Japan is Sick

So like the title is, Japan is sick. I love this place. As of right now I still don't know about transfers. I don't like the way our mission does transfer calls but that's okay. I think you'll probably all find out next week. Anyways, this week was fun, and let me tell you a cool story. Actually I took a couple of videos so I'll leave that there. I'll talk about a different thing then. We went with the Sano's to the Sakamoto family who live about an hour away by car, and
in case I haven't emailed about them before, they have 7 kids. Well guess what, they fostered another one and now they have 8. Two are they're own. They aren't members, but love the missionaries and love when we go over because they're also Christian and let me tell you,
I've hardly met other people that have as much love as they do. Don't get me wrong, having eight kids under the age of 13 is insane as in super loud and anyone with kids understands, but still, you can feel the spirit so much in their home. They live on a farm and have animals
and they're home is huge and the spirit is so strong. The feeling of love is so strong. The parents love their kids and are so patient and loving and accepting and they always pray and everything. Like its awesome and I want everyone to look at is family for an example.
Anyways so we sang some hymns and the kids actually sat still and quieted down and the spirit again was so strong. Then we have read a kids book in English and then taught some parts from the scriptures. It was a perfect night honestly. I don't know if they'll join the
church but they have mastered the charity part of Christ's gospel, and I learned so much from that family. I've visited two or three times and every time it's amazing. Like we read in the scriptures, if we have not charity, we are nothing.

Anyways, there was a typhoon that went to Okinawa or Taiwan, I don't remember, so we had crazy wind and rainstorms too. It was crazy and the most crazy rain I had ever seen, and we weren't anywhere near the typhoon so now I really want to know what a typhoon is like. If I stay or transfer down south, I will pretty much for sure experience it.

Love you all! Keep being good people!

餡土龍 K. 赦輝長老
日本福岡伝道部

愛してるわ～

 The biggest spider I've ever seen. 

Ducks, my second fav animal 

Amami

We found a Takoyaki shop with 15 takoyakis for 3.50 so that was a killer deal
 

Election Week in Japan

This week was a good one here on my beloved Amami Oshima. Well it was pretty regular. Lots of finding and knocking on doors and taking drink breaks because it's necessary. Speaking of drink breaks, I have a funny story that goes along with a good spiritual story too so I'll share them at the same time.

Okay so me and Elder Bomtempo from Brazil were on exchanges and recently I had felt like I needed to go to this spot that was like 45 minutes away by bike, and so I told him that in planning and we went. And it was hot and fun. But anyways, we were knocking on doors and we found this Japanese dude that said he was a Muslim, and that's not something you ever really see. But he wasn't interested at all so we kept going and we are walking out of this little street (the whole place has maybe 100 houses at most) and this man with a fat pug in his bike basket rides up and starts talking to us and I had never met him before, but it was Itou San! (Not the Mugicha Itou San) and he knew Elder Woolston and a lot of missionaries before that but I had just never had the opportunity to go. So he's an eternal investigator and
believes in God and believes that Christian denominations were created by men. Which is true, we can't argue that, but he's an eternal investigator, but we got his phone number again because we lost it because I dropped the phone in a bowl of ramen and the mission gave us
a new one, and we are going to go back! So that was a way cool miracle and it just shows that if you follow the spirit, or even what you think is the spirit, you will be blessed for it. Then we were getting a drink, and the vending machine took my sen yen, which is a 10 dollar
bill in the US, and didn't recognize it, so I couldn't buy anything. So we decided to call the vending machine company and give it a shot. You see, this was my last $10 for the month. And they said they would figure it out. So the next day we get a call from the vending machine people and they got my money and want to give it back to me, because Japanese customer service is legitimately the best in the world, and they asked if I was a missionary for the Mormon church and I said yeah and they said we'll meet at the church and then I got my money back! Like that was the coolest thing that had ever happened in my life. Customer service is a win for Japan and I would recommend the Suntory vending machine and drink company to everyone. 5/5 stars.

Besides that nothing spectacular happened. Love you all!

餡土龍 K. 赦輝長老
日本福岡伝道部

愛してるわ～

A beach

Me calling the vending machine company by the beach

 And massive Amamian Snails

It Cooled Down

So like the title says, the last two days have been like 25C so that's crazy and I think God answered my prayers. But before that, this last week was a good, hot one with lots of walking still but we were able to meet some of our investigators we hadn't been able to previously!
We couldn't teach right then but we were able to meet them, including Kengo and his usual only wearing underwear. I love that guy. Just a reminder, he's like 28 and has three or four kids but he's really hard to meet but has lots of interest. Also, we made some return
appointments and they fell through so that's lame and sometimes stings a little bit. We made a baptismal date goal with our boy Akira, who is like 60 and comes to church every week. But we aren't sure how much he is really understanding and remembering though so the date is just a goal to work towards. We had to teach the restoration twice but hopefully he's getting it a little bit. If not that's okay because I don't think God will hold it against him if he can't understand. Now I made him sound like he's mentally handicapped but he's not. He's a
really simple construction worker that didn't have an education really I don't think. It's funny because I can understand just about everyone, except for him. He's way of speaking is mumbling and low and raspy and such so it's kind of hard, but we're working hard.

This last week I was thinking about the importance of missionary work and what our message is. Is our message the Book of Mormon? No. Is our message that there's a prophet today? No. Is our message that the church has been restored? No. Those are all PARTS of the message and complement it and definitely are necessary elements. So what is our
message? It's that we all fall short of the glory of God, therefore we need a Savior to allow and enable us to return back to God, our Father's presence. So where does the restoration of the gospel through Joseph smith fall into that? Because of the restoration, and the Book
of Mormon, and living prophets, we are led and guided to know the truth and be able to participate in necessary ordinances for salvation because the priesthood has been restored after centuries of having been God. Because of those things, we are able to understand the
atonement of Jesus Christ and be able to repent and change our nature. "No unclean thing can inherit the kingdom of God" and the only way we can become clean is through Jesus Christ. That is our message to the world. And that's what I'm here to teach. Sometimes I feel like we focus too much on the restoration and WHAT it is and not WHY it's important. So I encourage everyone to find out what the restoration and the atonement means to them and allow yourselves to be changed by it. If you do, you will know of a surety of God's love, the power of the atonement and reality of the restoration.

Love you all!

餡土龍 K. 赦輝長老
日本福岡伝道部

愛してるわ〜

Shuwa

This week has been the hottest I've ever been in my life! It's crazy! It's 33 degrees with 100% humidity everyday so really it feels like it's about 40 degrees plus. I'm too lazy to do the math into Fahrenheit but that's mid to high 90s and then with humidity like over 100 or so. It's hot and this next week we are supposed to hit 35. Wow. Anyways I've learned this week that no matter how hot and humid and sweaty and stuffy and dripping wet and thirsty and even though you drink water it just sweats out in 0.1 seconds, you can have a good attitude about it! It's so hot but winter is right around the corner! Okay not really but I can't change how hot it is so like I just have to pray for the patience to endure it and survive, and then I do! It's actually a really interesting thing. If you pray for help, do your best, you get help! I feel like the curry cooking carpet cleaning Mike Turvey "I'm a Mormon" video (it's my favourite one actually) and he says concerning cleaning carpets "I say, 'God, if I can't get out of this then I've got to find some way to enjoy it', and then I do!" (He's a really kind of a simple dude but I really like that sentence because it's so true!) God will help you! If you want to change your attitude, he will help. If you want to change your surroundings, well,
sorry but you probably won't get helped out. That's not what we are here for. We are here to learn and grow, and we can't grow if we try to change everything around us, but rather we grow because we change ourselves. So if you ever are looking to change your circumstances,
look inside and see what you can change in you, and then pray, and then act!

This week was a lot of walking still because my brakes still haven't come. I wonder if I'll get them this transfer even. Our investigator, Nakagawa dropped because his wife is really nervous and against him meeting with Christian people. It's a sad thing, but here it's really
common. So we went on our way and did lots of finding. We couldn't contact our investigators or friends really because our new phone hasn't come in the mail yet, so that stinks but we tried to make the best of it and work as hard as we could, which included going to walk and visit some investigators that live a two hour walk away, and an hour respectively. But on a bike it's like 30 minutes and 12 minutes so it's really not that far. The one I'll talk about is Miko. Her parents are deaf and she's a nurse that is interested in the gospel but is extremely busy and hard to meet, but we went on Friday night and we were trying to find the address so we could put it into area book, and as we were walking around, we ran into her mom, and she recognized me and came up and she can actually speak very well for being deaf, and would write out kanji and teach us how to sign a little bit in shuwa (Japanese sign language, literally meaning hand conversation) and we talked to her for what seemed like ten minutes but was more like about 40, and then Miko drove up! So we talked to her for a while too, and it was just a really good bonding experience, and Miko said she's always so happy when we can come over and talk and she loves us and so does her parents and it's just all over a good experience. It's hard because we can't really seem to meet and teach a whole lot at a time, but whenever we can we do. She's like 40s probably, and has her own kid but the kid loves in Osaka or something. Anyways, if we weren't trying to be good missionaries and find the address to put into area book, we wouldn't have met the mom (can't hear the doorbell or door knocks) and wouldn't have contacted them and had a really good conversation that night. Talk about being where we are supposed to be.

Anyways that's probably it for this week! Thanks y'all!

餡土龍 K. 赦輝長老
日本福岡伝道部

愛してるわ～

A crazy windstorm broke my umbrella

We found a way sketchy staircase and I almost broke it I feel like but nobody lives up there. 

We tried to dendo it. But we found ohaka machi (means graveyard town, 

but there's just a lot. I call it ohaka machi now and I made that up so yeah it's not a real thing probably)

Ohakas as far as you can see.  

video of said windstorm