I live in the most ghetto, Japanese apartment, but it's adorable. I love it! My trainer is Japanese! She is hilarious! We get along really well! She speaks a lot of English, so it's nice. She does most of the talking when we talk to people because I have no idea what goes on. Literally how we proselyte is we go to the park or just walk down the road, and we compliment babies, clothes and dogs to start a conversation, but it works! We've gotten some names out of it. The food here is incredible! Seriously, so good. I haven't had anything bad yet! I've eaten a lot of ramen, rice (which I love now), and vegetables, which I love now too. Also, I tried Japanese pickles, and they're really good! It was super weird to eat them, but I like them. There is a lot of food from around the world here, which is great. Also, they have super good crepes in Japan. Who would've thought?? When we get one, we call it "crepe dendo (missionary work)" and we get a lot of great conversations out of it! It's super effective! One weird thing, the stores are crazy. They have dead fish just sitting out. I also saw an octopus tentacle in the meat section. Weird!
Here's how my first week in Japan went.
First of all, sorry I seemed kind of out of it on the
phone. I was pretty much a hot mess because I was so scared to go to Japan. But
I loved getting to talk to you all! It was fun! The plane ride was faster than
I expected! I feel asleep for a little bit, so that helped. When we landed in
Japan, it turned out that we were on the same flight as Ariana Grande
(Nickelodeon star) so we were greeted in Japan by not only President Wada
(who's the coolest guy ever), but a thousand screaming fans. It was the
craziest thing! We felt very welcomed though! Then we boarded a bus to
drive to Kichijoji, Japan, where the mission home is. Side note, I never
want to drive here. The roads are super narrow, and you drive on the opposite
side of the road. Super scary! Then we had dinner at the mission home, and went
to bed. We woke up early on New Year's Day to go running at a park, and
watch the sunrise. Apparently it's culture to do that in Japan on New Year's
Day because a bunch of people were there! That whole day was filled with a
bunch of orientation stuff, and then we went streeting for an hour, which was
exciting! We had our first Japanese dinner that night. I ate ramen, it was super
delicious!
The next day we had more orientation stuff, and then we
found out who our trainers were. It was super exciting, but sad at the same
time. I cried when I had to say goodbye to M Shimai. She's in another
zone, so I won't get to see her that often. Then we shipped off to our areas!
We spent the rest of the day talking to people, and then we had dinner at a
ward members house. They spoke English, which was nice. It was a great dinner!
We rode the train home then and went to bed.
The next day not much happened besides talking to people.
The next day was church, which, in a sense, was three
hours of having no idea what's going on. It's ok though! I felt very loved and
welcomed by the ward members! I got up and bore my very simple, Japanese
testimony, so that was great! I also learned that every fast Sunday, ward members
give food to the missionaries! It was so nice, we got a bunch of food. The rest
of the day we went to the park and tried talking to people. As of now, I
haven't taught any lessons because we don't have any investigators, but we have
a couple of potential investigators, so we will see how this week goes! Also, I
totally stick out here. One lady told me I had the hair of a french doll haha.
So great!
Well, that's how my week was. I'll let you know how
everything goes next week. I love you all, and I hope you have a great week! I
love being a missionary, it's hard but great! I love you!
Dansie Shimai
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