Japan 3 months 2 weeks-24

We got kinda bored. 

Hashtag again. 

Getting soaked.

if you want it, this is a picture of my map. the redded out area is Susukino. the red dots are the churches and the pink is our apartments.

Make your own pancake noodle things. 

They all fell asleep so I took a picture with them.

The most dangerous week of my mission was this week. No worries I am safe, I am just oblivious because I can't read or understand anything. So this week started with A LOT of finding. We were out talking to people for over 6 hours a day and getting SO tired from walking all of the time. The other day we even met two gaijin (foreigners). One from Pakastan named Mohamed Ali (I laughed, I am a horrible person. It just sounds really funny when you try to say it in Japanese) and the other is Devon who.... SPEAKS SPANISH!!! I have another Spanish speaking investigator. So this only happened because of how hard we were working the beginning of the week. Monday through Thursday we only made 3 appointments and contacted about 100 people. We talked for about 6 hours a day and saw nothing. One night during planning we even laid down on the ground and laughed/cried(not real tears cause we are men and big girls don't cry)/complained for about 30 minutes. Then we realized we were being so stupid so we said a prayer and asked for help. The next day we had 4 people give us their information. We didn't even have to ask. We taught a lesson to them and they quickly showed interest and gave us their contact info. Prayers really are answered when we work our hardest. So this was Friday. Friday was the high of the week. We were on fire. We talked to everyone and we were so happy. It was pouring rain, we got soaked, but we kept going. We even annoyed a few people so we had to stop. But we just used it to our advantage and went housing. We tried a funny approach this week. It is called... In japanese Kyodai Dendo, which means.. brother missionary work? Wow it doesn't translate at all, but it is basically just going up to people and saying "Sato San!!! It has been forever! Do you remember me?!?! We were such good friends before." They get really confused and then we introduce the plan of Salvation to them. Some people get angry, others tell us they are Buddhist so they don't believe in it, and some people get happy and want to learn more. It was pretty funny. But the Scariest part of this week was Saturday and Sunday. There is a place in Sapporo called Susukino. It is basically the strip at Vegas, but on crack. No missionary is allowed to go there. It is a area of about 10 blocks. They have serious drinking problems in there and even prostitutes. So Tomita Choro and I had a dinner appointment with a family who we thought lived on the border of Susukino. We called the Zone leaders to ask if we can go and they said yes, that the member doesn't even live near Susukino. We were kinda confused. So and Saturday we went to the edge of Susukino and I can't read Kanji so I didn't know the address or understand where we were. Then my companion went in Susukino. At first I just thought there were a lot of people and lights everywhere and even a giant roller coaster. It looked like a lot of fun. Then we went further. Tomita Choro called the member to make sure we were in the right place and we were WAY off. We thought it said South 3, but it said South 13. So we ended up in the heart of Susukino. I have never felt so scared in my life. There were people everywhere. I had to get off my bike and walk. Tomita Choro was a head of me and I couldn't see him. People were trying to get me to buy alcohol, come to their store, and I even was approached by a prostitute. I was freaking out. I kept walking and didn't look or talk to anyone. The lights and people we so distracting. I found Tomita Choro and we tried to get out. We got on our bikes and went down this one road that had gang members outside of it and prostitutes lined up outside. We immediately biked away from there. We eventually got out of Susukino, but the whole time I was freaking out. My body was shaking and I could feel the spirit leaving me. I felt everyone looking and I even felt people grabbing me. Oh and we were only there at 7:00 at night. Just imagine what it would be like at 11:00. We made it safely to the members house and had a great time with them. Just being in their extremely white house felt sooo good. I literally felt like I was living Lehi's dream. I saw the giant roller coaster and the great and spacious building, but we messed up and went inside. Luckily we made it out and made it back to the white room, where they had the fruit of the tree of life (which was ramen salad and curry, super good) I promise you that whatever party may look fun, movie may look okay, or situation you may think you can control, it is just easier to avoid it. To be honest when I first heard of Susukino I really wanted to go see what it looked like. I just heard that they had a roller coaster and lots of lights. Well it is a lot different than that. We have commandments for a reason. Not just to protect us, but to bless us. It was way weird. I never thought I would have to learn this lesson on my mission. Yesterday we visited my favorite less-active member. Shirase Kyodai (the guy with the huge head) we found out that he lives in a gangs territory and there is a Buddhist sect that hates Mormons. Well somehow some of the Buddhist members found out that we have been visiting Shirase Kyodai and they were not happy. They basically went over and threatened him and us. We weren't their when the Buddhist members came over, but we heard about it and now we have to stay away for a while, because we may be being watched or followed. Either way we are targeted. Hahahaha sketch. It is so much fun. Basically this week was a lot of fun. Every week is a lot of fun, but it just gets better and better. I love you all so much. I am safe no worries. Just a funny week. Be excellent to each other! 

Love YOU

Jake Snow Mecham Choro. 

Japan 3 months 1 week-23

Hello everyone!!! ( I hate starting letters. I sound like a loser hahaha good.) Anyways I am going to start off by questions for YOU. YOU means for whoever is reading this. I read a letter from a lady in the ward I am focusing on this week. Her name is Oda San. She is so awesome. In the letter it said "Are you better than you were last week? Are you working harder today? What are you doing to become better?" That is my question. You don't need to answer. I just thought about it this week, so I just want to make the whole world think about it now.

This week was super hard and super fun. My companion (elder tomita) decided that almost all of the investigators we have right now are not very strong. So we dropped about 12. This was SUPER hard for me. One of them included is Takahashi san. The guy we have been teaching for 3 months and who was supposed to be baptized 2 weeks ago. That was super hard for me to realize that he is not very strong right now and we could be putting our energy and focus in a better place. When I first heard this I felt like all of my work that I was doing with Brown Choro before Tomita Choro got here was for nothing. I felt like I was just wasting my time teaching him and that it was all for nothing. I was super upset, making it really hard for me to do anything. Tomita choro does something interesting where he only contacts students who are in college. This means that I have to work a lot harder and that we are talking to a lot of college students. So right after we decided to drop a lot of investigators we went to the University close to the Train station to go find a lot of college students to talk to. I was in a HORRIBLE mood and did not want to talk to anyone. Especially gaijin (foreigners). Tomita Choro really wanted to practice his English so he tried to contact a Gaijin. We say this one guy and Tomita Choro went to talk to him and the guy yelled "don't even think about it!" That was super awkward and I was even more upset. We kept walking and then we saw another gaijin. I made Tomita Choro contact him because there was no way I could do it. Well. I instantly had to change my mood. His name was Nicholas and his is from France. We talked for 3 hours. It started with Tomita Choro's broken English to try and start a lesson with him and introduce ourselves to him. I eventually had to get over my bad mood and talk to him. We talked sooo deep for 3 hours. He REALLY wanted to know about Mormons. He asked so many questions that I did not have the answer to. He kept wanting proof. He said that if a building fell of a sea was parted or a storm stopped (something like that happened in the bible) he would believe. I told him how I came to know that this church is true. I told him how it is all feelings. Because feelings you can't fake. He said that you can. And well that is true. If you are in a bad mood you can change it. And I had to change my bad mood when I was talking to him. But then I realized that the spirit is a feeling. BUT the spirit is a external force effecting our internal emotions. I told him that the ONLY way he can EVER know is if he tries for himself. He can't expect a miracle if he doesn't work for one. I told him stories about the miracles I have seen. About knowing that families will be together forever. It was really powerful. He asked if what I was saying was really true. It was this first time where I really had to think about what I was saying. Whenever I said that I know it is true in Japanese I would think about the words I am trying to say not about whether or not I mean it. It was all in English so I had to mean what I say. First props to all of the missionaries in the world who are serving a mission in their own language. Especially English. I have no idea how you do it. I testified that this is the true church and in the process of testifying the spirit confirmed to me that it is. It was really powerful. But for me only. For him he said that it is great that I know it is true but he thinks that religion came from drugs. He told me about his experience when he did shrooms in the forest by himself and how he felt the most religious at that time. Haha it was really fun talking with him. Sadly he is back in France right now. But I know he felt something. I know that what I told him was true. And whether or not he needed it or I needed it, talking to him was worth it. Today I studied about love and for real that is the ONLY thing that matters. If all of your actions are influence by love then nothing will ever be hard. I am trying to love everything I do and everyone I talk to, but sometimes it is hard cause Satan sucks. But I am doing my best. And that is all that matters. Working harder to be better this week than last week, better today, and always working to become a better person. I would love to report and tell you more stories about what happened this week that was awesome, but it was just a lot of biking and hearing people say (kekko desu) which means no thanks. A lot of rejection, but it will pay off. I love you all. Be excellent to each other. 

Jake Snow Mecham Choro. 

You are going to hate me but I have no pictures this week... we were really busy, but i will do better this week and send you a ton next week. Love you all so much. Sorrrrrryyyyyy. 

japan 3 months 22 weeks

We sweat when we eat our food.... Ramen.
My new companion 

The last meal with my companion. It was indian curry. The best thing in the world.

My distict.

I had my first transfer that actually mattered! Guess what?! I have a new companion! I am still in Odori but my companion is different. Please go ahead and guess then read on. That is correct! His name is Elder Tomita Keiki! (yes his first name is cake)  He is Japanese and from a city an hour away from Tokyo. He is the coolest. He is a convert of 3 years and he is 23. We are having so much fun. We are a lot alike. We laugh almost too much. I am speaking only Japanese now. Pray for me. Hahahah but for real I am doing sooo much better with Japanese it is blowing my mind. I learned how to not fear what others think this week. That rhymed... Awkward. Anyways. So I was really embarrassed about my Japanese for a long time because I feared that others would make fun of me because it really sucks. Well I had to get over that really quick because there is no other way for me to be able to do anything now. So 2 awesome things have came out of this. 1. I had to teach Tomita Choro the area and all of the investigators because he just got here. I am the Junior companion but for the first few days I had to be the senior companion. I had to decide what we were going to do, where we were going to go and who we were going to teach .That was a change. I had to do sooo much work and it made me so tired. I realized how I much I needed to work harder. There were a lot of thing that I could have done better when I first got to Japan but I am so glad I didn't do it. I don't have regrets about the things I didn't do because from not doing them I grew. Crap I rhymed again. So when I was making all the decisions I had to be confident with them. I couldn't half want to do something or be a little hesitant about it. I had to decide and go for it. This lead up to yesterday. 2. I taught 2 lessons all by myself. I have always had the back up of my companion for when I didn't know what to say, but it was different this time. We were teaching our one investigator Aoki san (whose full name is Green Blue Tree) and we asked her to read the book of mormon on her own. Well she said no. Straight up said that she would rather kiss her dogs than listen to the message we want to share with her. So that was way difficult. Tomita choro looked away and I was freaking out. It was just me. I decided to open my mouth and see if anything was going to happen. I didn't even plan on saying anything. I literally just opened my mouth. No, no words came to my mouth. I just looked like an idiot. So I started laughing and then I decided to talk. I told her about how busy I was in high School and how I didn't read the book of mormon as much as I should. I told her how tired I was and that I didn't make time to read it, but when I did it was like everything in my life was working better than I could have ever made it. I promised her (and everyone else in the world) that as she reads the book of mormon she will find her answers and her life will all work out. She said she has no energy so I made her pray on the spot for energy. It was insane. She prayed, I asked her to read it on her own and she said yes. Then we went to our next investigator. Sato san. The hardest person on the planet to teach. We taught him the plan of salvation. In the middle of the lesson sato san was going off on his rant about how Paul actually created the atonement. Yeah... no. So I listened and tried to decide what to do next but I was getting nothing. I turned to see if my companion had anything and... he was asleep. So I pulled out the book of mormon (that I can't even read) and had him read alma 5. We talked for a good 20 minutes about the atonement and the lesson ended with him saying thank you so much for coming over. I now understand. Whoa. He prayed and we left. Nobody was there to say "wow that was so awesome Jake! You did it all by yourself!" (yes I am full of pride and I love hearing things about me) So I said it to myself. I was amazed by how much work we got done when I actually tried my hardest. Before I held back a little bit because I was scared what others would thing. That is stupid. Fearing others only made it harder for me and for them. I am still learning how to get over yourself because I am still extremely prideful, but I am working my hardest and that is all that is expected of us. Sorry I am out of time, but I love you all! Thank you for being so awesome! Now go be a better awesome! When you give your best, your best gets better. Weeeeeee. Amen. Be excellent to each other. 

Japan 2 months 4 weeks-21

"What a pretty fire" Can you name it?

-howls moving castle.

#yolo #jonnystiles

It was raining and we had no umbrellas.

I love this picture. So funny. The sisters in my district.

Wow I am so cool huh?

Weeeeee

This last week we had a baptism scheduled for Sunday. Takahashi san just needed to have is interview on Saturday in order to see if he is really ready for baptism. We were waiting for him to finish the interview with almost 100% positivity that he was going to pass. Unfortunatley he did not. He said that he hasn't put in his full effort to read the book of mormon and to know that baptism is what he needs to do. Well that sucked. BUT it was a great learning experience. 1. You can't force conversion. You can't force someone to have faith or desire. You can't make somebody want to do anything. Just like my beautiful mother said, "the only thing in the world you have to do is die." BUT you have everything in the world to do that you WANT to do. We taught an investigator this week who almost had a heart attack she was so excited about agency. She LOVES that God cares that much about us to let us decide for ourselves. I never realized how amazing free agency is until she was so blown away by it. But it is so true! We have the knowledge that "we lived in heaven a long time ago it is true" this means that we had agency before. We knew about the plans and which one we wanted to follow. We also had a desire to follow those plans. We had wants before we came here and we have wants now that we are here. For some reason I never realized this until now. Basically I am just teaching myself as I write this letter. Elder Watabe said something this week that was so awesome. He said, "obviously we had to have fought really hard and really wanted to be apart of this gospel to be born in the situations we are born in, with the families we have, and the knowledge we have." Yeah that is pretty cool stuff. Anyways I will be a human now. 2. BE A HUMAN! I went on a split this friday with an elder who is known for how robotic he is. He is constantly thinking about missionary work and all he ever wants to do is talk about it. All of the time. Which is absolutely what we should do, but we are still humans and we need to realize that others are humans too, so they may not want to talk about the gospel all of the time. My companion said that if you don't be human with your companion and you don't talk about your likes, dislikes, families and good stuff, the people you contact will recoginze that you don't know each other and they will feel distant. I am definitely working on being a human. My personality likes to go run and hide when I am speaking in Japanese. But I am working on it. Okay I have a quick funny story. So we have this one investigator named Sally. I think I talked about him before. But we went to visit him this week because he called us and said that he read the pamphlet we gave him and after reading it he said he felt a lot of guilt and needs this gospel. So we went to visit him. We went into his tiny, sketchy apartment that smelt like smoke and sat down to talk. He began to talk about how hard his life is lately and how he really want to move to tokyo make a bar and have me and my companion be in his movie that he is going to make with Leonardo DiCaprio and we will be his boyfriends. Oh yeah he is gay. He came out and told us that he is gay AND that he is a little mentally handicapped. Oh. He then told us a story about how when he was in the whomb (hahahahahah that is a funny word and I don't know how to spell it) his grandmother was saying that he was going to be a very special baby. Well he definitely is. He said that he is special because he is going to make a religion. A religion where he is the God and everyone worships him and they get in Kimonos (japanese dresses) and dance. He then ran into his room to put is kimono on for us and dance for us again. He even turned on some slow jams and danced for us. He knocked over something off of his fridge and I tried not to laugh, but he heard me and said "stop! This is the best part!" I was trying so hard not to laugh. Well we were unable to talk about the message because he said that he just wanted to talk to us about how much he loves dancing and how he wants to be the dancing god. That was great. We dropped him. BUT mircale. We found a grandma who lives next to him who said that she has interest and wants us to come visit her sometime. That was pretty sweet. Wow that was a stupid line "pretty sweet" I don't speak engrish anymore. Anyways this was a great week. I learned a lot about doing what you want, as long as it is what the Lord wants to. Men are that they might have joy. If ice cream brings you joy (which it definitely does) then it is okay to eat, as long as it doesn't interfere with the Lords time. Stay awesome. I love you all. Be excellent to each other.

-Elder Jake Snow Mecham Choro.