Howdy y'all,
It has been entirely too long and I am sincerely sorry for that. I don't really know where to start. I've been in Japan now for almost a month...so much has happened......
I'm in a city called Muroran: it's on the southern coast of Hokkaido, so ocean on one side and mountains pretty much just everywhere. It is the windiest place of all time and it rains almost everyday, but if the sun ever comes out and we can get to the coast it is one of the most beautiful places in the world. I just went on a ward hike this morning and got some great pictures I'll post I think.
My trainer's name is Elder Jones and he's great! He`s from Arizona and has been here for 13 months. He`s probably aabout 6' 2" and loves to talk. He's a pretty athletic guy, so he's whippin my butt into shape. I'm kind of sore from our run to the coast the other day (worth it though!). His Japansese is super great. I`m his first bean-chan (trainee) so we`re both learning a lot. I`m pretty useless to be honest, but I like to think that I'm doing better now than I was a few weeks ago. Our is area is gigantic so we're riding our bikes a lot and since this is out in the middle of nowhere, we are mostly pinging doors. The people to don't open them though. They all have Interphones that they'll talk to us on or they'll just shout from the other side, so when someone opens the door it kind of scares you. HA! I'll knock a door and tell them who we are and that we have a message about ______ and if they aren't interested I give them a flyer with some info, and if they are I just sort of stumble around some words and never know how to continue. Oh well. It'll come with time I suppose. We teach an English class on Friday's which is SUPER fun. It's not Gospel oriented, just English and the people are awesome. Honestly though, All of the people are pretty awesome here. We met a man housing on my first day and told him we were sharing a message about the purpose of life and he was super interested, so we went inside a talked to him some more, he cried a bit because he felt something and I got to tell him that is was the Spirit and he loved it. We've taught him quite a few times since and it seems to be making a difference in his life. Streeting is the hardest part. Have you ever tried to tell a random person on the street about God in a country full of people that have never heard of God. It's pretty rough.
Well I'm running out of time, but I'm loving (almost) every minute of every day out here and I'm constantly learning. It's amazing. Truly.
Okei desu.
愛していますよ！！！
スパーリング 長老
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