Japan Fukuoka: Weeks 13 & 14: Aliens and other Adventures

🐲🐲🐲

These past two weeks have been fun! Who knew that people would rather get on the wrong bus than talk to some punky lil shimai tachi. People should be able to know who we are a mile away because only missionaries wear white helmets, so they could do a lot better to escape us and the promise of eternal salvation.

A member took some of us missionaries to a yakiniku (fried meat) restaurant. She paid over $300+ (in yen) for this amazing, truck-load of food!
Two problems here:
-there is no takeout
-you will offend if you don't clear your plate

At the Mexican fiesta earlier that same day, one elder ate seven tacos and then later that night the member kept ordering more and more food so the elders could keep their strength up. Ha ha-it was pretty rough.

Mexican fiesta!

Tuesday was hard. On Tuesday, we had all appointments fall through, except with this one girl. But then her too, because after five minutes of talking, she realized she had lost her phone and we spent forever looking for it. She later told us this creepy grandpa had stolen it, and the way they got it back was using the Find Your Phone app with the police. Weird world, huh? When we got back to our apartment, my comp and I had this moment where we just kind of looked at each other like what even--this day was strange. We ate some sketchy Japanese snacks and it was ok then. I think it was a bonding experience to have a rough day like that, because we didn't break. It helped to have someone there who was going through it too.

Japan things-

Japanese people are really polite, even when they reject you. There are no swear words.

Most common religions I encounter: Buddhism (Shintoism goes along with this), Catholicism, and Happy Science. One Happy Science man pointed to his wife and said with a straight face, "She's an alien." I will learn more about this star wars religion.

Japanese people touch their nose a lot when they talk. I don't know why, but it's cute.

This area is known for eating raw horse meat. Not gonna happen.

When people say "No," they sometimes shake their hand with the palm facing down, like DJs scratching a track. Soundtrack of my life.

Also, who was praying for me last Monday?! Because even though most of the day was a p-day, that was the best dendo day ever! In under an hour, we had:

a new investigator

2 people that set up return appointments

1 person that said he would listen to another lesson if he was home

1 person that approached us first and said he had met the missionaries 15 years ago and had been wanting to take lessons again. Super solid RA!

Rejection story:
A man was trudging back to his apartment. As he put his hand on the door, we descended on a cloud and gave him our flyer ;). "I'm not interested." But it was about time he got interested. I asked him what he thought about God. "I don't think about God." Jesus? Same response. I told him that we thought about God and Jesus, and that seemed like a painfully obvious thing to say, but then I started testifying immediately after. It felt like flailing in the dark. (I told him that God is our loving Heavenly Father, Jesus Christ loves everyone, that through Jesus Christ we can be free from our mistakes, and that I love the Gospel.) But something in his face changed as he heard the testimony--and Brown Shimai saw it too. It was amazing actually. We talked to him for what was about 15 minutes after that initial rejection. He accepted the Book of Mormon. He accepted the idea of us coming back to talk about baptism and Jesus Christ.

To me, this was one of the many miracles I saw that night. Testifying changes peoples' hearts. It was really scary to testify to someone that was disinterested at first. But I remember Elder Holland said in a talk that we have to go to the very limits of our abilities if we want to see the miracles. You look at the cliff and think "I'll fall, I'll fall, I'll fall." But then God pushes you off and you fly. Normally, rejection isn't so scary. Why? Sister Brown says, "I keep meaning to teach you the different phrases people use when they are rejecting us, but then out of your obliviousness, you keep going and change people's minds because you actually believe they want to hear everything, and they start believing it too." Haha :)

Mission life is hard. But in many ways, living the Gospel in everyday life is even harder. I know that living the Gospel was not meant to be easy. It's hard because it's worth it. In archery, do you think the shooter learns anything if they shoot their arrow at a wall and draw the target around afterwards? If you know your aim in life, you will achieve so much more. Through striving to keep God's commandments, He can refine us better than we could refine ourselves. Our perception of our potential is a child's drawing. God's perception is a finished masterpiece. If we consecrate ourselves to God, we can hit the bullseye every time.

Word of the week-
Yabai means either really good or really bad, so when another sister compared Jesus to a wingman while teaching a high school girl and Brown Shimai said, "yabai," I can interpret it how I want to.

Reporting from the Bear (Kuma) Book (Moto) City of Japan,
Rogers Shiiiiimai

MTC throwback... ✌ One of the elders made this.

The snack this week was yabai. I thought the sesame seeds inside the cane sugar chunky things were bugs, so it was a traumatic experience. And also it tasted bad. But the vitamin C drink tasted like Flintstone's multi vitamins, and I felt weird and hyper in a good way soon after. 👍👍 would recommend this experience.