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.
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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
Mission Tour 2022! We learned so much from Elder & Sister Wada. They taught us the power of the Book of Mormon and how we can liken the scriptures to our lives and those we are teaching. We learned about charity, loving our companions, forgetting ourselves and serving with all our hearts, and so much more. We will be forever grateful for this special time of learning, inspiration, and love!
Evening all, Hope everyone is alive and standing tall. This week was probably the fastest week of my life haha... which is scary. Japan is an amazing place and I've been able to have some fun experiences this week! I tried not to write as much per day but just highlights on days but it looks like it turned out pretty long anyways. Enjoy!
Tuesday: We went to Sushi Ro for my first time and man was I surprised. It was way different than what I expected and was so good. It's now on the schedule to kill every P day there from 4 - 6. Today we played a lot of ping pong and are working on establishing a ping pong night every week! ha, wouldn't that be sweet... We have 2 investigators that said they would come already and they would probably bring their friends and, of course members would fill it up with non members! I'll keep you updated on it. Went streeting that night and man there are some conversations that I'm like okay yeah I just understand pretty much all of that and then there are some that I just don't get 1 thing haha. I just tell my self だんだん gradually I will learn. Learning Japanese is way different than I thought it would be. I feel like I'm in a race for vocab right now. Thanks to modern technology I am managing 15 new words a day with a new grammar pattern to memorize so every week I understand more and more.
Wednesday: We had a lesson tonight with our Chinese friend who goes by Kakun but his actual name is.... This man just makes me so happy uhh I just can't describe it😂. He is so awesome and we just put him on date tonight for September 24th. Please pray that everything goes through with him that would mean everything to me right now. He just learned who God and Jesus Christ are a couple weeks ago and tonight he said, "I think I believe in the God and Jesus Christ". He prays a lot and initially actually learned how to pray from Schindler's list😂. He has watched a bunch of American movies including Forrest Gump and he likes Justin Beiber and the "Chinese smokers'' (chain smokers)😂. He said he liked that one song that goes "you raise me up" and we asked him who he thought it was talking about in the song. He said maybe family and so we told him it was Jesus and he got so excited. Man is just the happiest guy you could ever meet and when we started teaching him about Adam and Eve he referenced the anime, Neon Genesis Evangelion and was like oh yeah I know of them from this anime. I was like wait, I've watched that and the "atom" is not what we are talking about😂. We met over dinner at a ramen shop called Star Lord that was really funny because it was trying to be American with marvel posters on the wall and playing American music but just wasn't at all😂.
Thursday: Today was sweet! We were in the park talking to a young gentleman when two older ladies saw us and came up to us while we were talking which felt weird cause usually we have to go up to people and then after we get their attention after saying hi 3 times they are just scared and then super engaged in talking haha. Anyways in the middle of this conversation it started pouring rain and the old ladies told us there was a typhoon in Okinawa and some of it was coming over or something. I didn't really catch it but anyways we hid in a little covering and then made a break for the train station. We were pretty wet but ended up talking to this guy for a while that was super sick. It was amazing Japanese practice for me. Turns out his wife is from South Africa and speaks English but not Japanese and they met on a language learning app😂 how romantic. Anyways we will hopefully be meeting up with him soon. A little later we got a referral and this girl is super nice and reminds me of Kakun but a girl version so I am so excited to meet her in person.
Friday : I was having a conversation with someone and they mentioned how when they were in America they liked how everyone greeted each other with smiles and she thought it was super nice. Then I got to thinking, man I haven't seen people smile in a while, or maybe just not nearly as much. I didn't realize it but it's kind of sad. It feels like that's just part of the weird social aspect Japan has but idk.
Saturday: Today was so much fun. We had a ward activity which was a talent show from 2 to 4 and Kakun came with us. Except he invited a friend who also wants to learn about Jesus Christ which was just insane.😂 It was a blast, I smiled so much for the whole 20% of me understanding what in the world was happening. There were a bazillion non members there that the ward invited and the members wanted them all to talk to us. We were talking to one that said she really wanted to learn English because it's cool and she came to do eikaiwa (English class) which we do once a week and it is the funniest thing ever because Japanese people can't pronounce English words very well but they try so hard. Anyways at this ward party they whipped out super smash bros and I was expecting the kids to be playing it but I looked over while talking to Kakun, his friend, and some member all about 20- 23 years old and all the grandma's where over there playing smash in the chapel. It was great😂 Also, the funniest thing happened. The bishopric played some good music for their talent show act and one song was from the well known American band (Kiss). Well Kakun is sitting next to me and goes oh have you heard this song before and proceeds to try and look it up. He went to his English keyboard when I wasn't looking and types kiss and clicks on something and I look down and it's just a bunch of videos of people kissing and I just laughed cause he had no idea what was happening so I had him add band after kiss and then the actual band showed up with face paint and stuff and he was like ohh nice. Then after that the 4 of us played a little bit of basketball and are going to get together sometime to play ping pong as well. Pretty soon after that we rode to a festival happening in Narita which was super sweet. We ran into Ned and his Japanese concubine there and he cut all his hair so he could look good for church tomorrow which was sweet. Then we walked around the festival for a while and that's the first time I really felt tall. Haha, it was cool. We tried to talk to people but to be honest it was not the best circumstances but we did our best and I'm happy I was able to see it. There was one stand that just had a bunch of toy guns that caught my eye pretty quick and I was like yooo what, in Japan? It was the funniest thing seeing a bunch of little Japanese kids running around pretending to shoot stuff haha the guns looked pretty legit too with no orange tips or anything😂. After that we used are thighs of diamonds and flew back just in time.
Sunday: 3rd Sunday in Japan and guess what I still couldn't understand much of anything😂 but I got a crazy amount more then compared to my first Sunday so that's improvement! Kakun came to church with us which was sweet and Ned ended up not getting proper shoes yet and didn't come but promised us next week so he will be there then! It's great because people's commitment level is just in another dimension compared to the US society where flaking on everything is just normal. Anyways, right after church we taught Kakun the Plan of Salvation with a member who goes to his same college named Seiya. Lesson was a bit rough but we got it with a good 45 minutes and the help of a native returned missionary😂. You gotta remember tho he has no clue about any sort of premortal life or after death life or why in the world this dude named Jesus "died for us" and what that means. It was great! We broke our glorious 24 hour fast after about passing out at 6 to some mean ton katsu that I'm working on getting good at making and went out and talked to people. One lady was eyeing us and then goes ハリルや！ Turns out she knew were we believers in Christ and was saying hallelujah to us because she thought that all believers in Christ just praise and say hallelujah all the time.😂 at least that was the extent of what she new about Christ
Monday: We had a mogi lesson in the morning with some members and I needed speaking practice so I tried to do it all but it was so bad. The grammar gets all mixed up in my head. At the end I asked him 改善てんがありますか.... (instantly says) はい！ある！ Haha It was pretty 下手 but that's okay. Later walking about Narita something station not Kozunomori there were a lot of people and we saw a not Japanese person sitting on the bench and of course we needed to talk to him cause that is pretty rare with no tourist in the country. Turns out he was from Italy and had been in Japan the last 6 months for schooling. We talked to him for a while even though he already said he wasn't interested, which was pretty sad. Me and my comp were talking about it afterwards and speaking English to people is like a drug. Trying to think and listen intently for hours and then having the release of talking in English felt so good but not good for our Japanese. Then later we ran into 4 other foreigners drinking at this like outside seating area and turns out they were from Canada haha. They proceeded to do the most Canadian thing as they asked us where we were from and we said America. One of them said, "what the **** does that even mean... America, everyone says that. Where in America?" while another one says, "ahhh America ay lad keep ******* walking why don't yuh" hahaha they were mainly joking and we had a good conversation but they preferred the peaceful feelings you recieve at a buddhist temple rather than the pressure felt in an organized church. I could see where they were coming from 100 percent but there is more to it haha.
That sums up a bit of this week for everyone! Hope you enjoyed! For those curious I just started Alma again in the BOM after finishing Mosiah which Is probably my favorite book alongside Ether. If you haven't been reading... Do it! lol, stop ignoring your creators spirit just waiting to cling onto you!
As for pics and video I am not gonna put any on this email because next week．．．．I will have a VIDEO for you all and its gonna be super mecha fire dope desu yo ne wa! so get ready for that.
Sent from the newest member of the yokai パー Chourou
