11 months! What!

So, today, is a 22nd, so that means that my doki is now a month older.  It seems like I just got here to Hibarigaoka too, but Wednesday was the 6 month mark. I have seen a lot of stuff here and now it is all mixing together. But here is the rundown of the week. I wrote it all out on paper while my iPad was updating (It took a long time).

Monday night: the final kubari in Ōizumi for a while. Our permission died, but we say so many miracles and good people on our last day. At least 4 lessons were taught, lots of people accepted flyers and were excited to come. Hopefully we see them in the next couple of weeks. I met a man who lives right next to the Honbu in Kichijoji. He had a lot to talk about and wanted to bash, but I let him read PMG and he was like, " Wow, I have met a lot of missionaries and you are the first one that actually seems like you know about what I am talking about, but no, I won't read the Book of Mormon." That is the one thing that we ask people to do. Try and find out for themselves, but they are pretty stubborn. I hope I run into him again.

Tuesday: we mailed home Elder Gerritsen's broken tablet because it broke in Odawara. He was the first one, so now missionaries know what to do when they don't sell parts for anything that they break in Japan, like Samsung tablets. Fun adventure telling the post office, no, it is not dangerous goods and yes, it has a battery, but not a wet battery. Then they found a sheet that told them that it was ok, so that was all good. We went and found the Aono's house because for some reason, it isn't in the Area book.

Wednesday: We taught seminary again this week. Really early now that the days are full of action. In school, it was easier, so I hope that everyone appreciates the seminary teachers. Eikaiwa and District meeting. A good thing that happened this week was for the Spiritual discussion this week, lots of people stayed and learned about what happens after death. Mormon.org has lots of good, simple messages that are easy to understand and share. Masato was there, so that was good.

Thursday: zone meeting. I helped give a training with Burnham Chōrō about the Restoration and how to tie it into everything that we share with everyone. The theme of the meeting was Our Unique message to the World, or in other words, The Restoration. We will have a focus this next bit on sharing about The First Vision, the Book of Mormon, and living Prophets. It will be a good time of growth in the the zone. Then we went and moved heavy stuff for Asada shimai. It was just going to be some luggage that I got down for her with kimonos, but there was a random bookshelf that appeared. I hope that they didn't move it on their own. So we did that and she gave us food, she spoils us too much.

Friday: we finished Weekly planning, which we were able to start yesterday after Zone meeting. Elder Gerritsen and I are getting along really well right now. Should be a good rest of the transfer. Then we had a lesson with Uenoyama Kyōdai, which was really good. He promised to come to church, which is has been a whole long while since that happened last, so we were so excited! We are housing a little north of the Eki, so hopefully, we will find some new people soon.

Saturday: Ward council at 7:00, super early wake up, but not so bad because of how the sun rises and wakes us up anyways. We had lunch with an Eikaiwa student and his friend. They might be just Ramen buddies, but we will see. Then we were able to street and contact all of the people that we have been needing to call for a while. We didn't have to teach Eiken this week, so we finished calling up people to invite to church and took some brownies to the ward dendō leaders family.

Sunday: walked to Uenoyama Kyōdai's to go to church together and he was asleep. We will visit him again soon to talk to him about how he is doing. But Masato made it to church, which is great. He was able to hear about Eternal marriage and Temples in class this week, and he really liked the idea of being together forever with your family. Then we ate crepes with him, Kurenuma and the Single Adults. They were really good. Our day got even busier from there. We did stats and studies, and were going to go and see a broadcast from Osaka with Elder Oaks, but we didn't have anyone come, so we went to check up on Kurenuma and brought him brownies. Then we finished with dinner at
 night. Good busy day.

Today: the 22nd. We will go to Asahi to take a look at elder Gerritsen's bike, go to daiso to print pictures, and check out an import store so that we can make peanut butter fudge. If I find anything interesting in the mall, I will let you know. Tonight we are probably going to Kichijoji for FHE with Masato. Tomorrow is a double Zone conference, so all of Musashino will be there.

I love you all and am keeping y'all in my prayers, so 愛していますね！マーフィー長老

Happy Mother's Day

Wow, I am tired. You can see how tired I am by the things that I took pictures of.


But so, this week.
Monday: We went to Costco last week. Here is the result. I carried 20 kilos of groceries from Iruma Costco to the apartment. I got a good workout. So sore for like 3 days. That night we went to Hibarigaoka Eki and streeted. We also had a dinner with Kurenuma! We went to the church and ate Mac and cheese.

Tuesday: after studies, we went to Shakujikoen to talk to people, but everyone was painting or napping. You can tell that it is summer in Japan when the humidity feels like Houston. We did that for a little while and then went to kubari in Ōizumi gakuen. We focused on using our permission to the max this week, so don't be surprised by what we do everyday. Then we tried to go to a place that I call the Maze. It is a far away neighborhood that is at the top of a hill and I get lost in. We gave it another try.

Wednesday: we had a good first district meeting, where we forgot to take a picture. But then we went and did a blitz in Ōizumi. After dinner, we did Eikaiwa, which only two students in advanced class. It was fun though. That was about it for the day. A lady told me that she was an alien and then walked away. By the way, the birds at Ōizumi can't tell how tall I am, so every time that I go there, I almost get hit in the head by a pigeon.

Thursday: weekly planning, さすが！
Weekly planning always seems really long, so I am glad that we right down the other things that we do in the day. We streeted a bit before dinner and then we had a lesson with Kurenuma, but he didn't come. We contacted some people as a back up and then studied 日本語。

Friday: we had a great morning with studies and all of that jazz, then we went to... find a river behind our house. We couldn't find it, but we found some nice stairs and a park and a temple. After that, we went to kubari in Ōizumi. After dinner, we gave the Maze another try. We did not get lost this time and it turns out that it is a great area! We will be going back! We were going to go to Kiyose, but it was going to rain, so we didn't want to bike in it. Good day, lots of people talked to.

Saturday: we cleaned the church, and then everything went nuts! So after we were done, the hall phone rang. It only rings when we are here. Every time. But so Elder Carrasco answers and we are all seeing how it is going because we want to go and eat lunch, but then he switches to English and teaching a huge, powerful lesson over the phone, a random person decided to call and tell the church what she thought about religion and she got a Mexican who was ready to teach with fire. We were all amazed and in awe and were listening because he was teaching in English. But time passes, and we look at a watch and realized that we had been there for 2 and a half hours. That killed the schedule, but we all got a huge boost by listening and getting pumped. From there, with the time we had left, we finished studies and did a kubari session. Elder Gerritsen and I taught TOIEC, where the main takeaway for most everyone was Fabulous and Sketchy. Good conversations! Always interesting. Then the Elders took this picture.

Sunday: so you know how Saturday was crazy? Sunday was even weirder.
It started out normal, with church, of course we were asked to teach The Law of Chastity in Japanese to the Gospel principles class, which consisted of the second councilor, Asada Kyōdai, and the sisters. Pretty random. Then we practiced I am a Child of God, because as a ward, we will sing it in stake conference next week.
We went home to eat, made lunch, and were about to pray, when the bishop calls and tells us to drop what we were doing and get to the church. We show up and a random member from a far away ward has made us a huge meal!

None of us know who or why, but it was way good. We ate the left overs for lunch today.

We did that, had a good time, but then we went and did kubari until 8:00, after which we did a companionship language study. Good end.

Monday:
Mother's Day Call! Thank you mom! I love you!
We got to call our moms and have a good talk. Today we will rest and go to some recycle shops for some new ties and stuff. Great time!


I love you all and remember, don't forget to be awesome!


マーフィー長老

This Week in Videos

 

Really short letters this week and the group email included these videos.

 



This is what I noticed today. 



 

The rag that I used to clean the balcony. It was white

The balcony after I cleaned it.

Elder Gerritsen from West Valley Utah. He is 18 and transfer 3.
He used to be in Odawara and Tama. He is taller than me. 

Our apartment surrounded by the storm.

Hibarigaoka flowers

 

Mayday, Mayday, we are short sleeved!

So this is the second weekly email I have written this week. I lost the first one. It is somewhere in Cyberspace.

Transfers. I am staying in Hibarigaoka with Elder Winn's MTC companion, Elder Gerritsen.
Elder Winn is going to Kichijoji, so we will see him a lot.

Wednesday we had a busy day of District meeting and Eikaiwa. We are going to start to teach Shig, the fluent old guy in advanced class about the Old Testament and parables, because he said that is what he was interested in learning about.

Thursday: Zone conference: we talked about the Holy Ghost a lot. Most of the trainings were focused on the gift of the Holy Ghost. We also talked about the need to be prepared. If we are not ready to teach, or to find, or to do something, the Lord cannot help us perform to our full potential. Then we had a shokuji with the Asadas. It was super good, so they are still doing really good.

Friday: monthly planning, this took most of the day, then I went in splits with Elder Burnham. We went to Hoya to follow up with some PIs. We housed around, but nothing special happened.

Saturday: transfer calls! We cleaned the church, did studies, and got our calls. We let Sister Dowell open them, she was happy about that. Elder Burnham and I went to Higashikurume and Hibarigaoka to street. We had the weirdest weather ever. Random rain and sun and wind within an hour of each other. We saw Asada Kyōdai on a long sanpo far away from his house. Then we ate dinner and taught Kamiya, the other Elders investigator. We taught about the Apostasy and the Restoration using a video of Wilford Woodruff's conversion. It talks about why there needed to be a Restoration and not a reformation really simply. Then we taught TOIEC and Eiken because all four of us were needed. We had 3 new students, so stuff is starting to get hopping.

Sunday: the last testimony of Sister Dowell and Winn Chōrō saying goodbye to the ward.   There was a surprise meeting after church, so we didn't do Stats until about 2:00. Then we still had studying to do, so we ended up just streeting for a little bit. We finished off the day with a visit to Kurenuma, so we will meet him again on Monday.

Monday: we did laundry and shopped and went to Aeon Mall to get some Inca Kola, but we also taught Kurenuma, we will be meeting him a lot this week because it is Golden Week in Japan, which is just a bunch of holidays in a row. We will meet Kurenuma again tomorrow. The English challenge got pushed back to Wednesday. I can't wait for Thursday, May 4th. I can guess that you all know why, but just in case, May the Fourth be with you.

And a taihen transfer for Elder Winn



I love you all. You should look at the talk by Elder Rasband about the Spirit and first impressions. That is how we did so well in World Scholars Cup, so it is good advice and it works.

�郅筏皮い蓼工汀￥蓼郡胜ǎ�
マ�`フィ�`�L老