2017 04 23 じゅんかい (Splits)

Konichiwa! Well, it's been a fun week with a ton of interesting things that happened and as the title said, 巡回 (Junkai - patrol / splits) a lot this week.

Monday (月 Getsu 曜日yobi):

It rained ALL FREAKING DAY LONG!!! Both mine and Elder Voorhees' jackets soaked all the way through, but a funny thing happened, we saw a snake commit suicide. It was very entertaining.

This are not injuries

some how my shoes dyed my feet blue

Tuesday (火 Moku 曜日yobi):

We had district meeting and then went on a 巡回 (Junkai - patrol / splits) with Elder Campbell and that was way fun. We had a way cool time, talked to some way cool people and actually got a return appointment, which was way exciting. Also, we were going to 伝道 (Dendo - tracking) with the Zone leaders tomorrow so, they came over tonight, and the Taniyama Elders were staying over too, that means we had SIX Elders in our not super big apartment, it was... interesting.

thanks for the package 家族 (Kazoku - family)

Hmmm, the jellybeans didn't stay in the eggs

Wednesday (水 Sui 曜日yobi):

巡回 (Junkai - patrol / splits) with one of the ZLs Elder York. Like I said, we have extra elders in our apartment and we only have 2 bikes so we ended up walking EVERYWHERE. It turned out to be a way cool experience though. We talked to a ton of people, got a ton of RA (Return Appointments) and found a guy who most of his family is LDS and we got to talk with him for a good amount of time.

Thursday (木 Moku 曜日yobi):

So, we had an apartment check which means we spent all morning cleaning. We passed but right afterwards we went to 2 RA (Return Appointments) that I had set the day before, the 1st lady wasn't home so we went to the one right after it and they weren't home either. Came back, weekly planned and then went to Eikaiwa (English conversation class).

Friday (金 Kin 曜日yobi):

We went to a RA (Return Appointments) that Elder Voorhees had sent and we taught her for a little bit and got another RA (Return Appointments) from her, which means WE GOT A NEW INVESTIGATOR!! It was very exciting. We were going to visit a LA (Less Active) in the afternoon and she likes Mexican food, so we made some homemade tortillas to give her. We had a RA (Return Appointments) appointment before with a young mom, she was cool but didn't seem interested.

we found it dead in a canal and asked someone what it was and they called it a Tanuki. It’s a Japanese Racoon Dog!!  LINK

Saturday (土 do 曜日yobi):

We played some WAY good basketball in the evening and it was a ton of fun.

Sunday (日 nichi 曜日yobi):

Church and then in the evening we found some cool people that we got some RA (Return Appointments) from. It's been a WAY better week this week and a lot of it has to do with attitude. I learned that if you're going to go out and do something with the attitude that you will fail or just a negative mind set, you will fail and not have fun. BUT, if you go out with a attitude that you WILL succeed or just a positive mind set then your chances of success are exponentially higher and you will have a blast!

Updates from Dad...

It doesn't happen every week, but on occasion, IF we respond quick enough, we can have a little chat with Spencer over email. This was one of those weeks, so I have some extra information to add to his general email message.

The missionaries can read paper letters whenever they receive them, but they can only read their emails on their P-day. So, I've been waiting until Sunday to write Spencer a personal letter so that it would be on the top of the new emails list from the week. Apparently my email was the only email he got this week. If you have a moment, shoot him a quick note and maybe a photo with an update of the happenings in your life. After the rough week he had last week I tried to offer him some advice about trials and growth, and I'm sure that he would love to hear from a few other people too.

I told him that I was worried about the subject line of last week's email. The translation reads, "Will you please put an end to my suffering". I asked if he was referring to the suffering of his hurt knee or just the struggle of being a missionary. He replied and said that he just had a bad week for missionary work and that they felt like we were wasting time and being unsuccessful. I tried to reassure him a bit, but also told him that the truth is that he will feel that way quite a bit while doing missionary work in Japan. From the looks of this week's message they HAVE found some new investigators and that he recognizes that a positive attitude can change a whole situation.

We are also thrilled to announce that Spencer says that his knee is basically back to normal now, and has no pains at all.