Place: Shizuoka City
Companion: Elder Nakatsuka
Ok so this week was interesting.
It started off with me getting sick and being stuck in the apartment for a few days, which was not awesome. My companion was way patient with me and we just chilled in the apartment for 3 days or so. STAYING IN THE APARTMENT MAKES ME LOSE MY MIND. I hate staying inside. So while I was out of the action, I decided to try cutting my own hair. BIG MISTAKE. The last time I gave myself a haircut was a year ago in Matsumoto and I have tried avoiding it ever since. It turned out ok that time but this time was bad! I started off by cutting the sides good and short, and it worked. Then I went to cut the top but the clippers weren't cutting for some reason (at 20mm) so I tried taking it down to the next setting which was 12mm. After about 2 and a half seconds later I realized my mistake but the damage had been done. My companion laughed at me for about an hour and finished shaving the rest of my hair off. My first thought was, "Shoot I can't teach ZTM like this!" Now every time I meet someone they tell me I look like a high school baseball kid. Haha but I love it! I don't have to worry about helmet hair, or bed head or even gel anymore! Haha I guess you haven't really had the full mission experience until you've done something stupid with your hair. Well I had mine, just a year late!
I finally got better, just in time for a day full of appointments. We went to Yakiniku King with the YSA, which was way fun, and then that same day we went out to dinner with Hitoshi and ate at Sawayaka. I seriously ate too much that day. Both appointments went very well! I love Hitoshi san. He's such a bro. The next day was ZTM. I had been feeling like I needed to talk about OYM for the past couple days so we taught on OYM and I think it went pretty well.
Then we went on an exchange with the APs and I got to bike bag down to Hamamatsu with Elder Porter. We talked to a guy on the train and he was pretty cool. I love train dendo so much now. We got off at Hamamatsu and IT WAS FREEZING COLD. And the apartment was far away from the station and we had no idea where it was but we set off in search of it. An hour later we finally rolled into the apartment (it was like 5pm!) and we finally got to start our split with Hamamatsu 1. I went with Elder Tanner, a young missionary, and we did a little bit of finding as we bounced around between less active people's apartments. We were able to find anyone good though. We then joined the Hamamatsu 2 Elders, Cirqueida and Nelson, for their member lesson and it was awesome! Elder Cirqueida is a master teacher and used a funny object lesson. We had a good time and warmed up over some hot chocolate for a little bit. Then we went home. But We got home with ten minutes to spare and I really wanted to give Elder Tanner a good finding experience so we dashed up towards the church on our bikes, looking for anyone we could possibly talk to. We found one guy and started talking to him in the freezing cold night. He actually ended up being really really cool. Elder Tanner got to bear his testimony in Japanese and we had a really good experience! The guy said he would come to the church to study about Christ. It was a cool little finding miracle! The next day the APs took off in their car for the mission office and finally got to take Pday. They work so hard!
Elder Nakatsuka and I bike bagged it up to Fujieda and got off at the wrong station 3 times before finding the right one. It was Fujieda's futsal day and we made it there kinda late. But We played hard and had so much fun! Elder Espinoza, of course, completely wrecked us! A lot of missionaries and members came but some less actives as well as some nonmembers came as well. There were a couple of diehards who were really really good at futsal. It's so cool to see them just stand in absolute awe of Elder Espinoza. He's good at soccer yes, but he's also just a really good, personable guy so they all flock to him and he's kinda like their leader. He's so so cool! And he's just a way good missionary and a way good trainer for Elder Carvalho.
We had a good round of soccer and my legs got destroyed, then we hopped on a train and at long last were on our way home to Shizuoka when Elder Taylor got a call from the Omura family inviting us to a mochitsuki at their cabin! So we dashed home from the train station, showered and changed as fast as we could and then dashed over to the church for them to come pick us up.
They drove us about an hour and a half up into the depths of the Shizuoka mountains, where there was pretty much no civilization. I can't believe people live out there! Haha I've become such a city boy, living here in Japan with our heated toilet seats and high tech doorbells. I FINALLY GOT TO SEE A WILD MONKEY WHILE WE WERE UP THERE! And now that I have monkey hair, I looked like it too. We pounded mochi and deep fried a ton of stuff with them and all of their friends while listening to Okinawa music. It was so so fun! Seriously one of the coolest experiences of my life. I will remember that night forever. The guys there were really funny and we talked and laughed about random stuff.
Sunday, we weren't planning on anyone coming to church but a few surprise people came, which was good. We haven't been able to meet Hara san in a long time but we are going to finally meet him tonight.
The Zone is seeing crazy success! Our guys are working so hard and they are being blessed! Two more people accepted the invitation to be baptized and set a date this week! Listening to the call in reports is like a dream right now. Everything is going so well and all of our guys are working so hard!
I love being a missionary. It's the life!
Love you guys!
Have a good week.
Elder Johnson
No comments:
Post a Comment