Messages

 I study in English haha. I can't understand the scriptures yet. I mean I can kind of understand the message if I think really hard but I don't know the grammar good enough. It is really hard haha. You have no idea. I'm learning a bunch of words but Japanese grammar is so complex. I don't know how to use them so I'm focusing a lot on it. I think at my 6 month mark I'll have about 2000 words and a lot more grammar down so I feel I will be pretty good. The rest will just be advancing further.

ピカチュウにはいつもそっとに顔を置きてなさい！🙇‍♂️

 Good evening everyone! Thanks a lot for clicking on my email. This week was, as always..... super good. The longer I am here the better it gets because I can understand and speak more and more haha. I'm in the best area ever here in Narita and hope I get to stay for a while. This week we figured out a lot of fun stuff in our area so please read!

Tuesday: in Tokyo for Zone Pday. We had a great time doing all sorts of stuff and playing games. After, all the elders in the zone (9 of us) all went to Chiba from the Annex and all spent the night in the elders apartment there in Chiba which was fun haha. I got to sleep in the closet. It was pretty great. 

Wednesday:  The next day at the Chiba church building we had ZCM which was interesting. Me and my comp gave a training but my Japanese just wasn't there so It was ruff but ended pretty good. Later that night we had a lesson with LEESAN. Who makes me so happy haha. She is a girl version of QUI FENG and every time we tell her more about the gospel she is just mind blown and loves it. 

Thursday:  The next day after interviews, some lessons, and streeting we had PING PONG NIGHT. Lee, Hiro, Michika, and some others came. We probably had like 15 people and I took top dog this time. Never losing to a Chinese girl again. That was the most embarrassing thing last time so this time I secured number one. After Ping pong our ZL`s came and spent the night and they are trio training an elder from Brazil who is the funniest guy ever. 

Friday:  The next day for exchanges Elder Nitahara came with me and Elder Sakamoto and Lui went with my comp and we had the best time. I took him to Keisei Narita station and we went down to Naritasan Shinshoji temple. Walking down that road to the temples there are always a bunch of people and we went into a lot of the shops and talked to the owners and stuff and it took us 4 hours to go like 500 km haha. It was just what I needed for my language practice though. He just acted like he didn't speak Japanese to push me and we actually found a guy that had been to our church before. Then inside all the side street shops I would start to talk to the owner or someone and then on purpose he would leave me and be nowhere in sight haha. It was just what I needed. Next month they are having a matsuri there and I am so hyped I get to go. Elder Nitahara said you have 1 month to get tight with all the shop owners so when you go to the festival they all say hi to you and then the whole community sees that and then wants to talk to you too. Genius.

Saturday:  Me and my comp were on the same street and we ran in to a lady playing Pokemon Go, which is like totally common here. Every night we run into someone playing haha. Anyways she proceeded to drop everything and give us a 2 hour tour and show us everything haha. After it got dark we ate at a chain restaurant here that is super good. You can get a nice bowl of ramen, rice, and gyoza for like 9 bucks USD. Since we are rich here because the Japanese yen in going down in value we can pretty freely eat out.

Monday: We were back at Naritasan and we walked into one shop and the owner came over and tells us for missionary she gives a 10 percent discount. I was like yo. It turns out she used to love the missionaries from 3 years ago. This area was just opened again by my comp right before I came. Right after in another shop, the owner said that missionaries had talked to here at the train station in 2017 before Covid and that was actually really cool to see. Knowing that missionaries probably did the same thing we are doing well before Covid and some of them remember!

Well, that sums up a bit from this week. 

Ladddddddder - Elder Parker

August Zone Conference

 August Zone Conferences - learning how to improve our teaching skills!

#wecommit

#GPS

Chiba Zone!!

President Cook's Facebook Post

 Another picture of the last incoming group of missionaries - the "Noble Nineteen." #lifelongdisciples#amazingmissionaries

麦茶 is King

 What's up everyone.  I hope you all are doing well! I'm currently on a train to Tokyo for Zone Pday. We were supposed to go to Inage Beach but sadly there is a typhoon. Anyways this week was fantastic as always!

Tuesday: we went shopping in the morning and let me tell you me and my comp cook up some good food on the daily. This is the first time in my life I have enjoyed cooking haha. Anyways later we went to Akihabara and Asakusa which was so sweet! Akihabara is kind of not the best place for missionaries but we had a member guide us so for the most part we didn't see anything we shouldn't have haha. I definitely gotta go back there at night some day. It would be so cool to see. Later that night we had a church tour with someone we recently met and was curious in why Christianity is becoming more well known or popular. He is a 22 year old college student named Hiro and is just as sick as all the other 20 year old college students in Japan haha. They are the most elect. Anyways, he wanted a Bible but we somehow didn't have one so instead taught him pretty much the full resto and gave him a Book of Mormon. After reading the intro he just texted us and was amazed that he had "never heard of this book as it is just as important as the bible". We also had a call with our Chinese friend Lee who looks like 20 something but I can never tell because people look way younger here. We have ran into so many like 80 year olds that look like they are 45 and we have also ran into so many 40 year olds that look like they are 22 haha. Anyways she said she wasn't really interested in religion but then we told her there is a God and we can talk to him and ask him for help and was amazing and she gave the good old, "Reeallllly!". 

Wednesday: We went back to Tokyo for DC at the anex and ate there and then headed back for a Mogi lesson which was ruff as always 😅 and then we went out to talk to people at parks and along the way.

Thursday:  Ping Pong night was sweet and we had a bunch of people show up! We texted Lee to see if she could come and of course she instantly said yeah and that she would bring a friend. Which was sweet. Or so I thought. You see we did a full tournament with everyone and I've been practicing all last transfer for this moment. The younger girls are generally pretty trash at the ping but the moms and dads are scary and if it's a grandma you better run. I made my way up the tournament as you would expect until it was the final game me verses Lee's friend. I don't know what happened but I got nervous and lost🤦. Total embarrassment. I will never let that happen again. I beat some gnarly older people and then I lost to this little Chinese girl 😑. Anyways we have been inviting a bunch more people and next week I think just us will pull like 10 non members there. That night before the event we were walking in town and I heard a group of students speaking English and was like yo what so we went up and talked to them and the college in Narita is a school to study medicine, physical therapy, and to become a doctor or what not but there is a bunch of foreign students. The group we talked to were all from different South Asian countries it was pretty sweet.

Friday - Saturday:  I'm trying so hard to speak to people and young people are just way easier or just women they seem to be more forgiving for bad Japanese but we talked to some skater dudes that were really sweet and some others.

Sunday:  Sundays are tuff beans. We had a mogi lesson after church and man sometimes the members have no chill. They talk so fast I was completely helpless haha. Sometimes I will think man I'm making some progress and I can talk to people and then other times I'll think man I am like a poor banana without his peel.

Monday:  We had a lesson with our friend Yokochan who is super sweet. She read 2 chapters from the Book of Mormon but man it is so hard for Japanese people to grasp anything as it is just completely different. Then after we had a mogi lesson with these super sweet members who are kind of crazy at the some time and I was able to teach the full first half of the resto so ay that's some progress haha. I see so many new missionaries memorizing lines and stuff to say which I get but I feel like that would be a complete waste of my time when I could learn the language and speak how I want to say it so that's what I do but its hard because I have to break my English in my head to then say it in Japanese but its gotten alot better over the past two weeks. I also have no Idea how but I'm managing over 20 words a day now to memorize and I keep them all in folders so I can keep track of every word learned besides the ones I learn passively of course and somehow don't forget any of them as well haha. Definitely the Spirt but man it's a grind.

I was thinking to myself one day, man I've been out for about 13 months now but have I really even changed at all? Then my companion said that he had actually read my first in-field email I had sent that day for some reason and told me "yeah it was pretty bad ha" so I went back and read some emails of me with my hooligan trainers and realized I guess I really have changed alot haha. I understood my testimony and values have completely changed as I guess I really only had a verbal testimony before the mission and now have a spiritual foundation I just didn't realize existed but as for myself in how I act and most importantly use my words has changed a lot. I still try to be my self and make people laugh at the dumbest things but the Christ like attributes and spiritual gifts you develop on a mission after really talking to God to achieve through the experience of a mission isn't worth any amount of money haha.

Didn't have time to look over this at all so hopefully it doesn't have too many typos. 

Keep the faith - Elder Parker

My talk I gave on Sunday- 

Messages

 Akihabara has been my favorite but also kinda well...it's the most red light district you could probably find in Japan. Granted it's not anything crazy but with the wrong mind set, that place at night has gotta be interesting. We asked the member if we could go to a maid cafe as a joke and he bout passed out. 

フルグラ IS KING

 What's up everyone. Hope you're doing well! This week was jammed with a lot of cool experiences and right now I am on a train to the Tokyo area, specifically the Asakusa and Akihabara area for P-day. Still blows my mind how spoiled I am to be here😂 and to be doing the most important work in the world while we are at it. An hour away from the biggest city full of Asians! Doesn't get much better then that haha.

I Kept things much shorter for everyone this week!

Update on ping pong night- The other night we decided to send a text to the ward to make sure it was okay for us to use the church on Thursday night to invite some of our friends to play ping pong with us. Well the whole ward drops everything they are doing and within 5 minutes we have like 40 messages from the ward blowing up saying things like oh we will get refreshments and this and that and oh I have 2 friends I can invite and maybe another member's friends that they can invite can come and what other random friends will they get along with and this and that. I was just like man I just was thinking a little night where people could invite interested people but we got a full on ward event with like 20 non members coming 😂, which is great! Members here are the best. They put the work of the Lord over a lot which is sad to see America just not care. Not trying to knock most members in the US but am at the same time haha.

Tuesday:  We played badminton with a bunch of Filipino ladies and some members. It was funny cause they take it pretty seriously. If you mess up they get mad at you and will say in English, "What are you doing"😂. Right across from us in the gym there where like 10 ping pong tables lined up and a bunch of grandma's were going ham. It was insane. I have never seen 80 year olds move like that before haha. Later we went to our boy Ned's and made hamburgers with him.

Wednesday:  We had a fireside with President Wada in Tokyo directed straight to our investigators to teach them about the concept of faith. Kakun came with us and we got a member to drive us 3 to Tokyo for it. This night was one of the coolest nights ever. Driving through Tokyo at night was insane and then to see Kakun so close to the temple was awesome. During the fireside Kakun talked in part of it and after I went around and introduced him to everyone but he was just making his own friends. It was so sweet. At the end he told us it was his favorite day since coming to Japan! After, we drove home from Tokyo and walked with him home.

Thursday:  Thursday night after some streeting and mogi lessons we took the train to Chiba and stayed the night in a Danchi with 6 other elders.

Friday:  We all left early in the morning and went to Tokyo for mission conference which was sweet because the entire mission was there. It's really fun because the whole mission has been out over a year at least and everyone is dying in the next 5 months so it's just a bunch of good missionaries that know what they are doing haha. Anyway, on the way there we stopped at Tokyo station which was sick. There were so many people down there. This lasted pretty much all day and then on our way back we totally took the wrong train for 45 minutes and ended up way into the Tokyo South Mission and by the time we got back it was already 9.

Saturday:  We were out talking to people and my comp thought we had time before realizing we needed to get on a train in 10 minutes to go to a members house who fed us and it was straight out of a movie You should have seen us barely make it after booking it and running. My comp jumps on the train and looks back and the doors start to close and I'm like just coming down the stairs and he sticks his arm out and the door reopens for like 2 seconds and I bolt in the train as the door nearly takes my bag haha. It was sick. Then at dinner I was like oh yeah don't even worry I got the message to share. You see my confidence is way too high for my ability of speaking😂. At the end I think they understood what I was trying to say but it was pretty brutal haha speaking is so hard. Even when you know what to say and how to say it when you try to open your mouth and say it it's like my brain just shuts down. Its alright though.

Sunday:  We went back to Chiba for a YSA event! It was funny, on the way to Chiba there were 2 sets of 2 people both talking and my comp turned to me and says wow this is the most lively I've ever seen this train. And we both sat there in realization on how amazing it felt to see people socializing. It was the weirdest thing and probably makes no sense to ya'll but it gave us both a good feeling we haven't felt in a while. Anyways, that YSA event was so much fun. We had our boy Seiya and his sister come and in his own words we were his support to find a girlfriend😂. We played GaGa ball too and none of the Japanese people had played it before so it was so funny as the American missionaries just showed absolutely no mercy on them😂. After during dinner I sat down with someone I had just met and am now friends with and then told Seiya and the 2 people with him to sit next to us. I thought it was a good idea until I realized I was the only white person at the table😂. To my surprise I held my own way better then I thought I could and got the whole table talking to each other and it ended up being really fun. I have found that the Japanese people, at least in their 20s love to learn American slang. So I taught them gas, fire, cracked, and narley haha. After, a bunch of them came to the conclusion that I look like an anime character from My Hero Academia. Then on the 2 trains on the way home we had members with us so I had to try and talk to people. So both people I sat next to I talked to which was a lot easier then I thought. Granted when they where talking about fishing in Tokyo I could barely understand them but ay 😏.

Monday:  Today was sweet! We had a mock lesson in the morning with a member and I was able to speak a lot more even if she didn't catch my drift half of the time😂. Later we met up with 樵溪 and taught him the gospel of Jesus Christ. We realized that his English is actually way worse then we thought because any time we ask him a question from a previous lesson he had no clue what we were talking about. So we are now teaching him in Japanese. We asked him about baptism and he was like what's that🤦‍♂️. We realized that when we put him on date he probably didn't fully understand what we were talking about, but after our 2 hour lesson today he is all good to go and up to speed haha. We reasked him if he wanted to be baptized now that he could understand us and what everything was and I was so nervous he was gonna say oh its okay but he was so ready! My heart dropped haha. We showed him the font and how you get the gift of the Holy Ghost and everything and he was so happy. He is also loving 1 Nephi. Then, after, we walked to 7/11 for dinner which sounds weird but its way good here.

炭酸になてみてください🥖 - Elder Parker