I Got Hit by a Car

So like the subject says, I got hit by a car this week. A taxi to be exact. All the taxis here are dented way bad because they hit a lot of people probably. So I'm going along this street down the city here of Naze (which is what our area is called, so if I ever say Naze, just know that that's the city we live in) and there's a blind turn because of this building on the side and this taxi pulls out of nowhere and I hit his front wheel because I didn't have time to break and flew onto of his hood, but luckily I had some football instincts kick in and I
lowered my shoulder and hit that car harder than I hit anybody on the field. I got off the car, and his hood was smashed in and so was the side of the car because we hit each other pretty darn hard. His hubcap came off and was rolling around on the side. He asked me if I was okay and I said yeah, because I was completely find. My knee kind of hurt a little bit because I think I kneed the side of his car pretty hard and ruined that, but after we cleared up the fact that I was okay, he popped open his hood, and just punched out the dent like twice, and
"fixed" it like he had done that a hundred times before, and then we shook hands and he left. The dent was like half as small, but still. So there's a good story for you mom to share with your missionary mom lunch thing. I wish I got a picture of that car because he's probably
going to need to get some body work done on that thing. It's not everyday you collide with a two hundred pound American on a mountain bike. He's probably done it a few times before though.

Anyways, this week was way fun. We have a new, progressing investigator named Kengo. He's a young dad and we taught him lesson three last week. We tried visiting again on Saturday but his wife said he wasn't there but wanted to talk to us and come back again. We came back but he was having so much fun with his little kids so he asked us to come back today. So we're going back today and we feel like we need to emphasize that baptism isn't the last step, but priesthood and ultimately temple sealing with his family. We both felt like that before we even discussed what we were going to teach, so we'll see how that goes.

We have an investigator/friend who I won't say their name, but she wanted to talk to us and it turns out she's having a hard time in her life right now. We talked for a while at the church and it turns out that she's willing to join the church and even says that everybody has their own time to join the church, but she's afraid of what's going to happen at home kind of a thing. She's married. She texts us the next day that she had a dream, and in that dream she was crying, and that God told her one word, and that was "forgive." So she's going to forgive somebody that she needs to forgive that has been very rude in her family, and she wanted Book of Mormon scriptures on forgiveness. She then downloaded the bible app onto her phone and asked us to send bible scriptures too. She wants to join the church and she knows that she's ready, she's just afraid of the repercussions. She's so awesome! She told us about all of the times that she has felt the spirit in her life and God's love testify to her, but she just never felt that it was the right time. I think we're the first missionaries she ever told this to too because now the time is right. So we all fasted for her yesterday to be able to overcome this trial and we'll see what happens.

Anyways, there's some other cool stories like walking five miles without dinner to make an appointment and things like that but I think this suffices for this week.

I love you all!

Elder Tschirki

We did some service for a less active and cleared off her stairs that go up the side of "her mountain." The stairs looked like the rest of the picture, and we're not even half way done with what she wants us to do ha. 

 

Amami

Zone training from a couple weeks ago with the Egans. #NazeSquad 

Our new beyblade friends.

Navy

( I asked him if there were only two missionaries on the island. I also asked him if he flew or rode on a boat to get there.)

Mom. If there were only two missionaries on a small island with no supervision whatsoever, the entire island would apostatize before they were even taught. Eg: Corianton. There are four of us young pups and a senior missionary couple from Kagoshima, the Sano couple, that live above us. They have a lot of time so they drive us around sometimes.

Unfortunately I flew. I wanted to take the all night, 12 hour ferry ride but we're just flying people now. Even though it's more expensive, it's more effective. But, it's beautiful down here. It's like a heaven on earth. I never thought I'd love the islands but it's probably my favourite place I've ever been. But we have a giant US Navy boat in the harbor for the first time in 53 years and it's kind of weird. Apparently, North Korea tried shooting some missiles at Japan or something but, as usual, it's North Korean technology so it wasn't close. The Navy boat has been here for like 4 days but they leave today. We talked to some.

Anyways, this week we couldn't really get into contact with many of our investigators. They are out of town, up in like Kagoshima playing a soccer tournament but we will meet back up with him this week. So, that leaves a lot of space for finding, which we did a lot of, and found a lot of good people. One of which is Shigeta. He had met with missionaries before, and loves learning about religion. He doesn't have the desire really to join the church because he is pretty strongly bound to his sect of Buddhism, Sokkagakkai, but has a big desire to learn. We taught him the first couple of lessons and it all makes sense to him in his head. He's a very good man and taught elementary school for a long time, so he knows how to speak very
clearly to us. We also went to go visit a less active and while he wasn't home, we met his son who isn't a member who we made a return appointment with. Way cool! We also taught a less active, or tried to teach rather, and he can play anything you want him to on electric
guitar. He's a 60 year old man named Oku, and he believes that God uses UFOs to tractor beam people up to heaven like the city of Enoch, and that the second coming is going to be in 12 years because it's 200 years after Joseph Smith got baptized or something like that and how God is going to lift everybody that is righteous up to heaven will be through UFOs. He also said a lot of good things that were all true, but the UFO part was the most notable. Needless to say, we won't be watching Ancient Aliens on History Channel with him.

This week I decided to start a new project in my personal study, and that is called my Atonement Study Journal, and what it is is you start from the beginning of the Book of Mormon and eventually work into the other standard works and write down every reference that mentions the Atonement in some way, write down what it says, and then from there
write down what it means and what it means to you. As I have done so this week, I have found so many great insights and it's almost like being able to unfold the scriptures. I invite all to make their own Atonement study journal, because the Atonement and sacrifice of  Jesus Christ is the single greatest event in human history and is the only we that we can truly be happy in this life and be able to live with God in the next. Just remember that we have to "feast upon the words of Christ" and if we do so diligently, our understanding will be
expounded and we will be able to grow in knowledge, leading to us being more able to choose the road to eternal life.

I love you all!

Elder Tschirki

#japan❤️
 

Navy boat

Good view from an apartment 

A presentation at 'English Cafe' which we go to for free because 
we're white and everyone just speaks English and drinks coffee.

 We found a gecko in the church.

Paradise

SO, let's be real here. I love my comp and the area. It's so beautiful and my companion is one of the hardest working people I've ever met. His name is Elder Woolston and he's so fun to work with. His Japanese is pretty darn good too, so we'll do great. This will be a great transfer and probably more because he has only been here for one transfer. 

Anyways, about Amami Oshima. There's 45,000 people here so it's a pretty small area. Shimonoseki had about 250,000 people or so. It's an island so you ride 15 minutes one way and you're under a tunnel or going over a mountain to get to the other side, which we haven't done yet. The water is so beautiful and we can't swim at all so that's hard but understandable. It's actually been a little chilly down here but it's not bad at all compared to the mainland. The people here are so laid back. People love to talk here, even if they don't really care about our message, they like to talk. For example, we met a lady yesterday who wasn't interested but said she'd give us food and went inside and grabbed some baked sweet potatoes and gave them to us and then chatted. So that's what the island is like. 

I haven't met any of our investigators yet, they've been busy, so I will let you know about them when the time comes. Apparently we have a baptismal date with a high school kid who is the captain on his team, but he can't come to church because his soccer practice overlaps. There's a German guy named Reina (Rhina, Riena, Rainah, I don't know any German but
it's like RHYE-NUH) who builds surfboards and longboards here and lives here just so he can surf and he likes the missionaries and we love him too and we asked him yesterday if he wanted to hear our message and he said "sure, just drop by the shop and if I'm not busy let's talk" so we'll see how that goes. He's pretty much fluent in German, English, Japanese (he married a Japanese lady) and apparently Spanish. So I'm sorry I don't have too much to say about investigators this week, but it'll come. 

There's only about 10 members that come to church every Sunday, but some weeks it goes up to 25 randomly when people decide to show up. It's hard with how laid back the culture is
on the island because people tend to not really care as much, but the gospel is something you need to care about that probably shouldn't fall under the "island beach bum" culture. It's something we have to consistently do everyday in order to progress and grow, and if we aren't doing the little things everyday and establishing correct habits in living the gospel, there's no way that we will ever be able to reach our full potential. That's why everyday it is important to pray, study the scriptures, and serve others. If you do all three of those, odds are you'll be pretty happy in your life. It's a simple formula! It's been proven to work! 
So do it!

I love you all!

Elder Tschirki
#japan❤️

The view from my desk 

Some palm trees, which hurt really bad when they scratch out

your eye when you're riding your bike.

My beautiful companion, Elder Woolston

 THROWBACK to last week on P Day at bowling when we met this kid. Japanese people just buy stuff with English on it without knowing what it is. There's no SLCU.
 

The four Shimonoseki Elders, the 2 Kitakyushu Elders and the 2 Yahata Sisters at bowling.

 

I'm Going to Amami

So like the subject says, I got a call from the Mission President (that's rare to get transfer calls from him) saying I'm going to Amami! For those of you that don't know what that is, so everybody, it's one of the most beautiful islands in the world. Look it up. I'm going senior companion too. The missionary I'll be with is from Utah and is in the military and Kaicho said he's one of the hardest working missionaries that we've got here. I'm excited to say the least. Maybe I'll still be there in Typhoon weather. I hope!

Anyways this last week was pretty good. After a long day of finding and knocking on doors, we met a young college kid on a street coming home. We talked to him and found out that he was Christian. We made a return appointment and found out that he joined a Christian church in high school while his whole family is Buddhist. That's pretty bold but he knows that Christianity is true. We taught him the restoration which honestly was a terrible lesson. They happen to everybody though. He was willing to meet again though and he knows, before we even asked him, that if he reads the Book of Mormon and prays that he'll know it's true. We said yes, and now he's going to do it. The best part is is that we have no idea how to teach Christian people hahahah. We only know how to teach people that are Buddhist and stuff but it's exciting, but I won't be here for him. Hopefully he'll be able to keep going and progressing. Besides that. What happened. I've been studying the New Testament recently and I love it. The part that stood out is when Paul says in 1 Corinthians 13 that without charity you are nothing. It doesn't matter if you can speak the most fly Japanese or Spanish or whatever, or if you can recite any scripture, if you have no charity, it doesn't matter.

Also, speaking of not being able to teach Christian people, me and our beloved Yamaguchi Zone Leader Sama were out housing by another church (there was good houses and so we did it) and we met the guy that owns the church and he's white and he was way nice and didn't want to get contentious but ended up calling us Antichrists so that was interesting. It was more of an out of love idea though. I'll take being called Antichrist for the sake of preaching the gospel of Jesus Christ. It's kind of ironic, but like we learn in the scriptures,
there is opposition in all things!

Anyways love you all!

Elder Tschirki

 At a ramen shop with our Zone Leader Samas

A cool Jinja.

The craziest kid I've ever met, Elder Fukuda. 

All of our YSA at a sweet activity that we did because they all wanted to go out an
d dendo, so we dendoed together. There are a couple more that couldn't come. Me and the kid in the blue, Genki, have the same birthday but he's a year older.