Goin' off the rails on a crazy train!

So this week was crazy.  President Nagano decided I should become
District Leader and Train at the same time.  So this week was pretty
busy.

     The first couple days I was still with Elder Purba.  We packed up
all of his stuff and then went to the beach town of Tateyama to visit
a member.  She made us food and we just talked to her.  She was there
when they built the Tokyo temple!  And she worked in it for 30 years!
She's awesome and I'm so glad we get to go visit her every week.  We
also visited an older lady we met last week and she was so nice.  She
let us in and let us teach her a little bit.  We're going to go visit
her again next week and teach her some more.
     Then Transfer Day came.  There was much crying.  Elder Purba just
couldn't bear the thought of leaving me (;  I dropped him off at Koiwa
and then continued on to pick up my Trainee.  I happened to run into
Elder Rhea on the way so we just went together.  It was nice seeing
him again.  We made it to the Mission Home safe and sound and mostly
on time.  We got to introduce our areas and even though I did a poor
job of it and left a lot out, I think it still sounded pretty cool.
Yup, Kisarazu is definitely my favorite area so far.  Thankfully I
will stay here for another 3 months while I train my new
companion.......Elder Wilcox!  He's a big boy, 6 foot and 180lbs.  He
can also grow a beard twice in a day.  He's actually so big that when
we went to go buy his bike, they told him they didn't have one big
enough and had to order one.  Lol.  We're currently using one of Elder
Purba's bikes he left behind.
     On his first full day as a missionary we were able to have a
Skype lesson with Jonivar, our Filipino investigator.  Not that first
time but the next time we called him, we were able to set a baptismal
date with him!  Woohoo!  That was super cool.
     Like I said, this week was super busy.  We had a lot of meetings
to go to.  I had to go to District Leader training one day, Zone
Meeting the next, and then they sent out a PDF on how to teach
yourself to be a trainer.  Every minute of my day has been packed full
of things to do and everything is fast paced.  It's probably just
crazy because it's the first week.  Things should calm down after a
little while.
     They've been teaching us a lot of new ways to teach and find and
do both at the same time.  I didn't know if I could do it, but with
some practice it's really starting to pay off.  We've found a lot of
new people.  Something they suggested to us was asking people on the
street what they think is most important.  It's a good question and
9/10 people I've talked to respond with "family."  I think that's
really cool because our church believes in eternal families.  When I
tell people about it they think it's really cool and a lot of people
agree to meet and learn more.
     This week Moe told me that she was going to a Matsuri.  I love
Matsuris so I was all over that.  After many confusing texts and much
searching of Google maps, I found the location and we were able to go.
Elder Wilcox had never been to a Matsuri before so I thought it would
be good for him.  Matsuris (festivals) are really good for
missionaries because there are a lot of happy people all in a small
space.  They're much more approachable and since they're happy, much
more likely to listen to you.  We were able to trade phone numbers
with 5 people including an English teacher who may be able to get us
to volunteer at his Middle School!  We talked to a ton of people.  Moe
was there working one of the game stalls and she made so much money.
She says she just sits there all day and it's pretty boring so we'll
probably try to go again and teach her and talk to her soon.  We were
able to teach her a little bit and she said she'd help Elder Wilcox
learn Japanese since he's new.  At the end of the day the men got
together and ran up a mountain with the Ark of the Covenant and Elder
Wilcox thought it was pretty cool.  I got too caught up in the moment
and forgot to record anything or take pictures.  Sorry Mom.

Elder Rogers

 

District Leader AND Training!

When I first came to Kisarazu this area had nothing going for it.
Now, we see crazy miracles almost every day!  This past week was a
great way to end the transfer.

    To start the week we went to go visit a new investigator (we're
getting a lot of those now) that Elder Purba found during a split.  We
went to his house and he wasn't there so we decided we'd just look for
him on the ride back home.  Well, as we were riding down the street
Elder Purba sees Souken (the guy we're looking for)!  We talked to him
and went to a park together.  We taught him some basic skills like
giving/receiving directions in English, introductions, and how to
throw a football.  It was really cool and he wants to meet us every
week now!
    One of our progressing investigators (we have 4 now, which is 4
more than before) is reading the Book of Mormon and praying every day.
I call her every night and explain a scripture story to her, then she
reads it and prays about it.  She's doing really good right now.
    We had a going-away party with the Nakazatos for Elder Purba just
in case he left.  He's been here for 7.5 months!  We went to Sushiro
and had a ton of sushi.  Naturally, Miyuki wouldn't let us pay and
forced us to eat more than we wanted to.  She's so nice it hurts
sometimes.  My stomach and her wallet.  Speaking of which, we moved
Ichihara Shimai's furniture around for her and then she literally
dragged Elder Purba (I had to follow) into a buffet and made us eat a
ridiculous amount of vegetables.  It was good but I didn't really need
6 plates of it.
    We had splits and Elder Watabe and I were together this time.  We
ran into a Less Active member that Elder Purba and I had been trying
to contact for 3 months on the street and I was able to introduce
myself to her.  We invited her to church and she said she'd try to
start coming again.  I Facebook messaged a college student I met a
while back asking if we could meet again and he said yes!  We're
mutually very excited.  Elder Watabe and I visited another Less Active
named Jun and invited him to church and he said he'd try to bring a
friend too!  Elder Purba and Elder Johnson managed to find a new
investigator during the splits and called a Former Investigator who
wants to meet again and learn more!  While Elder Purba and I were
trying to find the new investigator's house we accidentally messed up
and knocked on the "wrong" door.  A college girl came out and we were
just like, "why not?  Let's try to teach her."  Turns out she has some
interest and wants to learn English from us.  We asked if we could
come back and she said yes.
    And lastly we have Jonivar.  He's a jacked Filipino guy who has a
crazy job that keeps him from coming to church sometimes.  He flies in
a helicopter to the top of electrical towers and paints them.  But if
the weather is bad he can't do it and gets the day off.  Well the past
2 Sundays it's rained so he came to church.  This week we taught him
how to pray and he said he'd pray every day from now on.  We also
talked about the Restoration and asked him if he believes it.  He said
yes and wants to get baptized!  We just have to make sure he
understands everything first and is ready for baptism.  I think he
will definitely get baptized.  :):):)  I've been waiting a long time
for this so I'm going to work really hard to get him ready.
    I forgot to mention Transfer Calls.  Elder Purba will go to Kiryu
West and become Zone Leader there.  His area will be Koiwa, which is
famous for its big and supportive Ward.  The #1 most supportive Ward
in the mission.  As for me, I will be staying in Kisarazu because
President Nagano still has work for me here.  I'm the new District
Leader and I will also be training.  It's a lot of new
responsibilities at once, so wish me luck.  I'll need it.  My District
has changed a little bit.  Elder Purba and Elder Watabe are both
becoming Zone Leaders somewhere else.  Elder Johnson and I are staying
and training.  Also worthy of note, Elder Beckstrand and Elder
Jackson, my MTC companions, both became District Leaders!
     I'm looking forward to a great next transfer and hope I can
improve enough to handle it.  Wish me luck!

A store at the mall where Ichihara Shimai took us to get lunch.

Elder Purba's Catch of the day.

The whole Sugimoto family.  This picture in itself was a huge miracle because the daughter on the far left never come inside if the missionaries are over.  She did this time. :)


 

Elder Rogers

Beach Olymipics for Zone P-Day

I'm just going to start off by saying that I am very satisfied with
how this week went.  It had its ups and downs but I'd say the good
outweighed the bad.

     Last week we found some Potential Investigators during splits and
this week we went to visit them again.  One of them sadly chose to
quit Christianity, however, the other is a young mom and her mother
was Protestant so she's open to learning about Christianity.  She's
fine with us teaching her.  Yay!  We had English Class and our artist
friend came.  He draws comics and then gives us the rough drafts.  We
also had a new student named Haruka come and she was interested in the
church too.  Our artist friend started to teach her about Joseph Smith
and the gold plates.  We didn't even know he knew that!  One of our
members who was there decided to join in and they started teaching
Haruka right there!  It was super cool and because of it Haruka wants
to meet and learn more.  After English Class we went to visit a Less
Active member named Jun.  He owns a karaoke food bar by the station so
we went there to see if he was working.  He was there and he sat us
down, fed us, and told us that he wanted to come back to church.  He
also is going to bring some friends with him!  Ever since he met us a
few weeks ago he's been telling his friends about us and inviting them
to church.  He's super cool.
     We pull weeds for service sometimes and this week we pulled weeds
for Sanae-san.  She used to be an investigator years ago so we had
hope she could start learning again.  We shared a message with her
about God lightening our burdens when we pray and she decided she
wanted to start praying every day.  She also likes the Book of Mormon
and wants to read it every day.  I call her every night to see what
she learned from her reading and she told me she really wants to be a
Christian.  We've got a lot of hope for her.
     Elder Purba found a golden investigator on splits last week but
hadn't been able to meet him since then.  We stopped by his house but
he wasn't home and he wouldn't answer his phone.  We feared the worst
and decided to try to visit him one last time.  On the way to his
house we saw him biking down the sidewalk and were able to talk to
him.  His parents are super opposed to the church because they're
extremely narrow minded but he likes us and wants to meet anyway.  He
will be meeting us every week from now on to learn English and gospel!
     It was fast Sunday this week and we had an investigator show up
to church.  His name is Jonivar and he was an investigator like 6 or 7
months ago but finally got work off and made it to church.  He's a
jacked Filipino guy and he's super nice.  He stayed for all three
hours and spent some time with us after church.  We broke the fast
together and then taught him.  We started from the Creation and went
up until the Restoration.  We went really in depth but he got all of
it.  Takashi, our only youth, helped us teach a little bit too.  We
asked Jonivar if he wanted to follow Jesus by being baptized and he
said when he's learned about Joseph Smith more, yes.  Super happy
moment. :):):):):):):):):):):):):):):):):):):):):):):):):):):):):):):):):):):):):):):):):):):):):):):):):):):):):):):):):):):)

Well that's about it.  Lots of awesome things happened.  Now we're
going to Beach Olympics for Zone P-Day!.........Ok, so we went to Zone
P-Day and we did a beach olympics.  There was volleyball, a football
throw, a sandcastle building contest, and a dizzy relay race.  In the
end, our District came out victorious!  We got a traffic cone spray
painted gold for it.

Elder Rogers

 

Stake Conference Shout Out

Things are really starting to turn around here.  Finally.

     On Monday we had a typhoon so Elder Purba and I just sat trapped
in the church all day.  It cleared up around dinner time and we were
able to go home and have birthday cake for dinner.  Thank you Mom!  It
was so good.  Elder Purba sang for me.
     On Tuesday we went to Tateyama as usual but Mizuno Shimai
wouldn't let us do yard work for her for fear that I'd crash going
down her hill again.  So we just rode our bikes around all day and
talked to a lot of people.  We found a little peninsula that had a
good beach and there were a lot of people there on vacation.  Most of
them were just visiting from Tokyo but a couple were locals.  We went
to English Class after that.
     This week the Zone Leaders came to our District Meeting and we
did a lot of role plays.  We learned how to improve our teaching
skills and I realized I have a really really long way to go.  I've
gotten worse since the MTC where we had 2 or 3 lessons a day.
Kisarazu had like no investigators at all for a really long time.
BUT, that's why this week was so cool!  We found a lot of people to
teach!
     We had splits with Elder Watabe and Elder Johnson.  I went with
Elder Johnson and we went housing for a little while.  We found a
family that said we could come back and teach them sometime.  We also
housed into a Filipino woman named Jamie who loooves Christianity.
We're so excited to teach them!  Elder Purba and Elder Watabe found 2
new investigators and they are really golden.  They taught one of
them, Mikuni, in the church for a while and he said he wanted to come
back.  They also taught a high schooler basically the first 3 lessons.
We both found some new English Class students who will be coming
starting tomorrow!  It was just a really good day.  Splits are full of
miracles.  Oh, I forgot to talk about the Nakazatos.  Miyuki, the mom,
got sick and couldn't talk to us recently so we decided to visit her.
I bought her some chocolate bars and a flower.  I picked the flower
off the side of the road because I couldn't find a flower shop in
Japan but she'll never know.  I really love their family and they like
me so it all just works.
     On Saturday we went to a baptism for someone Elder Purba found a
long time ago.  He's super nice and it felt so good to be there.  Then
we had Stake Conference part 1.  Our old Branch President, Tanda
Kyoudai, drove us home from that because he's super cool.
     On Sunday we had Stake Conference part 2.  They broadcasted it so
we didn't have to travel to the Stake Center.  It started off really
good...and then John showed up.  John is a 60ish year old man who
believes in every conspiracy there ever was.  He always tells us about
the Illuminati, Obama IS Osama Bin Laden, Japanese people aren't human
and they're trying to poison us Caucasian humans, etc. etc. etc. for
the next 3 hours with no breaks.  Well, we don't like him and he just
ruins everything so we took him across the street to the park and had
a throw down talk with him.  We told him that if he wasn't talking
about Jesus, we didn't care.  Then he started saying Jesus was a fraud
and we just told him we didn't want to see him anymore.  He started
raging so we just told him to leave and not come back.  We handled it
pretty well and he may even stay away from the church now.  We came
back in to the church and President Nagano was talking.  About us!  He
was like, "Some of you may not know about the Elders down in Kisarazu
so I want to tell you about them.  Their names are Elder Purba and
Elder Rogers."  At this point our members all looked at us like, 'what
did you do?'  He told me the story of our service in Tateyama, my bike
crash, missionary-ing the ambulance guys, ignoring Sister Nagano and
working anyway, service at the Nakazato's, the neighborhood helping
us, and the Nakazatos becoming interested.  He made it sound really
good and mentioned me by name a few times.  He  made me sound a lot
cooler than it actually was and now I have like 1,000 members waiting
for me to get 6 baptisms.  No pressure.  Most of our members didn't
even know anything about it and they were a lot nicer to us after
that.  They had a meeting with us afterwards asking how they could
help and the Branch President declared next month Missionary
Appreciation Month.  He also reminded the members that we have a food
basket because it's been empty for like 3 months.  It was really nice
of President Nagano to do that for us.
     On Monday we went to Chiba for splits with the Zone Leaders.  It
started raining so we prayed for it to stop and it did.  Then we went
out and tried to find people.  A less active agreed to meet with us at
the mall and let us teach him a lesson there.  We taught him the
restoration and apparently it was the first time he's ever heard it.
He's also crazy by the way.  He asked Elder Viehweg to give him a back
massage and it was so awkward to watch.  He just kept looking at me
while I tried to cover my laughing.  Then we went streeting and we
found a college age guy named Hiro.  I asked him if he'd ever met
missionaries, "no" have you ever studied Christianity, "yes, I've read
some of the Bible."  Have you ever seen a Book of Mormon?  It's like
the Bible but better.  I showed him it and gave him one.  He thought
it was super cool and wanted to read it and talk to us about it.  He's
a new investigator now!
     Tuesday, today, was Temple P-day.  We were supposed to get a
typhoon as big as they come and things were looking bad.  But every
missionary in the mission decided to pray that it would go away and we
could make it to the temple AND IT WENT AWAY.  We all got to go to the
temple and it was awesome just like it is every time.  The power of
prayer is real.  It works miracles. God works according to faith and
if we pray with faith, He will help us.
I love you guys,

Elder Rogers

The story, as promised

We go down to Tateyama, a little beach town a lot like Okinawa,
every week on Tuesdays.  We go there to help Mizuno Shimai with her
garden.  She lives at the top of a super tall and steep mountain.  A
typhoon came and rained a lot while we were there so the road was
pretty wet.  As we were on our way home I was going pretty quick down
this mountain because it's steep.  Maybe 50Ks or more.  That's pretty
fast.  I couldn't slow down very much either because the road was wet
and my tires started slipping around if I did.  Well at the bottom of
this mountain is a really sharp curve so I was trying to slow down to
make it.  Well, yeah, my back tire started swimming like a fish and as
I started turning it swung out in front of me.  I stuck out my left
foot and smacked it really hard on the street, thus slowing me down by
quite a lot and allowing me to skid instead of roll.  My bike rolled
under me and I rolled over it onto my elbows and hands.  I managed to
keep myself from hitting anything important, just my elbows, hands,
knees, and feet.  Nothing on my torso or head or neck.  I was wearing
my helmet though, just in case.  The crazy thing is that I crashed and
stood up and walked away from it in a total of about 3 seconds.  I
actually landed on my feet.  I should've broken something but I just
got a few scrapes and a swollen, bruised heel.  Some people saw us on
the side of the road and came over to help.  They called us an
ambulance and I got to ride in one for the first time ever.  It was
really cool.  We told jokes to the guys inside and missionary-ed them
up.  They may come to our English class and might even be interested
in the gospel.  Everything just works out.  I had X-rays taken at the
hospital and then like 12 people started working on me.  They poured
alcohol all over me and it stung worse than the cuts.  Then they gave
me a wheelchair.  I gave it back and hopped myself out of there and
into a taxi.  The driver took us to the station and then we went home.
We might've ridden home but the police took our bikes.  We called some
members and they got our bikes back for us so we're all good.  Anyway,
I had no injuries under my garments.  Naturally.  President Nagano and
Sister Nagano prayed for me and I was able to ride a bike the next day
and get back to work despite them wanting me to take a break.  I told
them I was fine and was miraculously healed.  My cuts are basically
gone now and I can walk almost exactly like normal.  The reason I had
a wheelchair at Zone Meeting is because Elder Purba and I found it and
thought it would be funny to wheel me in and then have me walk out at
the end.  It was and people freaked out.  I'm fine, don't worry, God
IS taking care of me.  No doubt about it.  He will protect me from any
danger I could possibly find myself in.  I know He takes care of all
of His children, especially His missionaries.  I'm very thankful for
the prayers of all those who have been praying for me.  I know now
that nothing can stop me so long as I put my trust in the Lord and do
what he wants me to.  It really was an awesome miracle and I'm glad it
happened.  An added bonus was that the members gave us a ton of food!

Love you all!  Sorry if I worried any of you, but I'm totally fine
now.  That was almost a week ago.


Elder Rogers

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