Kon'nichiwa Family and Friends!

I'll try to tell you as much as I can.  So today we are going to Sado.  It is the island off the coast next to us.  The leaders there have a baptism and Elder Pronk is interviewing so our Pday is basically non existent today.  Sado will be cool though.  Last Monday, I read Mormon 1:15 in personal study.  It specifically says when Mormon was 15 he felt the goodness of Jesus.  I had that scripture in my bag of tricks just to be prepared.  We ran into 4 15 year olds. :)  Taught them some stuff, so cool.  Tuesday I went on splits with Elder Shibuta from Brazil.  He is a zone leader.  He speaks 4 languages now.  His dad owns a language school.  I didn't even know he spoke Portuguese.  He's so good at English.  So I learned a lot from him.  Cool story, it was pouring freezing rain like always and we were about to go home for dinner for the night.  We thought we had done all the houses but I just checked again, you know how OCD I am.  So glad I did.  Saw one we thought we had knocked but hadn't.  We decided to put off dinner and try.  Found a family named "A".  The A family.  We are teaching them Wednesday.  So excited and they have 3 little kids.  I also tried to speak a lot more this week.  I'm improving but man is it hard.  There's a lot of different ways to speak Japanese, so old people are impossible to understand, kids voices are really high, but teenagers and 20s and 30s are the best.  Kids are so adorable.  So funny them saying the same English sentences but in Japanese.  One girl at church was trying to pick up a chair and was like "dekinai!!" which means "I cant do it" then she started telling us a story and since she was 3, I could sort of understand haha.  Oh yeah, a couple of days ago it snowed!!!!!  So cold.  In Japanese you don't walk up to people and ask how they are doing.  Its just weird.  The way you do it is comment on the weather and then if they talk, you're in haha.  So sometimes I feel like the official Sanjo weather reporter.  I spend all day saying: "Samui desu yo ne" (It sure is cold)  "Ame ga taihen desu yo ne"  (Its rainy today) Then when they stop we teach.  Sunday we ran into a bunch of chugakuseis (middle schoolers) who were 14.  They actually pulled out there phones and took pictures of us gaijin (foreigners) immediately haha.  Elder Pronk also does free running so he did a backflip for them haha.  In Sanjo there's no gaijin so we always get looks haha.  On trains its hilarious.  I always am like, I wonder how many people are staring at me right now haha.  I'm 188 cm and I tell it to people a lot.  Housing (Tracting) is hilarious because the people are always shocked.  One old lady just stumbled backward and it was so funny.  Our investigators are doing alright.  This family is probably our focus now.  People in Japan just don't want to offend anyone so we never are exactly sure how interested they are. Thanksgiving we ate Ramen, so basically not thanksgiving haha. The other day I got soaked in freezing rain but hey, I'm used to it by now haha.  The gospel is true and Japanese is fun but constantly stressful but I'm doing it and with Heavenly Fathers help. I'm improving everyday.  I love you all. 
 
Ai, (Love)
Proctor Chourou (Elder Proctor)
 
Burrrr!!

 Ramen for Thanksgiving - yummy!
 
 



Nice Sanjo Branch Member - love the goatee/stash

 

Volunteering at Old Folks home and helping a young girl.


"Oh mighty buffalo wings, I didn't expect to see you for 2 years, yet here you are!!!"