October 13, 2013 Letter

So in order to grace you all with a longer letter we woke up early, but the problem is I burned a lot of time on my letter to the mission president so we will see how this goes.

0637 Nippon (that is a really formal written way to say Japan)

Baking stories:

I feel like I am one of those bloggers that bakes one page a day through a cookbook and talks about it in her blog... they made a movie about that once.. mary to mary or sally to sally... it has Amy Adams in it. Anyway! I pumped out a pie this week! Baking is the most interesting thing. I will compare it to Harry Potter. If anyone has read Harry Potter you all have thought the same thing as me: you can understand defense against the dark arts as being difficult because someone might have a better wand or pronunciation or just be more powerful. The seeing the future class could be tricky because someone might have the gift and you don't. But what about potions? You just read the bloody recipe, measure it out and boil. Harry complains and complains about how hard it is... its an art folks. 

My pie was apple. it cost me approximately an entire shift as a lifeguard to purchase the ingredients. In japan shortening comes in a little squeezable bottle and is super fun to squeeze. The pie was super good tasting! It was a bit on the ugly side but won the "good looking award" at family home evening but came in second to Yamamoto choros pork boiled fancy, way delicious, in the tasting category. My vote was that the tie breaker should be a smell off but they refused....

 

Yes Moma... that is the family crest. The edges are a bit ugly in those corners and in the middle of the crust because I made the classic blunder of forgetting the butter until after i put the top on. But it seriously tasted awesome!

Culture Point:

Counting. It's going to be a bit hard to explain but its different when you count on your fingers here. In America and Japan the first 5 are the same. But the second five and up are different. In America when you finish loading the first hand you just bust out ol' lefty. In japan you have two options: the first is you start pulling down fingers form the side you started. That sounds super confusing but if you do it every time then it makes sense and is nice because you only rock one hand. The second way and the way you would show someone across the room to grab SEVEN eggs is you hold up the filled hand and then place the fingers of your other hand (in the case of seven two fingers) nail up on your palm so they can see. I don't know why but this way is super easy and natural to copy. I have been doing it on accident since the second week of the MTC.

Random:
This is a perfect example of the messed up used of English that I have talked about in previous letters. This one wasn't on a shirt so I could take a picture for you.

This is what a church building looks like

Yamamoto choro on my favorite road to ride. It looks like this for a couple miles with a river on the other side and occasionally baseball fields for little kids.

My first split where I was the senior companion! I love this guy and he wants to do the same thing at he same school after!

Fun Food Fact

Deep fry! Everyone thinks America is super unhealthy and japan is super healthy which is true in a lot of the diet. My image was always that most of the reason was Americans love deep frying. But Japan deep fries waaaay more. The thing is what you get with the deep fried batter. In America its normally chicken or potatoes or onions or fish or steak or corndogs or burritos or bread or snickers. In japan its normally meat or the most common is vegetables (egg plant, green beans, pumpkin, onions, pepers...). It is always super good! You should try it.

Spiritual thought:
So we just watched general conference this week end and because of the translation and the time issues I actually got to watch it in English which was sweet. A thought I wanted to share was a little story in President Eyring's talk. Its the morning session on Sunday and the story is the one about the grandma and the kid in prison. If you weren't able to hear it please look it up.

We are all literally infinitely in debt to the Savior for all He has suffered to help us. I thought this story was inspiring to maybe be able to pay him back a little. To become an arrow in his quiver that can be shot at the strongest, armor covered, flaming advisory and penetrate deep and not break off. Become the weapon the Lord can use to liberate the captive and protect the innocent. To be humble and loving enough that He is able to use us to accomplish great things. From the rest of conference I think the way is complete repentance and obedience to his commandments and then to pray. Pray for humility, pray for meekness, pray for love and I know He will give it. Through Christ's name I testify. Amen.

Funny Story:

So we had two birthdays this week! The first was my companion's and went perfect thanks to an AWESOME uncle and a super star family! But I will write about that in a real letter and mail it to you guys. I want to talk about Takase choro's birthday. It was yesterday and we had gone all out for elder Yamamoto and we needed to do something for elder takase. But it was Sunday and we didn't really know what he wanted anyway because he has everything he wants because he is a way old missionary. We tried to think of what he likes and all we could come up with was the gospel, Hawaii and his fiancé. We couldn't send him to Hawaii, the gospel birthday present was a bit boring, so that left the girlfriend. Except we didn't have enough to send him to her. So we decided to bring her to him. Not the real her of course (refer to letter 16, paragraph 6, "male nun") so we decided to make him one! Some lesser men would result to paper and ink but we wanted 3D so we went with rice eggs and ketchup (we have a chef in the apartment we can do anything). He died of laughter and said it wasn't his lover but that she was tasty. We presented it to him really funny but I don't have time to explain now. Above was supposed to be his favorite animal, a dog.
 

 

 

Love each other for me!

Elder Law 

October 6, 2013 Letter

It's going to be short and I am sorry.

 

Culture Point

 

Shogi. It's like chess at first hearing of the rules but its way more complicated and feels really different when you play. I have won once when he took off four of his pieces at the beginning. He was in a club (my companion) and so he kills everyone, especially me. I am getting better every time and will win the real way one of these days. We pretty much play it anytime we eat. It's kind of an addiction but I think it all good. If it gets out of hand I will stop. We didn't have all the pieces (we found it in the apartment) so I found a piece of scrap wood and a box knife and made three. They all thought I was a mountain man American boss.... no big deal.

 

Fun Food Fact

Bento. It's a sack lunch gone Japanese! They are so cute and super good! Lots of balls of rice with paste of tuna in the middle and vegetables prepared in certain way. You can put anything you want in it but a pb and j is a rice ball with tuna in the middle! Super good and fast to make!

 

Spiritual Thought

Matthew 18:19-20

I have had this on my mind for a while. Find something righteous that you need. Come together and ask God for it with faith and I know I know I know that if it is best for everyone God will give it. I had a sisters here whose husband dropped one day at home and when she took him to the hospital they told her he would die that night. She called all the family in the Philippines and they prayed and he was out of the hospital in a week. Come together and pray. And don't smoke...

 

Funny Story

So we have a person who is looking into the church that has been taught by the missionaries in Kamisugi but he lives literally 10 minutes away walking form us. So they want to have us teach him. So we wanted to get to know him so we could teach what he wants to learn so we went to this volleyball activity. He is from Taiwan, a little chubby, super smart, and kinda nerdy. The activity was at an elementary school on a Tuesday night. My image is a bunch of little Japanese 13 year old girls hitting some volleyballs around and I would have stayed mature and not get too competitive. 

Prepare people. The Japanese are already preparing for the Olympics and they are doing it on Tuesday nights in an elementary school and they have a secret weapon in the form of a Taiwanese chubby little genius. They spiked the ball, it hit two feet from the net and bounced to the ceiling!!! I was the pup. But I will give a shout out to Sadie hear for teaching the three step zombie arm thing because I at least saved my pride with that one. So be prepared people: I am going to be pro at volleyball, shogi, and Ping-Pong.

 

Love each other for me!

Elder Law

September 29, 2013 Letter

1027 An island somewhere in the pacific

(I sound so mysterious and cool when I say it like that)

Fun Food Fact:

Lets talk bread! They actually eat quite a bit of it! You cannot find any bread that isn't white and it normally has tons of butter goodness too it. To them bread is not really the most healthy of choices and the reason is that it probably isn't. The most pieces of bread you can buy in a bag is 8 and you can get the same size loaf in 6 or 4 piece slices (the 4 piece slices are about an inch thick and make awesome French toast). The whole loaf is about a 5x5x6 inch cube. There are no heels on any bread because they don't like them. The heels are called "mimi" which means ears! hahah and you can buy a bag of just the mimis for a dollar and you get more bread and a third the price so I do that for lunch sometimes. It's really good bread!

 

Culture Point

Tobishoku. It's the name of construction workers! They always have these pants. I want you to Google them. They look like genie pants and are huge and poofy in the middle and tight at the ankle and the waist. They tie rags around there head if it is hot or rainy and probably when it is cold. I will keep you posted!

 

Spiritual Thought:

Pride. I read 4th Nephi again today. The people start out at the tippy top. The happiest a people can be and they fall as far as you can all because of pride. Pride is selfishness and their isn't a sin that's roots aren't selfishness. Sin always in the end leads to sadness. My biggest weakness is pride and so God sent me to learn Japanese. ;-) I think the key to overcoming pride is to thank God in your prayers for the good parts of other people. You start to see your own lacking and at the same time love the people around you more. At least it worked for me!

Funny Story:

So moma bear sent me a ton of recipes to make. Things that were delicious and kinda simple...ish. She sent me her recipe for biscuits! She has the best biscuits and gravy so I love biscuits and gravy. My companion is literally a chef (he went to college for it) and so he cooks a lot. This is a pic of he and I:



I could kind of tell he was feeling like the little red hen so I said I will switch him and he will do the dishes and I will cook for the apartment! He kind of  smirked and said it sounded awesome! So I asked what he wanted to eat (expecting kare or stir-fry of some kind) but he said American! So I puffed out my chest and kind of shrugged and said "piece of cake" (that was a joke). I snuck to my little recipes stash in the back of my photo album and found the biscuits and gravy. I had saved up and bought some butter for just an occasion such as this and the rest of the ingredients my mom had hooked me up with or I had so I went to work! I really wish you all could see how cute our oven is! So I mix it all together after a bunch of conversions and sum substitutions of the last bit of butter for some margarine I found. It looks straight up like a mix between pancake batter and throw-up. Suuuupperrr runny, like I kind of remembered my moms biscuits almost on the dryer side of the dough world. But I dumped it out on a clean handkerchief (the towels were all too furry or big) and it just slides and soups everywhere! But I act totally confident! All the Japanese are yelling things "sagoi" "hontoni americajinpoi!" all these great compliments about how they never knew I was so smart! So I got this goop approximately 1 inch think like the "destrutions" say and I get my floured cup to cut them and I know there is no hope... so I totally act like its natural and use the cup to scoop approximately the right amount off the handkerchief onto the "cookie sheet" (in Japan it really is a cookie sheet because there is just enough room for one cookie -it actually isn't that bad. I think I got about 10 splats on each sheet). So I put them in the oven (200 degrees Celsius if anyone cares) and then the next step: I deal with religion and the things of God everyday and I have had some amazingly spiritual experiences and this was one of them... I was representing America! I was representing my manliness of being able to feed my self! I was representing my moms cooking! I made the gravy (it was awesome I am pro at making gravy) and then the timer went off...

They were about at good look looking as their maker but they tasted awesome!!! I think the problem was I kind of  guesstimated the last bit of the "easy to spread" (and therefore easy to melt and make your dough look like pancake batter) margarine and I put too much. But it made them more buttery! God loves me and now my apartment thinks I am an American chef. Life is way good people.

Love each other for me! 

   

Law Choro 

September 23, 2013 Letter

0325 Hours

The hilliest place on Earth

New Companion:

So has anyone seen that movie the last samurai? Well I testify that is a lie and Tom Cruise was not the last. My companion is. Yamamoto choro stands about 5 11, buff as they come, perfectly calm and well mannered, and as physically tuff as a samurai.  He is way into biking, is waaay into cooking, wants to become a chef, can do those two finger pushups I talked about, loves to work, and is a diehard missionary. Pretty much when I come home I will be all buff, can make super good Japanese food, and you can punch me in the face and I wont even feel it. All of which I will have learned from him. 

Fun Food Fact

So this week because I am who I am I wanted to beat my dad in a competition. He hooked me up with a picture of some maple chocolate bacon ice cream and I say well played. But top this - normally all you can ever find are the three basics: vanilla, chocolate, and str... green tea. hahah But that is not a good story (but seriously green tea ice cream is everywhere). I went to a buffet and got all the flavors with out reading what they were and I ended up pounding a ton of these two flavors that were super weird and not weird at all to Japanese people. The first was corn and straight up it tasted like a frozen can of corn. The other was sesame. It was black and tasted straight up like I was eating frozen sesame oil. The weirdest part was I kind of liked it. I say again both are super normal!

Culture Point

When you are in the kitchen or the bathroom you wear slippers and take them off when you leave. Super weird and important.

Spiritual Thought 

I have found the power of a personal inventory with God in prayer. Set goals that way and they tend to be more righteous, more powerful, and you have more drive, power, and faith in them. God wants to help you achieve your righteous desires!

Funny Story

So I am at that same buffet. I am eating all sorts of super odd foo; I get a little of all the soups, fried things, ice creams, breads, sushi's, fish, pastries (they have awesome pastries) and then I come to the meat. It's an all you can eat place so I just pile it on. I look at this old couple at the table next to me and they have just tons ands tons of these two types of meat. Old people love buffets so I figure they come a lot and knew what was the best so I pile on tons of what they are eating. I take it back to the table and throw it on the grill (long story for another time but you cook your meat in the middle of the table) and the member we are with is kind of giving me the weird eyes. It smells pretty good so I don't know what his problem is... he probably just thinks "wow Americans are super fat and love meat". He asks me if I like.... and then some word I don't know but he points at the meat so I say "oh yeah I love it!". Then I tried the darker one and all of the sudden knew what on of the words meant: liver. Japanese and American liver tastes the same if anyone was wondering. The lighter one was the chewiest piece of flesh I have ever put in my mouth. It took me like 5 minutes to chew every piece. When I asked him to explain where it came from on the animal in simple Japanese he told me it is what the poop is in. I think I ate an entire cows intestine soaked in Japanese sauce and I liked it.

Love each other for me!

Law Choro

(hopefully I will have more time next week)

September 15, 2013 Letter

First of all to the missionaries I send this too. My advice is that if you straight up don't have time don't read this. Second, if you really want to read it and have time later but now don't then take a picture of it on you camera and then read it later. I learned that from a sister in my district and it has pretty much saved my life

10:46 Somewhere in the east

Transfers:

So I said somewhere in the east because this week is transfers. Transfer happen every 6 weeks and missionaries switch leadership positions, companions, areas, all three or maybe none. I have not switch areas but I got a phone call and I am switching companions! My new companion's name is Yamamoto Choro (yes he is very much Japanese) I have only meant him twice and very briefly because he only knows Japanese (WOOT WOOT! That is a HUGE blessing for my language) but what I do know about him is he wants to become a chef. Fun fact: I feel like in the states if you say you are going to be a chef its kind of not respected a ton but here is super respectable. So I will be eating like a champion. He can do two finger pushups: that is one arm and only two fingers touching the ground. I can do one arm 5 fingers but when I put down two fingers only I cried for my moma and gave up. Give me 6 weeks and I will master it!

Weather:

I could talk for hours about the weather alone but today is a special day because it is a taifun! (I think it is spelled different in English.) Pretty much it just means super windy super rainy and tons of thunder down here. But I can check it off my bucket list and so I thought I would brag it up to you guys.

Fun food fact:

Lets talk about mugicha. It is like a tea but you can drink it. I actually don't know what it is from but its everywhere! It's like sweat tea in the south and water in the north. If it is a semi-hot day and you go to someone's house they are totally going to hook you up with a glass. If there is a big meal with lots of people at the church, for sure the drink is mugicha. It's everywhere and its for all ages. It is light brown in color. In the summer it's cold and in the winter it's hot! Sometimes if you are feeling wild you can mix that rule up a bit. In the mtc I had a half Japanese elder describe it in a way that I think fits perfectly. "It's fire water" that is what he called it and the reason is not that it burns like whisky (people out there are going "yeah cause you know what whisky tastes like") but because it tastes like you lit a match let it burn all the way and then dropped it in water and stirred. Now, the first time I drank it this description was perfect and I dreaded when people saw the sweat on my face and ran in the back to grab me a drink (ok the word dread is a bit strong it isn't that strong of a taste for anyone to really dread it) but I didn't really like it that much. Then I started to not even notice a taste it was like water! Now I kind of love it. If there is a pitcher of both I will grab the mugicha. It is oddly refreshing and just clean feeling; like nature and hydration came together in a tea.

Culture point:

Trains, buses and phones. So this might be because I am from a small town in Washington and have never really ridden public transportation but this was rather interesting to me. You cannot call people on your phone on a bus or train. It's not only just a cultural rule but it is actually the bus and trains systems rule. They announce it all the time! There are like a million people on the bus ands it's dead silent except for me asking the person next to me lots of questions (talking is ok its just they normally have no reason because they dont know anyone) and my questions are about japan at first so they get a feel for how bad my Japanese is then about Japan's religion because I am into religion of late and then what they think about the whole thing. It's super natural and I learn lots (mostly I learn lots of new words then I look them up later but I get better at it every time!). So can you talk on the phone on the bus and train in America?

Spiritual thought:

So we are at a cross roads with a lot of people. They have told us what they desire and it is to come closer to Christ and God and they wish to follow the commandments. Now they have to do. Honestly I feared for them. My faith was weak and with elder Takeshita leaving I was really kind of worried. Then I came to this scripture really rather randomly Moroni 8:16 "...Behold, I speak with boldness, having authority from god; and I fear not what man can do; for perfect love casteth out all fear." (if you want an interesting couple hours study the word fear in the Bible, Book of Mormon and D&C) You know what? I repented. Not of my fear, though that was from Satan, but for my lack of love. I think of those that are dearest to me and I would have absolute faith that they could change for the better if they wanted to. I loved these people more, I studied answers to there questions harder, I prayed for them harder, and I thought about how I could serve them more. Even though their positions have not changed in the slightest, I have twice the faith and hope for them. Love them.

Funny story:

So if you know elder takeshita this story is way funnier but I think it is still pretty good. You have to understand Japanese are very polite and outside of the apartment all the missionaries agree he is the most polite and formal of Japanese.

It's a normal day in the nagamachi elder apartment. We eat a big breakfast and study and then start to kind of munch for lunch and then we get a phone call that a brother can in fact eat lunch with us at the church. So we throw a huge thing of "takeshita special" in a tub and hit the road (I will make you takeshita special sometime its super good). The member is 24 so the three of us eat like males our age do when we are together and we are stuffed to the gills (we had munched before and we didn't want to pack the food back home so we literally pounded a ton). Then we road up a mountain for about an hour and a half. It is the longest bike ride we do on a semi normal basis and we were dying. Takeshita says he might be sick but he calms down and we knock on the door. Because it was such a long bike ride she bought us lunch! This is a funny ironic story all alone but the best part is what it was when she brought it out: a little bigger then a normal sheet of copy paper size tray for each one of us! AND on the tray was piled sushi. Raw fish for days (Takeshita choro hates raw food). We had been worried this sister didn't really feel our love so this was super good news and yet horrible news. We ate it and after Takeshita choro said he literally doubled the amount of raw fish he has consumed in his whole life. I will send you a picture next week! (nobody threw up)

 

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 has 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.

Love each other for me!

Law Choro

September 9, 2013 Letter

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).

One of my favorite missionaries! Ohori Choro, my first AP. The most obedient missionary in the whole mission and he can grow a samurai mustache in about 6 hours. This stage is hour one and closely resembles the southern direction of North America... Cousin to the samurai mustache. Get it?

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.

Big shout out to my awesome older sister Christine! I am now officially super happy, super safe, super stylish, and super bright. My companion is now officially super embarrassed all the time. The fanny-pack, the basket, and now the vest!

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

September 2, 2013 Letter

19:39 Pacific Front

Moral: Way too high! I have been sooo busy this week and everything we do is fun!

Fun food fact:

So you know when you get a sun burn and your mom slathers you in vinegar? This isn't about that heartless mother, its about the loving mother who puts aloe vera on her children. We have all rubbed it on with a love hate, soothing and sticky relationship. You might have even had a life skills teacher or two that had a plant in their classroom. It's like medicine, one of the medicine man tricks that works like money. Turns out you can eat it!

 They peel it, throw it in some sugar water that is kind of like canned pineapple water (notice the Dole) and then you pound it. The way I had it was you put a big bowl of plain yogurt (not vanilla plain and I could talk to you about that for an hour! I will next week!) then you sprinkle some brown sugar on the yogurt and throw some aloe on it. Super super tasty! Oddly enough the closest thing I can say it tastes like is a big peeled grape!

I also eat Indian curry

Culture fact:

Malls. I kind of talked about this before I think; it's starting to get to the point where I can't remember what I have told you! haha But the malls have something totally different about them and I finally figured out what it is! There is no real walls. In America there is a whole bunch of stores and they are all in the same building. Like you walk into a store through a door and then walk around almost in a separate room. In Japan the separate stores don't have doors because they don't have a front wall! Half the time they don't have side walls either; they just flow from one into another. It seems like it would be a security nightmare but I think they just don't have that big of a problem with it. People are awesome like that here. Sometimes I am kind of confused where to pay though. haha

Spiritual thought:

I would like to take you to the bible today, the gospel of Mathew. The Pharisees are talking to Christ and one of them, a lawyer it says (the worst ones are always lawyers ;-)) asks him, tempts him even with a question: "which is the great commandment in the law?". This is what He said, " thou shalt love the lord thy god with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy mind. This is the first and great commandment. And the second is like unto it, thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself. On these two commandments hang all the laws of the prophets"

I love the last bit. I love it all and really could stop right there and be a content as a clam. The focus is the first bit and it is my opinion that we should all focus on doing that bit. But as an after thought I would like to add this. The last bit, where is says all the rest of the commandments and teachings of the prophets hang on the first two, I love it! If ever I lack the "WHY" why is this commandment important? Why are you giving me this answer to my prayer? Why do the scriptures tell me this? I always find the answer in the first two great commandments. God is the creator of this universe and so his laws always are the most, natural, efficient, and correct. We live in a world of men so sometimes we are blinded by this lesser level of thinking, but if we look hard enough we can always see the truth of God's way. I testify this way brings happiness, in Christ's name. Amen.

 

 Long story I will have to explain later

I made delicious pancakes!

Funny story:

So there is a brother that we try to visit every other week at least. He is about 1000 years old, sweet as they come, and a little crazy maybe. We repeat a lot of our messages because he has a hard time remembering. He is sooooo kind and lives on his own because he is a stud and his house is always spotless! I love him!

So we ring his doorbell. Nothing, no big deal, this is normal. So we yell "COOONICHIWAAAA.." super normal and very japanese poi (it means ish and is a super useful word). We hear a shuffling and see some movement through the textured window. He starts walking toward the door and we begin to make out his human form... his oddly all the same color human form. The color is a tannish white. I think the technical name for the color is actually nude. All the same color. I start the slightly cocked head and stare with a "no, no, no..." under my breath. My companion's normally cute little squinty eyes aren't squinting. He always walks up to the window that is right by the door and opens it to see who it is before he opens the door. The window come flying open. It come to about his belly button. I was actually surprised by how good he looked! Pretty buff and pretty shirtless.... "oh! it's the missionaries! Good to see you... let me open the door!" He is half deaf folks; He couldn't understand our screams of terror let alone our cries to stop. The door come flying open and all he is wearing is a smile...

 

and a pair of nude colored boxers. Who the heck makes nude colored boxers?! I almost died! Some other time I will give you a culture point on people's answering the door clothes... Oddly naked.

I promise there is a point to this picture

Bike ride with the President

My companion:

This might be a bit long and boring for all of you but I want it for me after and my moma will want it. Takeshita choro! He is from just north of Tokyo, he could get on a train and be home in literally less then a few hours. This is the Boise Idaho mission of his world but he has learned to truly love it he tells me! I would physically describe him but you all have pictures!

His hobbies before the mission were the clarinet (he doesn't know who Squidward is) and traveling. When I say traveling it's not really what I think most Americans think of as traveling. He would get a summer train ticket (all you can ride type of deal) and then he would literally go all over japan by himself by train. He wouldn't really go to specific tourist places but sometimes certain festivals though. He would just spend all day riding, listening to music, reading a books he bought at the last stop, eating good snacks, napping, looking out the window. He LOVES this! So he also loves everything about trains! The older slower ones are better than the bullet trains. I asked him why and he asked me if I would rather ride in a 747 or biplane. I said good point.

He is incredibly smart and wants to design trains when he gets home. He was in an accelerated schooling program thing sounds kind of like running start and a.p. classes mixed. Kind of cool!

His family is him, his parents (both converts in there teens and returned missionaries) and a little sister who is 19 and has a "severe handicap". I don't really know much more than that but she is still small (like 10ish size). I asked if she likes pens too and he says yes and she also loves milk.

He is the most loving missionary in the world. He gets so emotionally into the people we teach! Sometimes it makes him so tired but it is such a blessing to us! He is very good with correcting my Japanese (he dad is a teacher who teachers radio, news, and other professional speakers how to speak Japanese correctly and beautifully and I think it rubbed off). He is super humble and treats me as a 50 50 partner in all decisions even though he is my trainer. He loves summer weather like I have never seen anyone! He is the best chef in the mission according to all and I learned how to make some kick bum Japanese food from him! He is as obedient as they come and it makes getting along the easiest thing in the world. He might be the only person in the world who drinks more milk then me before the mission (I have quit. It is too expensive and it's different so I am not as tempted).

He is very Japanese in almost every way except two. I could talk for an hour about how Japanese he is but instead I will tell you the two weird things. He doesn't like raw food. SUPER weird for a Japanese person. Eggs, fish, vegetables, you name it he prefers it cooked but can eat anything! The second makes me laugh.. I am actually going to use it as a funny story! Sorry.. another day...

I love you all! Love someone for me!

Law Choro