Elder Rogers Japan Tokyo Mission: I FINALLY made it to Japan!‏

So, minasan (everybody),
My first week as a missionary has been pretty interesting so far. To
explain all the unusualness I have to go back to right after I left
the MTC. We all got up at zero-dark-30, that's 2:30am for you
non-military folks back at home, and piled on a bus. This bus took us
to a train and we were on that for about an hour. Naturally the
people right next to us were super excited, I mean who wouldn't be, we
escaped the MTC! We were set loose on the world to baptize everyone
we saw. Anyway, they were singing White 'n' Nerdy and show tunes,
really loud. After what seemed more like 3hrs than 1 we made it to
the airport where we immediately got split up. This was somewhat
scary for me because for the past 9ish weeks I've had not 1 but 2
doryos. It was a little weird being by myself. Anyway we ate a
healthy breakfast of Cafe Rio while we waited for our flight, which
was delayed an hour. Sasuga United. Anyway because our flight was
late by an hour we were gonna have to book it to our next flight.
So we slept on the plane but when we touched down in San Fran it was
go time. We were on the opposite side of a seemingly never-ending
airport. It was probably about a mile plus a little. Anyway, we get
off the plane, grab our bags, Beckstrand Choro starts talking to a guy
on a Segway, we don't know why at the time but apparently Segway guy
is Mormon and wants to help us and will take us to our gate. Sweet!
So Segway guy takes off and we start chasing him. People move out of
the way of a speeding segway but were less eager to move for us. So
we're some random well dressed group of airport runners chasing down a
guy on a segway and we're trying not to run over anybody, which is
hard when you have your bags too. Luckily, we made it to our gate
pretty quickly with no injuries to any of us or any member of an
outside party so no charges were pressed. However, only after making
it to our gate, sprinting the whole way in our best sunday clothes
while carrying our bags, do we discover that our plane had left 2
MINUTES before we'd even arrived. So we sat our little group down and
started teaching everybody around us because we thought, "hey, if
we're stuck here for a little while, we might as well do what we came
here to do" So we actually found like 6 or 7 people to talk to! I
didn't actually teach anyone. I watched the luggage mountain.
While I was standing there with my bright and shiny nametag on, no
less that 4 Chinese people came up to me asking me where their gates
were. Now, I don't speak Chinese, and I don't work at the airport. 2
big problems. They didn't seem to pick up on either and were
persistent that I had the answers. I just took their tickets and then
pointed towards their gates. It was weird. After we'd been dendouing
for a while the other elders got us a hotel. We all rushed out to get
ourselves in a shuttle and on our way to food....when disaster struck.
Aoyama Shimai needed her bag. It took them 2.5 HOURS to get 1 bag!
we dondoued then too. Hipps Choro got a book written and signed by a
lady he talked to. He's not allowed to read it for 2 years, but he
has it. We also met a bishop that served in Japan like 20 years ago.
It was pretty fun I guess. Then we stood out in the rain while we
waited for our shuttle. The guy who drove it spoke, guess what,
Chinese. That was interesting too. We did make it to our hotel
though. Against all odds. But, because our trip hadn't been
interesting enough, they'd lost our reservations. So we had a weird
phone call with the church asking if we were at the right hotel. We
were! And they let us stay! Thank goodness.
We walked down to a gas station Wendy's for dinner and didn't even
get any weird looks. 12 well dressed teenagers walk in speaking
Japanese to each other, no one bats an eye. Anyway it was delicious
and we slept like rocks that night. The next day we showed up 3hrs
early to make sure we didn't miss our flight. We made it. Hipps
Choro had his birthday somewhere over the International Date Line, but
since we were all split up we didn't get to sing to him. Zannen. We
landed in Tokyo safely and quickly got our bags and met President
Nagano. Everything was smooth sailing with him.
We had 2 vans for all of us and our bags so we packed one with bags
and one with people. There were only 3 seats in one van, enough for
the companionship that was driving and one other person. Can you
guess who that person was? I'll give you a hint, they didn't speak
english. It was me. I got to ride with 2 Japanese elders for an hour
and a half. It actually was super fun. I can sort of speak Japanese!
We sang some hymns and talked about our hobbies etc. I liked it.
Then we made it to the Mission home, had an awesome dinner, and went
to bed. The next morning we played a crazy version of dodgeball
(elders only by the way) which was waaaay fun. After that we had
breakfast and then training all day. We went streeting for a little
bit and I loved that. We talked to a lot of people. After that I met
my companion, Elder Lewis. He's super cool. He's a Texas state
wrestling Champ and a semi-pro fighter. That's why Nagano Kaicho put
us together. I am very grateful for that.
We get along really well and we're going to teach a LOT of people
this week. He also helped me get a bike. Funny story, we were trying
to make it to this awesome bike shop that we had no idea how to get
to. So I tried to talk to this one guy on the street, and he walked
us ALL THE WAY TO THE STORE! It took like 30 minutes too! We just
talked to him about everything we knew how to the whole way. We got
his phone number and we're going to try to meet him again for lunch.
We also talked to a lot of people on the trains and gave out a decent
amount of BoMs. It's been fun and super busy so far. Oh yeah, I
introduced myself in church yesterday. I think it went well, they
laughed at all the right times. I told them I was super new, straight
out of the MTC. I'm what's called a Bean-chan. I told them I was
here to help even if I couldn't understand their Japanese. I also
told them that since I just got here from America I was tired. I
wasn't really but I needed an excuse for my Japanese and I thought it
would make them laugh. It did. Elder Rogers for the win! We talked
to a lot of people at church and I don't remember very many of the
names. When I said Dad was a Marine they made a joke that I thought
was super off-limits in Japan but I guess it works like black jokes
and Mexican jokes. They said that if anybody messed with me that Dad
would fly a plane over here and drop another bomb. Wow! Some of the
people here are definitely old enough to have lived during that time
but I guess it's ok if a Japanese guy says it.
It's been a little weird riding around on my super sick bike in a
suit but I kind of like it. It's probably for my own good that I'm
eating differently than at the MTC. There I got to eat 4 all you can
eat buffets a day. But it was bulking season, and now there's just
more of me to love. I'm living the broke missionary life now,
surviving on rations (just kidding Momma, I have plenty of food) but
it'll be good for me. I'm not stuffing my face constantly and sitting
around all day, I'm eating regular amounts of food and biking and
walking places. So I'll probably look like Bruce Lee again in no
time, right? Anyway, it's been great so far and I love it. Thanks
for tuning in this week, I'll try to send some pictures soon. I love
you guys.
Elder Rogers