Elder Tschirki in Japan: December 2016

Monday, December 19, 2016

Short

So this week's email got cut short because I was talking on the phone with Elder Barker for over an hour ha.

My beans name is Elder Stucki and he is from St. George. He played center and he can squat 500 lbs.

We went up to Fukuoka this week and it was fun. Tons of plane rides.

This district is way good now and it's awesome. The sisters became a trio and Sakamoto shimai is the new one.

The gospel is true and I won't have super long phone calls next week and I can talk to all of you later.

Also I met Elder Barlow when I picked up my bean.

Also we are all skyping on DEC 26, 2016 at 10:00 AM JAPAN TIME which is Christmas for you.

I'm sure you can all figure that out!

Love you all!

Elder Tschirki

シャーチャン

日本最高ヤゼ〜

My favorite food, taco rice

In Fukuoka with my bean

From the plane

My desk is organized

Wednesday, December 14, 2016

So because of the Christmas season and the transfer schedule, the worldwide transfer schedule was cut short by two weeks which means that transfers are actually this week. Well Elder McColm is unfortunately transferring up to Miyakonojo and I got a special call on Monday from President Egan and I'm going to be a daddy. Or in other words, I have been asked to train a new missionary. I don't know who they are but this is my schedule for the next couple of days. I will fly up to Fukuoka tomorrow and be there all day and have the trainers training and then I met my companion and then stay the night in Fukuoka and then I will fly down to Okinawa with a brand new missionary or a "green bean" here in Japan, or more correctly termed a "bean chan." While its really sad to see Elder McColm go after only four weeks this will be a great experience. Elder McColm is one of my favourite companions I have had my whole mission. Way cool kid and will see miracles throughout his mission.

He goes on to write about some stress he is dealing with that I didn't want to put on the blog (to protect the innocent and not so innocent!) Nothing to do with his companion...he LOVES Elder McColm!

But while there is so much stress and hard things going on we continue to see miracles and the work goes on. We actually were able to meet with a referral named Joshua and pretty much he kept talking about how great of an example a member that he works under is in his life and how he truly exemplifies Jesus Christ. Joshua is from Ghana and is in the Marines I believe, and he is the most golden person Ive ever met. We went to his house with a member and taught the restoration to him and h just accepted everything without problems. He already believes it. He wants the blessings of the gospel and he wants to join a church where he feels the spirit testify to him. He wants to grow closer to God and strengthen his relationship. He kept telling us how grateful he was for us to be there. He kept saying gratitude and how happy he was that we could come. He committed to come to church and read the Book of Mormon. But here is what the most profound part to me was. We were talking about the First Vision and afterwards we asked how he felt and thought and he said "well of course if you have enough faith and desire to follow Christ and God then you can be strengthened to the level you see God and Christ in person and talk with them." He truly has so much faith and no problems at all. Our member from the Army said that in his time at Quebec on his mission where he taught a lot of African people especially, he hasn't seen someone with so much faith and intent as he did. We are so excited for him. And the thing is is that this isn't uncommon. There are people out there that are prepared to hear the gospel and oftentimes just through our examples we can share that light and love of God to them and their hearts. They will want to know what we know and believe what we believe. They are out there so may we ever be examples of Christ to everybody out there that we meet.

Love you all!

Elder Tschirki

シャーチャン

日本最高ヤゼ～

Traditional house in Okinawa

Way pretty sunset from the apartment.

Relief Society

So for those of you that dont know what the relief society is, it is the oldest standing women's organization in the world ran by the LDS church and it is for women 18 and up. Well the reason I call my email this is because it is a joke and I feel like a relief society president because there's more sisters here than elders and they just kind of tell us what to do and sometimes there's a little drama and some other stuff and me and my companion, elder McColm are both kind of chill and so we are just like okay and do it. But yeah I dont recommend being in charge of a bunch of 20 year old girls. Men dont know how they think or anything so its sometimes fun. No problems though. Everything is good here in Okinawa.

So we had some interesting experiences this week. We met a lady that told us she hates us because we're American and then explained why. And then the next day we met an old Okinawan dude (they are ethnically different than Japanese people) and he said he loves American people and hates Japanese people and then explained why. So as you can see there are the extremes on both sides and they both have good and bad points to their arguments. So were just kind of like "we aren't associated with anyone we are just missionaries" and so usually the people here like the missionaries. So unfortunately we haven't had anything negative happen to us. On a side note, my number two place that I wanted to go on my mission to was Russia because it is crazy and I wanted to get kidnaped out there and have a cool story. But instead I went to the safest country in the world with 2 gun homicides a year and its a good life down here.

We also did the worldwide day of service and we did it all day long and it was really good. Service is how we help other people feel Gods love for them. This christmas season, if everyone could find little things of service to do it makes a big difference in everyone's individual lives.

Also we found someone that gave us a book about how research shows that Japan didn't invade and kill hundreds of thousands of people in China during WW2 and how that was a fabricated lie by the Allied forces to cover for the Atomic bombs. So obviously we gave her stuff about Jesus. Then, later in the same day, someone else gave us books two from some religious leader and we couldn't really turn them down and its either a Japanese person or a Himalayan person but whatever its cool and she was nice and we cant read it on our missions anyways so it doesn't matter there's a lot of crazy people out here but thats okay. Crazy people are the best.

Recently we have had the opportunity to work with a few less active people and its really interesting to see that pretty much anyone that falls into inactivity still has a testimony and knowledge of the church and its truth. It shows how even anyone that has gone on a mission or whatever can fall into inactivity for literally no reason. Its really sad but can happen to anyone. But the Lord has promised through the prophets and apostles that if you read the book of Mormon and pray everyday then you will never fall into inactivity. Its true. Its so simple but nobody on earth is too busy to not find time to read and pray.

Elder Tschirki

君を愛してるよ

Service at a member's house plus being sick