I'm transferring to Ushiku! Most of you don't know where that
is. It's ok, I didn't either until I looked it up on Google Maps this
morning. It's Northeast of Tokyo and about an hour and a half from
Sakado, my current area. My new companion is Elder King. He's an
Aussie! I'm so excited! Ushiku apparently has a few old people
getting baptized soon. So President Nagano said where I'm going
should be really amazing. I'll be heading over there by myself on
Wednesday morning. My companion has been here for 3 transfers (4.5
months) so he told everyone he was leaving and I was staying. I
thought it was hilarious because everyone will be like, "Why are you
still here? And where's Elder Rogers?" Funny how that works.
Anyway, since I won't be in this area I can tell you all a story
that I couldn't before because I didn't want my momma to worry. But
I'm leaving on Wednesday so I can tell it now.
It was a dark and stormy night (really), the Elders were in their
apartments settling down for the day and studying like good little
missionaries before bed. All was quiet. Elder Rogers and Elder Lewis
were trying to learn Japanese out of textbooks, Elder Mutzelberg had
just arrived a few days before and was in the back room, Elder Oldham
was in the shower. When all of the sudden, they got a phone call.
Now that's not unusual, missionaries talk to lots of people and give
out their phone number freely. This got the missionaries excited, A
new Investigator! Not so. The voice on the other end of the phone
was one they knew, sort of, it was a little bit slurred and angry and
in Japanese so it was hard to understand. The only thing they could
make of it was that this person was angry and he wanted us to stop
being so loud.
"What? Was that the neighbor downstairs?"
"Yeah, he wants us to be quiet. I think."
"We're you making noise?"
"No. I haven't said a word or moved in 20 minutes."
Footsteps coming up the stairs.
"Did you lock the door?"
A rush as I run to lock the deadbolt and chain in place. Quiet again.
"Is someone out there?"
"I don't think so."
"GET OUT HERE!"
Confused missionaries look at each other, wondering what to do. Elder
Lewis asks the man to repeat himself. Again the answer is the same,
though barely understandable and followed by other drunken ramblings.
"We can't do that. We have a curfew and we need to go to bed in
a few minutes. Can we talk tomorrow?"
"COME OUT HERE RIGHT NOW! YOU'RE MAKING TOO MUCH NOISE!"
"We can't do that."
BANG!
Fear shows on the missionaries' faces. He's trying to break in! What
should we do?
BANG BANG BANG BANG!
That door doesn't sound like it's going to hold.
"Please leave or we'll call the police."
"COME OUT HERE!"
So the police are on the line...now what? How do you say, "a drunk
guy is trying to break into our apartment"? They didn't teach us that
in the MTC. Worry starts creeping in a little bit. We explain the
best we can but they don't seem to understand.
BANG BANG BANG!
The pulling on the door is getting more and more furious and the door
does not sound like it has much time left. Call the mission
president?
"Yup I am calling right now! President Nagano! There's a man
trying to break into our apartment right now! Help!"
Mission president to the rescue, he explains the situation and the
police are on their way. But will the door hold that long?
Missionaries can't be violent and this person is looking for a fight.
BANG BANG BANG...silence.
Are the police here?
Knock knock knock.
"Who is it?"
"The police."
The door is opened a tiny crack. It is the police. They have the man
under control and are talking to him downstairs.
"Are you ok? What happened?"
The story is told and the police escort the man back to his apartment
downstairs. They tell the man to stay there or he will go to jail and
then tell us to have a good night and leave. No one slept well that
night. Every noise was another attempt to break in to the worried
missionaries troubled minds.
A few days later President and Sister Nagano come over to talk to the
man. Me and Elder Lewis come with and sort the whole thing out. All
tensions are done away with and everything is resolved.
So that was the story I've been holding out on for a while. It
was pretty exciting and made for a great journal entry really. The
guy is totally nice now and he's only like 5 feet tall and 95 pounds
anyway. So nothing to worry about there.
This week has been less thrilling as far as attempted break-ins
go. We had lunch with some guys who knew the missionaries and they
were really cool. That same day we had dinner with a Chinese lady who
let me pray in front of her family and openly talked with me about the
Book of Mormon. She was previously dropped by us but she's getting
better.
We had splits on Tuesday and it was a lot of fun. We got 2
people's numbers and I stopped a bus full of soccer players. They
were all very energetic and happy and wanted to hear what we had to
say. They all took flyers and we invited them to church. They kept
calling us "Mormon!" And one guy kept saying that he was a mormon too.
We taught a lesson to the Ooishis and it went really well. They
even fed us ice cream and waffle cones for lunch afterward.
We met with a less active and he really wants to come back to
church but can't because of his work schedule. He asked us to pray
for him to get work off. We were expecting him to have problems with
the church but he just had work on Sundays. We visited the Ito couple
and had a lesson and dinner with them. It was great. He was a dendou
shunin which I don't know in English but it has to do with missionary
work.
We visited lots of members since we've been told to strengthen
the members ad it was close to transfer calls. We visited a lot of
people and helped out an older man with his farm work for a few hours
and then taught a lesson. It was really weird to wear normal people
clothes.
On Sunday at church we heard about Heavenly Mother. It also
happened to be the week that one of our investigators decided to come
back to church. So that was a little funny. After church we got to
go to a family home Evening with the Hirai Family and my goodness!
Their Family Home Evening was awesome! We sang and then we read from
the scriptures about the Good Samaritan. While the dad read the kids
acted it out with little stuffed animals and it was so funny! We
played some games after that and despite it being in Japanese and
playing against Japanese people I tied for 1st place! I lost the Rock
Paper Scissors for true winner though.
That was basically my week. Since I'll be transferring on
Wednesday morning I've been packing and it's going to be tight getting
everything in my bags. It's doable though and I like puzzle
challenges. Bring it on, suitcase.
Elder Rogers
No comments:
Post a Comment