Monday, February 10, 2014

Hey everyone! We had a pretty busy week over here. some crazy weather,
some crazy people, and lots of prep for the upcoming transfer.

Let's see, what is there I can share... well, to begin with, It's been
really busy because I've had to train Elder Yagui on his
responsibilities as recorder, which means everything takes longer than
it normally would.  One thing that we had to do that actually isn't
part of the normal schedule is preparing all the bike bags for all the
missionaries. When we transfer, you have to put you bike in a bike bag
to take it on the train. For various reasons, lots of missionaries
didn't have bike bags. I took the head on that one, and had to order
bike bags, draft a policy on how to manage them, make a system to
track who has which bag, and then get them all distributed to all the
missionaries. There are still quite a few bags we need to number, but
we got enough done to get bags to all the current missionaries. It was
nice to finally get that all finished up.

Friday we went over to Yamate to open up the sisters' apartment for
next transfer. We weren't able to find a new apartment for the
sisters, but we found a new one for the elders (they're going from 2
to 4), so we're putting the sisters in the elders' old apartment
temporarily. It was pretty funny when the Yamate Elders showed up to
help. They got there to help after we were already mostly done because
they had a meeting. They walk in, and were completely shocked at how
nice the apartment was. They said that it felt like a completely
different place. The only thing that changes though was there was no
extra junk and trash al over the place. Amazing how much difference
that can make, huh?

Saturday was a crazy snow storm! It was the worst snowstorm in Tokyo
for the last 40 years is what I was told. the wind was blowing all
day, and it was continually snowing. There was about 30 centimeters of
snow in alot of areas! The AP's went out to the park and asked some
guy walking by if he was busy. He said no. They asked him if he wanted
to build a snowman together. He said, "why not?" So they built a
snowman together. They invited everyone walking by to help out, and
soon had a small crowd gathered,l and they were able to talk with
everyone.

Early in the afternoon, the Bishop called, and gave us a short list of
names of people he wanted us to go visit and shovel their driveways.
One problem: we didn't have any shovels. Sister Wada looked at Seiyu,
and they were all sold out of shovels. We tried calling around, but
everywhere we called was sold out. We eventually were able to find
someplace that had some shovels. Elder Konishi and I went to pick them
up. Driving in the snow: check. That was pretty fun. by the time we
got there and back, the day was pretty much over.

Church was cancelled because of the snow, so we spent a majority of
the day getting those houses that the bishop asked us to do. I decided
that driving in a snow storm is much more fun than driving on day old
icy snow. But, we got work done. It was pretty fun.

Then today rolls around. Transfer calls were this morning. I'm
transferring to Yamate, and I'll be companions with Elder Call (not
the one currently in Kichijoji). He's actually only one transfer ahead
of me. We were in the MTC at the same time when I first went in. What
that means is I'm guaranteed to have at least one more companion
before I go home since Elder Call goes home next transfer. I wonder
who it will be...

Well, that's about it for this week. Hope you all have a great week! 
Talk to you all later!

Elder Blake

     末日聖徒
イエス*キリスト
        教会

This is a small parking lot in front of a member's home that I cleared with Elder Konishi on Sunday. Fortunately it was later in the afternoon, so a lot of it had already melted off.