The rest of this week

This week on Monday a Filipino man came up to us and asked me if we were the missionaries for the Mormon Church.  I told him yes and he said he's been a less active for 15 years because he couldn't find the church when he moved here.  We told him where it was and invited him to come.  He should be coming next week when we may or may not be talking.  We were supposed to give talks a couple of weeks ago but didn't because it somehow got double booked.  Anyway, he owns a restaurant nearby and we sometimes visit him.

     Now you all know about my bike accident but don't be fooled, it had no effect on the rest of my week.  The next day I rode a bike over to a close (in spirit not distance) friend's house named Eiji and did yard work for his family.  At the end of the day, just as we were going home actually, a neighbor came over with a Japanese weed whacker.  Now if you've never seen one of those before I'll just give a brief explanation.  Imagine a regular weed whacker had a baby with a circular saw.  That's the Japanese version.  He let Elder Purba borrow it and he finished the yard in about 20 minutes when it would've taken weeks by hand.  While he was hacking weeds I talked to Eiji's mom a little.  I gave her a pamphlet, the Gospel of Jesus Christ, and asked her to read it.  Her emphatic response,..........."No way!"

     "What?!  Really?"

     "Naaaaah, I'm just kidding."

     "So you'll read it, right?"

     "No way!  Hahaha!"

     "I'm dying inside right now! :("

     "I'm just kidding, I'll read it."

     She's such a punk.  :)  But we love her anyway.  She messed with us and pulled our heartstrings quite a bit but she really will read it and talk to us about it next time.  So yay!  She's a new investigator and her family loves us!  Her son Daiki and her daughter Moe were pretty concerned about my crash.  Moe (not pronounced like the 3 Stooges, mow the lawn + eh? I can't hear you) had crashed on her bike just a few days earlier pretty seriously and could empathize pretty well.  Daiki made sure I knew that he wanted me to be more careful.  He's 9.  We should be seeing them all on Wednesday, assuming the weather's good.

     Which brings me to another thing: there are 3 typhoons on their way.  One of them is actually here right now and it's pretty serious.  We're trapped in the church unless we want to get soaked and then blown away.

 We met a kid named Haruto a while back and gave him a Book of Mormon and taught him a lot but hadn't been able to meet with him for a while.  We decided to just take a day and find his house, even if it meant knocking on doors all day.  It didn't come to that because as we got off the train to go to his house he stepped out of the next car!  We walked home with him and the reason he hasn't been meeting with us is because he has a ton of homework.  More than during the school year actually.  He stays up until 2am studying and working because his teachers gave him a huge workload to do during summer break.  What kind of break is that?  Crazy as it sounds, he'll probably have more time during the school year to meet with us.  Luckily for him summer is almost over.

     I don't know how many of my American friends out there know about the Sapporo, Japan Temple Dedication but I got to watch it and it was awesome.  It's a beautiful building and the people are so grateful to have it.  I'm glad the people of Hokkaido (that's the island where the temple is) get to have the temple near now and can receive all the blessings of the temple.  It was really good to see.

Well Th-th-th-That's all folks!

Elder Rogers

 

Ammon Dendo!(missionary work)

We had lots of fun miracles this week.
     To start, we went to Tokyo's Little Germany which isn't actually
in Tokyo.  We biked there in like an hour and it was really cool.  I
probably already wrote about it but I forgot so maybe you forgot, so
let's all just reminisce together.  It was super cool, we rode
unicycles, played with bike-powered bubble machines (we're really good
at it), and even got to see a drum performance by high schoolers that
only come twice a year.  What are the chances that it would happen on
the P-day we go let alone any P-day!  Anyway, that's just one cool
thing from last P-day.  Now for the real stuff.
     On Tuesdays we go down to Tateyama.  Yama means Mountain in
Japanese and they weren't kidding when they named the place.  It's
miles and kilometers of up and up and up.  Both ways.  We got there
and it was hot so we decided to go to the mall and get lunch in the
AC.  While in the food court we saw a member family, the Kawaminamis.
We talked to them and the mom bought us drinks because it was so hot.
*So thankful, lifesaver.*  After that we talked to our 1 youth,
Takashi, about how he can get into BYU.  Then he practiced doing
backflips in different areas while we videoed.  It was super cool but
missionaries aren't allowed to ever since one Elder sprained his ankle
doing it. *sigh*  After hanging out with him for a little while we
went up (and by up I mean to the top of a STEEP mountain) to Mizuno
Shimai's house and did yard work for her.  She fed us (yay!) and gave
us ice cream to take home.  It didn't make it very far though.  Then
we decided that since we had already biked up 1 mountain that day, why
not bike through ALL  the mountains?  So we did.  We biked until we
hit ocean and then took a right towards a member's house.  She lives
waaaaay out there so no one ever visits her so we decided to change
that.  We stopped at a 7/11, they're everywhere here, to look up
directions.  Out of nowhere this guy just pulls up super fast and
almost hits Elder Purba!  He stopped like 3 inches from him!  He then
proceeded to get out of his car and scold us for....being here?
Somehow we got talking about how we're missionaries and what we do and
his heart softened.  I could see it.  It was so weird, but God works
like that sometimes.  He let us go and a few minutes later he caught
up to us and gave us ice cream!  What?!  We talked to him for a little
bit and now we're friends.  Twist ending, right?!  I'll bet you never
saw it coming.  I sure didn't.  We continued onward at about the pace
of a bullet and traveled around the peninsula to the member's house
AND.......she wasn't there.  BUT her daughter was and we gave her a
note to give to her mom.  So our efforts weren't totally in vain.  I
think.  I hope.  Ahh, it'll probably be alright.  Then we had to make
it back home before curfew so we decided to take the
shortcut........through the mountains.  We survived and made it back
with time to spare.
     We had Zone Conference this week and it was so needed.  After
getting all the trainings I realized I have a long way to go.  I made
a mental list of all the things that I need to start doing or need to
start doing better.  It was a pretty long list but I guess that means
I have lots of opportunities to improve.  :)  I know I'm a long way
from perfect but at least I have a perfect example to look to so I can
become better.  I know that by following my Savior's example I can
become a better missionary and a better person.  I'm so thankful I
have this opportunity to spend my time trying (key word there) to
become more like him.  I'm also very grateful that I'm not alone in my
feeble efforts and that He's right alongside me, pushing me along and
carrying me when I can't do any more.  I know that He lives and that
He loves me and I am grateful beyond words for his sacrifice.  I know
that He's here with each of us when we let him and that he's cheering
for each and every one of us because he wants all of us to make it
back to him.  And that's why I'm here, because he's saving me every
day and he wants me to do the same for his other children.
     So another big miracle from this week: we decided to go over to
Eiji's house and do yard work for his family.  He has a LOT of weeds.
Waist deep, thick as hair, weeds as strong as trees, you get the
picture.  Well we went down to the dollar store and got some gardening
supplies.  By that I mean we got 2 little $1 sickles and some gloves.
We showed up like, "We're her to do kusatori(that literally means
"weed pulling" but I'm not sure what it actually translates to) and
the mom was like, "Really?!  You go for it."  So we did and we thrust
in our sickles with our might just like D&C4 says to and we got
blessings!  The girls came out and talked to us (that's not the real
blessing lol) and were so happy we were working hard to help them.
Then we completely cleared out a big section of their yard and the mom
was thrilled.  She was so happy.  We went back the next day and it was
even better.  Elder Purba and I ran around hacking things like maniacs
and cleared up the whole back yard to make it more manageable to pull
out the weeds.  I pulled out several trees that she didn't want in
there because I like manual labor, service projects are my favorite,
and it looks a lot better now.  The mom bought us slushies and kept
sending her kids out with soda.  I found out that there was a 9 year
old boy in the house and got an idea.  I caught a lizard to lure him
out of the house and he took the bait.  Pretty soon we were catching
bugs together, playing street ball, and he even helped cut grass and
pull weeds!  By the end of the day we were best buds.  His name is
Daiki.  As we were going home we decided to go to Sushiro, a sushi
restaurant across the street from our apartment.  Well, lo and behold,
as we were walking in Daiki came running over and gave me a hug!
"Where do you come from?"  He then pointed over to a van that had his
whole family in it.  They had the same idea!  So we got put at
separate tables but that didn't stop the mom from coming to our table
and giving us ¥3000, that's $30.  We can't take money so we gave it
back and while doing so we were able to meet that father.  He liked us
more after that.  Their whole family likes us now and we'll be going
over more often, hopefully to teach them.
     All good things so far but sadly I have to bear bad news.
Kisarazu is know for having a lot of mentally sick, actually Joker or
Mad Hatter level insane people.  I have gone my whole stay without
meeting any of them thankfully.  That is until Sunday.  There's a guy
famous amongst missionaries know as John.  John is basically God in
his mind.  Or maybe not God, Superman maybe?  Anyway, he's crazy
beyond belief and he showed up just as church ended one day.  He's an
old guy, about 60 and I guess he drank the water here or got a brain
injury at some point.  Japan is very lenient with their mental laws
and so 90% of their crazy people are not being taken care of in mental
homes.  John believes that only people with blue eyes are human and
that everyone else is....some other species.  He also thinks that
non-humans are trying to poison him and that Aspirin is the antidote.
He eats like 20 a day or something.  He also believes he has super
strength and can clap like the Hulk to scare people away.  He believes
in Obama Bin-Laden.  He has a biplane that he once flew at supersonic
speeds and he discovered gravity.  He thinks Einstein and the like are
morons compared to him.  He's French royalty and he's mentioned in the
Bible in Revelations twice.  He's also meant to save humanity, people
with blue eyes.  So yeah, he's completely wacked out.  It was really
hard to get hi to leave too, but we did it.  That was it with him and
we now have an emergency action plan should he ever come again.
     And lastly we have today.  We got invited by 2 different groups
to go see fireworks.  I feel so loved.  Sadly we can only go with one
so one of them won't be feeling the same way.  While running errands
today a man approached me and asked, "Are you a missionary for the
Mormon church?"  "Yessiree, that's me!"  He then told me he was a less
active because he didn't know where the church was and I promptly
taught him the address.  He thought it was lucky that we met because
he had been wanting to come back to church.  He will be coming from
now on and we're going to see him on Wednesday!

Elder Rogers

O-Bon (Oh bone)

Hey everybody, I had another great week.  We saw a lot of small
miracles and lots of crazy things.

    So to start off the week we visited our friend Haruto.  Haruto is
a sophomore in a private school we volunteered at about a month ago.
He speaks English pretty well, he can hold a conversation, and likes
us.  So we'd met him a couple times before and he said it was ok to
stop by on Monday.  So we went to the train station by his house and
he was there waiting for us.  He came on his bike and it was kind of
messed up.  Elder Purba fixed his bike (service points!) while I
talked to him.  He's got a lot of homework to do (yeah, Japanese kids
do homework during their 1 month summer "break") but he's already read
50 pages of the Book of Mormon!  He really likes it so far and we said
we'd throw him a party when he finishes.  I'm excited, he's reading it
everyday on the train and really thinks about it.  He's just a kid!
But he's so cool and prepared.
    On Tuesday we went way down the peninsula to do garden work for a
member.  She has a big yard and she does things old school so she
handed us a couple of scythes and said go for it.  We cut the grass
and pulled weeds and fought giant spiders.  It was fun and I got a
cool tan line from the gloves I was wearing.  She made us some little
waffles and gave me a big thing of mugicha (wheat tea.  Don't worry
it's ok) to take home.  She lives on the top of a mountain and going
down is really fun and fast.  I belted my iPad to my chest and rode
down while videoing but I messed up.  I did a time lapse instead of a
video so you can't really tell how fast we're going.  We hit 48mph.
On a bike that's really fast.  We also saw some giant parade floats
and a jet pack.  I'll attach videos.

     The Sister's area got closed so there's no more Sisters.  They gave us the
key and said we could go get whatever food they left in the fridge.  They
had some good food that we happily took.  Something that most Elders
don't know is what the inside of a Sisters' apartment looks like.  I do and
let's just say that it is so much bigger and so much nicer than an Elder's
apartment.  I guess that's because we would never see their apartment in
most cases.  But now I know and the favoritism is obvious!  Lol. 
     We were streeting by the sew wall in our area when we noticed this
white guy.  Normally I'm the only white guy within at least 30 something
miles or so.  I gave him the nod of 'yeah I saw you what's up' but kept on
riding.  We decided to turn around and talk to him.  Good choice.  He's
from Texas and he has a Mormon friend.  We talked to him for a while,
it was so good to speak English again.  he says he wants to meet again
and play basketball or something and his friend (Japanese girl, not
girlfriend, girlfriend's friend) says she wants to come too!  As we were
talking to them we noticed lots of people gathering.  Turns out that right
where we were standing is a special spot for Pokémon Go and a crowd 
of 60+ people come there every night to play!  Who knew!  We're
planning on going back later and seeing what we can make of it. 
     Due to the fact that the Sisters left the area, we now teach the Children's
English Class.  It was so fun.  There's two kids ages 9 and 7ish and a little
teeny tiny girl named Iroha (Ee-row-ha) that's like 2.  We sang the ABC's
with them twice and even the Iroha got it! When we finished the 1st time
she said, "one more time!"  I couldn't argue with her so we did it again.
Then we sang the Hello song from Primary.  We taught them animal names
and shapes.  We introduced them to Monkey in the Middle and they loved
it.  It was fun for us too. 
     We heard music outside one night and found a festival for O-Bon going
on at the bottom of our hill.  We checked it out and it was pretty cool,
though it was pretty small.   On the way home I bought a pizza which never
happens in Japan because it cost over $28!  It was totally worth it though
because we never eat pizza.  We met a biker gang in front or our cul de sac
and they were pretty cool.  I said hello, got the typical response, "Harro" and
I knew we were going to be friends.  One of them rode a Hello Kitty
motorcycle on purpose.  His girlfriend and dad live right next to us actually
and now we're friends.  Another one of them likes English so we offered to
teach him.  After biker gangs and pizza were over we went to visit Eiji, our
less active friend.  On the way to is house Elder Purba felt prompted to check
a fighting gym near us.  I peeked my head through the sliding doors and he
was there!  The gym leader waved us in and we got to sit and watch.  It was
super cool.  Some of the guys were really good and one of them was as toned
as Bruce Lee.  Eiji did pretty good but we think he's still a beginner.  It was
cool to see him doing something he likes.
     Yesterday was Fast and Testimony meeting.  Elder Purba and I did it and
then our only youth di it too.  It was awesome to see him.  Takashi, get up and
bear his testimony.  Then after church he showed me his backflip he's been
working on since I taught him how to do it. He's really good.  We visited
 members because they almost never get visited.  They all live pretty far away. 
We visited Ichihara Shimai and we offered service, she offered chicken.  We
were still fasting so we didn't take it then.  Then we went to go visit Kobayshi
Shimai and she lives pretty far away.  On the way we saw and old man taking
pictures of a flower and Elder Purba thought he recognized him.  She we talked
to him and it was Kenji Tsuboi!  He doesn't have a phone or email and the only
way to contact him is through Facebook which he never uses. This guy is a ghost,
a ninja that can never be found, bet we ended up going right where we needed to
be at the right time!  He's going to come to our English class now and meet with
us when he can.  After that we continued on and saw lanterns hanging over the
street and heard music playing so we followed it until we found a big festival.
There were more people there than in the entire area next to ours!  It was crazy! 
Elder Purba somehow bumped into someone he knew.  It was a tank engineer
who used to come to English class.  He going to start coming again.  After that
we headed back to the festival in time for the dancing and music.  They had
these little teeny drummers and his 4 or 5 year old girl was killing it.  Later on
that night her big brother came out (I don't know if he was actually her brother
but he was pretty enthusiastic) and just went hard on those drums.  There was a
stage in the middle they invited the kids to go dance on and it got some people
pretty excited.
     I know we were guided by God's hand this week as we went out and worked.
We never would have met some of the people we did otherwise.  I know if we're
doing what we're supposed to that God will place us where we need to be, when
we need to be there.  I'm very grateful to be able to see so many miracles each and
every day and love my time here as a missionary.  I wouldn't be anywhere else if
I could pick because I know I'm right where I need to be.

I love you all.  Remember who you are and what you stand for.  Be good. 
Elder Rogers

FIESTA!!!

First things first, eating taco rice/tacos with chopsticks is HARD.

Hello everyone,
   This week was pretty good.  We also had transfer calls this morning
and the results are..........I am staying in Kisarazu!  Elder Purba
had been here for four transfers already, that's six months, so it was
only a matter of time.  He'd already spent a quarter of his mission in
this one area.  So President Nagano decided, "Ah, whatever.  Let's
just keep him there for another transfer and bump it up to 7 AND A
HALF MONTHS."  So he's staying too.  :)  The other Elders in Chosei
are also staying.  The sisters changed though.  Sister Ortega went
home and Sister Domino went to Tokyo.  We made transfer bets and I bet
that Elder Purba would stay and Sister Domino would go to Tokyo.  I
won.
   As for the rest of the week, we had a lot of miracles.  I had
splits with Elder Watabe on Tuesday and it was amazing!  So many
miracles crammed into one day!  We went to visit Eiji, he's a less
active, and we saw a kid on the road in front of his house.  We went
and talked to him and as we were talking his friend came up behind us
and we started talking to him too.  They both had interest and became
new investigators!  That's 2!  That's more than most people usually
get in a week over here for those who don't know.  Then we went down
the street a little farther and found 3 kids coming back from baseball
practice.  They wanted to learn more about Heaven and became new
investigators.  Now the count's up to 5.  Before they had left 3 more
of their friends walked over and they had interest too!  We found 8
new investigators in 1 hour!  It was so awesome.  Then we finally went
to visit Eiji but he wasn't home.  His mom was though and she was
really nice.  She likes that we're friends with her son and take care
of him.  She also likes that we teach free English and wants her kids
to come.  Then we went back to the station and found 3 kids that
wanted to learn English.  They wanted to learn right then, so we took
them and taught them.  They really liked it and so we got 3 new
students.  We've been trying for over 5 weeks so it was a really good
feeling.  As we started heading home we stopped 2 guys but they didn't
have interest.  Luckily, this one girl did and literally jumped into
our conversation with her 2 friends.  So they might come to our
tutoring too!  It was just an amazing day.
   We had a 79year-old man come to our English class and he was really cool.
   We visited our friend, the Kisarazu Bad-Daddy himself, Brother
Sugimoto and had dinner together.  His family is just awesome.
They're so nice.  We talked about the differences between Japan and
America and how God blesses his people.  We just talked to him and his
family for a while and it was great.
   We had a Latin Night (fiesta) for Sister Ortega's going home.  It
was a huge success.  We went and picked up Eiji from his house and saw
his little sisters there.  We invited them and they took a train to
get there.  We beat them to the party ;).  We had as many people (or
more) come to the party as are in our branch!  That's only like 20
people, but that's a lot for a party in Japan.  It was really cool.
Elder Purba and I made a lot of food (taco rice) and brought the fun.
The Sisters made 2 piñatas.  I punched one across the room while
blindfolded and Eiji kicked one across the room (he does kickboxing).
There was music and dancing and it was fun.  Eiji really seemed to
have a good time and opened up as the night went on.  He's usually
pretty reserved and keeps to himself but we go to him ;).
   We live in a neighborhood of young families so there are a lot of
kids around us.  They're all under 7 and loved to mess with the Gaijin
(foreigners).  We get ding-dong ditched all the time and they always
want to play during study time.  This week we had a brilliant idea.  I
was reading the New Testament and came across the Fishers of Men
scripture.  Why not be fishers of men?  Let's buy a fishing pole, put
a piece of candy on the end, and fish out of our 2nd story window?

Since they were banging on our door this morning we decided to chase

them around the neighborhood and they freaked out!  They thought we

were going to eat them or something.  Then they chased Elder Purba

around with cicada shells trying to put them on him.  It was really funny.

That was about it for the week.  Thank you all for reading, take care, lots

of love, Bye Bye.

Elder Rogers

Pokemon

Dear family and friends,
This week may have been the best of my mission so far.

  I will start with the spiritual things that were really awesome.  We
saw soooooo many miracles this week, and not just in our area.  Our
whole zone started seeing miracles everyday after we told them about
ours.  So let's get started.
  First off I have to just say that this week I was really discouraged
and sad.  I've been out for about 8 months and have seen almost
nothing for it.  I can count the number of actual investigators I've
had on one hand.  Let's just say I was struggling.  So Elder Purba and
I were praying really hard for something to happen, but it didn't look
like anything would.  We went out everyday and worked our hardest
and......nothing happened.  And then one day, SOMETHING(S) HAPPENED!
  Remember a couple of weeks ago when we went to a private Middle/High
School called Shorin?  Well I traded Facebook and emails with the
students in hopes that one of them would want to meet us.  Well, one
of them did!  His name is Haruto and he's super cool.  He wanted to
meet us on Thursday at 5pm.  We were so excited but for some reason we
forgot about it.  Typical 18/19-year-old guys.  Anyway, we were
sitting around the apartment doing weekly planning and feeling bad
that we had no one to teach when I remembered something.  I say
remembered but I would speak in other words, the Spirit whispered
something to me, "Don't forget about Haruto."
  "Elder Purba!  Haruto!"
  "Oh shoot.  When were we meeting him?"
  "Thursday."
  "Today's Thursday!  What time?"
  "5 o'clock."
  "It's 5:04!"
  We botched it.  I text him really fast like, "hey, we're still
meeting today right?"  And he texts back, "yeah, I'll be there in 15
minutes.  Looking forward to it!"
  Now back to panic mode, but this time there's some hope.
  "Elder Purba, we have 15 minutes!"
  "I'll look up the train!"
  We get on our rain gear (for it was raining at the time) at record
speed of under 30 seconds and bike to the church where we look up the
train.
  "It leaves in 4 minutes!"
  We sprint to the train station at a speed The Flash would envy and
make it to the platform as the doors are OPENING.  We did it in under
a minute.  I remembered that Haruto told me he lived in Sodegaura so
we headed that direction.  We get there just before the meeting time
and he's not there.  Ok, were still good, we just have to wait a few
minutes.  5 minutes.  10 minutes.
  Text: Where are you?
  Us: At the station.
  Him: Me too.
  We quickly run around the station thrice but not once see him.
  Us: Uuuuuuhhhhh, which station?
  Him: Kimitsu.
  ACKK!  We screwed up again!
  Him: I have to go now.... :(
  Us: Wait!  Where are you going?
  Him: Home in Sodegaura.
  Rejoicing and joyful noises foreign to the land of Japan filled the
station that day.  We had not failed!  JK, we failed hard.  More than
once.  But God does not let His children fail.  If someone wants to
hear the gospel, He will make it happen.  No matter how many times his
missionaries slip up.  I know He planned that whole day out and made
it possible for everything to work out.  But we're not done yet!
  We meet him at the correct station this time and since it has become
dinner time we take him out to dinner.  He calls his mom to ask if
it's ok and she comes by to give him some money.  We see her briefly
and she is completely fine with him talking to us!  That never
happens!  Mothers drag their kids down the street to stay away from
us, but not his miracle child!  We go to a nearby restaurant and get
some good food to eat.  We talk to him about life and what he wants to
do now that it's summer break, etc. etc.  We get real close with him
and now he loves us.  As we talk we teach about the Restoration and
Joseph Smith and the Book of Mormon.  Then we give him a Book of
Mormon.  He says it's super awesome and he's so glad he has one now.
He still goes to school even though it's summer break because Japan so
I asked him how long it takes to get there.  It takes him 1 hour or so
by train to get to school each day.  I asked him what he did on the
train and he spoke music to my ears.
  "I listen to music and play game on my phone.  But now, I read this
Book of Mormon."
  He's so prepared and ready to hear the gospel.  He's willing to act
on our message too which, by PMG definition, makes him one of the
elect.  It took 5 weeks of disappointment but it was so worth it.  We
will be meeting him again soon and we will probably talk about
baptism!

  Aside from miracle-boy Haruto we've seen some other cool miracles.
A couple of weeks ago as we were coming back from a District Meeting
in Chosei we met some college tennis players on the train.  I started
talking to them and all of them were pretty interested in 'the
missionary life.'  One of them was the #1 player in all of Kanto and
he had the most interest.  He wanted to come to church and meet us to
learn about Jesus and we were happy to oblige.  Only one problem, he
lives in Tokyo and he's busy until September.  So actually 2 problems.
The good news is that he wants to learn through email in his free time
so we will definitely do it.  When we get his specific address we'll
send the appropriate missionaries to visit him.

LESS SPIRITUAL STUFF AHEAD
(But still cool)
  So we've been trying super hard to get people to come to our
tutoring for like 5 weeks.  We handed out somewhere near 800 flyers
for it to kids and their parents.  I mean it's free, other places can
cost over $100!  This should be a no-brainer, right.  Well apparently
not because no one came, BUT, one day a mom called us asking if we
could teach her son English!  We said yes, set up a time, hung up the
phone, and then FLIPPED OUT!  Finally!!  So we met the kid and taught
him English and he had a good time and learned a lot, for free.  He
should be coming often now and we're excited for it.
   We have 2 youth in our Branch of 17 people and one of them is
leaving on her mission to Hawaii next week.  So we have 1 youth.  His
name is Takashi and he's pretty cool.  On Sunday after church we were
hanging out in the park 3 steps in front of the church because it was
nice weather.  He looked at me and said, "Can you teach me how to do a
backflip?" out of nowhere.
   "Yeah, I know how to do it."
   So I explain all the parts and tell him 'just don't freak out.'  15
minutes later with no injuries he can do it fine!  Super cool.  He
even went out and did it in the street which I thought was crazy.
Anyway, through this experience we really bonded and he grew to like
and trust me.  We also got to have fun in the process and now he has a
cool party trick.  Working with the youth can be pretty cool
sometimes.
   Another thing about working with young people; President Nagano
wants us to really bond with the young people so they'll know they can
trust and rely on us.  We're supposed to spend as much time with young
people as possible, doing what they want to do.  Note: it must always
have a missionary purpose and we are not just there to be their
"bros".  We do everything as missionaries and teach them as we go.  We
did this on Saturday by going to all the parks in a city close by.  At
one particular park there was a big open space with kids playing
soccer.  We joined in with them and kicked their butts as we taught
them.  We'll preach and teach and SCORE as missionaries do. :)  We had
a great time and invited all of them to learn more with us.
   Now, for the title.  Something big has happened in Japan.  I'm
talking bigger than SkyTree.  I'm talking bigger than Tokyo.  I'm
talking bigger than RICE!  This is the greatest thing since sliced
bread (and I learned how to say that just because of this).  It's
Pokemon.  Nintendo just took over Japan with their new game called
Pokemon Go.  It's like Google Maps but there's Pokemon all over it.
Anyway, Japanese people like their Pokemon so it hit hard over here.
I mean everyone has it.  Everyone.  Teenagers, little kids with their
parents, 45-year-old Japanese businessmen, 105-year-old grandmas.
Everyone is doing it.  People do it while they ride their bikes,
people walk around and do it, I've seen people playing it while they
drive, it's everywhere.  It has changed Japan overnight and I'm happy
to say in a very good way.  For some reason Japanese people sit in
their houses all day, don't have any friends, and are super grumpy.
BUT, now everyone is on the streets from dusk to dawn and dawn to dusk
(seriously, I asked people and they stay up until 3am to do this).
Why is this a good thing?  Since everyone is out on the street, people
run into each other and become friends.  BOOM!  Japanese people now
have friends and are happy.  2 birds, 1 stone.
Aaaaaaand...missionaries spend all their time on the streets trying to
find people.  Now there are people to find!  And their phone is in
their hand so they can't tell heir usual lie that they don't have one.
But for some reason everyone is happy to talk to us now, no one tells
us to get lost or anything.  Something coincidentally cool is that at
some monuments you can get free stuff for the game.  Well, at the park
in front of our church we have one of those monuments!  So people
wander around our church all the time!  If we wanted to we could sit
on it and talk to people as they come by.  To give you an idea of how
big this is I'll use some numbers.  Before Pokemon we would talk to
maybe 7-11 people a day.  After Pokemon came out we talked to 51!  And
that wasn't even everyone.  So yeah, because of Pokemon of all things,
we've been able to find more investigators and do missionary work more
effectively.  God sure does work in mysterious ways but hey, take what
you can get, right?

So that was my crazy week.  I love you all, take care.  Gotta find 'em
all! (Investigators)

Let me explain....No, there is too much. Let me sum up.

Hello everybody!
This week was crazy.  I took a ton of pictures and tried to send them
out but it was too big so I'll have to send out many small emails this
week, sorry.  This email will be the events and maybe a couple of
pictures, the following emails will be the remaining pictures.
Ok, let's get started.

     So this week we had Temple P-Day.  I think I wrote about it
before, but I'm writing about it again because it was cool.  We rode
the AquaLine to get to Tokyo.  It's this cool underwater highway that
goes across the Tokyo Bay.  There's a mall out there too.  Sometimes
it leaks and fish fall through...just kidding!  It's perfectly safe.
But you know that game where you have to hold your breath while you're
in a tunnel?  I died.  Several times.  It's like a 40something minute
ride.  After we got to Tokyo I was feeling a little fishy...we went to
the fish market.  They kicked us out and said it wasn't open until 10,
so we had to leave.  We went to the temple and had an awesome session.
There were a lot of missionaries, probably over 40.  Then we grabbed
some other Elders, Elder Roberts, Elder Sharp (they were with me in
the MTC), Elder McCune, and Elder Ishikawa.  Naturally Elder Purba and
I were the leaders even though we were just as clueless as everyone
else.  I've spent all my time in the rice fields, I don't know the
city!  But they let me lead the way and we didn't get lost.  We went
to the zoo and it was pretty awesome.  We got there in time to see
them feed the penguins and then it started to close.  We hightailed it
all over the place, taking pictures as we went and then made a mad
sprint for the pandas before they kicked us out.  It was fun.  After
the zoo we went to the Hard Rock Cafe.  One small burger cost me
almost as much as a week of groceries!  Luckily I had a lot of money
saved up.  After dinner the other elders went home.  Elder Purba took
me to a giant lantern and then we went to SkyTree tower.  We didn't
have time to go up but we saw the bottom.  Then we sprinted across the
city, saw the sister training leaders and smiled so as to appear not
crazy, and then jumped on a train to a bus to our bikes back home.  It
was an awesome day.
     Then, that same week we went to a private Middle/High School
called Shorin to volunteer to help the students with a BYU speech
contest.  It was really fun and we helped a lot of kids.  Now here's a
miracle to go with that.  I traded emails with some kids and wrote to
them and one boy wrote back saying that he wants to meet us!  This
week!  I'm excited, he's a really cool kid.
     Oh, something that I've noticed is that my emails seem to have
become more like Nephi's large plates: just the history and not the
spiritual.  Sorry, I will repent and start putting at least my
testimony in every weekly email.  Anyway, for this BYU speech contest
the kids were supposed to write about families.  Let me tell you,
Japanese kids cannot write a happy story, especially about families.
All of their stories were about how they have terrible relationships
with their families or how they never see their family because they're
at cram school or work.  It was super sad.  It made me think about my
family and how grateful I am to have a family who loves me.  I have
lots of great memories of spending time with my family and having fun.
We take care of each other and care about each other.  We aren't
afraid to say that we love each other.  I wish everyone could have a
good relationship with their family.  Now this might sound like I'm
just saying it because I'm a missionary but it's true, if these kids
had the gospel in their life they would be happy.  They would know
that they can be with their families forever and how important they
are.  They would know that we're all part of one big family and that
God is our Father.  They'd feel loved and important.  They just need
to know.  I try to tell them all the time but they just don't seem to
have any self esteem.  I wish they would listen so they can feel the
Spirit telling them that it's true and that God really does love them.
After being around them I thought a lot about families and how
important they are.  I don't remember where it's written but some cool
guy once said, "The home is the only place that can compare to the
temple in sacredness."  Two songs I thought of about families were
'Love at home' and 'Families can be together forever.'  I really like
those songs because of the simple message they teach and the hope they
bring.  You should listen to them or sing them sometime.  (That's not
for a specific person, you should all do it ;) )  I guess the point is
that families are important.
     Throughout the week we go out and look for people to 1) become
new investigators and 2) at least come to our free tutoring.  We have
been doing this all day every day for nearly 4 weeks with no results,
until now.  We had someone come!  It was an old man that Elder Purba
met five-ever ago but he still came and had a great time.
     We had splits with the Zone Leaders this week.  Elder Viehwig and
I were together and we talked to everyone by the train station.  We
got a little bit lost but it turned out to b a good thing because we
found an 18-year-old kid who is interested in the gospel.  He doesn't
have time but we told him that when he does some missionaries like us
will probably appear and when that happens, he should listen to them.
We also met a cool firefighter who became a new investigator!  We're
meeting him on Wednesday and he really likes Jesus because he helped
everyone.  He became a firefighter so he could help people so he
really looks up to Jesus now.
     On Sunday we had a surprise.  We were supposed to teach the
Sunday School lesson but completely forgot!  It was about the
importance of work and how to balance it with recreation and
relaxation.  A funny thing I'd like to point out, Japanese has 3
alphabets.  One of them is designated for foreign words.  Relax is
spelled using that alphabet.  Yeah.  Anyway, I just went for it and we
had a good discussion.  It turned out really good.  After church we
had a Branch (more like a Twig) lunch.  We set everything up and
comfortably fit all 17 of us in and then we sang for a girl who will
be going to Hawaii on her mission next week.  So lucky.  You have to
be the luckiest person alive to get called to Hawaii.  Anyway she was
happy and cried and gave a speech and it was awesome.

And that's the week.  Now, like I promised, a brief testimony.

     I know now more than ever that this church is true, that God is
at the head of it and that He is completely and totally in charge.  He
is hastening His work in all corners of the Earth.  He has promised us
that if we do our part well in helping build His kingdom, we will have
a place prepared for us in it.  I know President Thomas S. Monson
receives revelation for us as a church that we can know how best to
fulfill our purpose.  I know we all have a purpose and that God really
does have a plan for all of us individually.  We may have our own
plans that we think will make us happy but I promise that His way is
better.  He sees what we can't see and He knows what's best for us.
If we are humble enough to listen to Him when He speaks to us, whether
that be through a prophet, the scriptures, or just a feeling, that we
will receive guidance and support. He gives us exactly what we need to
get through each day.  I know this church is true and I love it with
everything I am.  I say these things in Jesus' holy name, amen.

Love you, take care and be good!
Elder Rogers

Temple P-Day!

Hello once again friend, family, and others that my mom asked be put
on the list,
(Just kidding I love y'all)

     So, first off for this week I had splits with Elder Ito.  He's
Japanese and I actually knew him back in Sakado, my first area.  So
we're practically best buds.  He's really cool.  We spoke Japanese all
day together and it was really cool to see how far I've come since the
MTC.  I'm still at a lower level than a 6-year-old but I can survive.
We worked hard all day trying to find people and we talked to
everyone.  We traded phone numbers with 3 people who said they'd want
to meet again!  And then yesterday I saw one of them on the street
again!  He was still interested and we're going to do a church tour
with him.
     We had a really cool District Meeting that my companion set up
and I learned a lot of good skills.  I just want to continually try
new things and improve.  Elder Purba is a little self-conscious so he
asked me if his training was boring.  I'll send you a video of how he
took my answer.  ;)
     We visited the Kisarazu Bad-Daddy, Brother Sugimoto, this week
and I love him!  He is super funny.  He lives right down the street
from a really big, really nice, great and spacious, Yakuza (Japanese
Mafia) house.  He says they're not that bad of neighbors actually.  He
even used to be friends with some of them but then decided against it.
     We went to do volunteer work at a Private Middle/High School
twice last week.  We were helping students with their English BYU
Speech Contest about the importance of families.  It was really good,
except I discovered that families are absolutely destroyed by Japanese
lifestyles.  Families never spend any time together, and when they do
they don't know how to act.  Honestly, everyone just needs to hurry up
and join the church because it would fix every single problem they
have.  But anyway, we helped them out and they love us now and we're
going back two more times this week.
     And finally, we met with a guy who wanted to learn about our
religion.  Or so we thought.  He brought a friend, which we thought
was cool until we realized that neither were interested in our
religion at all.  They kept trying to convert us to Buddhism but we
were like, "Why would I ever give up my happiness and salvation to
live a life full of sadness and loneliness like you guys?"  Well we
didn't convert, but they sure didn't either.
     Today is temple P-day and Elder Purba and I have quite a day
planned.  We're going all over Tokyo and hitting all the cool spots.
I'll send lots of pictures.  Love you all!

Elder Rogers