People of the Promise Land!
It feels like I wrote everyone on Monday or something, but uhh I guess that is what happened.
Monday
Awaking sick is no walk in the park, and sadly no run in the parks either for Elder Dunn. Lying in bed sick for the first few hours of the day is a great way to start off a busy hectic week. But beds are for sick people not sick missionaries so hopped right up and began a long day. We cleaned for a good long while, and I mean cleaned. Well kind of Elder Leach and I kind of forgot about one of our chores...but we will get to that later. We pulled some old bikes out to sell, however it turns out you need registration to sell bikes. In case you would like a bike shipped to you that has a flat tire and missing brakes, just go ahead and shoot me an email and we can work something out. After buying groceries and writing emails we went to the gym to play some good old American football! It was two on two in the gym which was a good time. It reminded me of playing with my brothers back at home. Then we used President Wada's grill to make steak and ribs, yummy yummy in my 19 year old tummy. Then we had to finish our chores. Which consisted of spraying off the front porch, well since it was dark it didn't work out very well.
Tuesday
The night before I put my Piano Guys CDs on the SD card of Tiffany (our minivan named after an old missionary, it is so solid that even President calls her Tiffany). So in the morning Elder Mukai, the most lovable scratchy nehonjen, and I went to Kunitachi to help the elders move apartments. On our way down we had a great time discussing American and Japanese Stake Dances, his reactions were priceless! "You eat popcorn?! What do you do during slow dances? They have them every month? Why aren't they called dance party? Do they play Japanese music?" Just to give you a flavor of my hour long ride with Elder Mukai. For lunch we are at a Chinese members ramen restaurant! It was good talking to them about general conference! Then we began the process of moving apartments, gosh what a pain that can be. I set up the washing machine all by myself, like most things in Japan you plug it in and it works....I didn't test it so who knows what will happen, but it looked right. Then we began going back and forth helping the Elders move things. Then just as we were about to go D2 to buy some lights Elder Mukai was backing up and singing to Piano Guys and ran into a pool and scratched Tiffany pretty good. To which Elder Mukai repeated all the way home, "I feel disgusting! Agh!". On our way home Sister Wada called and asked if we could redo all the recipes on the portal, so now I need to start baking to see how the recipes work! Yippee! When we got home Elder Leach and I went to Shibuya, sadly when people are crammed into you on the train it isn't really the best way to start a good gospel driven conversation with someone. In Shibuya or as Elder Mukai refers to it, "Babylon". We got the iPads exchanged then came home and just as we were about to go finding President Wada handed us a big project that we spent our last half hour working on.
Wednesday
President and Sister Wada are pretty sick. Sister Wada claims she likes her voice with a deep scratch tone in it. It is fitting for Halloween if you ask me. Staff meeting was good we discussed much of the rest of the year here in the office. After Elder a leach had the inspiration to finish our chores before Elder Yamashita came of the seventy. We found a power washer, I knew dad would be proud of me. It made quick work and sure did better than the hose! Then we began our work of fixing the Wada's printer in their study room. Well I'll tell you what that places is a gold mine for pictures of them before their mission, all over the walls. Sister Wada thought it was pretty funny all the 90 styles that are hip to the hop now. Well midway through we heard some people coming up the stairs, I had Elder Leach go check and wouldn't you know it, it was Elder Yamashita coming up the stairs a hour early! Oh no we thought! We ran out grabbed our shoes and told Sister Wada who was in the kitchen as we ran for the back door, "he is here". She looked at us funny, then we said again, "Elder Yamashita is here!" She let out a squeal and we threw our slip on shoes on and ran out the door as the door bell rang. Rushing downstairs the office was in panic mode! We all,thought we had an hour, as did president who came running in about 5 minutes later looking equally as panicked. The Yahashitas, Wada's and Assistants had a meeting upstairs, so we thought we were off the hook, well turns out we were going too. So we ran upstairs after grabbing our jackets and went upstairs to join them. Elder Yamashita is a great man, he was a gym teacher most of his life, and was recently released as the President of the Nagoya mission. He currently is serving in the quorum of the Seventy and gave the closing prayer on the Saturday afternoon session of general conference. He invited us to sit down and we had a short little meeting with him, then we were dismissed and Elder Leach and I worked on setting up the chapel for the conference the next day. So the building recently was outfitted with about 10 grand worth of sound equipment which was mostly unnecessary. They locked the door in hops that no one (mostly missionaries) wouldn't use the equipment. Well there is a trap door the leads to a closet we knew about, so you bet your dog we went up there and figured things out. We felt like James Bond, it was fun, but it took a while since it was all in Japanese. Later we had Eaikaiwa and had a fun time with our class, we had a new student who is a chiropractor, fun fact for all of you; in Japan you do not need a license to be a chiropractor, weird isn't it? Our lesson also included us talking about our man 007, it just was a spy exhilarating day for us.
Thursday
On our morning run we met Elder Yamashita and his wife walking in the park together! After getting ready we began finishing setting up, but about a half hour before they came in the door the stake clerk came in and began changing all of our wiring and sound systems....now I appreciate people magnifying their callings, but there are so,e that kind of hurt others in the process. He was more worried about impressing a general authority then if it actually worked. We had Elder Mukai ask him to stop playing with our stuff. Thankfully he got the idea. The conference was superb! President Wada gave a great RPLA about 1 Nephi 1-4 and related that to being a bold missionary. It was great. After Elder Yamashita gave a great training about the Gospel of Jesus Christ. It was enlightening for me. Sister Yamashita did origami with us! Her English is great, she is so funny! It was a great conference, I think everyone really enjoyed and learned a lot from him. He asked some really poignant questions. To me he asked, why am I here? And to my companion he asked, why are you here? It caused some good reflection as to the purpose of general authority visits. After the meeting we ate dinner quickly then Elder Leach and I went to sports night to play some b-ball with the Wada's son, and other people from the area. It was a blast. At the end we played some football and President Wada even got in on some of the action and played with us. Elder Leach and I then gave a spiritual thought about football relating it to gods team.
Friday
Elder Leach and I were alone all day. The assistants left the night before for the other zone conference during Elder Yamashitas mission tour and Elder Ford and Elder Mukai were translators so we were stuck at the Honbu working on office work. It was a quiet day. We went to the bank, I worked on a new ordering system, we had some good conversations. It was just a nice chill day. At night we had district meeting, where we reported on our investigators. New news with Rick, he said, "I hate Dan (this is me). He needs to apologize." If you are confused you are in the same boat as I. He is upset because I rebuked him for some inappropriate comments he made towards the sister missionaries about a month ago. Oh well, commandments are commandments. Gods laws not mine. After district meeting Elder Leach and I went back to the office so he could finish a financial report. After we went to the church for a broadcast to the missionaries and Ward Councils. Only one person showed up from our ward...president texted us and was shocked, most areas had 15 members at least! The people working the cameras were really distracting too because they were trying really hard to make everything perfect, except they didn't care about what was being said. It doesn't matter about what is going on in all the other chapels skyping in, it matters what President Wada and Elder Yamashita are teaching everyone about the importance of Ward Council and how to work together to hasten the work. Elder Yamashitas talk was inspiring I hope that I can take some of the principals that I learned and apply them for when I come home from my mission and am a member missionary. It was really good. Elder Leach ended up going to bed around eleven and everyone else came crawling in after midnight or later.
Talk about a jam packed week! Thankfully things calm down this week!
Big Hearts!
Elder Dunn
Origami mouths representing Doctrine and Covenants 33: 8-10;
8 Open your mouths and they shall be filled, and you shall become even as Nephi of old, who journeyed from Jerusalem in the wilderness.
9 Yea, open your mouths and spare not, and you shall be laden with sheaves upon your backs, for lo, I am with you.
10 Yea, open your mouths and they shall be filled, saying: Repent, repent, and prepare ye the way of the Lord, and make his paths straight; for the kingdom of heaven is at hand;
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