Week 11 in Japan: 19. Like an adult, but still a teenager.

What is up guys and gals!? For starters I'm officially 19, which is weird to think about considering I still have the maturity of a 12 year old. Thank you for the wonderful birthday wishes. My parents sent me an awesome package packed with all sorts of goodies and probably the world’s most comfortable pajamas. Sadly I decided to share the jar of Nutella I received. It didn't make it through the week.   

So we had another dinner with our beloved Punk Rock Grandma, her name is Sister Misau and she is still just as funny as before. She likes to talk a lot, and by a lot, I mean she doesn't stop talking unless she's taking a breath. That night she talked to us about when she went to Europe and ate lots of different cheeses. She enjoys Manchego but fresh Parmesan from Northern Italy is where it's at. It was so funny.

In other news, we've had an investigator we've been working with for the past few weeks or so and he finally made it to church this week!  It was his first time so it was a bit overwhelming for him, mainly because he wants to learn EVERTHING. He kind of faced the reality that, well, there's a lot to learn. But he's so stoked about Sundays now, the ward here made friends with him so quickly. He's a pretty quiet guy who likes to take a lot of time to think, but the ward members here are probably some of the coolest people on the planet.

We also picked up another investigator recently while going around this giant park. He's coming to church next week and he's already pretty excited about it. He's a bit of an older guy, but he loves Harley Davidson motorcycles, wears leather jackets, has a big ole beard, and a prosthetic leg. Also 100% Japanese. We'll probably meet up for sukiyaki sometime this week.   

We watched the missionary broadcast and found out that our schedules will vary depending on the mission and local circumstances, instead of the same worldwide schedule. Our Mission President makes the final decision on that so we have yet to figure out what our new schedule is. The other big change was our statistic reporting. Instead of 9 indicators we only have 4. I'm so pumped.   

We went on splits with our Zone Leaders this past week which was an absolute blast, one of our ZL's is from Mexico so him and I went crazy on the "Abuelita" my mother sent me. His name is Elder Magaña and we've made plans to party in Vegas after I get home. He's been out for exactly one year more than me. I'm stoked. Apparently his parents moved to Cancun and he's planning on letting me stay with him and his  family for my 21st birthday. I'd love to say I'm joking but if there's one thing about Elder Magaña, is that he doesn't play around. The man wants to party.

Finally a bit of sad news. Transfer emails are this week. Elder Sakae has been in Machida for a while now and is more than likely transferring since he's also done training me. There's also a very high chance that my next companion won't be native Japanese which will be really weird. I kind of don't like the sound of it, but whatever is best I guess. It's been the best 12 weeks of my life; I don't think I've ever been as happy as I am now. At first it was pretty up and down since we weren't really used to each other, but because of him I fell in love with the language, the culture, and everything in between. I also learned that happiness is based on a set of attitudes, rather than a set of circumstances. You can whine about your surroundings all you want, the only thing that will make a difference, is the way you think. Thoughts become actions, so why not think positively.   

Sorry for the long one today, we had some extra time to email, but Elder Sakae is talking mad trash right now so I'm gonna go thrash him in a game of ping pong.   

Don't forget to love one another,  カフ長老   

Also I slacked off on the pictures again. So here's some last minute photos from a giant hobby shop and a mini stop we went to before I sent this.

Week 10 in Japan: What do I look like, a charity case?

So for starters, we had Stake Conference this weekend. Conference here is held on Saturday and Sunday. There is a Priesthood session, Saturday night session, and Sunday session. So in other words I had about 6 hours of just sitting there and listening to talks in Japanese. It was exhausting. Luckily I had a small heart attack on Saturday night to keep me awake. One of the speakers was sick and wasn't able to make it, so before the intermediate hymn they made the announcement that Elder Cuff will be speaking after the hymn, followed by the Stake President. As soon as they made the announcement, the Mission President, Stake President, and several other leaders all looked over to me, smiled and gave me the thumbs up. I gave the fakest smile I could and continued to die inside as I realized that I had to give a surprise talk in Japanese, and had a whopping 3 minutes to prepare it.  I was trying to talk about the purpose of trials and the excitement of challenges, but who knows what came out of my mouth. I'm still confused as to what I said exactly, but apparently it went well. Elder Sakae thought it was hilarious. 

Earlier in the week we had a funny experience. While knocking on doors an older lady answered, she had to be 80 at least. She got really excited and just started rambling. Then suddenly told us to wait, and closed the door. She came back with the US equivalent of about $20. As a missionary, we can't accept money. But now we were put in one of the hardest situations one can face in this life, saying no too a grandma who just wants to be generous. For the next 10 minutes we were trying to resist this incredibly persistent 4'10" ball of joy. Elder Sakae kind of froze up, so it was just her, duking it out and me. Me trying to tell her why we couldn't take the money, and her telling us that it’s okay as long as we don't tell anyone. She finally grabbed my frightened companion by the arm, stuffed the money in his hands, scurried inside, and closed the door. It was so hard to hold back from laughing. But we waited a bit, then knocked one more time, and gave her the money back. Luckily she understood, but Elder Sakae still seemed a bit shaken. In short, I'm just living the dream. My English gets worse and worse, but I wouldn't want it any other way.   

Much Love, 

Elder Cuff 

Week 9 in Japan: Blitz 2017

Don't worry, I'm alive. We had our temple P-Day today, which was absolutely beautiful. I also got to see some serious progress with the 

language as I didn't need the translator this time around. So that was sweet. This past week we had a ton of meetings, which were nice, but I 

still enjoy being out and talking to people. We had a zone blitz this past week where our entire zone gets together and concentrates all our 

efforts on a specific area for a night. That night we took on Hashimoto Station out by Sagamihara. It was 2 hours, and for the first hour I was assigned to go on splits with this tall goofy guy named 

Elder Sumsion. He was my Dai-Senpai at the MTC, which means that he has only been in Japan for 6 weeks more than me. We were asked to go 

streeting. He thought that I knew more Japanese than him and insisted that I take the lead. I called him a dirty liar and insisted that he took the lead. After a rather intense match of Janken (Japanese 

Rock-Paper-Scissors) I ended up taking the lead... Although we are nowhere near fluent, we were able to teach several people and set up a next lesson with 2 of them. After our dazed state of confusion as to what just happened in that short hour, we were put on splits with different companions for the next hour. The next hour wasn't near as fun since the crowd died down due to the late hours, but I went on splits with a much more experienced missionary named Elder Choi who taught me a bunch of stuff about the language. He was pretty quiet, but It was a nice cool down. Other than that I just keep learning more and more everyday, like how delicious Sea Urchin is, and how much Elder Sakae hates being tickled. It's a wonderful life though, that's for sure. 

Keep the party Rockin, 

Elder Cuff 

Tokyo is so big, the city just keeps going in either direction.

Week 8 in Japan: Finally, A Worthy Opponent

Well as expected, the work picked right back up after the holidays ended. Life is normal again! Well as normal as it gets in Machida... But we were able to meet with some of our investigators, and just continue getting lost in the work. It's becoming so addicting just to go out and talk with people, and it's so satisfying coming home just 
being absolutely exhausted. Mentally and physically. In order for me to understand what's going on in a conversation, I've gotta concentrate so hard and it just drains me like no other, but it's so much fun. One of the families we've been working with have come down with a pretty gnarly case of influenza, and oh what an opportunity that turned out to be. We ended up putting aside some money, made them a fun little fruit basket, and dropped it off. They were stoked, and we're really hoping they recover quick cause they're such fun people to be around. 

Also, I recently came across a rumor that the bishop of the ward we're serving in is a pretty decent arm wrestler. He has yet to be beat. So 
being the reasonable person that I am, and not wanting to cause too much trouble, decided to challenge him. The winner gets to buy dinner. 
But we both agreed that we want to take some time to train up, and we won't commence the match until the day comes that I have to transfer 
out of Machida. So that can either be Feb. 9 or sometime in March. We don't really know when I'll leave, which makes it all the more exciting. 

Much Love, 
Elder Cuff 

Here's a preview of what's to come, this video is an attempt made by a previous missionary. 

Week 7 in Japan

So due to the holidays, the missionary work has been incredibly slow, but luckily we've got a few lessons set up for after the holidays. New Years in Japan is different, it's not crazy and strewn with parties like in the states. Although I’m in one of the most populated areas of the world, it kind of turns into a ghost town for the first 3 days of the year. Most people don't have work, and they just hang out at home with their families. 

But due to this time of year, our mission president had everyone deep clean their apartments, gave us some reading assignments, and gave us a personal day to really reflect, kind of meditate, and set ourselves up for the New Year. 

The language has really been developing lately, I haven't had too much difficulty speaking, but listening was the hardest part since people here talk super fast. But this past Sunday I was able to understand a large majority of the church meetings and I was finally able to keep up with what was being said. It was sweet! 

The ward members here are incredible and have been feeding us so much. We've been studying like mad and it's been so much fun seeing the growth, not only with my Japanese, but with Elder Sakae's English. 

This place is amazing, this work is true, and time as a missionary still makes no sense.  Seriously, this has been the fastest 4 months in my life. But hey, time flies when you're having fun.    

Also, in our many food adventures, we found a place called Yakuniku.  

It's all you can eat Japanese BBQ, sushi, ice cream, noodles, soup, fruit, etc... For the grand total of about $12.    

Stay Sweet, 

Elder Cuff