Jazz Piano

So this week was pretty entertaining/ Elder Mismash got sick on Tuesday, making all of us sick by Saturday except for Elder Colton. We all just have colds but one of the members gave us 200 dollars to go to the hospital and we can't take money and they won't take it back so we don't know what to do. In Japan, you go to the hospital for everything. Everything. Even if your nose is stuffed up. So we all showed up to church with masks on (that's what you do in Japan because it's clean and safe). It was definitely awful at church and we all came home and fell asleep for 3 hours because our whole bodies just ached. Anyways, today we're feeling better, not perfect, but better. Probably going to take a nap today too.

So last week, on Thursday, Elder Colton and I went out to dendo and we found this house with plates and stuff and knickknacks everywhere. Everywhere, and they had two chairs so we wanted to get pictures by it, and there were people outside across the street and so we couldn't, so what did we do? We waited. For about fifteen minutes, did some doors on the street and came back and took the picture. As we were leaving, the man that lived there drove up to us and waved us down and we thought that we were busted. He then speaks to us in perfect English, telling us that this was his house, and that he lived in New Orleans for years. He then invited us into his house so he could play some blues and jazz and us being pianists obviously didn't refuse. He told us that he was 88 years old, and he had four pianos. We walk in, he gets his wife's attention (she was teaching a vocal lesson for a young woman that was going to audition for a musical in Tokyo next week) and she loved us and they sang and talked with us for a while, and eventually sang Amazing Grace to us. The best part is that they were Christian and loved Jesus and were very excited when they knew that we were missionaries and they said that they might come to our church sometime and hopefully play some music. So what started out as wanting to take pictures in front of a quirky house turned into finding Christians that love piano and jazz and will potentially become investigators. I think God for sure at least guided us to be there at that time and had those people outside talking so either they could meet us or that we could meet them and be blessed from them and their talents because we were working hard and being obedient.

On Saturday, we went out with Fukunaga Kaicho to an old folks home and played music for them, and they really loved it. We did a SMAP song and everybody, even the old, senile people, loved it because everybody knows SMAP. Everybody. They're the most popular band in Japan by FAR. Anyways like I said, this week was definitely interesting and I'm out of Shimonoseki in a week I think, which will be okay. Four transfers in one place is a long time. I wonder where I'll go! I wonder who I'll be with! We'll see. Next Tuesday is pday, not Monday! Remember to tell me if my boy Leonardo wins his award!

Elder Tschirki

The old folks home that I will never be put in because you die there.

The pic we wanted to take 

The tiny little old man and the super beautiful singer girl on the left with her mother.

Amazing Grace

 

Finally Rode a Shink

Thanks for the talks Dad! I will definitely read them. I just saved them to my Adobe PDF thing that the iPad has and I don't know what it is or does but I have a lot of stuff on there so I will definitely read it today. I've been thinking a lot about that topic too. I'm sure quite a few of the people in Jerusalem had a testimony of Jesus Christ and his power, but when they saw him on the cross, for most of them did, they didn't do anything. That's what happens when you get a testimony based off of miracles and not your own experiences with the gospel. It just doesn't work out. The only way to stay in the church is to continue in the gospel and strengthening yourself. In the MTC a general authority shared with us a statistic. He said, looking at the room, that a third of you will be inactive within a year after your mission. How could someone who goes and serves faithfully for two years and helps other people come unto Christ fall away that quickly? It's simple really, they don't have the gospel written on their hearts. You'd think that after all of their amazing experiences that they
would stay strong, but they don't! It truly amazes me, but yet the principle is the same throughout all of the scriptures. It's cool that in the Book of of Mormon, I forgot where, it said that "all who were truly converted unto the Lord never did fall away." Christ always healed and performed miracles because of their faith. He says that every single time. But yet, when he died, there was nobody. At least two of his closest friends, Peter and Judas betrayed him verbally, and I'm sure others did too. Thomas said that he wouldn't believe that he was resurrected unless he saw him. Jesus was surrounded by people that had very little faith and weren't converted! But that's where the Holy Ghost comes in. The Holy Ghost converts you. Before Jesus officially left the last time, he gave unto them the Holy Ghost, which helped them to never fall away. I'm sure they felt the presence of the spirit in their lives, but they didn't have it always. It just shows that the only way to become converted is to do what God has asked us to do and live worthy of the companionship of the Holy Ghost, yet not enough people do that in this life and that's the difference between a testimony and a conversion to me. Conversion allows the Holy Ghost to work through you and change you while a testimony is simply just a belief or knowledge that may or may not be acted upon.

Anyways this week I saw Elder Palmer and we talked for a long time! We saw each other when Yamashita Choro from the quorum of the seventy came and spoke to us. As soon as he and his wife walked into the room in Fukuoka, I felt the spirit so strong, as in one of the strongest times in my life. We all got to shake their hands and you can tell just by looking at them that they are loving, charitable people that follow the example of Jesus Christ in everything that the do. But moreover than that, I got too ride my first SHINKANSEN down to Fukuoka! It left from Kitakyushu and we got to Fukuoka in like 15 minutes. No joke. They go about 150mph I think. Just look at a map and see how far that trip is. Anyways this week we didn't have a lot of dendo time. We went way up north to find a referral and they weren't home and that took all of the day but we both had felt like we needed to go there. We taught a fun kids English class with members and their friends and then that night we taught regular English class, and we went down to Fukuoka for a whole day so that's three days gone. We had p day and then a weekly planing too so this week was very, very busy. BUT we still managed to teach lessons, even though the people ended up not being interested really, but we taught them and gave them the choice to listen to us. Overall, this week was pretty fun because I got to see my best friend and because little five year old kids tackled me all the time. Maybe one day I will have a little Japanese baby. We'll see! Oh and I almost forgot, Colton and Mismash Choro's investigator Muraishi got baptized on Sunday before church! Awesome!

I love you all!

Elder Tschirki

Me and Palmer Chan

Baptism

Crazy Japanese kids

If anyone wanted to know how fast the Shinkansen was, this isn't a
time lapse. Real speed.

Valentine's Day

SO it was Valentine's Day which means...... We got no treats because we're missionaries and aren't allowed to have romantic feelings for the people here, BUT if we weren't missionaries we would probably all have become diabetic because of the huge amounts of chocolate we would have consumed from our fangirls aka just about every girl here but that's okay.

Anyways, let's talk about some "Refiner's Fire." God gives you hard times and hard people and hard places to mold you. 

He does it to build you, not tear you down. 

He does it to test you and see what you are capable of becoming. 

He does it to see if He can trust you when times get hard; to see if you aren't going to just give up, but keep going. 

He does it to see if we will be able to live like Paul and say at the end of our missions or our lives, "I have kept the faith" and are going to receive glory from God. 

He does it so we can use the Atonement of Jesus Christ in our lives. 

He does it so we have to rely on Him; so that we can realize how much we need Him in our lives. 

He does it so we can learn to more earnestly pray and work, assuming we have the desire to grow. 

He does it so that we can diligently study. 

He does it, I think most importantly, so that we can overcome our weaknesses in our character and become more fully converted to the gospel of Jesus Christ and become more like our Saviour Jesus Christ. 

These are the thoughts that have been going through in my mind lately, and have helped me out a lot. The mission is, yes, about finding people and baptizing them, but even the kids that break rules baptize. The kids that don't care teach. And often times the kids that are trying to be obedient don't. It's interesting how that works out isn't it? Why isn't 'success' directly related to obedience? Why doesn't God bless us because we work hard? Well you see, He does. The humble servant of Christ who works everyday to become better (he is still not perfect though) will undoubtedly inherit the Kingdom of God and "Lay up for himself treasures in Heaven." 

God knows us. He knows every single one of us. He loves us. And when you sign up for a mission, you essentially sign a contract with you and God that tells Him that you will keep his commandments and follow the rules and be obedient to them, and more importantly, keep the faith and work as hard as you can until the end of your mission. I signed up for this. If you go on a mission, you will sign up for that. Anyone that has gone on a mission has signed up for this. But as God says, "many are called but few are chosen." God doesn't promise us that He will directly relate obedience to the blessings we want. Nowhere in the gospel does it say that if you are follow the commandments you will be blessed right away, OR with what you want. However, He has promised that you will inherit Eternal Life, which is greater than all of the gifts of the world. Why "lay up treasures where dust and moth doth corrupt" when we can gain Eternal Life? 

If you come back from your mission a different person, a more Christlike person, you will succeed. If you know you tried your hardest, you will succeed. Why? Because that's what God asked of you. He provided a way for you to do so, and you just have to put your trust in Him and go full speed. You can tell who the people are that become changed by the gospel and who lackadaisically live the gospel. You can see it. Now, it isn't our spot to judge, so don't assume you're better because you're not, but you can see it. How? Because we all have the Light of Christ. And if you become converted and make the Light of Christ brighter and brighter until it consumes everything that you are, that's all people will be able to see: the pure love of Christ in your eyes. And, the only way to obtain that is through complete submission of your will to Jesus Christ and living His gospel. "Whosoever will save his life shall lose it, and whosoever shall lose his life for my sake, and the gospel's will find it." SO my commitment for everyone is to try a little bit harder and keep working because you will undoubtedly be blessed for it. It may not be what you expect or desire, but you will be blessed for it because your Father in Heaven "knows everything that you need." He will help you. He will guide you and He will bless you.

Anyways that took an unexpected twist. The whole point of that gets to this point: after the two hardest weeks of my mission, with two weeks of only finding and patience testing, we found TWO new investigators that are college students. The first is Nakashima san. He is 21 and we met him on the street and he told us he already has a Book of Mormon and that he wants to learn more about it. So we set up a return appointment and we are doing som BRT *Building Relationships of Trust* with him and he says that he just wants to learn about the Book of Mormon and our religion so we taught him about the restoration and everything made sense to him. We met again on Sunday and had three college age members there with us and we watched "Finding Faith in Christ" and unexpectedly, the only question he had was 'why did Christ have to leave after he was resurrected?' So we answered and said it was to build our faith and if we believed on his holy name, then we would be blessed. He told us that he wants to learn more about how he can receive a remission of his sins and feel peace in his life. He seems pretty kinjin (Golden Investigator) and we are so excited to be teaching him. Awesome!

Everybody I love you and I'm grateful for all of your support! It means so much to me!

Elder Tschirki

 Some ramen for Elder Knudsen

A chocolate heart that says 'Kansha' or 'grateful'

BRONCOS WIN THE SUPERBOWL!

SO MY BRONCOS WON THE SUPER BOWL!!!!!!!

And we went to all you can eat yakiniku again today and we feel awful but it's okay because we've got Jesus.

"Jesus Take The Wheel"

That's all for this week!

Elder Tschirki

Yakiniku 

My Pocari Sweat addition. It's 1000x better than Gatorade.

We bought straw glasses for Zone Training but we don't have those pictures yet so I took a selfie.

Some Okonomiyaki that I got, this one is for Elder Knudsen in Africa.

 

The Snow is Gone:(

Hey so yeah I'm still in Shimonoseki which is great! 

* They are having a specific challenge that I didn't want to mention in details here on the blog. Privacy and all! The next paragraph is referring to that challenge.*

I remember something that Horstmeier Choro told me. He said he heard from a general authority or somebody that if you pray with real intent and plead before God to show you what you need to read out of the scriptures and then open them up, you will find what you need to do, so of course I tried it and I opened up to Jacob 5 of course, so I thought to myself that it didn't work and I read the two pages anyways. It's at the end of Jacob 5 and the Lord tells his servant to go gather the other servants, and he can only end up gathering a few. It then says that those few who do all of the work and work diligently to keep ALL of the Lord's commandments will be blessed and have joy. It says it right there! You have to obey ALL of the commandments, and work hard for the blessings and you WILL receive them and have joy in the Lord. So yeah that is where my thoughts have been.

Anyways this last week, not much happened. We spent the first half of the week packing and I said bye to Horstmeier Choro who was one of the biggest studs and hardest workers in the mission. I really miss that guy but he's in America right now so there's not much to do about that. Then we got the two new guys and Colton Choro's new companion, Mismash Choro is a stud. Anyways church was great and everyone was like, "Why are you and Colton Choro still here, you've been here since September! That's a super long time to be in one area" which it really is a long time and we have seen each other every day for the last seven months which is INSANE. That never happens. Anyways I will keep you all updated over the next week or so! We are going to go out and start working now that we have time. Hopefully I don't die. Keep us in your prayers.

Anyways on that good note I love you all and appreciate all of your support!

Elder Tschirki

 At the bike shop with a flat tire

 The girl I'm going to marry from the bike shop. :)