Sunday, April 29, 2012

Weekly Letter

For starters I am in the Fukuoka Zone Kitakyushu Area Serving with Villalobos 長老!! Its Legit, were super gangster. So ill start from.. I think Wednesday was my first full day in Nihon. So my 動機 ('group or doki) fromj the MTC woke up and we had breakfast with pres and sis Margetts and then we went out and 伝度`d (Dendo is the word for mission, and the verb dendo suru means to proselyte, so whenever we do anything with mission stuffing its called dendo`ing.) Our doki paired up with the APs and missionaries from the 本部 (honbu or headquarters, in nihongo the word home doesnt translate right so they use the word honbu or headquarters or office) and we met up with the Fukuoka ZLs. APs = Clemmets / Ahn 長老 Zone Leaders = Edwards and Obayashi 長老 (Actually obayashii`s last day was yesterday, he`s already home) 本部宣教師 (Honbu Missionaris) =Stratford, Oba, Usui, Fuchiwara 長老 So we rode bikes to downtown Fukuoka and we handed out flyers for Eikaiwa or a free english class. It was crazy! We all split into pairs and I went with Edwards 長老 and We went to two corners of an intersection and we handed them out. It was crazy!! Later we went to my first Japanese food restaraunt here. Craziness. Then that night Pres Margetts told us our areas and Trainers. SO I have a note pad with random stuff written down and I`m just going to talk about little stories I have written. When we were in Seattle I met a couple with a little daughter heading to Japan. The husband mark was heading to Tokyo to be stationed there. They were super nice, I took a picture of their daughter Ariel. I sat next to a lady who was actually a member heading to singapore to visit her family who teaches international law and know Mandarin and Pourtagese. I slept for about 8 hours of the 11 hour flight haha. TIme change hasnt hit me yet. I dont even feel any different. Theres a kid`s show here call `Pan man` or something and its very interesting. Its this little dude who has a loaf of bread for a head and he saves people by flying to where they are and giving them bread to eat =P kinda stupid right? I saw a squat toilet, I took a pic as well haha Escalators here are fast, just random fact for ya. Language is not as hard as I thought it was going to be. People can really dumb down Japanese for me and I am able to understand them. ITS SO COOL!! One of the Shimai who was in my doki was sitting by me at the Seattle airport and a song came on and I was kinda bobbing my head and she saw me kinda dancing in my chair. And I was look I feel happy to be out of the MTC (in Nihongo) and she was like (in broken english `Really? If you hoppy and yoo know it Crap your hans!` and I just busted up. She didnt undersatnd why. So you guys should do me a favor. This up coming week Is a holiday called Golden Week and I dont know what it is and no Nihongin knows how to explain it either. You guys should google Golden Week and tell me what it is. Wednesday Night of the first day I was there we went to Eikaiwa and taught. IT WAS SO MUCH FUN!!! Thursday Breakfast at honbu, then they put me on a train to Abeyamakouen to meet my trainer. BY MYSELF. And I had to change trains in Nishikikokura. AND I DONT SPEAK JAPANESE!! I actually got lost and ended up on the wrong train but ten min later I got to where I needed to be and met Villalobos 長老. SO the area were in is pretty rough. Theres a strip club across the street from our eki (trainstation). in Kokura where we go sometimes theres Yakuza and pimps everywhere, like no joke. Last wednesday I forgot something, after our interviews with Pres (which was awesome BTW) we Wooward 長老and I went dendoing with OBA 長老 (Turns out that Villalobos and him were doryo`s two tranfers ago.) And we had such A cool time. It was pouring rain and we knocked on a little ladys house and we taught her a little lesson write on her pourch. SUPER COOL!!! I dont have a lot of time sorry. I`ll talk more about everything in later letters but I`m gonna talk about some poeple Ive met. Mickey - 80 yr old lady who comes to the Kitakyushu ward eikaiwa \. She`s pera pera in eigo. She is the most crazy lady I have ever met. She skis kayaks and shes actually going to go to england to watch the olympics. Thats actually the first thing that she said `HI I Mickey. This Summer, I go to Olympics` hahah It was so great Fred - Another guy from Eikaiwa - pera pera also. He loves talking about war and laughs about everything. Nakamuta - Our investagator!! Taught him a lesson last week and we mentioned baptism and he was like yeah ive been baptized and we were like what?!?! And he was like yeah when I was nine. And we were like at the Mormon church?!?! and he was like yeah. and we were like really?!?!?! haha but we cant find his records and he wants to be baptized so we`ll be working on that. We went dendoing last Friday and we got kekko`d a ton (When you knock on a Japanese Persons door and they dont want to talk they say ` Kekko kekko` `no thank you`. So that sucked. Bought a denki jisho (Electronic Dictionary) but turns out its Japanese to Chinese haha so were going exchange it today. Bought a bike as well but we had to special order it cuz its not in stoc\k so ill get it after golden week. KYOKAI WAS AWESOME!!! The members are so legit!! and they are super nice. Everytime they ask a question and I try my best to answer theyre all like `wwooowww kare no nihongo ga jozu desu (his nihongo is skilled right?) it cracks me up. We met our home teaching family the Sakuragi family. And it was a really weird meeting. it started all happy and then as we were finishing I shared a scripture about faith and Sakuragi Kyodai said `I have no faith, i come to church for my wife, but I have lost the faith that I had.` so we talked with him for a while and were going to be meeting with him a lot more often. A little about Villalobos 長老」 SO hes from Cali. lived in Ut before his miss. Is pera pera in Jap, Eigo, and spanish. Great guy. He:s been in kitakyushu for two transfers. And hes excited for what were going to do here. Theres been a lot of problems in this Districts area this last transfer. So Margetts moved out the bad senkyoshi and moved in me barrus and a guy named Unice 長老. Villalobos and I were talking and he said `Im not really supposed to talk about this but all of us guys are kinda on a special mission from pres. The last missionaries here messed up the area and got some members angry, so President told me were gonna have to clean up there mess, And we will. SO im excited to be in kitakyushu theres a lot of work to do but Im ready to do it!!]] DAD MOM SHELBY MERI JAMIE GRACE SOHPIE DOG AI SHITE MASU!!! YOROSHIKU O-NEGAISHIMASU!! YO!! BYE BYE!!!