Dear family and friends,
You know how some weeks refuse to end? Well yeah, that was basically one of those weeks here. Here let me explain;
Monday
Our companionship and language studies were wrecked by going to the bank with Elder Leach and a Elder Mukai. It gave me an opportunity to read a little bit with was nice. Then we wrote our families, de-stress begin. Then we went to Kumars as a district which was great! Elder Jennings and I reminisced about the MTC. Then we went to koenji. Have you ever heard of the term, "hipster"? If so I can almost guarantee that that is where the root of it all is. All of their shops have just outrageous clothing. I think the most interesting part is that they all think it is the American thing, so they wear it. I'll tell you what my sense of fashion has changed on my mission being emerged in a culture where everyone is aware of what they wear. But, I refuse to wear a 1950 motor cycle helmet for fun because it is fashionable. It was a culturally intriguing experience for sure. Then we came home, and I slept during dinner. After we began the cleaning party! Yay! It took a while, and to be honest I turned into the apartment barber and cut everyone's hair. I'd rather do that then find out what kind of monsters are growing in our vegetable drawer.
Tuesday
As we were getting ready Elder Ford came in and announced that one of the missionaries that was supposed to be on their way didn't get on the plane because he forgot his passport on the train in Utah. Talk about a great start to the day. Then during companionship study sister Wada asked us to mogi with her, only I forgot about it, and a Elder Leach was at the bank! So I grabbed Elder Ford and we went upstairs. It worked. It was just kind of weird being he only one that wasn't ped. I got a lot of helpful feedback though. I just need to relax more when I speak. After that we planned to begin setting up futons in the church however the youth reserved the room we normally use for a choir practice so we had to wait on that. Around 4:30 Elder Yamada arrived and we all made bread however we were having issues with the computer downloading the videos needed. If that wasn't enough sister Wada called us telling us that the plane was over an hour late and two Japanese sister arrived on a different plane! So they were stuck at the airport. We were told to go get a light meal so Big Macs it was. We were also waiting on a sister via Shinkansen from her hometown so we sent the sisters to the eki, well she made her way from the eki to the Honbu no problem, so We called the sisters. Then sister Wada called saying she would be at the Honbu in 30 minutes and asked for Elder Leach and I to meet her at the eki to grab their bags. Well on the way over we met an American man who tried to argue with us about grace. We told him flat out we didn't have time to argue, and asked him instead if he thought it was Christlike to argue with his fellow man. With that we ran to the eki to find sister Wada. Helped her to the Honbu then went to the bus depot to meet new missionaries. I talked to a man about his skateboard for a little bit that was relaxing. Then when the bus arrived president wasn't on it because he had to wait at the airport with a sister who left her wallet on the plane! So we helped he new missionaries take things to the Honbu and went upstairs to the Wada's. Well just when we thought nothing else could go bad one of the sisters that just arrived exclaimed, "I'm so sorry, I have no idea what I did but, the toilet is overflowing." Oh no...sister Wada looked like she was going to cry so we burst into action. We told her not to leave the kitchen and went to face the mess. And sure enough there was water just gushing out of the toilet. So we ran downstairs and grabbed all of our towels and the plunger. Then back upstairs where I rolled up my sleeves and pant legs and got to work. Who knew I'd use those skills here. Then we cleaned up all the water, and since my pants were pretty weak just left them rolled up. Funny thing was that president was on his way and elder leach wanted his jelly downstairs for bread so we ran down, and noticed president and the new sisters on their way, so we ran after them. Only my clothes were on a mangled mess, my tie pulled down button unbuttoned, pants and sleeves rolled up, and not wearing any socks. President and the new sisters gave me an interesting look so I explained what had happened. To which president judged, "today has been horrendous!". Indeed it had been. We then ate dinner, cleaned the kitchen which took us past 11, and then went to bed. Now you are getting the idea of how this week was going...
Wednesday
We woke up pretty worn out and went for a run. I ran with elder Siqueira he is from San Paulo, Brazil, and a recent convert of 2 years. If that is t awesome enough he learned English and Japanese at the MTC! He is amazing! We ran together and talked to a man. Had our normal trainings and Elder Yamada and I worked on putting screen covers on all the new iPads. Around 11 a man came in and asked if we knew about a doll in the church. Confused we went with him and looked around, sadly we didn't find anything but would look for it. It was really creepy. After lunch we planned to dendo with the new missionaries however I lost my wallet, so we ran around everywhere looking for it, it was in my bag...that was embarrassing, and the other Elders went so we didn't need to go. For dinner I lead the group to ippudo a Japanese ramen shop! I think the new elders and sisters liked it. In my group we had an elder from England, and a sister from Finland with us! That was pretty cool. Then we went to eikaiwa and on our way back we ran into the other group that went to udon. Elder Leach ordered a ginger ale and they brought it out in a giant mug, confused but impressed by their generosity he drank it, then turning to the other elders asked, this tastes like vinegar. So he asked the one of the workers what was in it, to which he responded, "sake". Which is Japanese for alcohol. And uhh news flash for anyone reading this who isn't a member, Mormons don't drink alcohol. So that wasn't too good. When we arrived at eikaiwa though we had a surprise from one of our students! Markers! The past few weeks we didn't have a good marker so she bought us one! It was an enjoyable class and thank goodness nothing flared up during that but when we got out president texted to tell us that the elder who missed his flight had come except his luggage was destroyed in turbulence so they would be at the airport working on figuring things out. We think they got home around 11. After we tried to start setting up the iPads however the new missionaries used iPads in the MTC so they had already created Apple ids so we had to plan to get them all and change all the missionaries passwords.
Thursday
During breakfast we got a call from sister Eyring telling us that her and her companion were separated on their way to the Honbu and her companion didn't know how to get to the Honbu. So Elder Yamada and I went out to go and try and find her because we had an idea of when she would be arriving. At the train station, eki, we waited and prayed we would find her. Elder Yamada had the impression to go upstairs and after we got their I had the impression we needed to go up the escalator. At the top we waited and sure enough 10 minutes later a blonde sister came running toward the gate win fear and panic, she didn't see us. So when she clicked through we walked up next to her and I said, "hey, we will help you from here." To which she screamed and began to cry. It was cool being able to help someone. She then told us the story of how a member found her and asked her for help and also someone in Shibuya took her to the exact train to get on! It was pretty amazing! Then we began changing passwords and setting up iPads. Around 11:30 I received a package from China! I was confused out of my mind! It was the new screen covers sent directly to us from the factory! That was pretty legit. Then we began to finish only some of their passwords wearing right so we had to go without lunch to fix it all. Our training afterwards was alright, we finished strong which was good. After we began figuring out all of of the returning missionaries out as far as futons go. That was a fun run around. During dinner I slept, and about half way through we got a call from the Nagoya mission asking if I would build their portal. I told them to call me next week. This week was a little too busy. After we finished we began getting all kinds of office work done involving a new transfer. Getting rosters and pictures up.
Friday
I'll tell you what, being exhausted from the night before did not help in the morning. I felt to dead to play dodgeball with the missionaries so I slept in until 6:30. Breakfast was so delicious! It was one of the best breakfasts I have eaten in a while. It was a pretty sad morning though Elder Kennedy and Elder Bennion went home! They were in my first apartment in Japan! That is crazy to me it has already been that long! They seemed so old to me when I came into the mission. After the goodbyes. We worked on taking down all the futons and iPads. Except when we had to pay for the futons we had no money in the cash box which basically turned into the box because it was drained...it has been a long week. We got a lot of office work done which was great. Around 3 a crazy man came in for president so that was a little exciting. But then we kept working and had dinner then district meeting. It was great we talked about farmers so naturally I was all ears. Then we went out to find people, everyone was turning us down except the last man we talked to named Caesar who is from Brazil! He was way nice and we were able to exchange some contact information!
Well as you can tell it wasn't awful, no one died, but it was a pretty dang tough week.
The title of my email is from one of my favorite children's books!
Either way,
Big Hearts!
Elder Dunn
Sorry there weren't a whole lot of good pictures taken this week in the office!
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