みなさんこんにちわ,
Well, I'm here. And it's super weird and crazy, but hey, it was expected. My first area is called Machida, which is sweet because I'm serving in the same ward that Yoshizawa長老 (friend from the MTC) came from. A LOT of small world connections were happening through that.
My English is getting progressively worse, but the Japanese is slowly building. My companion
榮長老 (Elder Sakae) is native Japanese. Communication is really difficult, but we're slowly moving along. We don't really have any investigators, so it's been a lot of finding.
We mainly have to feed ourselves. We had dinner with the Suziki family once, which was awesome. P day we went to a squirrel park. People don't like to talk a lot here. Japanese people don't ever say "no, thank you", thy just kind of lower their head and ignore you.
Sakae Choro is telling me we've got to get going, so sorry this is a short email.
Here are some pictures...
Well, I'm here. And it's super weird and crazy, but hey, it was expected. My first area is called Machida, which is sweet because I'm serving in the same ward that Yoshizawa長老 (friend from the MTC) came from. A LOT of small world connections were happening through that.
My English is getting progressively worse, but the Japanese is slowly building. My companion
榮長老 (Elder Sakae) is native Japanese. Communication is really difficult, but we're slowly moving along. We don't really have any investigators, so it's been a lot of finding.
We mainly have to feed ourselves. We had dinner with the Suziki family once, which was awesome. P day we went to a squirrel park. People don't like to talk a lot here. Japanese people don't ever say "no, thank you", thy just kind of lower their head and ignore you.
Sakae Choro is telling me we've got to get going, so sorry this is a short email.
Here are some pictures...
NEVERMIND! Slight Miscommunication. We don't need to go yet. Elder Sakae just needed to use the restroom. The church is the only place with wifi so our time is pretty limited with everything we've got to do. But, Machida is pretty wild. The cool thing about Japan is that the crime rates are pretty low so everything is super open all the time.
I live in an apartment with another set of elders, Elder Chao and Elder Casper. It's nice having them around to help me with the language.
I went ahead and got a bike. Buying a bike in Japanese is possibly the hardest thing I've ever done. They take their bikes super serious, like insurance and everything! It's like buying a car.
the best part of the mission is probably streeting. You get to smile and talk with everyone. In Japan people rarely stop to talk, and when they do they're always surprised that a white kid can (kind of) speak their language. We have yet to find anyone who's interested, but I've learned many different ways people say "no, thank you" or "I'm busy". Or, they just don't say anything at all.
In all honesty, there's a ton of diversity in Machida; a lot of Indian people which is super nice since Indian curry is super delicious!
The previous picture with dinner at the Suzuki home was sweet. Sister Suzuki made a KILLER apple pie! Also, we landed a promising referral through the Suzuki family, which is nice because we have no investigators.
We've had one lesson, so far, with a guy from Ghana who spoke English, so I taught. But, he was dropped. The only reason he wanted to meet was to tell us the church is wrong and he refused to listen to us. So, that was a warm introduction to Japan.
Elder Sakae (my companion) is from the Kobe, Japan area and understands a little English, but it still takes a while to communicate. We just kind of speak to each other in really broken Japanese and really broken English. We're trying to teach each other, but it still takes forever! Our personalities are pretty opposite, but we still get along. He does tend to be a bit quiet when we go streeting so I end up talking a lot.
Oh well, more adventures to come from the streets of Tokyo, hopefully it'll pick up from here.
愛しています、
カフ長老
I live in an apartment with another set of elders, Elder Chao and Elder Casper. It's nice having them around to help me with the language.
I went ahead and got a bike. Buying a bike in Japanese is possibly the hardest thing I've ever done. They take their bikes super serious, like insurance and everything! It's like buying a car.
the best part of the mission is probably streeting. You get to smile and talk with everyone. In Japan people rarely stop to talk, and when they do they're always surprised that a white kid can (kind of) speak their language. We have yet to find anyone who's interested, but I've learned many different ways people say "no, thank you" or "I'm busy". Or, they just don't say anything at all.
In all honesty, there's a ton of diversity in Machida; a lot of Indian people which is super nice since Indian curry is super delicious!
The previous picture with dinner at the Suzuki home was sweet. Sister Suzuki made a KILLER apple pie! Also, we landed a promising referral through the Suzuki family, which is nice because we have no investigators.
We've had one lesson, so far, with a guy from Ghana who spoke English, so I taught. But, he was dropped. The only reason he wanted to meet was to tell us the church is wrong and he refused to listen to us. So, that was a warm introduction to Japan.
Elder Sakae (my companion) is from the Kobe, Japan area and understands a little English, but it still takes a while to communicate. We just kind of speak to each other in really broken Japanese and really broken English. We're trying to teach each other, but it still takes forever! Our personalities are pretty opposite, but we still get along. He does tend to be a bit quiet when we go streeting so I end up talking a lot.
Oh well, more adventures to come from the streets of Tokyo, hopefully it'll pick up from here.
愛しています、
カフ長老
No comments:
Post a Comment