Febuary 15, 2015 Letter

1400 hours The North

This week has been half melt days half storm days with really hard wind which up to this point we haven't had really at all. The snow is about the same. In other news we did squats two days ago and Elder Macnab is hobbling around like an old dog... my hamstrings are a bit tender though.

 

Culture point:

I can't remember if I shared this last year or not but I will this year anyway. There very much is valentines day in Japan but a little different. On Valentine's day only girls give chocolates or candy. There are varying opinions on this next bit but best I can tell: If you buy a boy chocolates it means I think you are cool. Tiny chocolate is I think you are my co-worker and a good person. Giant bought chocolate is I think you are kind of cute maybe. If you make chocolates its like pretty much bust out the ring and the wheat (I think they would think its better to waste wheat). Then on March 14th they have white day! On white day you take all the things you got on valentines day and you give back the same type of thing. It's a pretty hard rule that you give back to anyone that gave to you. I got nothing... sad day for Law Choro. ;-)

 

Fun food fact:

I am really struggling to remember what I have told you. One thing interesting is in really Japanese style kitchens you never see them using a spatula and frying pan but instead a pan and really long think chop sticks that are for cooking. They are a bit harder to use for some things but are way easier to use for others where you want to be precise. I use them as one tool because I am not that jozu yet...

 

Spiritual thought:

Today my thoughts come from the words of Ammon in the Book of Mormon "I ought not to harrow up in my desires, the firm decree of a just God, for i know that he grannteth not men according to their desire, whether it be unto death or unto life.." we get according to what we desire. I think we all desire things in our minds and we desire also in our heart; and sometimes they are not united. At least mine are not always united. If my heart is driven by my flesh to desire to sleep I probably will end up sleeping even if my head desires to go study. If my flesh desires that beer and my heart gives in, then even if my head says its not a good idea I will give in. If my heart wants to go shovel the widows next store`s snow because I love her then it will probably happen. God grants unto me pretty much every desire of my heart... good or bad. Sometimes I don't really like the desires of my heart... haha but what I wanted to share with everyone today is I know we can experiences a "great change of heart" if we so desire. I have found praying specifically, reading the scriptures regularly, and serving others is the most effective way to change my heart.

 

Funny story:

So it was valentines day this last week and so I figure I will give something along those lines.

We teach English class every week. Macnab Choro and myself are very good at English, been studying for years. I have been studying Japanese now for over a year and a half and so I can hold a normal conversation but Macnab Choro is pretty new and is still learning. It's especially difficult to pick up on something if you have no context.

 

So after English was over we were kinda mingling with the students seeing if anyone had any last questions or things and he started talking to someone. I then got called over by the person next to him and she said she had a culture question. She asked me when do you say "I love you" in America outside of family relationships. No one in Japan says I love you anytime and she knew we used it more in English so she wanted to check. I said it depends on the person and age and era and so she explained the reason she was asking: she has been skyping a friend in America. She is about 30, has a son that is 8, is single, and is very nice. This man was about her age, also single and she explained that lately when he says bye on the skype calls he has been saying "i love you" and sending her texts with hearts and saying I love you. I said I was not him so I don't know for sure but I would guess that he probably was saying it in a little bit romantic way. That he may be thinking they could start some type of a dating relationship.She said ok and then said she wanted to know how to politely put him off of that line of thinking, a kind way to refuse the offers, a way to say to him that she did think he was cool but that she just wanted the relationship to be one of friendship. She wanted a simple sentence she could remember in English.

 

So now back up. I am in this really fast kind of long talk in Japanese and as we talk about not misunderstanding him we get more and more serious and Elder Macnab is watching this and all he can pick up is the word love a couple times and then he catches that she asked me some sort of question. Then I come up with her answer: "I really think your great too, but  I need you to understand that we cant be anymore than friends."Macnab choro is like oh my gosh... (remember we are male nuns for these two years) Satan is tempting Law Choro with this woman. But he seems to be overcoming it well! He just says a lil prayer to strengthen me and kind of comes and stands by me.

 

We keep talking and then she writes it down and I look over at him and he just gives me this hard core nod of you keep it up man I got your back.. and I am so confused...

It got really busy after that with everyone leaving and us thanking people but once everyone was gone and he asked what happened and I explained he got a good laugh and then I got a good laugh after. It was a good day! haha!

 

love each other for me!

Law Choro

PHOTO UPDATE!

Febraury 9, 2015 Letter

1400 hours Aomori Prefecture Aomori city

Not a lot of time so i will send a real funny story and try and get the rest in!

Fun food fact:

Add another flavor to the good ones. Ice cream I have eaten this time was at a seaside shop famous for................. Scallops!! Significantly better than the clam ice cream, more of an interesting flavor then a gross or super good one!

Culture point:

The waiter at a restaurant will never come check on you to see if you are ready to order or need dessert or anything like that. (Most places will come fill your water if you are empty) but there is a little button at 95 percent of restaurants, that I have been to, that you push and they come immediately. I like it! Genius I think.

 Spiritual thought!

This week I was assigned to give a talk on conversion vs. testimony and the highlight of my talk was that I think most people want to do what they know is right, they just still have the desires for the bad things but the answer to that is found in alma 22: 15 and 16! I really love this scripture time is up bye!

 Funny story:

We as native English speakers teach a free English class for service every week to anyone who is interested. We have no money because we are all poor college student age kids, so we can’t advertise it very well.  One of the things we do, to make more people aware, is we hand out flyers at the train stations to anyone who is interested. I actually love doing this! But, because we are advertising it is annoying to some people (just like it used to be annoying to me) so they don’t take them. So now that I have been on that side of the fence I feel for the other flyer giver outer people and I always take one! I will never reject one till the day I die!

So Macnab Sensei and I were walking along one of the busier streets in town and about 50 yards in front of us I see this gal giving out flyers. I think “I will take one!" and as I watch her I see her just get rejected by like 10 people. It’s cold outside, snow is falling, you can’t really blame the people but you got to feel bad for the gal. So I tell all this to Macnab Choro, in about 10 seconds, and say, "hey you go make her happy and take one for us!" (She was on his side) So, he, with a big smile and saying "thank you so much thank you!" goes up to her.  She doesn’t offer him it.  She says something that I couldn’t quite catch in the bustle (he is new so didn’t understand it either) so he just grabs it in her hand and takes one of the little handouts as she has this little giggle smile like she is trying not to laugh... kind of weird.

I then rewind in my mind and all the people she offered it to were women and it all made more sense when he came back and said " this cover-up is a bit too dark for your complexion" It was our first time with free makeup sample lady...

Love each other for me!

Law Choro

February 1, 2015 Letter

1000 hours Auga (the internet cafe I am in)

Transfers!!!

No one transfers from the district! :-D that means it’s time to make shirts... any ideas out there?

Fun Food Fact:

 Black thunder. These tiny candy bars Macnab Choro is addicted too! They are a thin chocolate dipped, chocolate rice crispy treat, and I love them!

Haichus: a taffy like candy that kids love and I love that I think you can actually get in the states pretty easy. I like apple.

Mintia: super cheap super powerful mints. Get the dark blue type.

Gum: no one chews gum hardly ever and none of the flavors here are very good in my opinion. Also, if you don’t seal your gum it goes soft and slimy in the wrapper from the humidity. Crazy! :-) 

Culture point:

Tissues. Tissues are everywhere here! Companies hand out flyers inside of little tissue packs, no napkins at restaurants, normally, but a box of tissues, no paper towels in the kitchen but a box of tissues, no hand wipes in the purse .. Actually they do have hand wipes in the purse but also tissues in the purse! Not as strong but always so soft for any purpose. It makes me smile.

 Spiritual thought:

So I am a rampage to reach a bunch of scripture goals I made lately, so, I have been reading lots of scripture just from cover to cover lately. It’s been really fun for me! My middle name is after my father its Phillip. I don’t really know why my grandparents chose that name for him (wish I did know) but I like to think that is after the Philip what we read was chosen by the 12 to look after the poor. (Acts 6:5) and I love him so much, because of his example in the end of the eighth chapter of acts. He is trying to do what he can to help the poor and needy being worthy of revelation when God trusts him enough to send him a task through an angel, that leads him to someone who really needed his help, then he was able to show that person truth and have the authority from God to help him bind himself to the savior through the ordinance of baptism. He just seems so humble and strong. He just seems reliable. I think it’s a great example to me. I know that when we do all we can to help those around us the Lord will use us as his tools to help even more people.
 
 Funny story:
Macnab: Law Choro I need to ask you a favor.
Law: What’s that?
Macnab: I need you to cut off my legs for me.
Law: I’m sorry Macnab choro, but I can’t do that.
Macnab: Why?
Law: Because I already cut off my own arms!

Love each other for me!

Law Choro

Jaunary 25, 2015 Letter

1400 Hours North Shore

So we got up and headed out really early with a bunch of Japanese friends and went to an aquarium that was sooo fun! After that, because they were all Japanese, we went to a fish market and I ate more fish, octopus, squid, shrimp, and clams (all raw) than I have in a long time!

 

Fun food fact:

It's a special thing that might only be found here in Aomori - you go pay money and they give you tickets. Then you enter this giant fish market and they give you a bowl of rice. You then go around with your tickets and go up to the different vendors and point at the thing you want that they have chopped up and they give you it on your bowl and you give them a ticket. Everything is raw and fresh that day and I got soo much! Macnab choro hasn't eaten much raw fish yet so he gave me half his tickets and I just got a mountain of food! It was super fun and so yummy! I took a picture to show you!

 

Culture point:

I had a Japanese man explain to me why Japanese was so hard a few days ago. This isn't necessarily doctrine but I liked it and get where he is coming from: English is the international language. It has people from all parts of the world talking in it to communicate; So that is just what the language has become (according to him) a language with the purpose of explaining meaning clearly and quickly. He then said Japanese people have been trapped with just Japanese people on an island for thousands of years and they all already know what each other mean; so Japanese has become a language of expressing feelings subtley. and when you look at all the ways you can make a verb polite, honorific, passive, assertive... ect. I kinda see it. haha

 

Spiritual thought:

One thing I read from Preach my Gospel (a missionary guide book that I recommend to anyone after they have read the Book of Mormon and Bible) is a bit in chapter 4 about how to improve your prayers that I have really found helpful. It said to report your day to the Lord in the evening and to talk about your plans with the Lord for the next day. I have personally found this to be the easiest way to get clear, easy to understand, and feel revelation from God about what I need to be doing. I recommend it to anyone that is trying to build a closer relationship with God. And when you do it have a pen and paper or phone or something to record what you feel. I know God loves his Children and He wants to help them through you!

 

Funny story:

I am less funny then I used to be.. haha hmm..

Did I already tell you what they call a weed eater in Australia? A whipper snipper. I love that.

It's really not that funny but one thing that has been cracking me up lately is being with Macnab Choro. Because we are in a foreign country where there aren't very many white people around (Japanese people are super nice to foreigners anyway) a lot of young people will think a foreigner is kinda "cute" or "cool" because they have seen a bunch of Americans on t.v. and its something different. But they don't normally think we speak Japanese and why would we. So a lot of the time people will talk about how cute Macnab is and I just get the giggles. Remember we are like male nuns so we completely avoid anything like flirting or dating or trying to get the ladies; but because he is a way nice guy and has no idea what's going on as far as them thinking he's a total stud he just keeps on going with his smile. It's just fun to be around! I love this guy!

 

Love each other for me!

Law Choro

January 18, 2015 Letter

1000 hours Blue Forest City 青森市 (aomorishi)

The middle kanji is three of the kanji for tree and it means forest! (it hardly ever works out that easy hahah)

Culture point:

Shoes are taken off when you go inside! Why? Because the bottom of your foot is super gross. That’s the culture. Ha ha.  You don’t touch people with your feet, you don’t touch walls or tables with you feet, especially the bottom. I think my mama might be Japanese.. Ha ha.  I know we don’t like feet in the states either but it’s the same just stronger. Very rude.

Fun Food Fact:

Potato salad! Oddly enough you will eat it. Quite a lot of it.  It’s not served at a picnic on the side of your hamburger though. It’s normally a tiny little scoop on the side of a bento (boxed up lunch) It’s always cold. Ha ha. I don’t really know what to say about it because you all know what it is and I never ate it in America so I don’t know how they are different. But I went to a member’s house yesterday for dinner and they was this giant blob of purple something on my plate and she was like looking at me look at it. (I didn’t even flinch) and then she said.. "looks disgusting doesn’t it? I was trying to scare you. It’s just some potatoes I found that are purple. It’s just potatoes, vegetables, eggs and pork" and then we took in a big breath and ate it!

Spiritual Thought:

Part of what our church believes is that God is very much alive today, very much eternal and unchanging, and that he is still a God of miracles.  We believe that the same gifts of the spirit that existed in the new testament (1 Cor. 12) exist today. This week I was trying so very hard to have the gift of discernment to know how to help one of my friends that we are teaching be able to come unto Christ. We were just kind of stuck, but then in the middle of the lesson I was just praying my little heart out and then all the of the sudden I knew what to say. It was something that my companion had told me he felt we needed to say earlier but I had forgotten. I won’t go into too much detail because it is very sacred to me but I just wanted to share with all you guys that you can have all the miracles and gifts found in the ancient days. That Christ still lives today and is guiding his living church. It brings me peace. You can also know of the truth of this message by asking God in the name of Christ.

Funny story:

So every day when we leave the apartment we pray. (we pray a lot) and I always pray for a chance to serve someone like a shot at doing something kind of random and nice (its because I am such a punk I have to balance out or God will blast me)

I was especially into this last summer in Sendai. Like it was my theme for about 2 months of everything I did.  One day (this is kind of an old story) we were riding along on our bikes and I had my eagle eyes on.... who can I serve who can I serve... and it was a pretty hot day but the wind was just a howling away.

Culture fact: in Japan white skin is pretty and tan skin is not as pretty. Japanese people get in the sun and they tan black. like soooo dark. So in order to stay pretty a lot of women (mostly the senior generations) will use umbrellas

So we are waiting at a light that is about to let us cross I see right as the light goes green a woman lose her umbrella bag (the little sheath you store it in) chance!! So I kick ‘ol Pegasus and we go after the sheath.  Watching someone try and catch something in the wind is not the best way to build faith because if that’s all you had to go by you might think God has a sick sense of humor. But I became that puppet.  It looks even worse when you are on a bike because it looks likes you are trying so hard and spending so much energy for nothing. But I got really close and it was mine!! Then it moved about 6 inches and I... STOMP! GOT it!

I turned around to see a grandma with a slightly grossed out face and my companion doing the hair grab that lets you know something was awkward for him. I sheepishly gave the defiled sheath back to the woman and apologized. So understand why they both felt as if I had just spit on it refer to culture point above.

Love each other for me!

Law Choro

January 11, 2015 Letter

 1500 hours: the snowiest city over 300,000 people in the world.

I wish I could send you pictures, but this cafe doesn’t let you. ごめん

Culture point:

Language. So Japanese can be a kind of hard language sometimes everyone has heard that. There are a lot of reasons for that. When I first came it was the grammar and the polite Japanese that really took me a long time to understand better (I am still working a lot on both). Now it’s the kanji and the katakana that are making me especially humble. (This is the most fun language ever to learn because it is so pretty and clean and i recommend it anyone who wants to learn a language!) Kanji everyone has kind of heard of. Katakana is the alphabet they use to take foreign words and make them sound Japanese. For example, we call tortilla a "tortia" because it’s easier for us. They do the same thing, but they are suck a nice country that a TON of words especially things that are just the English or German words put into Japanese sounds. For example, computer is konputa. Or camera is kamura. Some words sound the exact same but like McDonalds is makudonarudo.  Sometimes you are searching your vocabulary bank for that word they just said and searching and then you realize it’s English! It’s good when you don’t know the word and you just try the English and it turns out steering wheel is suteringu wuiru. :-)

Fun food fact:

It’s fun to have a new companion, because he points out how different something’s are that I had never really thought about.  For example, today for lunch we had sushi and they served us a hot egg custard with vegetable soup. It’s warm and really nice. Before you eat sushi you normally get something like soup or that egg custard before.

Spiritual thought:

This thought is from church this week, but something was said to the effect that, wouldn’t it be nice if we has a mysterious little compass that we could look at every day and it would tell us what we need to do to be happy, what job would be best for us, what school to go to, how to help our kids that are having a hard time. How sweet would that be? Then the point was all those that enter into the covenant of baptism with God receive that very gift in the form of the Holy Ghost. And that is one of the reasons why it is so important to try and keep the commandments, so we can hear his voice. I thought that was easy to understand. I need the guidance, so, I am going to work harder to hear his voice.

 Funny story:

This one goes a bit back but we were driving on a 5 hour road trip with three of us and so we were desperate for things to talk about, and so, Elder Ito (Japanese) asked Elder Fox (American) about what Mormon kids did at college for fun? (They don’t drink and do follow the law of chastity) so elder fox thought about it and answered they have dance parties sometimes that are fun. (This is all happening in Japanese and dance party is kind of a hard word so he throws it out in his best katakana "Datsu pati" and Elder Ito understands. He says, “Really!? We actually have those in Japan too, but I didn’t think you guys would have them.”

“Oh we have tons of them!”

“Do you like them?”

“They are all right. I don’t like dancing a ton, but there are a ton of girls, so it’s fun I guess.”

“There are girls there?!”

“Yeah, I would say there are more girls than boys by a good shot.”

“What?! (And this is where I started dying) “nihon no bai de kowai onisantachi bakari”. So onisan means older brother or in this context a nice way of saying 18-30 year old single guys and kowai means scary.  So he says, “In japan there is just a bunch of scary men.”

So then this whole conversation comes about (Why, in japan, at dance parties, there are tons of scary men.)

But on the other hand, elder Ito was talking about dansu pati... datsu means dart party. So he was having a big discussion about why there was a bunch of college LDS girls that loved dart parties...

Once we figured it out I was nearly driving off the road I was crying so hard!

We had interviews with President and Sister Smith yesterday. The snow just keeps getting deeper and the missionary work just keeps getting busier. We are starting to get to know the area which makes us a bit more effective and teach more. Elder Macnab is the best, he is teaching me tons about realism and the power of experiences in a lesson. Sister Johnson from my group in the MTC (there were two Johnsons, this was the one who served with me for 3 months in Kamisugi) sent me a picture of the missionary she met in her home ward and it was Seth, my cousin!! It made my day!

I am working out hard in the mornings. We are the master planners. I don’t forget anything now! (All three of my companions in the home office gave me the improvement point, which I need to write things down better, so I don’t forget. I am trying to do better)

We eat way to good. Elder Nishiie is 25 and worked for 5 years, so he is more generous, so he is always buying good ingredients that we make yummy stuff from. Yesterday was pot stickers.

(I am up on how far I can run in the snow, because we are always late and running in the snow. ha-ha)

I have a new goal this year to go to a private place and pray out loud every morning and night and it has really been strengthening my relationship with the Lord. Life is just too good. I am waiting for the stress to come. I am at a good point in my mission I think. I always heard people talk about this period and I like it. It’s like state for track. You know the most so far, the weather is the best, and you have the most desire to serve. Elder Macnab is my friend. Companions are one of my biggest blessings I think, so far, in the mission.

I am stoked about the Seattle choice Nick and Christine made! I was hoping that way the whole time. (I hear there are many Japanese stores over there).

I have a goal to read the New Testament and Book of Mormon both in 12 weeks. So far, I am about a fourth through both of them and really loving it.

Love each other for me!

Law Choro