-Onion
-Mushrooms
-Tofu
-Mochi
-Noodles
-Seaweed
-Shredded fish scales
-Fish Meatballs (<--WHY DO THESE EXIST)
-Squid
-Shrimp heads
-Octopus tentacles
I can now say with confidence that I have eaten Japanese food.
I had a wonderful birthday, thank you everyone who wished me a happy birthday! It was awesome. I woke up to find that my roommates had heart attacked my desk. They also hid little presents all over the apartment. I have a pencil that writes in 5 colors at once, a bubble-blower that blows bubbles that don't pop (really!), and I learned a few new magic tricks. I love magic tricks, so if anyone has any other ones, I would love to hear it! I know how to do the Royal Flush, the 3 piles of 3/ 3 piles of 7, Aces on top, Travelling Aces (also known as the invisible ace), and guess the card on top. I love it when people send me their ideas and tricks, especially with instructions, so thank you!! I used to be able to do This That and the Other but I can't remember some of the bits of it now...I am working on it, though.
Thanksgiving was so cool. Some people found out about the mission comic I have been doing and asked me to do a comic for the mormon.jp website [Editor's note: Remember that you can use Google Translate to translate web pages.] No one has officially requested it, but it was a thought. I think it's a cute idea, we'll see what happens.
I love hearing from all of you, and I wish I had a lot to say in return! We are still teaching and still meeting with members. We had one sweet woman come into our ward accidentally thinking it was a Catholic church. She's interested in being "healed" and wanted to hear more about our church, so she became an investigator. I don't want to give too many more details, but it was pretty cool.
Oh, yeah, so. I don't normally talk about lessons I gave or people we've met in any sort of detail. If you would like me to do so I can, but I figure this is a public blog so I could happily talk about the more mundane and random but it might be a little bimyo to talk about people I'm teaching or very spiritual experiences I have had. I recorded those in my journal, so they aren't lost, I just haven't opened them up here. Thoughts?
OH. So, some of you asked about Christmas. Uhm. This is awkward, but I am just going to tell you what I would like for Christmas here, okay?
Letters.
I LOVE getting paper letters from you all. I love coming home to a thick envelope with lots of information and occasionally photos. BEST GIFT EVER.
Just print out your blog and send it, that is so great. Send me some favorite poems and tell me why you like them, an update about the mundane, tell me about your NaNoWriMo, whatever. I just love hearing from you!
Okay, I am done.
Today I am super exhausted. Why? Because the Sisters heard about the fish market down in Tsukiji. They auction off tuna at 5 in the morning. Visitors are allowed to watch. "Let's do it!" they cried. So we woke up at 3 and left at 4 this morning so that we could get to Tsukiji.
There are no trains at 3AM, so we rode our bikes for nearly an hour in order to get there in time. Huzzah! The fish market. The fish were huge! I had no idea that tuna could get that big. They were probably around 4 feet long and supremely fat. It was so crazy.
It was actually sorta creepy. Those of you who do not eat meat or want to hear about fish selling please skip this paragraph to the next one. They had cut out huge holes where the gills usually are, so you could see the spine of the fish. All the fish were frozen and had numbers on them. The tails were hacked off and the belly, tail area, and neck area were wedged open so that people could inspect the meat. They then were sold. I didn't really enjoy looking at the fish. I can eat beef and chicken because it doesn't look a thing like a cow or a bird, so I can happily chomp away without thinking too hard about the animal itself. Fish actually look like fish when they are eaten and sold, and it was really sad to see rows upon rows of dead creatures waiting to be hacked into with ice picks and crow bars so that people could buy them wholesale.
I felt kinda ill after a while so I asked one of the other sisters to leave with me. I cannot eat fish today. I want to be a vegetarian, and if I didn't love beef so much I would be one right now. I seriously don't think I can eat fish without feeling super sick after today.
Oh, speaking of which, my Japanese Food Fast is over! I was able to eat Japanese food at a Japanese member's house on Sunday. Woohoo! I normally love Japanese food, especially ordered in restaurants in America. We were told we were having "curry pot." Sweet, curry!
We get there and there is a big post of boiling food in the middle of the table. You use chopsticks to grab food and put it into your bowl and eat it.
You'll never guess what I ate on Sunday.
Seriously, I have never eaten this 'authentically' before.
I have now eaten the following, right outta that pot:
-Cabbage
-Carrots
-Potato
-Chicken
-Onion
-Mushrooms
-Tofu
-Mochi
-Noodles
-Seaweed
-Shredded fish scales
-Fish Meatballs (<--WHY DO THESE EXIST)
-Squid
-Shrimp heads
-Octopus tentacles
I can now say with confidence that I have eaten Japanese food.
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