Merry Christmas: Week 58 in Japan

Hey, it's Christmas! I talked to my parents. They're the best!! We had our mission Christmas Conference and they brought the entire mission together. It was amazing seeing everyone. The members have been feeding us day and night. I've been eating way too much chocolate! I'm gaining weight. ITS THE MOST WONDERFUL TIME OF THE YEAR! 

The Elder Sakae Bloodline. He trained me, now I'm trainer to Elder Call...

FHE at the mission home.

同期！(We came to Japan together)

'Twas the Week Before Christmas: Week 57 in Japan

This past week was all over the place. I sang for 3 days in a row. I swear I can sing all four parts to every Christmas song found in the hymn book. Also lost my voice on Sunday it was really funny.

So for starters, I may or may not have bought a katana out of a small sketchy shop tucked up in the mountains. Luckily if you ship something by boat it's decently cheap. It just takes 3 months to get to The States. Hopefully it'll make it through customs.

I'm gonna name it!

We ran up a Mt. Takao on Saturday with Yokosawa Kyodai, he's a counselor in the bishopric. He's a crazy man. Im not sore but I wasn't prepared for the cold air and it left my lungs BURNING. Its all good though, he does it every Saturday morning so we may be joining him every once in a while, also gives me an excuse to run more in the mornings. I actually asked him what he does when he's not running up Mt. Takao. His response killed me, he looked at me, smiles, and said, "I just find a really steep hill and sprint up and down it until I get really tired." He's a wild man. Never a dull moment with him around. Also I'm stealing his workout.

I was dyin', man! He's way fast!

So last year around Christmas I was still in the Machida Stake and we had a huge crazy concert in Tama that had a big professional set up with speakers, amazing singers, and I skipped around the crowd while jingling bells. Well this year was no different. Literally did the exact same thing and as expected, it was amazing. We decided to round out the same evening I had a year ago by going to get ramen. You wanna talk about De Ja Vu, I'll tell you about De Ja Vu.

Another concert in Tama.

We spent a lot of time caroling this week, and despite being in 2 decently large concert groups my favorite was on Sunday after church. We got together with some families in the ward and went to a couple nursing homes and sang in a small, slightly out of key group. I love to see people smile. A lot of the people at the nursing homes could barely move, or even talk. But you can't ever stop someone from smiling when that Christmas Spirit is around. I love this time of year and what it means. I love that I have this belief in Christ and the peace it's provided in my life. And as satisfying as it is to have this direction in my life, it doesn't even come close to the satisfaction that comes from seeing someone else experience that peace and direction in their lives. What can I say except that I'm happy to be here.

メリークリスマス！
Elder Cuff

Smooth Sailing: Week 56 in Japan

Good Ole Jitensha Taxi

This week flew by. We've been working hard, found some people, and just been teaching. I've been learning a lot from Elder Call. He's a really down to earth guy who has already taught me so much Japanese. It's been an absolute blessing to have the companions I've had and I attribute a lot of the fun times I've had on my mission to being able to work with them.

I have the best district leader!

We've been blessed to be able to teach a lot of lessons this past week. Been getting Elder Call really broken in on a bicycle. This area has some decent sized hills so hopefully we can stay in decent shape despite the holiday season.

We've been working with members a ton for the past little while and they're honestly the best. They're not only great people but they provide a lot of support and help with a lot of the missionary efforts. If it wasn't for them we would really be struggling with the work. It's a big strength to my testimony to see such strong members be excited to share this positivity with others.

Speaking of members, the 2nd counselor in the bishopric here is a triathlon runner and runs up Mt. Takao early in the morning on Saturdays. After hearing about this from another member we ended up making plans to run with him on Saturday at about 5:00 in the morning. I'm so incredibly excited, more updates on that next week.

Also we went to Costco today and got a ride from a member. Last week we spent a decent amount of money on a bunch of fruits and veggies. Being that we're all incredibly intellectual teenagers we decided to balance out our fridge with a couple birthday cakes, a cheesecake, and a rotisserie chicken. Also Costco muffins. You always need Costco muffins. We don't really eat out so we're actually very ahead on our budget! Yay for learning how to work with finances and building savings! (Shout out to the Loftus couple)

The member that took us to Costco (you're the man Misu Kyodai) also showed us this park in the mountains right by our apartment, and get this, there's a zip line! Needless to say we will going there throughout the week for our morning exercise. They've got a big rope climb, pull up bars, plenty of trails to run on. You know. The works. There's just been a lot of fun discoveries this week and a lot of laughs. Usually missions have a lot of Up and downs to them but this week has just been a lot of good times. A lot of laughs, a lot of faith building moments, a lot of learning, a lot of humbling, a lot of joy, and just a lot of being a missionary. Just know that I'm having the absolute time of my life!

愛を込めて、
Elder Cuff

We played at the park today.