#Sacred To Him

進歩進歩進歩💦もっと見たいぜ！

 Wow..... wow..... what is that? Oh snap its Elder Parker. Oh hey guys how is everyone? Oh good good my week was great! let me tell you about it～

A member was in need of desperate help. With gratitude for a service opportunity, we headed out on the 3 hour trip to Sakata, eventually found her house and proceeded to move a 7lb table 10 feet, it was great! Then she made us food that messed me and my companion up but tasted good. We were able to talk to some people on the way and try and visit some inactive members so that was good. The following day, because my companion still needed to register his bike, we headed for a bike shop and after not knowing legal term vocabulary they ended up not being able to help which worked out for the best because we went to another shop who wouldn't help but found this place that me and my comp had never been too. It was awesome. It didn't feel like Tsuruoka at all and had a little street with some side shops. It had the abandoned vibe I feel like everywhere outside of the cities in Japan have but we did find a high schooler returning from school and we are hoping to get him to play ping pong with us for a start haha. The next day we went into the city center and were trying to find events happening near town and someone directed us to a service building so we went in and found this building and everyone just looked like they were working cubical style so I told someone we were volunteers looking for service and someone said to come here. They looked at the tags and were like Mormons! We know you! We proceeded to go in and talk to him and a lady at this big business table and it was all really unexpected and pretty sweet, at least for us haha. We snagged a gig knitting hand and neck warmers on Wednesdays with a bunch of grandma's and grandpa's! Isn't that sweet! They even had a picture of missionaries doing the same thing from like 10 years ago. So that was awesome for us and then after we found this huge building that was all concrete and has a huge theatre for music performances. We ended up talking to this guy with super long green hair covered in tattoos that seemed to like us and he told us about some sweet music stuff happening so we are gonna try and get people off the streets to go with us. Then Sunday was awesome! It's really the small things that make us happy out here and that Sunday was the first Sunday I felt like the members were starting to friend us and everyone was just talking and it was really good. One member even came up to me and tapped my head and said in English "cut" and then "cold" 😲. We taught 2 older women afterwards as well for practice teaching and it was so funny. They were giving us a ruff time. Yesterday while we were walking to the post office to use an ATM we ran into this middle schooler with the voice and actions of a 30 year old, haha. It was great. He wanted a picture with us as they do so we walked to his house so he could grab his phone and used that to swap contacts so maybe we can start teaching a middle schooler cause it seems the only people we can get to talk to is middle school and high school guys. It was funny, there was this 12 year old totally into the restoration. I was teaching him while walking but it felt so weird cause he was 12 but aye we take what we can get. To finish off the week we got a member to play ping pong with us and my comp got whipped so you check the video for that haha. Anyways language is... well I'm not gonna glamorize anything. It's there haha but still a long long way to go. Still praying over the gift of tongues and for a testimony if its real. Thanks for reading. Stay safe out there! You're never alone even if you feel like you are so keep your head up!

-Elder Parker

先週の写真だー

楽しんでね！

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 Friday Devotional!

#amazing missionaries

#lifelongdisciples

#manymightymiracles

Friday Devotional!

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 I have been in Tsuruoka for 4 weeks ish.  Long enough haha. The weather is horrid. I have only seen the sun 1 time since getting here. I have only been able to ride the bike like 3 times because of snow and the area is so small we just can't make it anywhere.

We got a super sick opportunity to play at this though. It was so much fun. My racket game skills are something you all gotta watch out for. The ping pong is helping a lot. It was turf. It was so awesome. I played better than I ever had but stood no change. These guys were insane at it. Hopefully we can play again with them and of course start teaching them. I just want someone to teach so bad! One guy kept calling me pa ka pa ka and telling me to relax. It was working. Ha. My comp is really good.

Tsuruoka Gets Wild

 Hey everyone! How are you all doing? This week was actually really fun and we had some super awesome opportunities that brought us a lot of joy out here in Tsuruoka. As instructed by President we have been trying to build up ward relations so during weekly planning we reached out to literally everyone. There are 2 really cool members and their wives in the ward. Everyone else doesn't really mess with us except this one like 60 year old guy who pokes my companion's belly and stares at us every waking moment. Haha. Absolutely love the guy. We can rely on him more than the branch president haha! We were able to set 2 things up with the members I mentioned earlier which we will get to in a minute. Anyways on Friday it was the craziest thing. The sun didn't come out but it didn't snow or rain from like 2pm to about 8pm so we set out for this area we found on Google maps that had a park, a big gym and like an archery range or something. We rarely get to ride our bikes because of the snow and ice but me and my companion have just decided to send it on bike no matter what which has led to some super sweet bike rides where we both ate it but gave me some nice nostalgia from my glory days when I had a car in the snow. Anyways we get to this place and are looking for posters for events or service opportunities but didn't find anything. We did however find a track that was covered by snow and this 1 old dude was out there shoveling it by him self and still didn't want help. We also found an archer class for kids which is no help to us but epic. After that we find these kids playing soccer and go over and they have no idea how to talk to people in the slightest but we ended up talking them into playing with us which was a blast and we got their contacts to hopefully play again or play ping pong with them. Later we were drifting around the park and we see this 65 year old in the parking lot just swinging his tennis racket at the air like they do and we stopped him and were very adamant that we play with him. He said he didn't have another racket so we brought up the idea of ping pong and then out of no where he was like alright... actually you got plans tomorrow at 6? So he picks us up the next day from Rsuruoka and we go to this indoor place that was so awesome I was mind blown it existed out here. We watched some 70 year olds playing as if they where 20. It blows my mind that 60+ year olds here are no older than 30 in there body. Haha after that some of his friends show up and they were so awesome. I'm a beginner so they helped me a bunch and it was just a good group of people. We ended up meeting someone that was actually 19 and wanted to speak English with us and got his contact and they both said when they have time that we can play again so that was pretty sweet. Shout out to Coach Todd am I right. No haha I think the ping pong actually helped me a little bit though. Alright so then yesterday we went with this member who is sweet. He wore a definitely fake Supreme hat and fed us 2 lunches in Sakata while we visited some inactive members. It was fantastic. Member relations are definitely growing I'm just hoping it actually turns into something. The other night after 9 I read through my entire journal and it made me realize how much I love to teach and not having anyone to teach or any success has been pretty hard but good. I think that covers this week. Also I am in Moroni of The Book of Mormon so just about to finish it again and restart. Have you been reading lately? Think about your answer.

- Elder Parker 

たくさんの写真よ！

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 明ましておめでとう！

I will not lie some of that food was not the easiest to eat. Some of it may look good but don't let it fool you😂 It's probably fish eggs or something. The member said that Japanese is hard and that we had to eat this food because Americans need trails.

Bravo Six Went Dark, Never Came Back......WE ROLLING

 What's up everyone!  2023.... isn't that crazy. 

This week was great. We were able to go to Niigata for District Council Wednesday morning and ride a pretty sweet train along the oceanside the whole way. DCM was great. We have a senior couple with us who are so funny and actually pretty young still. After DCM we went on exchanges in Niigata and me and Elder Robertson headed to a kind of day care place to play with a bunch of little kids. It was great There were about 7 other volunteers who were all college students and it was really fun talking to some young people again and seeing little people again haha. We also got all of their contacts. Later on I was able to street around town which I haven't really been able to do since getting to Tsuruoka so that was really refreshing. After exchanges we headed back up to Tsuruoka and the train heading out of Niigata was crazzzzzy packed full. Apparently there are a lot of people from Tsuruoka that came for New Years. In Japan, New Years is by far the biggest holiday and everyone gets at least 3 days off work. It kind of made me mad to be honest everyone going crazy over the fact of one more year closer to death celebrating that like its for the Saviour or something. But then no one cared about Christmas even members. But I guess that's just a difference in culture. Anyways it has been cool because there were more people in Tsuruoka so we were able to talk to some in the snow and rain and they were all so nice but all from Chiba and Tokyo so not ideal but it's alright. We were actually able to go with a random nonmember to see some lights and that was awesome. I know God gave us something on Christmas and New years which was great. Anyways, President wants us to work closely with the ward and so far no members want to help, however we still have more to reach out to and visit so I'm hoping to see some progress soon. Pray for us to have a day where we can ride bikes too. That would be convenient right about now haha. 

Thanks for reading! It was probably not the most interesting of emails but that is an update.

Sent from your thunder thighed -  Elder Parker

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