Missionary Moments....

Last Week Elder Rowlings wrote....

It's been a long week, we finally got to teach a reasonabely good lesson this week, to our current investigator, but still no new investigators... Miki is a hard area, ....

Despite little success, I had a pretty good week. It's nice to just go around talking to people all day. Two nights ago a man invited us inside (he had a family of 7!) and gave us dinner. Not interested in religion, but was super nice, and we might be able to teach them English. There are so many nice polite people here in Japan, it is more rare for a door to be slammed in your face than to be invited inside actually. ...I'm getting used to the area, my skills improve everyday I feel.

....We sang at the branches Christmas party yesterday, and they have asked us to sing again next week at Church, that should be fun. I went to the town hall and found a Japanese class too, so tonight we are going to try that out, hopefully make some friends and find some potentials through that.

This Week Elder Rowlings wrote....

....This past week has been pretty fun. Got to have trainee trainer meeting in Kobe on Tuesday, and right after that koukon with the district leader and his companion til Thursday morning. They came to Miki, and so we had 6 Elders all living together for two days... that was fun....

Singing at church went pretty good, typical Elders, we didn't even practice and thought we could just wing it, thankfully a member sang with us, who was really good, so I could harmonize with her. After Church finished we were asked to go caroling with the members, which we said yes to. One of the elders was given a Santa suit, and really played the role well. We stood outside the apartment waiting for a ride, and he was waving at all the cars (it is really busy outside our apartment). The Japanese people loved it. It was very amusing (they used it to dendo later that night...). We sang at a big centre for disabled people, apparently the members do it most years. Even the seishin byou (mentally disabled) Japanese people are polite and trained well (for want of a better word), it was really nice to give that small bit of service.

Monday night was okay, there were a ton of Gaijin there, I was paired with some 23 year old lady from California to learn. Was fun, but not sure if we achieved much. The person in charge saw I was a missionary and asked me to translate for all the gaijin around me as Mormon missionaries always have good Japanese... I gave up as I've never learnt how to explain what to do in an Earthquake and stuff like that. Thankfully there were some English capable nihonjins to help out. It's times like those I realise that I can teach a gospel lesson in nihongo, but I can barely explain what I had for breakfast in normal conversation... 

Christmas this week in terms of mission stuff we have nothing really. We got a present and Christmas message in the mail from the Zinke's and that was about it. We are planning on using a dinner hour to Tabehoudai (all you can eat) this week at a nearby restuarant as the four of us though. Yeah, normal dendo all week.

There are so many Christmas things around right now, the Japanese have the same amount of Christmas stuff, even more, on display, just it has no meaning behind it.

I received Chrismas packages from you all, ...thank-you for them all! I have been eating Australian Chocolate all week, and wearing my Tasmania hoodie, and singing Aussie Jingle Bells, to entertain the Americans....

One of the members playing a huge harmonica

Elder Rowlings in his flat in Miki