The Chronicles of Elder Blake

Monday, February 11, 2013

I found a leather trenchcoat at a
second-hand store for $5.
Too bad it's 5 sizes too small

Hey everyone! So today is the first day of a new transfer! And allow me to say that I totally called it. What does that mean? Well, let me explain. When we went to the temple last week, I saw Elder Mangum there afterwards. He's half Brazilian and a way funny guy. I started talking to him, and told him to start packing his bags and get on over to Ushiku so he could help us baptize this new Brazilian family we're working with. Well, transfer calls came Friday morning, and wouldn't you know it, Elder Mangum is coming to Ushiku. I started laughing so hard. So yeah, He'll be getting here around 5 tonight. Elder Christensen is heading off to the mission home this afternoon around 2. From 2 to 5 I'll be with Brother Sato from the ward, and it sounds like he's got some sort of plan hatching, so we'll see what that's all about.

This last week has been pretty good. Elder Christensen has been getting ready to go home, which has made it a little harder to get things done. He didn't really get trunky until this last week, but when it finally came it hit hard. So that's been an adventure in and of itself, but I won't get into that. Wednesday we had a zone conference that President Budge came to. There was a lot of good stuff that went on. President Budge shared with is a theme of sorts (I guess you could call it) that the Kobe Mission President has been using recently: teach simply, testify powerfully, and commit boldly. Well, that about wraps it up right there, we can all go home now! I love that though! That says exactly and concisely what I've been thinking about and trying to put into words for quite some time now. Funny how things like that tend to happen. Also, Last week my Dad was talking to me about belief, faith, love, and charity in his last email. What he had said was that belief and love are inward decisions, but faith and charity are outward expressions of those decisions. Well, wouldn't you know it, that came up during zone conference also. That was pretty cool.

Ushiku Daibutsu
Holds Guinness World Record for tallest
statue; 3x as tall as Statue of Liberty

So, here's an update on the Comba family; they're doing great! Brother Comba is in the hospital for now, He has glaucoma. They've already operated on one eye, and they'll operate on the other eye in the next couple of days. Due to his eye condition, he's not able to read, but he's agreed to read the Book of Mormon out loud with his wife in the meantime. His ears still work perfectly fine after all. Also, Brother Mitake (the Mitakes are the less active family that brought the Combas to church) told Brother Comba about the audio version available for download for free from the I-phone app store. Seeing as how he's got nothing else to do all day except sit in his hospital room, he's going to start using that too. So anyways, seeing as how he's in the hospital, that means our last lesson with them was there at the hospital. So that's all way exciting, but there's even more good news! Sister Mitake has a younger sister named Hoberta who is inactive. Hoberta and her husband Ronaldo are friends with the Comba family too, and they've been at both lessons we've had with the Comba family. I just found out the other day that Ronaldo isn't a member at all in the first place. Well, he's been listening really intensely to the lessons, and he's just soaking it all in. Before we left the hospital, I talked with him a little bit. I asked him if they had a Book of Mormon. He said no. I asked him if he wanted one. He said yes. I told him I'd bring him one to the next lesson. When I was talking to Brother Mitake about it on the car ride back from the hospital, he was way surprised I guess Ronaldo doesn't really like religion that much. In the past, if he was ever over at Brother Mitake's house and the missionaries came over, he would find some excuse to leave. That surprised me. Since we've met Ronaldo, he's been really friendly, and he's seemed super interested. People can change. Maybe he's ready this time.

So, this is kinda random. There's this song I heard at a convenience store the other day. Maybe it's new, or maybe it's 9 months old, I don't know. But, the chorus goes "Hey, I just met you, and this is crazy, but here's my number, so call me maybe". That song is TOTALLY a missionary song! Every day, we're walking around talking with people, and we're all like "hey, I know we just stopped you in the street like 2 minutes ago, but let's trade numbers and we'll talk with you some more later". Yes, that's that.

Well, that's about it for now! Everyone enjoy Singles' Awareness day on Thursday!

Elder Blake

Monday, February 04, 2013

Hey there everyone! It's been a great week over here in Japan this last week. The weather warmed up some, we got work done, and nobody is dead. It's great! Although, the weather is cooling off again. Friday and saturday were warm enough that just wearing the suit jacket was plenty, but then yesterday it dropped again and wearing a coat was definitely a must. I've been told that there's a possibility it will snow again this week. If it does, it won't stick very long. The snow so far has all melted off less than a week after it falls.

Scavenger Hunt: Find a giant, yellow duck

So last Monday we had zone p-day. We went to Lake Town, which the zone leaders claimed is the biggest mall in Japan, and we had a picture scavenger hunt. That was pretty fun, and there were quite a few funny pictures that everyone managed to get. The mall was actually pretty big. Well, actually, it was two malls that were right next to each other, and connected with a sky-bridge. Regardless, it was big.

So not much happened on Tuesday, but Wednesday was pretty good. We had district meeting that afternoon, and Elder Taylor said something I really liked. We were talking about repentance, and how when we repent the Lord promises to remember our sins no more. We are not promised, however, that we won't remember our own sins. This is something that comes up in Sunday school quite a bit. Many people wonder if they are really forgiven if they can still remember their sins. What Elder Taylor said to help explain this is really simple, and I think it's actually really helpful. He said, "that's why we sometimes have scars: so that we can be reminded not to do the same thing again". When we first get a scar it can be painful sometimes, but over time the pain goes away. It stops hurting, but it's always there as a reminder of how we got it so that we can avoid making the same mistake again.

Everyone who came to zone p-day

Thursday and Friday we went on splits with the zone leaders. I went to Abiko with Elder Hansen. That guy is a beast! He is easily the best missionary I have ever worked with. He's dedicated, he's diligent, he's super nice, he knows what he's doing, and he's just good at being a missionary. I don't know how he does it, but when he talks with people on the street, he can get almost everyone to stop and talk with us for a few minutes. Most of the time, as soon as people find out we're not lost tourists they head off on their merry way. Not this guy though. He gets nearly everyone to stop and talk for a little bit. I definitely have a new standard to try and reach. It was a way fun split though. We played soccer with one of their 14 year old investigators. By the time we got to Abiko, we didn't have time to go back to the apartment and change, so we ended up playing in our suits. That was really fun... I guess. haha! No, it was way fun, but my shoes sure got pretty scuffed up. I had just shined them too. Haha! We also taught a lesson with a recent convert. She actually has a pretty cool story. She's in her 70's, and her husband was baptized 9 years ago. She was meeting with the missionaries for a long time, but she has Alzheimer's (spelling?), which makes it hard for her to progress. Some days she would decide that she liked the church, and then the next day she would forget and decide she didn't like it. After a while, she got to a point where she decided she wanted to be baptized, and she passed her baptismal interview and everything, but before she was actually baptized she forgot that she wanted to be baptized and decided that she didn't like the church again. The way Elder Hansen said it, is after that they just kept the font filled up 24/7 waiting for her to decide she wanted to be baptized. A week or two later, she did, and they got her down to the church that day and baptized her. Ever since then she's never forgotten that she was baptized, and she's never gone back to not liking the church. Crazy. It's amazing what the Holy Ghost can do.

Monday, January 21, 2013

Hey Everyone! It's that time again! It's been a good week out here in Ushiku. But it has ben COLD the last few days. Ok, I take that back. It's really not that cold. But the wind is really cold, and it's been blowing really hard the last few days. Just as an update about the snow from last Monday, it's all mostly melted already. There's still a little bit here and there, but not much. Most of it got cleared from off the sidewalks and roads by tuesday afternoon. However, there was snow on the ground all day Monday, and that includes when we went out from the apartment in the evening to do some contacting. What we learned from this experience is that riding your bike in four inches of snow is rather tricky, especially when you have road tires.

Best picture I could get of the taxi snowball fight.

But yeah, that's that. Tuesday we saw something that was pretty funny. Elder Christensen and I were out at one of the train stations, and it was really slow. not many people were around. There were about half a dozen taxis of so that were waiting for customers, and they had all been sitting there for quite some time and were getting bored. Then, to our surprise, these two taxi drivers get out of their taxis, grab some snow from off the hedges, and start throwing snowballs at each other. Then, some of the snow would get on the taxi, they would freak out, grab a rag, and buff it off. The best part was when one of them completely missed and ended up hitting a taxi belonging to a driver that wasn't even involved in the snowball fight. Probably one of the most funny things I've seen in quite some time.

On Wednesday, we had our weekly English class. This lady shows up who I haven't met before, but apparently she's been coming for the last several months. She then starts telling Elder Christensen that on the first Wednesday of the year she had come to class, but the church was all locked up and nobody was there. What had happened is English class had been cancelled that night because of new years, and too many students said they weren't going to come anyway. I guess this lady had missed the memo somehow. She wasn't very happy though, because she waited outside (where it was quite cold) for quite some time, and apparently she tried calling us. After we got that all sorted out, as a joke she told Elder Christensen that to make it up he would just have to treat her to dinner sometime. Then, Elder Christensen said that instead he would make a cake for her and bring it next week. Well, she decided that she's going to hold him to it. Now, Elder Christensen is faced with a choice: cake or death.

Funny note I found on the map of the area in the apartment.

Thursday I got to meet Kada for the first time. He's a single guy in his 30's who was baptized quite some time ago, but hasn't been to church in a long time because of work. We have a weekly lesson with him on Thursdays, but for various reasons it's been cancelled the last couple of weeks, which is why I haven't met him until now. He's a pretty interesting guy though. When I found out he wasn't married, I asked if he had a girlfriend. He said he did, and pulls out his phone to show me a picture. It was a picture of his cat... He's a really fun guy, he's just really weird too, and he's really lonely. And he talks really fast. I thought my Japanese was finally getting somewhere, and then I try to talk to this guy and it just hurts. I'm looking forward to continuing to meet with him though. It'll be fun.

That's about it for this week. There really hasn't been a whole lot going on. Due to our current lack of investigators, we've been spending alot of time trying to find people who are interested. I think that part of it might be the weather. It's cold, and Japanese people hate the cold, so most people we talk to on the street are grumpy. But we have been able to find a few people with some potential. We're going to try meeting with them this week, so we'll see how that goes.

Take care everyone! Enjoy the next week!

Monday, January 14, 2013

So, I'm not sure what you call it when it's snowing and raining at the same time, but that's what it was doing this morning for about an hour. The snow ended up winning that battle though, and it's been just snowing for the last several hours. What I can say though is that the snow is about 3 weeks too late to have a white Christmas. Well, not much you can do about that though, right?

Army of oranges!! I made sure that none of them are the same.

It's been a fairly uneventful week this last week. There have been a few interesting things that happened, but for the most part not a whole lot went on. Thursday we had a zone meeting over in Matsudo. I'm not sure if other missions do this activity or not, and if they do I'm not sure what they would call it, but after the Zone meeting we did a Dendo Blitz. Dendo essentially means missionary activities, or proselyting. I'm sure you know what blitz means. Basically, a Dendo Blitz is when a district or a zone gets together in one area, everyone gets paired up with someone other than their current companion, and then we go hit the streets really hard for 30 minutes to an hour and try to get as many contacts as possible. There's always some sort of unusual event that takes place when we have one. For example, I was out with Elder Hall (who I was in the MTC with), and we managed to get a Book of Mormon out in the 30 minute blitz, which is surprising since in Japan it's typical to only get out 3 or 4 copies a week. On a good week. It was actually really funny how it happened. First, I should probably explain that in the Japan missions we're not allowed to call out or stop women on the street unless they're with a man. The reason being Japanese people have this image that Americans are all players and womanizers, and we don't want give the incorrect impression that we missionaries are trying to flirt with these women. That being said, we are allowed to say konnichi wa as we pass them to be polite, but we can't call out to them, and stopping them is definitely not allowed. So, to continue with the story, Elder Hall and I passed this older woman, and we said hello. After we had already passed her, she turns around and calls out to us, asking why we said hello to her. I guess she was caught off guard when she saw two white guys who appeared to be in a hurry take the time to say hello as they passed her in the street. Well, Elder Hall (who normally keeps his cool) starts acting all awkward since she's a woman. He basically just handed her the Book of Mormon without any explanation of what it is, and said we wanted to give it to her. Surprisingly enough, she took it, and then we went our merry way after giving her a flier with the local missionaries phone number. That was one of the most interesting street contacts I've ever had for sure.

Elder Christensen playing with the steam coming

off the oldschool rice cooker that cooked

the rice for the mochitsuki

Saturday the ushiku ward had a mochitsuki. A mochitsuki is an annual event for new years where you make mochi. Mochi is what you get when you pound cooked rice, and it's really chewy and delicious. Eating it plain tastes about the same as eating plain white rice (obviously), but when you flavor it with other stuff it's really good. There were several members that brought friends with them, so that was a great opportunity for us. The mochitsuki was really fun, and Elder Christensen and I even took a whack at it... pun intended. There was a lot of rice to pound too. Whoever planned it decided that we needed 20 Kilos of uncooked rice for this. What that means is that we had about 8 batches of rice to pound. It may not sound like alot, but I can assure you that it is. It's a good think we had a lot of people there to take turns.

That's about it for this week. While you're all enjoying your clear dry days, think of me out here in Tokyo riding my bike in the snow. Haha! Take care everyone!

Monday, January 07, 2013

Hey everyone! I've managed to survive the first week in this new area without too much difficulty. It's way different from Yamato, but Ushiku is a nice place so far. One really nice perk is that the apartment is really clean, and it's really big. We could easily fit 4 missionaries in here no problem, but there's only the two of us. And, the train station quite literally downstairs from our apartment. Our apartment complex has an exit that feeds into one of the station entrances about 30 yards away. How's that for convenience? Our apartment is on the 7th floor, and we can see 3 major landmarks from our apartment. When the sky is clear, we can see Mount Fuji despite it being so ridiculously far away. It's usually blocked by clouds or smog though. We can also see the Tokyo skytree, which is a massively tall tower in Tokyo. We can also see the Ushiku Daibutsu, which is the largest statue of Buddha in the world. All three, right from our apartment.

Massive sundial that's fairly close to our apartment

Ushiku isn't quite as rural as it was made to sound. It's actually pretty close to the same as Gilbert. It's actually like a strange mix between Gilbert and Apache Junction because there are random patches of nothingness surrounded by buildings everywhere. After spending 6 months in Yamato though, it feels like I'm living in a small ghost town though. Funny how perspective can change like that.

Aaron and Aaron. One is a dog of the Kohinata family
and the other is a missionary in Japan.

So, I actually have a pretty neat story from last Monday on Transfer day. So I had to ride the train from Yamato to Ushiku by myself, and that's about a 2 hour trip. Elder Gallacher was also transferring, so we met up at the Yamato station and then rode together to Shinjuku where we then split up to go our separate ways. After Shinjuku I still had to transfer trains again before I got to Ushiku. Well, I got to the station I was supposed to transfer trains at, followed the signs, and got on the train that my instructions told me to get on. This old grandpa gets on at the same time as me, and we start up a conversation. A little bit into it, he asks where I'm heading. "To Ushiku," I said. Then he told me that I would need to transfer one more time at a station called Abiko. Well, that was a surprise to me. My instructions didn't say anything about transferring at Abiko. Well, we looked at the map together, and he showed me that the line I was on split at Abiko. One direction when to Narita, and the other direction went through Ushiku on up to Mito. As it turns out, I was on the train bound for the Narita direction. My directions didn't say anything about the train line splitting at Abiko, and I'm not even sure how you're supposed to be able to tell which direction the train was bound for anyway. After thanking him for his help, he got off at the very next stop. This old Grandpa was the only person that talked to me on the entire 2 hour trip (with the exception of some drunk guy that was talking to everyone), and we only rode together for one stop, right after I had made the only mistake on that trip. Well that's sure interesting. I wonder how that happened.

Well, seeing as how I came to Ushiku just in time for new years, we've been visiting lots of members and eating celebratory new years meals almost every day. New years is a big deal in Japan after all. Oranges are part of the traditional lineup of new years foods, so we've been getting bags filled with oranges from several of the members. Yeah, there's no way we can eat them all fast enough to keep them from going bad. Then again, it probably doesn't help that neither Elder Christensen or I like oranges... that might have something to do with it...

Sorry if the blog posts have been kinda sketchy since about Christmas time. We were really busy, and didn't have much free time. Now that the holidays are over, it should be back to normal now!

Elder Blake

Monday, December 31, 2012

Hey Everyone! I'm doing pretty good, and I'm mostly over whatever it is that I had during Christmas. I'm still a little congested, but that's about it. Nothing too bad.

So I suppose the biggest piece of news for now is that after being in Yamato for close enough to half a year, I'm transferring today. My next area is a place called Ushiku, which is about 2 hours away by train from where I'm at now. I guess it's pretty rural out there, so that will be a different experience from what I'm used to. Then again, it is Japan, so we'll see how rural it really is when I get there. Oh, and here's the best part: my next companion is Elder Christensen. My trainer. Again. Definitely didn't see that one coming. When we got the transfer call and they told me I was going to be companions with Elder Christensen, I said, "What?! Elder Christensen?" And they said, "Yeah, do you know him?" "Yeah I know him, he's my trainer." "Oh. *shuffles through some papers* Yeah, I guess he was. Well, you get to be companions with him again!" After they posted the roster for this next transfer, I've gotten calls and emails from several missionaries asking me why I was going to be companions with my trainer again, as if I knew the answer or something. Haha! Well, I guess we'll have to wait and find out.

Let's see... other than that, it's been a fairly busy week. Thursday through Saturday we had fully booked days, which was really exciting for us. Unfortunately, nearly all of our appointments fell through. We did have a lesson stick though, and we were able to attend the baptism of one of the boys in the Zama Branch. We had an investigator come with us to that, and it seemed to have a good effect on him. Sister Ishihara, who was baptized about a month ago, is still acting like a rock star. We've been able to make contact with everyone in her family now, and we've started teaching them. Her oldest son actually lives in another area, so the missionaries over there are working with him. We actually got a call from those missionaries on Friday, and they were telling us about how their first lesson with him went. They just kinda asked him about what we had taught him when we met him, and he said that he had been praying on his own and reading the Book of Mormon (which is fantastic after only one lesson). He also told them that he was able to recognize a change in his mom since she's been baptized, and that he wants to learn more about that so he can have that same change too. Then he pretty much straight up told the missionaries that he wanted to be baptized. He has a date set for the 3rd of February now. It's so exciting!

Sorry this is kinda short, but I've gotta go get stuff packed up so I can get to Ushiku. I'll tell you all about it next week. Later!

Elder Blake

Merry Christmas

Japan Tokyo Mission Christmas Card

Let me know if you find me in the video!