Week 67 - 11/25/18 - Pictures

Week 67 - 11/25/18 - Group Emai

Hey everyone! Just wanna say thanks for all the birthday love last week, I had a great one! A member took me and the other Elders to dinner and brought me a bunch of presents. It was kinda crazy he bought me a pair of Adidas, a Nike shirt, and some other stuff. Was not expecting that at all. He also brought a cake and some birthday hats so we had a miny party in the restaurant and it was a strange experience to say the least. lol. 

I picked up my new companion from the Mission home on Wednesday! His name is Elder Suzuki. He's from the Philippines and is half Japanese but didn't learn to speak Japanese before he came out. It's been fun showing him around. Right after the trainers got paired with their trainees we went out around the mission home and talked to people! It was the new missionaries first time proselyting in Japan and it brought back lots of memories from my first time over a year ago. 

On the train ride back to Kofu I talked to a Highschool student who opened up to me about some problems he has and he even said he wants to die because his stress is so unbearable. I really tried to explain the atonement and the hope of the gospel to him. We set up a time to meet on Sunday but sadly he didn't show :( That really bummed me out but maybe he'll call us in the future or come to church. 

A couple days later we found another guy who told us he doesn't feel happiness in his life and we had a great conversation. He agreed to meet tomorrow so I'm keeping my fingers crossed that we won't get stood up twice in one week. The circumstances surrounding both of those contacts make it definitely seem like God has a hand in this work! 

A random funny note: We were standing by our bikes and some dude pulled up on his bike. He put the kick stand down then started walking away but his bike fell over. He went and picked it up then right as he let go it fell over again haha. He was really angry and just bent the kick stand so it would stay up then marched inside. After we could hear him in his room just screaming way loud cuz he was mad. I was laughing so hard. It might be a "had to have been there" type of thing. 

I hope everyone has a great week! 

ディーン長老

Week 66 - 11/18/18 - Pictures

Mt. Fuji! 

 Ninja village 

Kanato (Higschool student we are teaching)  

District  

 Reo (english class student)

 Ward mission leader

Mission conference 

Week 66 - 11/18/18 - Group Email

We just got our transfer emails! I'll be staying in Kofu and my comp will be a brand new missionary. Should be an exciting transfer! 

Last Pday a member drove us to some ninja village over by Mt. Fuji! The Ninja place was alright but seeing Fuji up close was amazing. It's unreal how large that volcano is. On the way home we drove through the suicide forest and got out for a second to walk around. Sadly it was already dark by the time we got there so I couldn't take any pictures or really even see much for that matter. 

On Friday we ate some ramen on our way to do service at the elderly care center. I decided to get the spicy ramen because you know I like a little kick but let me tell ya this ramen was literally the spiciest thing I have ever eaten. We were short on time as well so I had to down it super quick. I was sweating, crying, and coughing like crazy. It was bad. The next 24 hours were not fun as well... lol. 

We had a mission conference on Tuesday and Elder Clayton from the 70 came. It was awesome to hear from him and some other General authorities who were present! He said if we all (each missionary) can have 10 meaningful gospel conversations with people we don't know everyday then we will start to see tons more miracles. That's not easy to do when people don't let us talk about the gospel with them but we have been trying our hardest! 

I went on exchanges with the other two Elders (Peet and Ebbing) in my apartment this past week. It's always fun to work with other missionaries. Elder Peet and I talked to tons of people and were able to give out a couple Book of Mormons. It was a good day!

We finally had our movie night on Saturday that we had been planning for the previous month. We showed "Meet the Mormons." We had hyped it up and were expecting tons of people to show but when 6:00 hit there were a solid 4 people who had come. Throughout the movie 6 more came but that was a bit of a let down. On the bright side a member brought her boyfriend who had never been in the church before so it was all worth it! 

Ski season is starting up so everyone better get up there and shred for me!! 😉

Love ya'll 

ディーン長老

Elder Dean

Week 65 - 11/11/18 - Pictures

 ~Crazy dude that came to english class 

 ~Fixing Bro Sharp's sign  

 ~Our investigator Wakao (the martial arts master)

 ~Found a unicycle at the bike sharp. I've still got it haha 

 ~One of the canals on the side of the road. This isn't the one I fell into but to give you an idea. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

  ~Waffles at bro sharp's 

  ~Ricard made me these cake balls for Halloween

 

 ~We had a meal at Bro Hargers. There were 3 vietnamese members who came and made some vietnamese food. It was super good! 

Week 65 - 11/11/18 - Group Email

GOOD NEWS my tablet works!! Thank you everyone for your prayers. 🙏

We finally picked up a new investigator this week! The definition of a new investigator is someone who you teach a full lesson to (with prayer) and set a new appointment. This was my first one since I came to Kofu 2 1/2 months ago. In my last area we had tons so not sure why it was so dang hard here. I guess you could say that was the highlight of the week though. 

Many of you know that I sleep walk. Well this past week I slept walk (sleepwalked?) two times and literally both times I took my thin blanket off my bed and put it somewhere in the apartment. The first time I hung it on the chair in the kitchen and the second time I put it in the closet. So weird. It makes for a fun scavenger hunt in the morning though! haha

At church yesterday I got to do the sacrament prayer in sign language again. This time the guy spoke WAY fast so I was sweatin trying to keep up but I was able to keep it together haha. Our ward also had their primary program which was great. They sang a few songs while doing sign language for the deaf member and that was really awesome to see. He joined in and loved it. 

One day we helped Brother Sharp outline his english class sign with markers which was a good time. Always a good time doing some service! 

That's about it for this week! 

ディーン長老

Elder Dean

Week 64 - 11/04/18 - Group Email

Last p-day we hit up a mountain call Daibosatsutougei. It was amazing! Definitely one of the best views I have seen. We planned to do a loop where we would go up a steep trail then down a different trail that had road for the second half. Well on the way down we hit the road and had no idea how long it would be. An older couple drove up next to us and asked if we wanted a ride. We happily accepted and they told us we had another 7km or so of road haha that was definitely a blessing because we were able to make our bus time! 

After church yesterday a member couple brought their friend to church and had us do a "practice" lesson with her. It ended up basically just being a real lesson and she asked a ton of tough questions. It was cool to see members make the effort to do missionary work! 

One day we were trying to visit a less active and couldn't find his house so we asked some old guy who was probably in his 80s for help. He ran inside his house, grabbed all these maps then preceded to run from house to house checking all the house numbers. He finally came running back down the street saying he found the people we were looking for! He was super nice. Japanese people are almost always willing to help when it comes to directions!  　

Now to the title of the email. Last night I was walking down a dark street next to the station just minding my own business looking over at the train when all of a sudden the ground disappeared and I fell like 4 feet into a drainage canal full of water! I really don't think I have been so surprised in my whole life. I totally face planted into the 6 inches of freezing water at the bottom and got soaked. The worst part is that I was holding my tablet and dropped it while I was falling! Luckily I got it out pretty quick and was able to turn it off. It's in rice now so everyone pray that it'll work when I pull it out tomorrow! Besides my comp I think only like 2 other people saw me eat is so that is good.  For the next hour I had to knock doors in the freezing cold while soaking wet, it was great. Elder Oe and I had a good laugh afterwards. 

Because of that no pics this week, sorry everyone! 

ディーン長老

Elder Dean