[translations: ice cream flavors--"Trio de Janeiro" (3-flavored sherbet: kiwi, lemon and blueberry--colors of Brazilian flag) and "Popping Shower" (has pop rocks in it...); Baskin Robbins = "sa-tee-wan a-ee-su-ku-ree-mu" or "thirty-one ice cream."]
The last week at the MTC went by super fast. I gave the closing prayer at our departure devo and I felt so weird praying in English. We had "in-field orientation" one of our last days and they had us practicing meeting people on the street. The 3 nihonjin shimaitachi were in our group so I practiced with them, it was a lot of fun. It's so easy to make them laugh, I feel so funny when I hang out with them. Saying goodbye to everyone was sad, but it was all swallowed up in how excited I was to finally get to Japan!
We flew to Portland and then to Tokyo and then Sendai. Sister Williamson and I were sitting by each other for all 3 flights, it was pretty fun to get to know her better. We were trying to be #pro missionaries and planted seeds the whole trip...We talked to a guy named Michael about missionaries and missions and he talked to us about his life as a Catholic. I tried to talk to an old Nihonjin guy when we were almost in Tokyo and I couldn't understand anything he said. But he was really excited that I was trying so that was nice haha. On the flight to Sendai we met this awesome girl named りおな、(Riona) she is 10 and we are best friends now. She taught us some Japanese and we taught her some English, it was pretty fun.
Three of the biggest things I noticed right when we got to Japan...first, the humidity is crazy! I could feel it as soon as we got off the plane in Tokyo. And I have been sweaty ever since then. The only time I don't feel sweaty is when I'm in the shower. Second, there is still English everywhere. I was expecting straight Japanese everywhere but there is so much English. And the people try to practice their English on me haha. Mostly just littler kids, but as soon as they see me and realize I'm a がいじん、(gaijin--foreigner) they are like, "ヘロ！ヘロ！ナイス チュ ミーチュ！ セィーユー！" (Hello! Hello! Nice to meet you! See you!) There have been a couple times where I am trying really hard to figure out what someone is saying but I'll be totally lost...and then I'll realize that it's actually English. Or イングリシュ。Third, the bathrooms are incredible. At least the one in the Tokyo airport is. I made sure to use it while I was there, and I have decided that I am getting a bidet (bidette? Biday? You know what I'm trying to say) in my future home. Life-changing. It even had like 5 different water pressure settings. I was really curious so I turned it on after I stood up to see what it looked like. Big mistake. Holy cow. Even on the lowest pressure level, I swear the stream almost hit my face. I got my sleeve and my tie soaking wet, luckily I had my suit so I put it back on and no one had any idea that I made the classic gaijin mistake.
We arrived in Sendai and everyone was so happy to see us! I met my trainer, Elder Hancock, and the trainers for my Doki. Our first night we all slept packed into the little apartment above the mission office. It was actually pretty fun, it was good to get to know the older missionaries. In the morning we had interviews with Pres Smith, he is a really cool guy. His main focus is on exact obedience, and you can just feel how enthusiastic and passionate he is about missionary work. We had an amazing French toast breakfast that Sister Smith made for us, then we had some "training" from the APs and then they shipped us out pretty quickly after that. Nathan Choro and I and our trainers rode up to the Eki (station) together, then we split up. I miss that guy. We are in the same zone though so I should be able to see him soonish. Elder Hancock and I rode about 5-6 hours on a bus up to Aomori!! Aomori is up at the very tippy tippy top, just across the bay from the Sapporo mission. But it's still hot here haha. And our AC was broken when I got here, the apartment was roasting. We just got a new one today though!! That will be so nice!! This whole week we have just been sweaty literally all the time. It makes me excited for winter, although I'm sure I will eat those words when we are freezing to death. I'm just excited to not have to come home drenched in sweat haha.
The bus was good, I slept a little bit and had some good bonding time with Hancock Choro. He is from Sandy, he has been out a little over a year. He wants to be a heart surgeon so we are going to start a joint heart/brain surgery business when we grow up. He is half Nihonjin, his Mom is Nihonjin but grew up in Brazil speaking Portugese. So he looks a little Japanese but obviously didn't learn any growing up. He's a super cool guy, and a great trainer!
We had a long walk from the bus stop to our apartment, then the other 2 elders in our apartment prepared the most authentic Japanese meal they could make. It was some weird looking stew with noodles, it was actually really good. Then of course they had natto and they made me try it...so disgusting. I shoveled a little bit into my mouth with my chopsticks and I wanted to throw up. So I didn't finish that haha but I guess it was a good welcome to Japan. Then they had the strongest mugicha of all time. It was soooo nasty haha. They didn't put enough water in it and it was boiling hot too. But I've actually had it quite a few times this week, and when it's diluted correctly it's not bad at all. I like it better when it's cold too. That night I crashed on my futon so hard. Between the crazy long flights and getting up super early for interviews and the long bus ride and the long walk I was just drained. I slept so good, the jet lag didn't even wake me up a single time.
I thought our apartment was tiny when we first got there but I am realizing more and more that it's actually pretty big for Japan. There is one study room with 2 desks by the front door, then a storage/living room (for everyone's clothes and belongings and all the missionary materials) then a tiny toilet room (it's basically the size of a coat closet, and there's nothing in there but the toilet), then we have the laundry room (which has the sink) connected to the shower. Our kitchen has 2 burners and a sink, then on the other side we actually have a decent-sized fridge with a freezer. There is enough room between the sink and the fridge for the fridge door to open all the way and then we have about 1 cm of extra space. We have kind of a "dining room" that also has 2 desks for study time. Then there is one sleeping room with our 4 futons. It's pretty cozy, the weirdest thing is just how narrow the hallway is and how low the ceiling is. In the shower, I can almost touch the ceiling with my head if I stand on my tiptoes.
Each morning we do workouts from the "7-minute workout app" on our iPads, I was actually super sore the first couple days. It feels so good to really exercise again though. Also, I had real scrambled eggs for the first time in months! So delicious. I have some almost every morning. The MTC scrambled eggs are literally the worst. The yolks here are orange instead of yellow so that was surprising, but they taste the same.
For the 1st 12 weeks we have an extra hour of comp study, so we are still sitting down for most of the morning. But then we go out and dendo in the afternoons which is good! Except we don't have any investigators right now so it's been only finding, and so far only street finding and tracting. I'm loving the biking, there are lots of hills in Aomori so we get a pretty good workout.
Finding is so hard! Holy cow! I now know what the "kekko hand" is. Almost everyone either gives us the hand, or says they're bukkyo, (Buddhist) or sometimes people just stare straight ahead and keep walking like they don't hear us. So it's hard. But it's worth it for the ones that are interested, because every once in while we'll talk to people and you can just see in their eyes that they are genuinely interested. Usually the ones who listen are younger people, they're usually a lot more comfortable talking about God and religion than most adults. We've handed out a lot of Book of Mormons, and gotten a few phone numbers. So we'll have investigators soon, it's just been really hard this week because it's been all finding and almost no teaching.
We did teach one lesson to Jin Kyoudai, who is less active. He looooves bugs and has showed us a book that was basically a picture encyclopedia of millions of types of bugs haha. In his free time he likes to go and catch different types of bugs haha, what an awesome hobby. He hasn't been able to come to church consistently for at least 5 years because he always has work on Sundays. But we had an awesome lesson about keeping the sabbath day holy and we tried really hard to not be chastising him but to just help him see how it will help him. The problem was, like 5 years ago he asked his boss for work off on Sundays and his boss said no. So he's been scared to ask since then. But we challenged him to ask his boss for work off again so he could make it to church and he accepted! We promised that the Lord would help him and bless him as he tried his best to follow Him, even when it was hard. Then yesterday we saw him in sacrament meeting!! So awesome. We will visit him again this week, hopefully he will be able to keep making it consistently.
We got to see the Nebuta festival this week!! It's one of the biggest matsuris in Nihon, right here in Aomori this week! So lucky. One of the members got us tickets so we got to sit in the seats (instead of standing by the street) with one of our potentials, Hai. Hai is vietnamese, in Japan for college. He was taught by missionaries before but had to stop because he got too busy with school, so hopefully we can start teaching him again soon. The matsuri was awesome! The floats were so intricate, and everything was just so cool. Definitely a good intro to Japanese culture. Video and picture attached...
This week was fast Sunday so all the missionaries (the 4 elders in our apartment and the 2 sisters in our district) in the branch bore their testimonies. Pres and Sis Smith came to our branch too, so that was cool. They both bore their testimonies, it was pretty funny because half the people who got up had missionary name tags. I had prepared/translated a testimony that morning but I actually didn't read from it, except for a scripture that I shared. My testimony went so well!!! Such a relief. I said in the beginning that in Idaho we only eat potatoes, so I was really excited when I got to Japan and there was food other than potatoes! I think some of them realized it was a joke. But yeah it went so well, I felt so good. The members were actually super surprised that I just got to Japan on Tuesday, they would all come up to me and say my Nihongo was jouzu, (expert) then they would rattle off some more Japanese and I wouldn't understand any of it. Chotto (a little) ironic haha.
There were a couple of American RMs in the branch, one served in Sendai and one in Fukuoka. It was fun to get to know them, one said he might take the 4 elders out for burgers because he has been craving American food and found some place with really good burgers.
The rest of church was good, I kept falling asleep but when I was awake I could usually at least understand the topic of the discussion. I still don't really understand most of what people say but in church they were using MTC vocab so that was nice.
Anyway, it's been a busy week but I love it here! I'm learning so much every day and every night I am just sooo exhausted. It's a good exhausted though :)
I love you so much and I pray for you and the fam every day! Thanks for all you do!! :)
いつも あいしています、
パスケット長老
Elder Paskett
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