Leg Rash

I'll give y'all a rundown. The bike brakes haven't come in yet. The missionaries in Kagoshima couldn't get them because the bike shops people are crazy, and then our friend Miwa is getting them and I'm paying her back and life will be good but until then we still have to walk everywhere which is really not fun at all because it's super hot but we're working hard and though the spirit which leads me to the highlight of the week: we found a new investigator named Nakagawa! He is like 25 and has a kid on the way and we taught him twice this last week and have an appointment for Tuesday. He hasn't read from the Book of Mormon yet though and his wife is kind of not liking the fact he's talking with us he said. 

This week, Peterson Kaicho from the mission presidency came to Amami and taught Nakagawa with us and he's actually a very nice man. He has lived in Japan for thirty years and is fluent, and you can literally just feel love radiating from his presence. It's the coolest thing ever and that's because he loves the way Christ would have us live: with faith, hope and charity, but the greatest is charity. You can tell who the happiest people are and they're always the ones that have charity. It may not necessarily be someone that is a member of the church. For example my boy Gandhi. But he had charity and love, and that's why everybody loves him. In the Book of Mormon we read that charity is the pure love of Christ. If we have charity, we do the things Christ would do himself. We think the way he would. We say the things he would. It's really a simple thing. If Christ wouldn't do it, don't do it. Love the way he would. That's charity.


This week I got a rash on my leg and we went to the doctor and it's okay now but I want to show a picture. It's probably because I wore shorts walking through bushes in a service project, or a bug bite reaction.


Oh also we dropped our phone in a bowl of ramen at some dirty little ramen shop that wasn't even that good and it was too expensive for half decent ramen but the gyoza was good and it doesn't work anymore so that's nice but the mission office has tons of phones for things like this so everything's okay so don't try to call me this week okay.



Anyways, love you all!



餡土瀧 K. 赦輝長老
日本福岡伝道部

愛してるわ〜

a super pretty beach that was way sunny

a shack we hid in when it poured rain that's actually a restaurant

a weird floating bug

leg rash

 

We Found a Habu

I'm staying and Elder Woolston is gone, he went up to Miyakonojo in Miyazaki ken, and I have a new comp named 石津長老 Elder Ishizu. He's way cool. He's two transfers under me and from Osaka. There's another Japanese Elder that's come down too, and his name is 羽岡長老 Elder Haoka. So pretty much my Japanese is going to get way good. At least I hope haha oh hey mom I need a new journal soon so can you get one at B&N like the one I have
and send that? I'm pretty sure it makes it past my year mark but you know, the sooner the better. I have a page written for everyday of my mission and it's pretty cool with my calligraphic writing. We can't go into bookstores so I just needed the assistance with obtaining that.

Last week not much happened because of transfers. Packed, left, waited. Elder Woolston is a stud and I'll sure miss that guy. He'll do great things along his mission though. Already has. So before we drove up to the airport an hour away we are at go go curry, because you know, curry is my favourite food (not really a joke, I love love love curry) and then took a nap in the car up. I don't have any problem really communicating with these Japanese elders. Obviously they're fluent, they've lived here their whole lives, but I can understand whatever they say. It helps that the one that's not my companion is from Tokyo where they speak so clean Japanese and it's very easy to understand. But because my bike is still down, and my comps hasn't come yet, we've been walking everywhere which isn't effective because nobody is really on the streets and the places we go take forty five minutes to an hour walking there, and then do that back, so time is limited. But we're working hard. It's hot.

So I read some stuff about the "spirit of conversion" and there was like 5 things that came up and all five I actually wanted to study about so that was pretty cool. But the one that stands out right now is hymns. In the introduction of our hymnal, the first presidency has stated that people should study, ponder, and memorize hymns, but I don't think we do that enough, so I started going through and I'm going to do like a hymn a week or every two weeks or something like that and go through because I learned that:

1. They strengthen your testimony in the restoration 
2. Strengthen your testimony of the atonement 
3. Puts you in a place and setting that you are receptive to the spirit. Like how cool is that? 

Before I even did any of this, the song "The Morning Breaks" has been going through my head.

1. The morning breaks, the shadows flee    Lo, Zion's standard is unfurled! The dawning of a brighter day, The dawning of a brighter day Majestic rises on the world.

2. The clouds of error disappear Before the rays of truth divine; The glory bursting from afar The glory bursting from afar Wide o'er the nations soon will shine.

For hundreds of years the fulness of the gospel that Jesus Christ had taught had disappeared. Darkness and misunderstanding spread, but when the gospel was restored through Joseph Smith, a brighter day dawned. Light has spread. Glory bursts. The gospel is being spread through every nation. The church just got recognition in Vietnam! This is a
work that cannot be stopped! It cannot fail! Millions across the globe have found truth and light! And all you have to do is read the Book of Mormon and pray about whether or not it's true and that Joseph Smith was a prophet with the intent to act upon the answer you receive from God. It's simple. It's easy. It's the truth! But I think the most profound part of the hymn "The Morning Breaks" is found in this line that states truth.

"Jehovah speaks!" He speaks! He leads this church! He still gives revelation to his apostles and he is working to bring us back to him! He speaks! He lives!

 my comp is the one in the back right

we found a habu in the wild. we thought about catching it to get $30 but we didnt  

 kamada kyodai, a less active, and his sick ping pong paddle 

Talent Show

(Elder Tschirki thought he sent the group email but apparently it did not go through). This is the family email. I asked him if he was getting transferred...

I have no idea where I'm going yet, we usually don't get our calls until around dinner here and so ill tell you next week I guess! It's a toss up. Either of us could leave. Tell the neighbors they're going to want to move when I get back because I'm going to get an amp and trash it on guitar all the time and get way good and start a punk band and get famous and have so much money that I'll use to be a van and live in the parking lot of vasa for free and shower there and work out and
eat at home. That's a pretty good life I think. Just warn them.

Anyways, this week we came home from Kagoshima on Monday night, so we got home at 5 AM on Tuesday and got back into work. My bike brakes got ruined somehow and nobody on Amami fixes mountain bikes because nobody uses mountain bikes, just mamacharis. So our zone leader in Kagoshima is buying some brake pads and sending them down this next week. So that means we had to walk everyday! YES. In case you aren't aware, Amami is always about 100% humidity, and this last week we hit Thirty-one degrees. That's way hot. It was so hot that both me and my comp sweat through out clothes completely lol it's disgusting, so ain't nobody going to complain about heat to me or I'm going to just point at us and say "excuse me".

But besides that, we did a talent show on Saturday night and it was very fun. We had a few investigators show up and it was a good time. I played piano and I'll put that at the end of the email. THEN, we had 31 people at church! We average
8-10. Now before you get too pumped, let me explain. We had the district president and his son come, which is the Sano's son and grandson, and then another member in the district presidency, and then one of our investigators, Miwa, came with her two kids, and the others investigator Nori, who also brought two kids came, and then we had two other investigators come on our side. We had three! That's a lot for here. Four total. Awesome! And they all enjoyed church too! Anyways so talking to District President Sano Kaicho was amazing. He speaks so cleanly and clearly. He speaks like he's from Tokyo. He speaks actual Japanese. Now I know that I'm on Amami and that is a part of Japan, but everybody here speaks very dirty (like southern in America, but worse) and not clear Japanese and then on top of that, old people only speak in Amami's language (it's not written so it's going to die out, but we like learning phrases because the natives love it) and then they mix them and it's not really Japanese. So while missionaries in Tokyo learn probably faster and clearer Japanese they can't come here and understand anything, whereas we learn dirty Japanese and are also able to understand clear Japanese too. Plus dirty Japanese is fun :)

That's really all that happened this week. Lots of walking, sweating, and drinking Mugicha. My bike should be fixed next week so we will see.

 愛してるわ～

シャーキー長老

Elder Tschirki

#getbuckets

Japanese graffiti is usually just something like this. It says "unchi" which is poop.

 

Here is Drew playing the song for the talent show.