Beach Bums

Hey so this week we went on a thirty five mile trip out to Kasari and back. Look it up from Naze to Kasari. On bike. It was a cloudy day though so we were okay. While we were out there I had goat curry which was delicious. I guess goats are kind of popular on this island. Today we went to the beach for p day and we still haven't gotten our transfer calls yet but I'm most likely staying here safe and sound on Amami.

ALSO, were safe from earthquakes. I only felt one and it woke me up but that was a month ago. Anyways were about four hundred miles from Kumamoto and separated by ocean. Just wait until July and if I'm still here we'll be talking about typhoons.

We played football with our 17 year old investigator and his friends in the rain which was way fun and I really just want to play football.

We also translated a guy's American social security into Japanese and why he had American social security, we're not really sure.

But this week, as I've been reading through the Doctrine and Covenants I've been noticing a common theme. It's that the field is white and already to harvest, and how if we thrust in our sickle, we will reap up blessings. As I though about that, I thought about a scripture in
Revelations, specifically Revelations 14:14-16.

14 And I looked, and behold a white cloud, and upon the cloud one sat like unto the Son of man, having on his head a golden crown, and in his hand a sharp sickle.

15 And another angel came out of the temple, crying with a loud voice to him that sat on the cloud, Thrust in thy sickle, and reap: for the time is come for thee to reap; for the harvest of the earth is ripe.

16 And he that sat on the cloud thrust in his sickle on the earth; and the earth was reaped.

So, Christ is the one that does the work. His work is to bring the children back to His Father, our Father in heaven. He's go into do it. We read in the Book of Mormon that "[He] is able to do His own work." If he can do his own work, the work of salvation, why does he need
missionaries? Why does he need the weak, young things of the world to help in a work so important? Are we as missionaries and members of the church necessary? Is missionary work necessary?

The easy answer is yes. But why? If he can do his own work, why? So he can strengthen us. So he can bring us back. So we can be converted. He has us participate in finding his children so that we can experience the joys and happiness that 1. He feels when he brings us back and 2. So that we can remember what it was like to be found. We are supposed to be changed by the gospel of Jesus Christ, but change cannot be brought about unless we act. We have to act to be in line with the commandments of God and that will bring about a change in our hearts, in order to keep us on the straight and narrow that leads to eternal life. The work of missionaries is just as important for people that are lost as is is for the one doing the work. We are all in a journey to come back to him, and we cannot do so unless we act.

In the Book of Mormon, in Second Nephi, we read that there are things made to act and to be acted upon. We were made to act. We were made to choose. We make choices everyday, but if in the end those choices don't bring us or other people in harmony with the gospel, is it worth it? If it's contrary to the gospel, it hinders the work. If it's inline with the gospel, it progresses the work and we get blessings, and hopefully we will be able to keep those blessings and the same feelings we felt here and everywhere else fresh in our hearts
throughout the rest of our lives. I feel like that's why missionary work is important. I feel like that's why I'm here in Japan. Obviously it's to teach the Japanese people, but less obviously is to help strengthen me for a lifetime of discipleship. Realistically, God doesn't need me. The work will progress without me. The people I find will be found by somebody else. He's not going to let his children go without hearing the gospel if they're supposed to hear the gospel. BUT, while he doesn't need me, I definitely need Him.

Anyways, love you all!

Elder Tschirki.

The beach today 

Me and Sano Shimai, a senior missionary. She's so sassy and grandma-like.

The kid on the right is Kaiya, our investigator. 

On our crazy adventure to Kasari. Me on my bike.

 

Us sliding in the mud being boys. Plus a little butt slip from your boy over here and I 

looked at Kaiya and said "oshiri wa kakkoii ne" which is "my butt is cool huh" 

 

Incense

Conference was so awesome. The highlights for me were Priesthood session, President Uchtdorf's talk on Saturday, and Elder Holland's talk on Saturday. Everybody was great though and there was a theme that I noticed about doing what we need to do everyday such as reading the scriptures, praying, serving, developing charity, etc. We have to do what we can do everyday to qualify for God's help. And like Elder Holland said, God knows that we can't be perfect, but he wants us to improve, and if we are improving everyday, it is enough. It's true! And to add to that testimony, I found a spot in the Doctrine and Covenants that testifies of that same principle. DC 5:21, "And now I command you, my servant Joseph, to repent and walk more uprightly before me, and to yield to the persuasions of men no more; 22 And that you be firm in keeping the commandments wherewith I have commanded you; and if you do this, behold I grant unto you eternal life, even if you should be slain."

The key is that Christ tells Joseph Smith to walk MORE UPRIGHTLY. He doesn't say that he has to be perfect right now, because that's impossible. He doesn't tell him to do something Joseph can't do. He tells him to walk more uprightly, or to improve himself and his behavior and actions, and promises that if he continually does that, he will have eternal life. It's a principle found in the scriptures. It's true, and I'm trying to do that everyday. It's hard, but like President Monson asked us to do, we need to make the hard decision to do right than the easy decision to do wrong.


Anyways, on to the week. We went with the Sano's around the island to visit some less actives and taught them some lessons. A lot of them just don't have a way to get to church because they live so far out, about an hour away, and they're older without a car. They get rides though but it's hard for them. So while we were doing that, the Sano's like to go to the beach and take pictures and walk around in the sand on the island, which was way fun, so I have some good pictures of that, and I took all the best ones on my camera. We found a new
investigator, this young mom named Shigeki, and she has three little boys. She's pretty interested and could sense the importance of the message and said she would come to church but she wants to be able to go with her whole family and her husband works Sunday's too. He's very busy and they don't have a lot of family time, but we are going back again to teach her on Tuesday. We also helped Miwa, our friend, move and she gave us food. She's fluent in English so we ask her Japanese questions and she can answer them and help us out. And conference happened too. So that was the week this week!


Love you all!

Elder Tschirki
#japan❤️

A cool beach we went to 

We eat snails here

My incense box. (We all have one). We love incense here. 

 Keihan, or rice and chicken soup, the native dish on Amami. 

It's Super Hot

This last week was pretty good. No bike accidents but two new investigators. We aren't sure how well they're going to progress or if they are too interested yet, but we're going to teach them the best we can. It's up to them! And just because someone says no doesn't mean that they'll keep saying no in the future! Like one of our investigators here says, everybody joins the church in the right timing for them. In English too. Now those are some words of wisdom.

We taught our 28 year old dad investigator Kengo and reviewed lesson three, the gospel of Jesus Christ, with an emphasis on the temple and priesthood. He was pretty interested in that and said if he knew that this was the right church and what his ancestors wanted him to do, then obviously he would join. I testified to him that if he really wants to know that it's true, and if he prays, then God, and maybe even his ancestors being taught in the spirit world, will tell him that it's true. It's interesting when we teach him because any time that he says something or has a question or concern and we answer that, the spirit is very strong and he just sits there and ponders. He knows what he is feeling is good and wants us to come back. He hasn't accepted the Book of Mormon yet, because, in his own words but translated, "The book is a very important book and I know that. I know it's important. But my kids will color all over it. Not my oldest daughter though. (She's 9). She'll listen to me when I say not to touch things but like my three year old will find it and color in it and so will the other kids because they don't listen to me." That's legit. I told him I probably colored in them too. I'm pretty sure I did ha. But we told him that we can download on his tablet thing the Book of Mormon and he was pumped about that. We asked if we could have his phone number and he gave it to us and said that our phone stinks and so does his and he doesn't know how to text on it and that we can only call him. He said, "If you end up texting me, I won't answer and I'll call you back and be like, 'hey, idiots, why didn't you call, call next time'" and that also we can only call him during his lunch breaks because "that's usually when I'm having a smoke break so I can answer then." He's the funniest guy I've ever met. He speaks SO
informally though, it's almost like a completely different language. He's pretty blue collar and gets up at 4:30 AM to go drive trucks and comes back at 7:00 at night. I love that guy.

Anyways, this week, as I was studying the New Testament (I'm almost in Revelations. My emails are going to get really interesting really soon) the big theme that John talks about is 1. love and 2. No corruption of speech, meaning bad language. He says that if we don't love our neighbors, we cannot inherit the kingdom of God. If we don't have charity, we cannot inherit the kingdom of God. If we say we love God, but don't love others, we are hypocrites and cannot inherit the kingdom of God. If we love God, we need to love others. We need to
have the same love that he had for us. Now for point two, if we say that we love God and our speech says otherwise, we cannot inherit the kingdom of God. We have to let the light of Christ live through us and let others see that! We have to follow the commandments with an eye single to the glory of God, and if we do so, we'll be okay! It's really a simple formula, but hard to be acted out, but I know that as we do so, we will be blessed and immensely happier!

I love you all!

Elder Tschirki

#japan❤️

For our German friend 

A good view kind of.

A crazy lady that said the same thing over and over and talked
to  us for forty minutes. She's pretty cool. She's like 85. 

We found this bike yesterday after we rode over the top of a mountain 
for  thirty minutes. 

 

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.