Date: 11/27/2016
Place: Shizuoka
Companion: Elder Nakatsuka
On Monday we celebrated Inouye Shimai's birthday! Then we started an exchange and I went to Fuji with Elder John! He's a way fun guy and we had a good exchange. This was easily the best I've eaten on an exchange in a long time. Elder John likes to cook :). We woke up in the morning, did our studies and went outside and talked to people as we visited less actives. It just happened to be a cool, clear day (Shizuoka is usually cloudy) and I got to see see Mt Fuji up close. ITS BIG. ITS REALLY REALLY BIG. ITS HUGE. It was capped with snow and looked like something from a Japanese postcard. It was awesome! We ended the exchange and Elder John went back to Fuji with his Trainee, Elder Reis from Brazil. Elder Reis is a nice guy but he doesn't speak a ton of Japanese or English yet so it's a little hard to communicate. But he's cheerful and works hard so I'm not worried for him :). After ending the exchange we rode back to the apartment and dropped off my exchange bag. Elder Tayler had a minor medical procedure done on his foot so he was laid up for a day. He's ok! Then we rode up to our appointment at the bishops house with the shimai. We got lost in the maze of danchis and so did they haha! Eventually we both found each other and the bishops place and they fed us amazing chicken katsu. We talked about sharing the Gospel and used Elder Christensen's 7 Lessons on Sharing the Gospel. We talked about step 2, which says that in sharing the Gospel there is no correlation between the closeness of the relationship and the likelihood of them accepting the invitation to hear the Gospel.
The bishop's family is amazing! Love those guys.
Right now I'm in Fukuroi on exchange with Elder Orellana! He's the Chilean legend of the mission. We had a good day of training and hunting down more less actives. Today we experienced a bit of a cold snapって言うか IT WAS MISERABLE COLD! And it was raining too so my hands almost froze and fell off while we were biking. It was worse than Matsumoto cold because it was wet! We came back and taught Eikaiwa, which was fun because it was mostly Brazilians so we just talked about feijoada and Brazilian Christmas parties. I was surprised to find Imamiya Shimai teaching kids Eikaiwa! Her English has gotten really good and now she can teach lessons in English!
A few things I've learned: if you want to learn a language, don't be afraid to make mistakes. Just talk. Also learn how to pray and then pray as much as you can in that language. Something that elder Taylor said was, "Your Japanese can only be as good as your prayers."
We had DTM in Fukuroi and then I got to go back to Shizuoka with Elder Nakatsuka. Dendoing with him is a dream! It's so fun and we work really well together.
On Saturday we went to the gym with Naoki (our new investigator)and had a good lift. He's a way nice kid and he started reading the Book of Mormon! Then we went to a park with all six missionaries and I played violin while everyone handed out Christmas concert fliers (the sisters made us some awesome fliers) and it was way cold.
This morning we biked up to the top of a mountain to do our studies!
Life with Elder Nakatsuka has been grand :)
It's helping my Japanese so much! We're best friends and have a ton of fun together.
Sorry it's short but that's all I have time to write for the week!
Love y'all!
Elder Johnson
