Hey everyone! How's summer break going for you all? Well, for those of you who have summer break that is. Haha! My family has been out of town visiting family and friends this past week, and I'll tell you what, their trip sounds exhausting. Haha! Then again, missionary work isn't all that relaxing either. It's kinda funny, a couple of months ago I realized that even though I'm getting more sleep every night on my mission than I ever did in High School, I'm still more tired on my mission than I ever was then. So yeah. Anyways, on to what's been going on this week!
So there's been some pretty fun stuff that happened this last week. First, I would like to share two stories that are completely unrelated events, but similar in nature. And what I say when I mean that is they're both the antics of young boys on the trains. First of all, I suppose I should explain that Japanese people are usually depicted as really quiet polite people. That's true. But when you get a group of friends together (especially younger guys), they become more bold and daring, and sometimes quite obnoxious. For example, if we try to talk to a high school student by himself, he will almost always listen quietly and respectfully, even if he has no interest whatsoever, simply because we're older than him. Get a group of them together though, and when we try to talk to them, they'll say something (anything really), usually in English, their friends all laugh, and then they walk away feeling so cool because they "talked" in English with the guy who's not Japanese. So, that being said, one night we get on a train, and we're standing next to this group of about 5 or 6 high school guys, and you could tell they just finished practice because they're still sweaty and carrying sports bags. One of them notices me (not difficult), and says to his friends (in English), "I am tired. Very, very tired." I guess they thought he was pretty funny, because they start to laugh, and then I say to him (also in English). Me too! I am very, very tired. That surprised him. He wasn't expecting me to actually engage him in conversation. He fumbled a little bit, and tried talking to me in English, I would help him out and encourage him, using a mix of Japanese and English. After a few minutes, he finally caught on and realized that I was using Japanese to coach his English. He's all just like, "wait! you speak Japanese!?" "uh, yeah." Haha! I thought it was pretty funny.
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| More Engrish! My pencil is pointing to my favorite. Apparently they meant that you'll get a rash by putting it in your mouth... I'm not sure how that became bitten. |
So, the second story about young boys antics on the trains. This time we were on the train sitting down, and this kids soccer team gets on with their coaches. So now there's about 15 kids or so with 5 adults all packed into one section of the train, and the adults are doing their best to keep the kids from being too much of a nuisance for the rest of the passengers. The kids were all maybe around 10 years old. So, kids being kids, they're goofing around, obviously. I start watching them because I thought it was funny. There were 3 or 4 of them against the door, and they were playing some sort of game that they had just made up. One of them would stand with his back against the door, and another would stand facing him about a foot or two away. They would wait until the train rocked or turned, and then the one facing the door would lean forward, almost falling into the one against the door, and at the last second he would put his hands up to catch himself from falling, leaving the person against the door trapped between his two hands. What's the point of this game? I have no clue. But they're playing this game, and one of them kids goes to stand against the door. The other kid gets in place facing him. But instead of leaning forward and catching himself like they had been doing, he reached up and hit the kid in the forehead, which made him hit his head on the door. It wasn't very hard, just enough to make a really loud noise and they all start laughing hysterically. Well, except for the kid who hit his head. I must admit, I was not successful at keeping myself from laughing.
So, on a completely unrelated note, we had a pretty cool day on Tuesday. We didn't have any appointments, so we decided to go visit an investigator who hadn't been picking up his phone lately. He lives about 10 minutes away by train, several stations down the line. We ended up deciding to walk there, and do street contacting on the way. At every station we planned to stop and hand out fliers for 30 minutes. At the end, after we visit the investigator, we would ride the train home and finish the day. It ended up being a really cool day, because at every station we stopped at, something happened. At the first station, we met a man from Camaroon (sp?) who was baptized recently over in another area. He told us he was moving to our area soon for work, so we were able to give him information about when and where church is here in Atsugi. At the next station after that, we found a new investigator, another Philipino. At the next one I saw the branch president from the Zama Branch (the English branch in Yamato) and got to talk with him for a little bit. We finally made it to the investigator's house, but he wasn't home. As we walked back to the station to go home, we were joking about how when he comes home from work, he would have to take the street we were walking on, and how cool it would be if we could catch him between the station and his home. Wouldn't you know it, that's exactly what happened! He said he would call us the next day after he checked his wife's schedule, which he did. So yeah, it was a pretty neat day. And to wrap it all up, while we were doing street contacting, I say a yellow VW bug. But, it's not a normal bug. It had not one, not two, but three wind spoilers. Yes, a VW bug with three wind-spoilers on it. I wish I was able to get a picture of it so bad. But, I saw it as it drove past, so that was pretty much impossible. I almost died of laughter though.
Yup, that's about it for now. I hope you all have a great week! Take care!
Elder Blake
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