私は宣教師。 鋼鉄製馬で乗ります。亡いかアライブをワォンテッド。百万団地見た全てをノックした。亡いかアライブをワォンテッド。」-前のウィリアムズ長老からとにかく、始めましょう!今週の間私たちは良く働きましただけど成果見ませ。ちょっと難しいと思います。けれど私たちはまだ元気です!
Now for those of us that don't read Japanese, myself (Elder Williams included), here's the translation of the above weird looking scribbles that are called the Japanese language: "I'm a missionary. On a steel horse I ride. And I'm wanted (wanted) dead or alive (dead or alive). I've seen a million danchis and I've knocked them all. And I'm wanted (wanted) dead or alive (dead or alive)." – derived from a great Bon Jovi song by a past Elder Williams Note: danchis are the giant apartment complexes in Japan pronounced dān-chees.) Anyways let's begin! During this week we worked really well/good/hard, but we did not see the fruit of our labors. I think that's a bit hard, but we are still healthy, good, and full of energy. Ok here goes the weekly rap up: Monday, Monday, Monday ~ P-day so not much, but that night was so awesome. So this takes some back story, but oh well. So last week I received a packet on how to find from a missionary in Canada. A guy I don't even know and he just blindly guessed my email. Now our missionary emails are [email protected]. And if you know my first name, you know how lucky I was to receive this. Anyways we had started using it and it was awesome. So we decided to email to the mission president so he could decide if he wanted to give it to all the missionaries. Mind you this packet is 60+ pages long, so yeah it has a lot of ideas. So that night while using an idea from this packet we ran in to this awesome Japanese man. When we started talking to him he was smoking a cigarette, but that doesn't stop us because we believe anyone can change. So as we were talking we brought up the topic of God, because we like to do that. And when he started to talk about God he put out his cigarette, freshly lit, and threw it away. He then proceeded to tell us about how recently he has come to the knowledge that there is only one God and that he can communicate to this God through prayer. Now some of you at home are going to be like, "What?! This is common knowledge." But this is Japan and something like this is, is like finding a gold nugget in the middle of the street. It just doesn't happen all that often. But this guy was awesome and as we scrambled to get over our shock of this man’s awesome experience and we tried to exchange information, but his bus came and he had to leave. So nothing came out of this, but he got a pamphlet with our names and number on it so you never know. So after that it was late and we decided to return home and on the way home we got a call from the APs, assistants to the president. Now if you've served a mission you know that the AP’s usually don't call regular missionaries all the often. And by no means am I special. I'm not a district leader or a zone leader; I'm just Elder Williams from Las Vegas, Nevada, who speaks enough Japanese with just the right pronunciation to fool everyone into thinking I know Japanese. Anyways the call came and they asked for me and I was asked to explain the packet and how I was using it and if there were benefits. So I did my best and they then told me that the packet would probably be released to the whole mission, either in its entirety or they will edit out the parts that they don't like and release their own version. Well, that was the night of P-day. Tuesday ~ We had a way awesome afternoon planned with some of the young men in the ward. They had school off for winter break so we went and played basketball with them and it was so fun. Like these guys are all 12-15 and Japanese so they are way small but they were so fun to play with. It was an outdoor court so there wasn't much craziness but they were all so fun to play with. Their parents were so thankful that we decided to do that with them and it was just an overall fun time. Then that night we went out to dendo (tracting) and we found this awesome Indian Doctor, from the county India, and he talked to us for a long time and then he said he would like to meet up again sometime because he feels lonely here in Japan win out his family and not being able to communicate with people. He will be headed back to India soon because his study in Japan will end soon. But hey he wants to meet up again. Wednesday ~ Kind of a hard day, talked to lots of people and no one wanted to meet again and because it's the middle of the week no one wanted to meet with us. So we prepared for that nights Eikaiwa activity. The week before we had taught about food words but not a lot of people came because of New Year’s so we decided to review the topic of food and then we had a make your own pizza party. At one of e grocery stores here I found pizza crusts and spaghetti sauce and other stuff to make pizza so we had a giant pizza party. And it was a big hit the little kids in the kids class had their parents help and everyone enjoyed making pizzas. And that was the end of our night. Thursday ~ This day we had a daily planning session so we didn't leave the apartment till 3 pm and we headed to the church for our member appointment, but the member forgot so we didn't get to meet with them. And this day was kind of a repeat of Wednesday. People thought what we talked about was cool, but not cool enough to want to meet again which is really hard because I see how these people’s lives could benefit from the gospel, but they won't let me help them. It's really frustrating, but after that we had a meeting with the ward mission leader and he always brightens my day because he is so energetic. After that we headed home and there we received a referral from some other missionaries and all that was left was for is to contact him. Anyways, kind of a tough day. Friday ~ To start the day we had ZTM (Zone Training Meeting) in 四日市、Yokkaichi, and it was really nice to finally meet the entire zone and know who we are working with and what our zone leaders actually look like. So it was a nice time, but it took up almost all of our day. After ZTM we had a lesson with Hayashi San. He's a way nice guy, but it's hard for him to progress because he still lives with his parents and he's pretty sure they would be against a church, so he meets with us pretty much in secret. He's way awesome and loves the feeling of when we meet with him, but he's really afraid of his parents. He's an adult, but housing is expensive in Japan so it's not uncommon to see an adult living at home with mom and dad. After his lesson we finished the rest of the cleaning we were unable to finish on the pizza night which was really just taking our stuff home and then after that it was another repeat of the days before. No one wanted to meet again or thought that this could help their lives. So we move on to the next day Saturday ~ So we had forgot our toaster oven at the church since the pizza party so we decide to run and get it and on the way back we met a guy who knew the old missionaries and met with them and he had a good time. He really liked the past missionaries, but he really didn't want to meet again. But we talked for like an hour and it was nice. After that we made lunch and were deciding where we wanted to go when we got a call from an investigator, who we had worked with earlier and then had decided to not contact us or meet with us. Anyway, he randomly called us and said he wanted to meet again, and in 30 minutes. So we scrapped all ideas of where we were going to go and booked it to the church, there we had no idea what we were going to do but we had the idea to lay out all the pamphlets and let him decide. But before that he had also said that he wanted to learn English from us, so we were ready to teach him that to. So when he walked in he told us that he didn't have a lot of time and the thought popped into my head that he was going to do English and run, but then he said skip the English and teach me the gospel pretty much. So I was way surprised. From there we laid out everything we had and he told us he has learned everything, but he doesn't know why he wants to meet with us or why our church is special. So we talked about our purpose as missionaries and that's when the second question came up and from there we taught the restoration again and he understood, and the spirit was so strong. And it was awesome. And it was such a nice lesson. After that he saw the piano and asked if I could play and with my limited ability I played "He Sent His Son" in the primary hymn book. And he liked it. But that was the end of the day except it was more of the same as the past days at night. Sunday ~ We had a really nice sacrament meeting and while I was sitting in Sunday School when an investigator from Saturday called and asked if we were in church, and I was like yeah come on over. But he wanted to do a personal lesson and I was like we can do that too, but he was a bit shy so he never came but it was all good. After that we had a shoukujikai, literally translated it means food meeting, but it means that after church we had a ton of food provided by the ward So it was a ward potluck, and after we had eaten all we could we were getting ready to leave and go meet an investigator, but before we could do that, a guy walked in to the church wanting to know more so we showed him the couch and explained what our church is like. And after that we had to practically run to catch the train. After the lesson we had and all the trains back, it was way late and that was our week. So to recap sometimes people are stubborn and being stubborn back doesn't always help. Don't ever give up on somebody, and trains are awesome modes of transportation Love, Elder Williams 愛、 ウィリアムズ長老
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MissionCalled to Serve in the Japan Nagoya Mission.. Archives
July 2017
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