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-
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