Monday, July 30th, 2012

Dear Family,

Week two in Japan and I am loving it like nothin' else! Really, things are great and they are about to get better.

Ah man, I'm sorry to hear about Connor's arm getting broken, that sucks for sure but it is a very good story hahaha.  Maybe it's worth it... I feel for him, in Japanese we say zanen, which is like saying I'm sorry but it's not my fault.  Zanen, Connor. 

This upcoming week, we have a Baptism! Thomas, the French guy, is getting baptized on Friday.  Elder Gallacker is doing it and I'll be sure to let you know how it goes next week.  His fiance, Audrey, is taking us out to eat like 4 times next week, for the baptism and for my Doryo's birthday.  She is awesome and loves the missionaries so much. 

Last Monday, I found my first ever real investigator while we were housing.  His name is Inoue and he is 28 and lives by himself.  He is on a dispatch for work so he left all of his friends and family for a time and is just living by himself.  We made a follow up appointment with him and we taught him an entire lesson one this last Friday.  We invited him to church, but he didn't come, and we are going to visit him in a few hours and invite him to FHE.  We have FHE with the single adults in the ward, which there are a lot of them (some in their mid thirties and forties. It's kinda the Japanese Mormon trend to end up not getting married, weird I know), which is convenient because we have FHE literally around the corner from his house.  I hope all goes well with this man.  He was very open to our discussions and even prayed at the end of the lesson.

Unusual things that I have done in Japan so far:

Eaten pizza and cake with chopsticks, bought a drink from a mystery box vending machine (ended up being an orange juice), a recent convert showed me his extremely large Star Wars light-up pop-up book, tried to reactivate my MTC sensei's convert haha, talked with a man for 2 1/2 hours straight in a park (he offered to take us out drinking afterwards because he liked us so much), met an Iranian man, a Swiss man, a Danish man, a Philippino man, taught 2 English classes (the advanced class) which consists of me explaining what having butterflies in your stomach means, streeted during a Japanese POP festival, listened to a lot of Bon Jovi sung with Japanese accents, taught a few lessons that had 6 missionaries and 1 investigator haha, eaten a lot of sushi, yakiniku, rice, noodles, and today we went to a China town and had some real Japanese Chinese food!

We went to the mall today, the Yokohama Mall, and it is absolutely insane.  They had tons of Chanel, Louis Vuitton, Dior, Coach, everything, you name it and they had it at this mall.  And everyone who is at the mall is like over 50 or under 25 and is a woman and stares at us.  We got caught in an elevator with 15 really old ladies and it was incredibly cramped and odd. 

Japan is unbelievably humid, it's crazy.  I have never sweat so much in my life.  If I am not in my air conditioned little study room, I am sweating like crazy.  And it has been in the 90's all this week.  I know why Japanese anime always portray people wearing headbands, it's because everyone does! You have to if you are working or doing anything outside.  Puddles and puddles of sweat just constantly drip from everywhere. 

The food here is great, and the beverages are so crazy! So much variety everywhere. A few days ago I had a salty watermelon Pepsi. Crazy. We always have a pitcher of mugicha at the house, it is basically Pero, but cold. It's a barley tea and the zone leaders love it. I've eaten squid and tons of raw fish, but that's only when we have sushi.  But everywhere you go or whatever you do, there is basically some kind of meat with the dish, like cow meat or pork mostly.  A lot of rice, but it is sooooo good hahaha.  They taught me the secret to making good rice so I guess I will have to show you guys when I get back.       

My Japanese is getting better, I still usually have no idea what's going on, but I'm getting better always. 

Have fun on your trip and be safe and tell the family I say Konnichiwa!

Love,

Kurandaru Choro (Elder Crandall)