Saturday, October 29, 2016

NIPON! Week 1 (9/19/16)

Thursday-Sat: I had more classes. On my last day of classes we had a sub in our class. We had all of our goodbye pics and such which was really nice. But I don't have time to go into detail.

Sun: This day was awesome. Daniels-Kaichou (President Daniels) taught us a lot of cool things this day, we went to the temple on a walk for the last time, and more. During Sacrament Meeting we had three amazing musical numbers. One was by us leaving, one was a tribute by a few of our Kouhai (junior or less experienced missionaries) to us who were leaving, and then the really cool musical by like 10 guys in our branch which I sent a few weeks ago. Then we had an amazing devotional by Elder Ballard (one of the Twelve Apostles). It was an amazing final devotional. Then we got to watch the three new segments of Meet the Mormons for the video. It was so amazing because the very last one (of course they always save the best for last) was of a Japanese band called Bless4. Their story was truly a roller coaster. A lot of our shimai-tachi (sisters) (and a few of the choro-tachi [elders]) were in tears. It made us all soooo pumped to go to Japan. Then as a district we had a short final testimony meeting together which I feel I will remember my whole life.

Mon/Tue: SO stressful, We had like 5 minutes to get everyone's (roughly 50 people so about 150 bags) luggage off a bus and onto a train and then 2 minutes to get all that luggage off of the train.  That was 1000x worse than the 13 hour plane ride. So then we went through the airport and got on a plane to Portland. As soon as we landed we had to bolt to the next plane because we were late and everyone else was already boarded. Then we flew 13 hours to Japan. Sitting next to me was one elder and a Nihonjin (Japanese). I had the aisle seat but switched with this other elder, Elder Kim. So I got talking with this guy named Kyotaro. Long story short Me some shimai tachi and one other choro talked with him and placed a Book of Mormon and gave him Tokyo Honbu's phone number. Then we got off the plane and went through customs, met the Tokyo mission leader and said bye to everyone and 9 of us (Me, Maloy, Cook, Detemple, Kim, and Smith - choro and Lafayelle, Rigby, and Watabe -Shimai) went checked our bags and waited for the next plane. We actually had to take a bus to the plane, got off on the runway and boarded the plane which was interesting. Eventually I woke up and we were at Sapporo. We met our Mission President who is an awesome guy, his wife, the APS, and the other few elders working at Honbu (headquarters, or mission home). We got our luggage, packed them into cars and then got on the subway. We made our way over to Honbu which was great because when we got there the first thing we saw was the beautiful Sapporo temple all lit up. It was awesome. Then we ate rice, egg and spam sushi. Then went to bed.

Wed: We had an amazing breakfast made by Nakatsuka-shimai (Sister Nakatsuka, the mission president’s wife). It was absolutely delicious. Then we had a bunch of training, had an interview with Nakatsuka-Kaichou (President Nakatsuka, the mission president) ("I wish I could have him by my side my whole mission. He is so great at encouraging people. I feel so excited to be in Japan" Maloy-choro 2016) This statement is so true. Then we got to meet our trainers and found out where we are going. My trainer’s name is Elder Larson, he is from Portland, Oregon, He has been out about a year and a half and he kind of reminds me of Ken. Everyday he talks about getting big. Also he is the only person other than Ken to really push me to push myself. Working out and biking with him is almost as fun as it was with Ken. He has a family of 10. He is the Oldest child out of 8. The area I was called to serve in is the Moiwa Ward inside Sapporo. (I bet dad is surprised about that) Then we went to the area, we picked up our temporary 3rd comp and dropped off my bags. This 3rd elder is named Elder Seki.  He's Nihonjin but I only knew him for 2 days. Then we went housing and the very first house I knocked the person was interested. We set up to meet with him sometime Saturday.
Then I had my first sushi experience at a place called Matsuria with my comps and Maloy choro and Isobe choro his trainer. They missed the bus so they took the one on Thursday with Seki choro.

Thursday: We said bye to Elder Seki and Elder Maloy, did planning and some housing. I also got to see the Church here.

Fri: We rode around everywhere (right now I am using Larson-choro's old bike.) and didn't have much success. The road/sidewalks here are so bumpy. Like REALLY bumpy. I got to have a church tour which was nice. We also had lunch at the Church with an investigator, the sister missionaries and a bunch of Obaa-chan (older people)

Sat: more dendoing, we taught a few lessons and went up some pretty large hills. We had to go to a party (which we didn't know about until 2 hours before) which was nice. We were on the other side of town so it was a 50 min bike ride which was fun. So bumpy. But I can definitely see blessings of physical strength and balance. I tried Calpis for the first time which tastes really interesting. It is yogurt thinned down into a liquid like legit liquid. I made friends with some of the members here too. Especially these three high school kids (Koyama, yudie, and Isato Kyodai). Then we headed to do some more dendo.

Sun: An awesome day where we taught a lesson at the temple and met some people from Indonesia. I'll try to talk more about this next week.

Love you all,
Minasan Ai shitemasu

Harvey Choro

Hanging with some of the locals.


Eating sushi in Japan!!





My new peeps!


No comments:

Post a Comment