Howdy Family and Friends!
This week has been busy, but not lacking in the slightest!
Temperatures have taken a dip, and it feels like fall here in Tokyo
now!
土曜日
We began our P-day off by having a great run, followed by a great
study. After studies, we cleaned then went to the store and bought
groceries for the week. Afterwards we came back home ate lunch,
emailed, and Elder Bates and I looked at a few things for BYU. Then I
crashed and fell asleep for an hour before the Matsuri (祭り) or summer
festival. The ward holds a big one every year, it is basically a ward
party that celebrates summer. We held it in the parking lot. As Elder
Moua and I were greeting people, Sister Yamaguchi came in! She is a
member from my first area! In fact she dropped of bentos the first
night in my new area! She was so surprised that I was able to
communicate with her so well! When I first talked to her I had no idea
what she was saying. I enjoyed talking with members, it was a great
way to get to know all of them. There are so many missionaries in the
ward that it can be kind of scared to get to know a bunch of
missionaries. I got to help make cotton candy for a little bit, I'll
tell you what there is a whole lot more of technique then meets the
eye! After the festival we ended our day by planning.
日曜日
We awoke. Ate. Got ready. Then went to DCS, it was a good meeting,
they seem a lot longer since I have been in the office, but that's
okay. Then the normal 3 hour block, which was great, for Sunday school
we decided to go to the youth class, and as soon as we sat down the
sisters came in having the same idea. Then the teacher got up and
announced the lesson eternal marriage. Out of all the lessons we could
have gone to with the youth this was it. It was a great lesson, and
pretty funny realizing I was in their shoes a year ago. Dang...time
flies way to fast. After church and choir we had a soba party from
some of the leftover food from the night before. Followed by a power
nap with the rest of my lunch hour. After that Elder Ford, Elder Moua
and I biked to a park to go and find people. We met an old woman who
we were able to refer over to the sisters. I had the feeling we needed
to go to this giant apartment complex so we spent the next 45 minutes
taking the round about way to get there. It was a 11 story apartment
complex on a hill. So where better to start knocking on doors than on
the 11th floor. So we took the elevator and boom. Tokyo. We could see
all of downtown Tokyo right there, Skytree, Tokyo Tower, all there. It
began raining so we weren't able to get super amazing pictures but
that's okay. We talked to a few people, but all of them were
uninterested sadly. Then we biked home in the rain and got soaked,
because we forgot/didn't think to bring our jackets. For dinner we had
a ham! It was great. Then we finished our night with weekly planning.
Weekly planning with 5 people can be a bit of a pain, but it is very
thorough though.
月曜日
We awoke and went for a glorious run. Had studies. Then began office
work. I was busy working on figuring out the landscaping needed to the
Odawara house. That was fun, we may get sent down there to do it, but
we will see what happens. Then I worked on finding toolkit a for the
mission. That is a fun little chore right there. Evaluating the tools
needed for all the missionaries. After those time inducing jobs we
worked on the apartment app. Trying to work with pop ups can be
exhausting sometimes! After we had dinner then went out as a five man
team to go kubari. While we were handing out flyers a woman came up to
me and started talking a mile a minute. She was so excited about
meeting us she invited herself to church! Then asked if she needed a
pen and paper for note taking! Whoa! Amazing! Then another woman came
and said her boss is a member and she had heard a lot of good things
about us! After the hour kubarikai we went housing with the goal to
sing to people. However no one would listen, and I kid you not the
last door of the night didn't answer...but! The man from the door
previous answered a little late! We talked to him, he is such a great
man! He is a former investigator from about 20 years ago! He has a
Book of Mormon, and wants to learn a little more now! Talk about a
great miracle of the day!
火曜日
Elder Bates and I awoke early and did some push ups before having to
get dressed hurriedly in order to catch the train for zone conference.
Zone conference was great, the topic was repentance. They are such big
spiritual feasts. Elder Bennion, one of the missionaries from my first
apartment gave his final testimony at the conference, it was so weird
because he never seemed as old as he really is to me. After conference
Elder Leach and I went on splits. Elder Leach is a Texas rancher so
naturally we had a ball. On the train home I met a man from Nigeria!
He was way kind and told me that he had met the "latter-day Saints" in
Africa! I was blown away he knew our actual name! It was a great
conversation. After getting back Elder Leach and I went to Ippudo to
eat some ramen. It was delicious, and was a fun way to get to know
Elder Leach. Before his mission he worked at a hedge fund in Texas,
and was telling me about different majors available at BYU. After we
went back to the Honbu to grab bikes the grab his clothes for the next
day. When we came back we found his companion on the phone with the
mission doctor because of a really bad headache. Thankfully he was
okay enough to go back to his apartment. We then planned for the day
and I cut Elder Leach's hair.
水曜日
We woke up to pouring down rain, but that doesn't stop Elder Bates and
I. So we went trucking in the park, we only saw 35 people in the park
(compared with the normal 300ish) it was a big difference. Then we
came back, had personal study, then staff meeting. At staff meeting I
gave the spiritual though, so I related it to the farm back at home. I
love staff meeting, we got a lot covered and we can see what we were
able to do throughout the past week. Afterwards Elder Leach had a
meeting with President Wada about mission statistics. After Elder
Bates, Elder Driscoll, Elder Ford, Elder Leach and I all went to
Shakeys for some pizza. It was a good time being able to leave the
stress of the office for a little bit. Then we came back, Elder Leach
began his project from President. And Elder Moua and I began working
on our many different tasks. We are currently reorganizing the mission
portal but we figured before we do that we should probably make sure
it is all backed up so we began the process of backing up the portal.
Around 4 Elder Leach and I began dendoing. We planned to go and visit
a Chinese less active member in the area. So we streeted there. We
talked to one person. We thought they were a teenage boy however upon
further conversation they were in fact a girl..so that was awkward
because we aren't supposed to stop women. So he hurried and invited
her to church and left. When we got to the house it al looked newer
than the Google maps image we were looking at so we knocked a few of
the doors and an old man came out. We asked him how long he had lived
there and he told us since May...which means the Google image hasn't
been updated since then at the very least since where the member was
supposed to live was in a apartment complex which is no longer there.
With that we went back home for dinner and to plan for Eakaiwa. It was
fun we taught riddles to our class. That got pretty intense. Our class
is all pretty dang smart so they got a lot of them pretty quick. After
we split back and we planned for the next day.
木曜日
Elder Moua and I got up early for a great run, it was a little slower
than usual, but it still felt great! After we had our studies, and
then I slept for all of lunch. That was followed by our weekly
planning, were we discussed dropping one of our investigators that
night. After planning we went into the office to begin the work. We
reorganized the portal to make it more intuition ally based. It makes
more sense to find things now. Then I worked on the case of the
website but got stuck trying to add knobs to a page, which drove me up
a wall. For dinner I made yakusoba (meat noodles) and then we had a
lesson with Itsuki-San. We bore testimony a lot, however he just has
no desire, and just wants to mess with us. So we dropped him, he was
more worried about ping pong anyways. I'll tell you what on my mission
I have become a lot better at ping pong. It is a fun way to get out of
the office. President Wada came at the end too, he is a lot of fun to
play with. After ping pong night we went to a meeting with President
Wada, Elder Leach, and Tech. Elder Leach ran a few mission statistics
and showed a lot of cool things about how the key indicators really
work and which are tied closest to baptism. It is pretty amazing
actually. Then we planned and I cleaned the kitchen. It is kind of my
wind down activity at night.
金曜日
We awoke to a great soaking run, after we had studies. After studies I
took a nap, and when I awoke Elder Mukai surprised me with lunch,
curry and bread...it was really interesting, but I was so thankful,
because I planned on skipping out on lunch. Afterwards I began working
on the portal. Working busily I was able to update a few forms and
translate a few pages as well. Then we had district meeting, it was
good, we had some great trainings on the Book of Mormon. After we went
back to the computers to work on fixing various things. Then went out
to "Man Ramen" (I kid you not that is the name translated). Then
housing. It was a fun time, we found an apartment complex full of
Subarus, we then found out that it is a housing complex for employees.
After housing we came home to finish our day.
Well that was my fast week. Who knows what will happen this next week.
At my current rate I might become 19 or something crazy like that.
Well love you all!
Elder Dunn
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