20:15 hours (Super late I know. Its been
a crazy day)
Our most recent zone pic. We have the biggest zone in the mission by about 10 people and there are 4 zones.
Barracks:
It is the mission moma`s birthday this
week. She is pretty much super rich compared to us missionaries and the only ones with
pretty handwriting are the Japanese, but she cant read konji, so a card was out.
That left just the service option. Her biggest worry is we are all going to die
in our own filth. Fixated in our mold and grime. I have always been a bit of
a momas boy so I completely share her concerns! So the whole zone's present was
to totally dominate the apartments with cleaning and then take pictures and video
to send her. So that is what we have been doing today! You know those fun hoods above stoves? We
have one. But it hasn't been run or cleaned in my guess is 10 years. That might
be a bit long or maybe a bit short. Edwards choro might be able to enlighten
us? Anyway it's bad. This aint my first rodeo! I have been in the duplexes.
But oh my grease! I carved a "I heart mom" with a screw driver into the filth
and it was a lot of work (the picture is sick though). My hands have this
permanent oilyness to them and I worked for like 3 hours and still there is no way
I would lick the thing but it is pretty good on the eye! I also finally really
cleaned the shower drain. There have been lots of flies and bugs crawling and
flying out every time I turned the water on. It's not like American drains or I
would have done it sooner! I think they were eating the hair ball creature
thing. Maybe Japanese hair is edible?
Samurai Castle that we visited
Me being a samurai in a samurai castle. Pretty much awesome! No it is not a real sword. Yes that pose is the biggest regret of my mission so far.
Japanese language:
Fun fact for you all. you know onamonapia? Thank you Mrs. Macatee! If you don't look it up. In English they are used a lot but have a bit of a silly connotation and is regarded as slightly childish and cute. In Japanese it is as professional as any other word! The interesting part is what they choose to make the sound! For example "tsurutsuru" means "slippery" and "kirakira" means "sparkly" and a small object rolling (like a pencil) makes the sounds "korakora"! It's super fun to learn and when I use them all the Japanese are super impressed and kind of confused. "Why does he know the word for a rolling small object and the word for 'abraideth not' (james 1:5) but he doesn't know the word for dog?" (its inu by the way. I looked it up).
Culture fun fact:
So they love English. They cant speak it
at all (people will tell you before your mission that everyone can speak
it and they are trying to trick you) but they have all studied it a ton. A lot
of their media entertainment is originally in English. They are really smart so
they like the challenge of a different language I guess. If something is "cool"
it will normally have its name big in romanji (English letters) and then under
in Japanese (all the instructions/ingredients/description is in Japanese too so
it doesn't much help me).
My Saturday night English class and a bunch of missionaries. We have way too much fun and even play Uno to learn English. Weird I know.
Food fact:
Rice. Imagine you took all the carbs you
eat: noodles, bread, potatoes, rice, tortillas..... and you switched it out with
rice. That is how rice is here. They also use it the other stuff too. It's better then our rice so it makes sense. Everyone
has a rice cooker and that is pretty much all they use, even the fancy (I have
no idea if it was fancy but it felt pretty fancy to me) restaurants serve it
right out a rice cooker. It's not cheap either. For 10 kg you pay 40 bucks. Supply and demand I guess. 
Funny Story:
So there isn't really a culminating moment
of this but I have to share it. The reason I talked about Japanese loving
English so much is the fact that almost all the clothes here have English
writing on them. BUT not all the clothes here are made in English speaking
countries. At least I think that is what happened because the English is super
weird. It starts off with just random! For example, there is a sister (super young
and fashionable) in the ward that always wears these shoes. The left says "yes"
huge on the toe and the right says "no". Then it gets odd (this category is bigger then
you might think): "want to interest me?" huge on the front of some ladies
shirt. What the heck does that mean?! But the worst is the ones that are
designed by the Americans for preppy dirty young men, instructions sent to china
to be made, the Chinese make them, then ship them to Japan. Somewhere along
the line the label "this shirt should only be worn if you have a dirty mind and
want to wear it on your shirt in a 'clever' way" goes missing. (These are the shirts the kid in
8th grade is wearing inside out because my mom made him flip it. Now there
are four other kids looking up his shirt to see what it says and he is smugly
smiling and nodding his head.) These same shirts are randomly divided among the
racks in Japan and randomly bought and worn! I have seen anything from a mother
of three to business men. I guess the bishop a couple districts over had a couple
bad ones... I would quote them if I wasn't a missionary.
My jaw always drops and then I just laugh
and look over at my companion to do the "did you see that?!?!" and then I just
sigh. Lol (don't take that wrong way. I am sooo grateful for a Japanese
companion). He asked me why I laughed one time and I told him. He says he
completely understands my situation. I asked him why. He explained that there
are really popular websites in Japan where they have huge blogs of American
tattoos. The ones in Japanese... "oh yeah this one here means hope!" This tattoo guy probably knows Japanese right?
Love each other for me!
Law choro
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