Fun food fact:
Food is super important to the people in Japan. When they first meet you
they ask the normal: name, who are you and why are you here, then instead of
going to the normal "do you have a family? what do you want to do after the
mission? what are your hobbies?" its almost always, "what is your favorite
food? what is your least favorite food? have you eaten this? that? ect.". It's
very interesting and as a big supporter and fan of food I fully support this
philosophy of thought. My answer to the first question is sushi. And sushi in the states and here
is not the same. I don't know how to explain it but when you eat this diet everyday
every meal your desires change. I eat some things now and go ehh... that before I
loved! And some things I pound and pound! Sushi, I love it. I will tell you the
worst thing I ate next week.
Culture point:
Another request from Moma. Homes are as you
would expect small. The funny thing about Japan is roommates are like taboo. It's
SUPER weird if you have a roommate and most people are not married. Even church
members have a ton of single adult men and women so when only one person lives
in an apartment it can be pretty small. Normally there is a kitchen about the 15
feet by 15 feet and then a bathroom and then a room with a t.v. and small table. In the night they put the table against the wall, this table is like a coffee
table but they use it to eat (no chairs) and they roll out their futon and
sleep. There is normally a closet too and another room is not super rare but
always small. They have washing machines for clothes but dryers are super rare. No dish washer that I have seen but they have an oven that is really small. Everyone has a big rice
cooker. Garbage disposals are almost unheard of. Toasters are not super rare.
Fridge with freezer doors underneath. Of course like anything there
are always exceptions. I have been in homes that you wouldn't even know were
Japanese if they took down the decorations. But the nicest homes I have been in
are always big but very Japanese with low tables and cool decorations and such.
In about 2 years I could probably make this more accurate.
Spiritual thought:
So I talked about goals before and I am not a hypocrite (all the time
anyway). So I am really into goal setting lately. I want to share a
story: We have been doing pretty good lately as
far as numbers, the Lord has been blessing us sooo much. I wanted to
make us even better, continually progressing to show our gratitude. So we set big
numbers for new investigators, finding people who wanted to hear our message. The day was Sunday, yesterday, which is the day that missionaries have to finish their goals. We had every category finished except for new investigators: we
had one more to finish. We had a family we could go visit that the dad said
he was interested so it was all golden. We only had an hour but we were set.
False we got there and he said sorry but the family was all in the car to go to
the store so we would have to meet next week. Crap. We have 30 minutes left so
we went to this guys house who had been interested a couple years ago. He wasn't
interested anymore. 10 minutes left, barely enough time for even a short
message. We had no time to go to a different area where we knew of someone who
might have interest. Housing, not the best way to find people. It's weird for
them kind of. It's incredibly random so you do find people
but you disrupt a lot of people evening and while our message is important enough
that I believe it is worth it, there are better ways of finding interested
people. But we had no other option and we had prayed about this goal and set it
so we decided to knock three doors. 9 minutes left. First door, no one home.
Second door, no answer. Third door, no answer. Well, sometimes we need to
learn we don't get everything we desire. We begin to walk away. Door number 2
opens and he is interested. The Lord will provide away! 1 nephi 3:7 "And it came to pass that I, Nephi, said unto my father: I will go and do the things which the Lord hath commanded, for I know that the Lord giveth no commandments unto the children of men, save he shall prepare a way for them that they may accomplish the thing which he commandeth them." I was singing at
the top of my lungs the whole way home (Everyone already thinks I am a weird
gagin anyway don't worry too much).
Funny story:
This week has been funny, but I will tell
you my second "stand out" story first.
When someone in America looks really
different everyone is polite and we do not stare. That is everyone except for a
certain shorter sect of the population. Kids have no reservations. If you want to
know if your hair dye job is a beautiful red or a flaming orange you ask the 4
year old. Or maybe you very seriously ask the 30 year old. The last person you
ask is the shy 9 year old. They will lie to you every time because they are just
super sweet and mostly just terrified or causing offence (this is only the shy
9 year old.. I have know to many 9 year olds to think this is universal).
So there was one such 9 year old and 4
year old walking together past the church. I am kind of a big fan of kids and
on the mission all I am around is 20 year olds all day so I give them a big
"konichiwa!". They are just about to round the corner but the 4 year stops, glances
back, then does a huge double take and gets these big eyes. He turns around and
he just stares at me his jaw slack "what in the world is that..? and how does
it know how to speak Japanese" one of those looks. He bellows back a konichiwa
to test if I could understand while the sister nervously shuffles into the
picture. I say konichiwa and wave this time (you only wave to people that are
younger then you or it is kind of rude) the 4 year old is all excited now and the
sister a bit nervous. She is standing right behind him. He opens his moth and
bellows "あなたはがいじ.... " it means "you forien..." the reason for the sudden stop
was the hand that smacked over his mouth from behind and the other hand that got
him around the chest and literally dragged him, heels dragging around the
corner. She gave me a nervous grin and said bye at least.
Life is awesome out here! Love each other
for me! Find ways to be happy for me!
Law choro
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