February 2014 Photo Update

My camera does crazy things when it is cold out.

Happy Valentine's Day!

Biking in the snow can be dangerous. But, if you leave your helmet out overnight you get a little extra padding.

My companion Elder Mantz

 

Sold snow! Building, cups, and him.

February 23, 2014 Letter

0742 hours Misawa

ohaiogozaimasu! (good morning!)

Life is wonderful here! I got two packages from my mama bear and one of them had stuff I needed and the other had a seahawks shirt I couldn't live without so life is well up here! ;-)

 

Culture Point:

Washing clothes (brought to you by my loving mother). I heard all sorts of horror stories from Japanese returned missionaries about how there were no dryers in Japan or that you had these washers that just tied your clothes in a knot of death then you had to put it in a separate machine to untie it and it was so humid in the summer they wouldn't really dry all the way, etc. Turns out they were not lying and there did use to be all those things. But what we are using now (and I would say most people in the areas I have been in use) is a hybrid small washer and dryer. It fits probably 10 shirts comfortably (you could put in 30 if you smashed it) but the mission mom says for us to do 4 shirts at a time to actually wash them and get any sweat marks off. I end up doing normally 6 and all seems to be well. Anyways, it's very similar to a washer in the states: soap, then you turn on the nozzle of the temperature of water you want, and the machine pulls from it and washes your clothes (45minutes). Then you don't even have to open the lid you just hit the dryer button and it dries them. The one downside is that those 6 shirts take the 5 hour cycle to dry. If you put 10 in probably two 5 hour cycles would be needed. But! we do have a machine washing our clothes that takes no effort by us and if you keep the loads small it works great! You see a lot of clothes lines on people balconies and in their houses.

 

Fun Food Fact:

Anko (bean paste). I could talk about this for hours but I will just give you a piece of the iceberg. It's served and prepared into about 100 different pieces sometimes being the main dish and others times just an ingredient. My favorite way (I love this way even though normally anko is not really my first choice but its always a safe food) is when they take the beans and dip it in a sweet batter (I imagine it being like pancake batter maybe but thicker) and they deep fry it and put sugar on top! It's like a high protein donut! :-) soooo good!

This is to show that Japanese eggs are way darker than American Eggs.

This is Elder Iida eating a raw egg to prove to us it was like drinking water.

 

Spiritual Thought:

Overcoming our weaknesses. We all have a desire to do it I think and we all can do it through the atonement of Jesus Christ. We apply that atonement through the gospel of Jesus Christ, faith repentance, baptism, the gift of the holy ghost and enduring to the end. It works! I know it and want to testify that it works but it is not easy; if it were there would be no growing. The hard is good for us.

 

Good Timber

by Douglas Malloch

 The tree that never had to fight
For sun and sky and air and light,
But stood out in the open plain
And always got its share of rain,
Never became a forest king
But lived and died a scrubby thing.The man who never had to toil
To gain and farm his patch of soil,
Who never had to win his share
Of sun and sky and light and air,
Never became a manly man
But lived and died as he began.Good timber does not grow with ease:
The stronger wind, the stronger trees;
The further sky, the greater length;
The more the storm, the more the strength.
By sun and cold, by rain and snow,
In trees and men good timbers grow.Where thickest lies the forest growth,
We find the patriarchs of both.
And they hold counsel with the stars
Whose broken branches show the scars
Of many winds and much of strife.
This is the common law of life.

Ether 12:27
 "And if men come unto me I will show unto them their ^aweakness. I ^bgive unto men weakness that they may be humble; and my ^cgrace is sufficient for all men that ^dhumble themselves before me; for if they humble themselves before me, and have faith in me, then will I make ^eweak things become strong unto them."
 

You are weak because God wants to make you strong! There is hope, the more weaknesses you have the more potential, capitalize on them!

 

Funny Story:

Ice cream. I love ice cream and always will and I am always in it for the story so I try everything that I run into. So when our train arrived 20 minutes before an appointment and we decided to grab some lunch at a little middle of nowhere store (if you know what country mercantile or the chocolate factory is it was kind of like that). We are walking around and looking at stuff and there is all these signs for shijimi ramen.. and i am like what does "shijimi" mean? Then we saw the sign that is in the picture! It means clam! That sounds... not very good... clam ice cream... :-p But you figure that the grape jolly ranchers don't actually taste like grape and the crabapple jam kinda tastes like apples but they add so much sugar that it makes it awesome! So at worst I am imagining it will be like milk ice cream all over again.

 

There were 3 signs I should have paid attention to:

1. Please notice the prices on the sign. the vanilla and chocolate are more expensive the clam. why?

2. When I asked the lil Japanese ice cream lady if it was good she would not answer my question; she just said the equivalent of "about that...." and ran in the back.

3. The smell. When ice cream does not smell sweet you are going to have some trouble is what I've learned.

 

I have eaten live fish, I have eaten octopus and squid raw, I have even eaten t.v. dinner fish sticks.

But I kid you not I have never had anything that was just as completely gross as this. Like clams in a blender, add some milk, freeze it. Put it on some poor cone that has to hold that creature. The worst part is 1. it's japan so there are no garbage cans within 100 miles, 2. it's japan so its super rude not to eat all your food, and 3. it's frozen so there is no just going for it all at once or you will get a brain freeze. I think i can eat anything... but yeah, i can officially say the grossest thing I have ever eaten is ice cream. :-)

 

love each other for me and smile!

Law Choro

February 16, 2014 Letter

1503 hour Snow land

``If a mountain goat and Lance Armstrong had a child that would be me.``

 

Weather:

Snowman for eikaiwa advertisement (this was right before the big snow).

I have not seen bare sidewalks or houses since early December. On Saturday and Sunday it snowed 23 and one half inches in 24 hours setting a new record for the month of February of snowfall in a 24 hour period. Then the wind came and made mountains of the stuff. The American church got canceled and we just dug people out all day! It was way fun. We went to Japanese church then just kept digging and digging and we did that again all today. It's been way fun.

Fun Food Fact:

I went to a sushi restaurant today and ate something I have never seen before. They have conveyer belts that carry sushi all around the restaurant and different plates are different colors according to price. There was this little plate (turned out it meant it was free) and on it was two shrimp and I am talking shrimp. Not the shrimp meat that we normally eat; I am talking eyes, legs, hair, shell, the whole thing. It was the part that they take off before you eat the rest. They have cooked it in oil and shook salt on it and it was free if you want it! It was good! In Japan you eat the tail of the shrimp; it tastes good and is very much edible you just have to be careful!
 

Culture Point:

Snow shoveling. So this really applies to Northern Japan because it is the only place that gets a lot of snow: it is really important that you shovel off your walks. You see 80 year old grandmas shoveling all day because it needs to be cleaned off (yes we help them when we see it). It all gets shoveled when it falls (especially in the morning). It's fun! It feels different than in the states; there seems to be no order of whether men or women should shovel (it might even be more of a woman job) but mostly it is whoever is there is shoveling.
 

Spiritual Thought:

My thought is this: no matter how dire your situation may seem if we can rap our minds around the fact that God is all powerful and loves you more than we can comprehend (which I think is essentially faith and humility) and that any trail we have has been tailored created and sent our way with the soul purpose to make you specifically, stronger. There is a plan. If you want to know the plan I can hook you up with someone that will teach it to you. In that plan we are to progress. God knows exactly where we are lacking and so he gives us specific things to stretch us so we can improve to the goal we selected before.
 

Funny Story:

 

Elder Mantz- total beast. We love Elder Mantz. One thing he does is cut his own hair. He looks great, it's cheep for him, he can do it whenever... it's sweet. I thought it was super cool and Elder Iida thought it was totally awesome! He wanted to cut my hair (easier then your own) and try his own and I was thinking about it and maybe going to let him (he is way nice and pretty dang smart so I trusted him). So Elder Mantz was cutting his hair in the bathroom and pretty much finished up then he called for someone to come help him get his neck (only one mirror and he wanted a straight line). Iida choro just jumps up and says he wants to try. Elder Mantz figures he can write tiny beautiful complex kanji he should be able to cut a straight line. He takes the buzzer and starts at the bottom of his neck and starts coming up... I am in the kitchen washing dishes at this time so I heard this from Elder Mantz later. It's all going good then all the sudden it goes quite (all three of the other guys are in the bathroom)..."gomen mantsu choro!" (this was Elder Iida saying sorry Elder Mantz!). Then Elder Anderson just starts howling laughing, red in the face, body bent in half, rolling along the wall, screaming laughing. At the same time Elder Mantz is like half calm half panicked trying to figure out what happened to his head in English and Elder Iida is just saying that same line over and over... and my hands are soapy so I aint going anywhere.
 

 

Long story short I guess when he was going up he ran into a bit of friction and tried to just power through. He powered through a bit too much and ended up an inch higher than he needed to be!
 

Love each other for me and serve!

Law Choro

February 10, 2014 Letter

Winter Wonderland 1653 hours

Sorry folks! I got to do some way fun activities today and I am out of time to write but I promise you it was worth it!

 

Fun Food Fact:

Vending machines. I have talked about vending machines before and how half of the drinks are hot and half are cold. But, on the hot side there are like 20 different coffees and teas and then there is sometimes (about half the time) a hot cocoa and about 80% of the time there is corn soup! Sometimes onion soup but the Japanese really like corn soup and it's easy to understand why because it is so good! It's like a creamy corn broth with corn kernels in it. You can buy it at the store and it looks like hot chocolate packets but it is corn!

 

Culture Fact:

Trains. They are the best in the world but I will talk about them another time. I want to talk about how you ride the train. Most of the time the trains are not smash-packed like you see on the news from Tokyo. There is normally enough room for everyone to sit except like 10 people (unless it is early morning or 4-6pm then most people are standing).When you ride the train you can have anywhere from a 10 minutes to 2 hour ride (for most  people) and so you sit on the seat and just sit. It's not full of talkin;, young people have headphones and their phone and kind of sleep and old people have phones or a book and kind of sleep (really older people just kind of sleep). But it's really quite and everyone is just like nodding off or looking out the window. That is unless you are me; then you are talking to everyone, asking them lots of questions about Japan or seeing if they would have interest in a message about how they can find purpose in life. I always ask them how they know how to get off when it is their stop and to wake up. They always just say, ``I don't know... you just do``. So it's a Japanese secret.

 

Spiritual Thought:

My thoughts today are on the strength or the potentially great strength of the family. My thoughts are: I think God loves us and that the family is a burning example of him wanting to take care us. He gave us a system that when done correctly can be one of the biggest strengths and joys of our existence.

"But what is the right way?" I find myself asking. Then another testimony to me of God's love is that He gives us an answer to that too. He gives us the scriptures of ancient prophets who God talked to and told them the best way to raise their families. My testimony is that he didn't leave us hanging recently, He still talks to the world on how to raise our families through a prophet today! I am so thankful for the love of God and assurance of the right path I have because I know we have a living prophet today.
 

The link below is modern day revelation in regard to the family. If you have any questions please contact an LDS member or your local LDS missionaries. 

 https://www.lds.org/topics/family-proclamation

 

Funny Story:

I was on a train on the way home from a zone training meeting up in Aomori and it was around 6:30 at night so the train was pretty empty. So I was rocking a seat and talking away like always and then the train slowly starts to empty and I am sitting by myself. My companion is talking away to the person next to him and it's kind of late for me to join the conversation. So I look out the window for a bit, study some vocab, and then subconsciously I decided to study some culture about Japan and I start to doze a little bit.... then I think I was bored of the dozing because I fell waaay asleep. My companion was sooo engaged in his conversation. If you all remember the secret trick of the Japanese where they just magically wake up at your stop... well either I am not Japanese or they are just pulling my leg. We got to ride the train an extra 2 hours because I did not wake up! Luckily it was free. They took pity on the silly little Americans that looked all bum hurt.. haha!

 

Have a wonderful week and love each other for me!

Law Choro

February 2, 2014 Letter

Nihon 0752 Hours

Ohaio gozaimasu!! 

Life is wonderful here! We are at the top of our game! We are seeing miracles, having a blast in the apartment, and learning japanese and the gospel. 

 

Culture Point:

I am 90 percent sure I haven't shared this with you but if I have forgive me. Animal sounds: 

• When a dog barks it says "wan wan!" (pronunciation like the Spanish name Juan)
• Cats say niyao  (very similar to ours)
• Pigs do not say oink! they say "bu-bu-" (like a ghost"s boo twice)
• Roosters say "kokekokkou" 
• Cows say "mo-" sounds like mow
• Sheep say "me-me-"
• Horses say "hihi-n" (he heen) 

All my children will be the freaks in kindergarten that say the dog says "wanwan!".

 

Fun Food Fact:

     Cereal. So contrary to popular belief there is cereal in Japan. It is probably the best cereal in the world. You can buy some of your classic American cereals like frosted flakes but the boxes are half the size and the price is 3 times the amount. Not exactly missionary style. They mostly have their own Japanese brands and it is a lot different then what I think of as normal cereal. There is a ton of different toasted grains, flakes, tons of dried fruit, and granola type pieces and it comes in a bag about the size of the big frosted flakes box. It is sooooooo good! Like the best cereal I have ever eaten probably but that bag costs about 12 dollars so they know it tastes good... but sometimes the Japanese moms send it to the missionaries and they share with us! (keeps it fun).

 

Spiritual Thought:

     I read a quote by Elder Holland that told a story he had heard. The story went something like this: There was a young couple that set out to make a home for themselves. They settled on a homestead in the wilderness and built a small home and farm. They had one cow and a pasture where it grazed. Sometimes when the husband was off working the cow would get excited and jump the fence and they would have to find it. One day the husband had to go into town to get some supplies. Before he left he impatiently said to his bride, "do you think you can finally keep that cow in while I am gone?".

She thought she could. While the man was in town a terrible storm came though the area. When he returned home he found a note, "the cow got out, i think i can find her though". He search but neither had survived.

     The author concluded with a poem about how we cant pull back our words once they are said and how they are more dangerous than fire. I think about that story a lot actually. How badly do I really need to say that slightly unloving or sharp sentence? It puts things into perspective. There is also just as much power on the opposite type of speech to lift, heal, and protect. I am going to try and improve. If I can master the tongue I will master the whole body! 

 

Funny Story:

     So we all know my favorite older sister in the ward. So I love her and she puts up with me. Elder Breinholt had the same relationship. But I have a new companion of late, Elder Mantz. Speaking frankly (he says this all the time so i feel no guilt in saying it) he looks like he is about 12 years old; small in stature, baby face, always smiling... he just looks way young! He is actually older then me by about 6 months. The story took place at Sunday school after class when everyone was just mingling and talking to each other afterward. Elder Mantz was talking to some of the young men and I was talking some planning with Elder Anderson when I started to listen to the conversation of my favorite sister and a sister who is hearing the lessons from the missionaries (she is actually getting baptized this weekend). What I hear is my favorite sister with more joy in her voice then I have ever heard saying, "look at him!! He is sooo CUTE! He is so little and cute!". Then the other lady said "yeah, but he is a missionary. He is supposed to be like professional". "But he is so young! Like a little kid! So Cute!" and then the other sister is like "you want to marry him or something?". (I start dying at this point) She gives her a dirty look, "ahh be quiet you!". Elder Iida, Anderson and I are laughing too hard to even hear what happened. And now every time we see the lady who made the marriage joke she asks how Elder Mantz's wife is doing. It's sooo funny! We can talk to any old person because they love Elder Mantz!
 

Smile and love each other for me!

Law Choro

January 27, 2014 Letter

An air force base located somewhere in northeast Asia 1633 hours

 

So the weather has been insane lately but kind of fun; lots of ice, slush, hale, snow, or sunshine and it makes the bikes really fun to come to like a sliding sideways stop. We look like total beasts so no big deal. ;-)

 

Apartment:

I already told you that we had transfers but we now have Elder Mantz, my companion, who is a total stud. He is so humble, funny, and just chill! He is great with people and is a total skiing beast (like he would make us look silly). He really lightens up everything and works super hard (we wake up half an hour early to get some extra Japanese study in because he wants to help people more). I am having a total blast with him! Elder Iida is Anderson choros new companion from Tokyo and is so funny! He knows no English and is so happy and a good sport about trying to learn it and talk to the members in the base. He makes you feel good about yourself because he is so kind.

 

Culture Fact:

Snow. I haven't lived in all of Japan but in northern Honshu this is my experience: it snows a lot. More to the west of us it has like 8 feet of snow downtown in the cities. The sidewalks are just these canyons! Here it doesn't snow so much but we always have a good foot on the ground at all times. They deal with it by having hot water running under the big roads in the big towns that melts the snow. I have even seen it where there are holes in the road that pours water 24\7 on the road. But in smaller towns like Misawa they pretty much just leave it to get compacted and grow. One time I saw a road grader clearing off a road on a steep hill but that is it! They have these tiny little cars that work so hard to get through it. It's crazy! They just leave the sidewalks too but businesses clear off their parking lots and sidewalks. Normally at about 8 in the morning you see like 10 people out in each parking lot and they are all shoveling away like little soldiers, skirts high heels, suits and ties everyone in the office works together until the snow is gone! Japanese people are awesome.

 

Fun Food Fact:

Mazegohan. I have never actually made this but I have eaten it a lot. If I had to put a comparison on it I would say it's like the Japanese version of a casserole maybe? The words themselves mean ``mixed rice`` and that is the only rule. Normally it is kind of a brown dish but sometimes red or purple and it is mainly rice with chopped up vegetables and meat and some type of seasoning (vinegar and soy sauce and something else). People tend to have it when they have a lot of people over or we have a party at the church a bunch of people will bring it. It's way good and normally there is a ton so you can fill up on it! When I learn how to make it I will hook you guys up with the recipe.

 

Spiritual Thought:

So there is a man, his name is Enos, and I want you guys to read his story. He is found in the Book of Mormon and his whole story is pg 136-138. It's really short and super important. There is a commandment to love everyone. Commandments make us happier so I think we normally want to do them but it doesn't mean that they are easy to do. Especially the love everyone commandment (see Matthew 5: 22). This Enos guy had the same problem of being too weak to keep all the commandments but he overcame it because of two things he did. I just want to share my testimony that God wants us to be happy and He knows we are not perfect. That is why He gave us a way to overcome our imperfection so we can be happier. When we come unto this way we truly receive the strength or other help we need from God.
 

Funny story: (Oh how I wish I could draw to explain this but I will work hard.)
We are missionaries; our purpose is to invite others to come unto Christ. Part of our purpose is to try and act like Him so we try and serve at every chance we get. So we were biking home one night and we see this car that wasn't looking to hot like a beached lil dolphin. There was a big hill\cliff with a road going up it and a smaller road that ran parallel to the big road but instead of going up the cliff went down. The little road merged with the big road. Well this tiny lil car was coming down the big hill and tried to do like a Uie onto the little road going down. But there was a ton of snow and the car had misjudged and turned to early and was high centered. Poor lil car. So we kind of look at the car and look down at our bulging biceps and think.. oh ya.. we got this. We go tap on the window and they roll it down and ask if we can help them and what they would like us to do. There are two guys in the car about 25, saggy jeans, spiky hair and hipster glasses, kind of gangly... they matched their tiny car. And they are like "ooh thanks! If you could maybe try and push us out that would be great". So we are like "oh yeah no problem man!" and  put our bikes to the side of the road and get all set up. The front end of the car is a good 3 feet lower then the car and it's set up to roll downhill so I am thinking easy as pie this! So we get good footing... 1,2,3.. push! It kind of budges a little, some snow crunches...oh yeah! 1,2,3,.. push! It budges a good six inches! I look over and see we are a three man team now because one of the guys got out and was pushing next to my companion. Ah this is great all of us will work together I thought! 1,2,3, ...

Then I saw that bro number two was right beside me getting ready to push.... wait.. that's 4 guys pushing...

wait wait wait!!

But I had already reached 3 and they knew it meant to push... lots of crunching and sliding and then she was loose and off to the races! We were all like pulling on her bumpers but our lil dolphin had turned to free Willey and she was going... two Americans in suits and two punk Japanese guys flailing and crying out getting pulled down a hill by a lil Asian car. It's a good thing the guard rail was there or this would have been a way more exciting story. But it reached the cliff edge and just smashed into the guard rail. I am sorry to inform you that we tucked our name tags in our shirts said sorry bro and high tailed it out of there without getting any pictures. But we saw them drive away too and they were looking kind of high type as well... life is exciting in Japan!

Stay awesome, smile, and love each other for me!

Law Choro
 

January 19, 2014 Letter

A different Iceland 1102 hours

 

Transfers:

It's that time of the 6 week period and this time the phone call did come and in a big way for our apartment. The Misawa boys are splitting up (I'm John Lennon if you were wondering). Elder Breinholt is going to Iwaki which is the farthest south in the mission as you can go (he is looking at like an 8 hour bus experience). Elder Kawamura is going to Aomori which is as far north as you can go (one district up from us). So me and Elder Anderson are eternal roommates (I think he might being praying for patience so God just keeps him living with me so he has to exercise it... ;-)). My new companions name is Elder Manz and he is a total boss! He is like 5'5", 100 pounds maybe, and way genki! He is an American from Smithfield Utah who is a stud snowboarder. Some have said he looks a little like Malfoy from the first movie.. I don't really see it. He is from the same doki as Elder Breinholt so he is one transfer younger then me. Elder Anderson's companion is named Ida choro and he is Nihonjin. We are going to dominate this place!

 

Culture point:

Calligraphy.On New Year's another big tradition is you write calligraphy on these long sheets of papers. The idea is you make a New Year's goal and you write it beautifully on the paper and then you post it up so you remember to do it. Kawamura choro bought us a ton of paper, brushes, ink, inkwells, paper holders, practice paper, mats, and ink grinders and taught us how! You pour the ink in the well and take this little piece of stone and kind of grind the stone and the inkwell together and the ink will get darker and smoother. Then you lay out your paper on the mat and put a weight on the top of the paper. Next you take your brush and get it wet kind of like you are painting but with more ink then normal painting would have. Finally you write. It's interesting because I feel like in beautiful English writing someone that is skilled would write very "correctly" and with consistency and uniformity; but in calligraphy it is very much an art and its all about the ending beauty. I don't want to cheapen calligraphy but it's kind of like graffiti style writing where you change the shape of the letter to make it beautiful. It's waaaaay hard! hahaha! We all wrote like a hundred things and were all proud and showing Elder Kawamura but I guaranty it was like a 5 year old writing their name and showing mom and dad! But we did improve! It's hard because you do not go back and fix a stroke once it is made, you get one chance. But it was sooo fun!

 

Fun Food Fact:

I am so sorry Father.... but I might have had the best fish I have ever eaten in my life. This isn't very common in Japan (according to Elder Kawamura) but there is a man that takes big fillets of fish and roasts them on sticks at the train station and its sooooooo good! I finally took a picture and will attach it! Just fire fish and love. It is sooo good for some reason (I really think it is just the quality of the meat) and it's super cheep! 300 yen!

 

Spiritual Thought:

I have really been trying to get rid of my habits that's take me further from God. Any unclean thought, never being snappy or uncaring to the missionary I always work with, ungrateful or judgmental thoughts, grumpy and lazy complaining thoughts. These are really the hardest of the hard for me and I tried all these different ways with setting goals: I would read every day, praying for the strength in every prayer, and giving myself rewards or punishments if I did or didn't do it. That all helped but I still had a pretty serious problem with one or two of them. I think everyone has one or two favorite sins that they just cant seem to let go of and when they do they tend to dwell on them or want them and its hard to not give in! At least for me. I found a scripture that has had more power for me then I ever would have thought; it's in the Book of Mormon on page 432 verse 30. "for it is better that ye should deny yourselves of these things wherein ye will take up your cross than that ye should be cast into hell." My thought is: Christ has gone through every temptation, and so He knows it's hard and knows its tempting. But He also knows the presence of the Father and how great it is. If we can just not do it and when the bad thought comes just toss it away for the sake of not wanting that stress. We know there is a happier path in this life. Just toss it away and move onto something that matters because that thought is not worth it. May we all find joy and help others find it as well.
 

Funny Story:

Everyone remembers the older sister in the branch that got after Elder Breinholt? Well yesterday she made us lunch again at church. She made us mazegohan (I will talk about that maybe next week) but it's like rice and other food mixed. She tells me to eat it and so of course I go for it with a fork into the pot (I have seen her do it lots of times!) and she freaks out!

"Get a dish you animal!" ouch.....

So I look around and all there is in the kitchen is this little stack of cups and seriously that is it. So I grab one and get ready to scoop it in.

"BAKA!"

That is actually a word that a lot of Americans that watch anime will know. Its very not nice! It's like "stupid, moron, idiot, imbecile..." all put together. (It's actually pretty much just stupid but she yelled it so loud and is Japanese that is gets 100 times stronger.)

I got called a baka by a grandma who is a saint.... life is rough.

Love each other for me!

Law Choro

 

p.s. GO SEAHAWKS!!!!!