Text From Dave Potter

 So look who a buddy of mine found?

He was on his mission with me in Kobe Japan. He is a pilot and took Isaac and his comp to dinner. He lives in Jess and Robert's ward in Cartersville. Small world! They went to my favorite restaurant in Japan.

一石二鳥

 Everyone see that missile Korea tried to kill me with the other week? Thank goodness they have terrible aim, am I right. 

Haha what is up everyone! This week has so good. Today we went to Choushi with some members which is right on the beach and ate some fish that was killed like 10 minutes before I ate it and it was sweet I felt like Monk. Right now I am currently on a train out of town and it's 8:30pm and I'm also trying to read some Pikachu so I'm sorry I don't have much time today but please know all is better then ever and I'm loving it as always. As for my language progress, right now I feel like that one exchange student that takes a long time to say stuff but you can successfully have a conversation with them even though they occasionally don't understand you. Yeah I always wondered what that felt like but know I know haha.

This week our ping pong night and eikaiwa was filled with people. It was sweet. At eikaiwa we sang Country Roads at the end as well and it took me back for real for real. Also had some good lessons and finding 👌 which I sadly don't have time to share so you just gotta trust.

-パーちゃん、Elder Parker 

Messages

 My day was good! Lots of biking around and we ate at this killer Indian food restaurant that I know dad would have loved. I ate probably 2 cups of rice and about passed out for the next hour but besides that mistake, it was great.

僕が食べたアイスクリームは暖かったので悲しいです。

 What`s up everyone, hope all is well! This week we had lots of miracles. It is very different from the states. I feel God just throws us people sometimes out of nowhere and I feel the miracles we see often feel unreal with thoughts of there being no way that stuff could happen the way they do without some supreme powers hand in it all. We had some awesome lessons this week with our progressing people and some awesome finding experiences.

This week we got to go to Sushiro with Daiki and ate way too much food as always haha. He really wanted to try and read The Book of Mormon, which was awesome to see because that is definitely harder to come by than in America. This week I honestly felt like we were just getting tossed around. I realize that Japanese people are amazing but regardless there are good people and bad people, nice people and rude people, open people and secluded people anywhere you go. Amongst all of our interactions with people we had a really cool week though. It was already pretty dark and a guy with headphones passed us and we tried to stop him but he didn't look. My comp chased him a little bit and got his attention and it turns out like 10 years ago he talked to missionaries at a train station and had read half of the Book of Mormon but lost his copy. He was in a sad place over a breakup as well. I was able to understand and talk enough to give him another copy of the Book of Mormon which was probably the first time that on the street I have been able to give a Book of Mormon out with my testimony in Japan. It felt really good and then last night one after another near Narita san was super sweet and when our job as missionaries ended up coming up in conversation they were all super cool about us being Christians. One mom we were able to talk to for a good 25 minutes about a lot of stuff and she didn't want to stop. She started asking us about Justin Bieber haha. So that was way needed. We run into a lot of people that have no clue about us at all and are really nice and open but we also run into a lot that realize we are Christians and are told not to listen to us, which is annoying because sometimes I'm just trying to invite them to play ping pong with us haha. Anyways the language is coming slowly but surely. I still have a very long way before I feel comfortable but the start of understanding and speaking is arriving. 

A lot of times here in Japan it's the little things that bring me happiness, like randomly running into an inactive high school student while biking and having him ride with us for 15 minutes or having someone simply tell us good luck and that they don't think our job is weird haha. Alongside the huge miracles that makes us scratch our head on whether something actually just happened or not haha, I am determined that the mission offers some of the best experiences someone can have in this life with the right mindset.

Jesus Christ Lives. He really did come down here and atone for all of mankind and I know he would have done the same thing for you alone. The Book of Mormon is true so although life can get busy try not to let it sit on the shelf along with your prayers. God wants to help you but you gotta ask for the help in order to receive it. If you can't feel the happiness you originally did at baptism or in the temple or when you got a testimony or decided to repent or on your own mission you can feel it again. You just gotta put in some effort and search for it! You have a great purpose right now in a plan that God who does exist has for you, so don't give up.

- Elder Parker

Chiba Zone Conference

 During October Zone Conferences we studied the Restoration Proclamation, how to use the Book of Mormon more effectively in our teaching, setting goals during our weekly & daily planning, and how to take the leap of faith to replace our fears! 

#amazingmissionaries

#lifelongdisciples

今夜の月がきれいな🥴

 What is up guys! Here in 成田 things are just dripping all over the place, isn't that awesome! Because of that I wrote a lot this week and frankly I hope you have interesting things going on in your lives that you don't have time to read everything haha so don't feel bad if you don't. Although I did add some spice this week as I went back and wrote out this week pretty good because of the experiences I had and never want to forget. Awesome okay now we will get started yes!

Tuesday - Tuesday was a pretty chill Pday. After destroying in badminton, later that night we went to a Yakiniku all you can eat with Qiao Feng and it was so much fun. We got so much food it was insane. We are so close to getting this man baptized. We taught him about the temple and eternal marriages and he said now he thinks he wants a girlfriend so we are making progress.

Wednesday - Alright so Wednesday was crazzyy. Starting off the day on a train at 8:00AM to Tokyo for Zone Conference. For some reason I just  get nothing out of any type of meetings. Even walking out of mission conference I was thinking like yeah that was that but I don't feel like I gained a thing from it. Still trying figure out why that's the case but anyways, after we did exchanges with Elder Campbell and his greenie. Elder Campbell was In the ND mission for around 16 Months first. Anyways my Comp Elder Bingham and Him went to Yachio and I took the Greenie back to Narita. His Name is Elder Gammet and he had been in Japan for a whole 5 days.😂 We walked out of the Annex and he asked how long I've been in Japan and when I said 7 weeks his reply was Just, "ohhhh hmm are we okay" I told him not to worry and that I was raised in Thailand and I think that helped haha. Made it back from Tokyo and immediately had a lesson with Ippei at a restaurant called Saizaria! At first I was thinking "Oh man I got stuck with the greenie that has no clue what he is doing" and he says he studied Japanese in high school as If that makes a difference😑. So my attitude wasn't the best but after dinner I realized that he was actually a pretty cool guy and I totally misjudged and learned a good lesson from it. The lesson with Ippei also went so well and was a good time chatting with him about the gospel! We then ended up getting a text as my comp realized he had the house and church key with him. So after dinner we end up riding the train with Ippei because he lives in Sakura and going to Yachio and just blitzing their area. It was already late by the time we got there so we just headed straight to their apt.

Thursday - Thursday was crazy. We had some awesome lessons in the morning which was fun trying to do lead everything! Later we went streeting which was really fun to get out without another person who could speak. We talked to lots of people and on repeat pretty much just got shut down but it was raining so we went into this shop and no one was in there except the 2 women working who greeted us at the door. Somehow managed to have a good 10 minute conversation with them about life. The shop was apparently a place where they stamp KANjI on stuff but the owners where really nice, the type of people that everything you say they go, ohhhh eeeee jouzuuuuu neee, Ohhhh, atama go iii da neeeee. 😂. We then hitched it back to the apartment and swapped back. Then for ping pong night back in Narita. It Was sweet! We had a Chinese guy we talked to on the street come as well as Lee which was really funny because it was Americans, Chinese, and Korens all in Japan playing ping pong speaking Japanese. 😂 Anyways we finally figured out the words おっし、and やった for those that may know so that is nice. Overall this day was great except even with success, man I just feel so helpless with the language haha. Satan is a lot better than I thought he would be at discouragement. 

Friday - Alright so we were just about to head out streeting when boom my comp gets insane revelation that we should go to Sakura to do it. So that's what we did. It actually dropped down enough to wear a jacket this day which was fun with our umbrellas and jackets walking through the eki. I felt like it needed to blow up behind us, if your riding my Kevin Hart wave, you know. Anyways we got dumped on for the next 3 hours while we attempted to talk to people but ended up talking to some cool shop owners. One of them was selling antiques and one antique was an American Naturalization Certificate. We asked if she knew what it was and she had no clue what it was. We left her in wonder and continue because you all know I have no idea what that is😂. Anyways later that night we had 英会話クラス at the church and this ended up being so much fun. For 15 minutes of it I was with a member and Leesan the investigator and we were practicing talking about goals and plans and the member said that his goal was to be more like Jesus and then Lee said, "Same" bwwaawawaあえええええ. Ended up teaching her all about the Bible and stuff and as always she loved it. Good old すぎりきCuh slipping in the gospel in the most broken Enlgish ever😂. Afterwards we had a nonmember who brought his guitar 🎸 and whipped out sheets of paper with lyrics and hands them out and we sing it and he's like okay now we will practice. So we sing each line as he corrects us and then his daughter hops on the piano and wow we created magic everyone. The best part is that the song was "Can't Help Falling in Love" by Elvis Presley haha. All the guitar players in the ward like to play American music and always ask us what the band and song names mean but when the bands names are things like Grateful Dead its kinda hard to make sense of it haha. I got a video of us singing at the end of the vlog so don't forget to watch.

Saturday - Alright so on Saturday we met with this guy named だいき who is a sick. We ate McDonald's with him because for some reason every young Japanese person I have met thinks McDonald's is the best place ever haha. He was sweet. We didn't get a picture with him sadly but he had the cleanest outfit I've ever seen.  He is studying psychology right now so the things we brought up to him about God was very interesting to him. Afterwards he showed us his motorcycle and it was megga sick. Anyways we walked home from Naritasan afterwards and had a call to teach a lady why Christmas is a thing.

Sunday - Sunday was great. Conference was awesome here. The ward all came to the church and watched the first session then all hung out and ate lunch together which with the cool breeze through the open windows gave me huge Thanksgiving vibes. It was awesome. Then they watched the second half and then we all left. Some members also gave us grapes a couple days ago and here in Japan grapes are covered with this fuzz stuff. I didn't know what it was but man does it sure taste good. I don't know why America doesn't do it the same. Than a  couple hours later we went to Narita san and met with Reina who was super sweet. It was kind of awkward because she wanted to eat but it was Sunday so we finally told her why and she was like ohhh really I didn't know that was a Christian belief that and then we went to the second floor of McDonald's and chatted haha. She taught me 流れに身を任せる and in return we taught her some slang which I teach to everyone and its the funniest thing because they think it is so cool. Its really funny when it's like a 70 year women that says "oh this food is... fire"😂

Monday - Monday we had some good streeting I can understand a lot more now and speak a bit more as well. I remember thinking to myself oh man my Japanese was terrible at zone conference and then I realized ZC was only like 6 days ago haha. Very challenging but with patience it will be done! We had a Mogi lesson with this crazy member named Ushijima Shimai at 8 that night and she was drilling us haha. The more I can speak the harder it gets because I try and explain more stuff and go into more depth and anything we said wrong she was errors it's this Naninanika which is what we need so it was great.

Elder Parker 

Week 58: Messages

 Check out the all you can eat dinner tonight. A robot brings you new plates of meat, haha. It was sweet.

The green stuff is the best drink ever. It is called カルピス

ちんぷんかんぷん

 What is up guys! This week was really good. We had perfect whether everyday. I'm talking high of 73 and low of 65 blue sky days. It has been perfect. 

Throughout this week I only remembered to write on Wednesday so we will start there.

Wednesday - Today was sweet! We had a mogi lesson in the morning with Bishop Baba and his wife and I was able to teach almost all the resto very roughly but I am making huge progress as I make it a priority to understand grammar. We later went to a nice park and had a lesson with Miu! She is a super friendly 20 year old we are teaching who lives in our area. Today was a pass of lesson from a set of sisters in another mission and man was that the most dysfunctional lesson I have ever seen. The sisters have been here for 4 months but seemed like they got to the mission field 1 week ago so me and my comp just took over from the beginning and it went super good. Then we decided to explore because we heard from our investigator Hiro that there was a big aeon mall in North Narita so we took the 30 min bike ride and boom the biggest mall I have ever seen and there were people and buildings everywhere. Sick find and we will definitely go back. On our way to the mall though we talked to someone skating that was 19 and the youth are always the best. We will hopefully be getting a bite to eat with him soon. I told him his skating was really cool and he goes no you guys are cool. 😂 After that we sent it back to Namikicho for a lesson with the legend Leesan! We had a YSA named Yui Yamamoto join the lesson as we tought about the Book of Mormon and oh man that was probably one of the best lessons I have ever been a part of. She is so excited to read and after mentally breaking down after we asked her she said the closing prayer! After we went home I whipped up some mean katsudon... let me tell you, just wait till you get some of my katsudon. It will blow your mind. Next to learn is okinomiyaki. I love cooking out of nowhere which is great because it makes eating good easy haha!

As for the rest of the week we saw lots of success. On Friday we started up our in person eikaiwa class for the first time nearly in nearly 3 years and we got 6 people to come! Which isn't a lot but it's a start and it went super well. Not 1 person in the room had every heard of faith before and had no concept of It. 

I cant' really remember Saturday but we probably had some good streeting experiences. 

Sunday though was a really good day. I was able to talk the best I have ever in Japanese. I had a lengthy conversation with my boy Seiya who is a YSA in the ward who teaches us all the informal Japanese we shouldn't use like バカにするand むじ etc..  haha. And then out streeting later I felt pretty comfortable talking to people, obviously on a very basic level. Later on Sunday we met up with Yui again at the mall and taught her more about the Book of Mormon and gave her a copy! Also at church there was an American there on business as a pilot and he took us out to eat lunch yesterday and his Japanese was insane. After his mission he went back and lived in Japan for 3 years and it was way better than me or my comps haha. Anyways, he told us a bunch of stories from his mission and was really cool and then latter that night while streeting it had just got dark so we went to the Eki and there where a bunch of college students which was perfect. After talking to some of them we where walking around and we pass this girl that I thought was like 13 so I didn't say anything but my comp stops her and apparently she goes to the college and completely unexpectedly was down to meet in the church to talk about Jesus and was super nice. It was really cool.

I guess that sums up this week.

Also if anyone is wondering I have felt about 10 small earthquakes since getting here.

Pray for me that I can learn this language thx😘

パーちゃん