Japan 2 months 1 week-18

asian. 

That is the moiwa ward bishop spitting a cherry seed. 

cherry picking 

this was our activity. This 10 second game thing. Like minute to win it and mafia! woooo!

my district. 

some of the people that went 

who can spit this furthest game. 

went on a split with these 2 elders. so funny. they taught me a word for to poop outside. They have a word for that in Japanese. It is noguso. 

sushi. this was last monday.

Minasan Konichiwa! Everyone says that whenever they give a talk in church and then everybody says it back and does a little awkward bow, it is so funny. But I am WAY short on time today because we just had a zone activity so I am very sorry to those out there who read my blog and I did not email. I will repent and do better! So here is what has happened this last week:

Today I am going to talk about timing. Alliteration. Anyways. Timing is what I learned this week. So we have an Investigator named Takahashi San, who is a 23 year old guy. He was going to get baptized next week, but we needed to meet with him 3 times this last week for him to be ready this Saturday. He got really busy with work and was unable to meet with us the three times we had scheduled to meet with him. BUT it was all for a reason. We met with him yesterday and talked to him about Tithing. Something that we thought would be really hard for him because he just barely got a new job, and is struggling with money. On Wednesday when we were supposed to meet with him, he was a work and was pressured into drinking coffee. He said that from breaking a commandment that he said he would follow, he felt the help from God leave him. He said that he did not receive it as much and didn't feel as good. The timing was perfect because we were able to testify that we are always helped when we obey what God has asked us to do. He said he would pay tithing because it is what God has asked him to do, and he "doesn't want to let god down, or not feel His love." The timing was perfect. That is what I learned this week. It was a great experience. I am learning that there is a timing and a place for everything. We may not see it right now, we may not know why, but there is always a reason. We may not even learn what the reason was in this life, BUT we will learn. I also have been noticing God's love through everyone. God loves us so much. Think about all of the people you know and the people that you love and that love you. God shows us His love through the people we know and meet. It is all for a reason and for a time. Just trust Him. So also this week I had a split with 2 Japanese Elders. Onishi Choro and Kudo Choro. It was a lot of fun! It was 3 of us. I learned a lot from them. We also went to a cherry hunt on Saturday. We had an hour and a half to eat as many cherries as we could. It was sooooo good and so much fun. We found 2 new investigators this week through English Class. They are both females in their 50's and extremely nice. Their names are Auki san and Imamura San. We are going to teach Imamura san in a  few hours too! Weeee. Anyways so out of time, but enjoy these pictures. LOVE YOU ALL!  Stay cool kid. Be excellent to each other.

Japan 2 months- 17 weeks

Good Engrish! I Rove Engrish!

I got a haircut today, am I beautiful?

hashtag navajo taco

Hello It is Me Mecham Choro. Today I am going to start off by answering questions because they are at the top of the screen and I can see them. So we usually walk everywhere. We do love Odori park, but really we just walk everywhere. There is the place in Sapporo right next to the park that is called Susukino. That place is evil! Basically just all the bad stuff in the world in one little part of the city, so we aren't allowed to go in there. So basically we just walk around there and visit members that surround the place. There is this one place I love called Kinjin course. Which just means Golden people. We meet AMAZING people there. I love it. It is a little walk way with lots of trees next to the Sapporo train station. I will take a picture of it next time I go. You actually aren't allowed to contact people inside the train stations, so we kinda hang out around the parks and outside of the train stations. The only problem is the times we go. If it is around the time work gets out it is bad because the workers never listen to us. They just want to go home. Really the people that actually listen to us are the college students. Japanese people love public transportation. They don't really use cars, because there is nowhere to park. Everyone rides bikes everywhere! I love it. Really if you don't want a car in Japan, you don't need a car. You can definitely get around without needing one. The mode of transportation in Japan is walking. There are a lot of trains, buses, subways and underground tunnels. There is even an underground city. Yeah when you think that it is crazy during the day and there are tons of people walking around we just walk down the stairs and we are in an even more crowded place. There are always people moving and going somewhere in Japan. I love it. I have slowly been learning more about the culture. Most of the time I can't recognize the culture because I don't know what they are saying when they are telling me that I am breaking their culture. hahaha. I always say the funniest things to people. The other day some lady asked me in a store if I wanted a sticker on my juice and I said I don't have one. Hahaha I thought she asked if I had a Seven11 card. Also a fun little culture point. You never hand cash to people. There is usually a little sissy plate kind of thing that you put your money on and they pick it up from that. I remember my first time eating out and I handed the cashier my cash and she gave me a really weird look. That is basically how I learn the culture. By messing up hahah. Now I will do my weekly update! Wooo!

Monday- after doing emails last week I had my first sushi. It was not as good as I wanted it to be. Don't get me wrong I loooveed it, but I don't like wasabi... yet. So it was kinda hard cause they put wasabi on everything. It was fun though. Sushi places in Japan are SO loud. Apparently the louder they are the more delicious they are. Pretty fun stuff. They are way different than american sushi. I will learn to love it though. 

Tuesday- This was the highlight of my week. We meet a bearded lady!!! So we were getting on the tram to go home after teaching english class and this lady walks onto the tram. She had a thick beard. It was easily better than anything I could ever grow. She was watching us the whole time she was sitting next to us. Then she contacted us. We aren't allowed to contact women, but if they contact us it is fine. She said in english, "are you missionaries?" yes. " I am so happy to meet you! My name is Johanna! I am from Taiwan and I am a member. I went on a mission too!" hahahah we talked to her for a good 15 minutes before our stop and she just testified to us the whole time. She really loved her mission. It was so awesome so meet her. She was only in Japan for 6 days and she was actually going back to her hotel to pack to go home. It was pretty crazy stuff but a lot of fun. 

Wednesday- This is the biggest thing I learned this week. So I we were talking (the missionaries) about life and stuff and about how they have handled hard times on their mission. I was shocked by some of the trials missionaries have had on their mission. I asked how they did it. A missionary asked me,"Do you love God? Then you have no reason to worry." Whoa. So true. I was thinking how if I had to do some of the things those missionaries had to do, and was really doubting whether or not I could do it. They said the love God and they never doubt His will and His requests. I was not necessarily questioning the reason for doing certain things, but just trying to see the purpose behind it. The thing is we have no idea where we are being lead to our whole life. We are always being lead to people we need to meet and people that need to meet us. I learned that if we love God and follow His will and on His time, there is no reason to fear. Just enjoy the ride and trust Him. It was a great little wake up call. 

Thursday-I just missed Lake Powell this day. That is all I wrote in my Journal hahaha. But is was a great day!

Friday- we met with 3 investigators that day. All of them are really close to baptism. Their lessons were great and they really progressed. These lessons on Friday and Saturday lead up to something great on Sunday. On Sunday we had 3 investigators come to church! My companion said he has never had that happen on his mission. It was a great blessing. They all expressed how they know that this is what they need and where they need to be. It was great. Wow. I am out of time. Well to sum it all up, Trust God and everything will work out, and enjoy the ride.
Love you all! Be excellent to each other.

Japan 1 month 4 weeks-16

Does this bike make me look fat?

 

No. Just pregnant.

 

But really I look fat in this picture haha

wow he is nice

Beauty with Class.

t.m Snow Orthodontics.

Purikura...This is a weird thing that a lot of Japanese girls do like an extreme photo booth where you can write on it and make is super girly. So naturally a lot of the Elders do it. It is supposed to make you look American, but if you are American it makes you look like and Alien.

(sorry it is hard to see.) 

I am now for real starting my mission. Although I am still training for one more transfer, I have seen what missionary work looks like and now I am having to actually do what I have learned. That means that there is no time to waste! It is crazy how fast time moves in the world. If I don't take time to stop and slow down, I easily get lost and lose track of what matters most. So here is what has happened this last week.

Monday we went and taught Takako san who has a family of 4. She is doing great and we talked to her for about an hour and a half and then tried to see if we can get them to english class on tuesday. They are such an awesome family. I have yet to meet the Husband, but he wants to meet us. Takako san reads the book of mormon with him and she is praying. They talk about the church together and so we are just waiting for him to have a day off where we can talk to both of them. I am excited to see what will happen with them. Tuesday we had english class which was just listening to engrish for a while. It is always fun. But the peak of this week was Wednesday. This last week we met an Anti-Christ. So we were walking down Odori Park and contacting people. There was this tiny man on a bike who I contacted. He kept biking and we kept walking. Suddenly we heard him turn around and he came biking back to us talking pretty loud. So in the MTC we only learned polite Japanese. If anyone speaks mean Japanese I cannot understand what they are saying. So he came up to us and in a mean way asked us why we contacted him. I said that he looked nice and we want to share a message with him. He then went off! I understood bits and pieces of what he said, but even my companion said that the Japanese that he said was the meanest Japanese he has ever heard. People would walk by and give us looks of sympathy. Like "oh those poor foreigners..." So he asked us why we talked to him and what we believe in. He asked us who we think god is. I told him he is our Heavenly Father. He asked where heaven is. Well I don't know.. So I asked him where he thinks it is. that just made him more mad. He kept saying we are so stupid because we are teaching a message about God but we don't even know where heaven is. He yelled at us for about an hour and a half and would not let us leave. He would block us with his bike if we tried to leave. Eventually my companion got away and he followed us! He even hit my companion with his bike. He was seriously insane! We got to our bikes and he followed us on his bike for another 15 minutes yelling at us until we finally got away.

That was a great learning experience. As crazy as he was and the little I understood, I felt a lot. I felt him take away the spirit the second he started talking. He was looking for us to say something he could fight against, and you can't fight against a testimony. You can't fight against what somebody knows and believes. I learned that "the truth cutteth the heart of the wicked" everytime we talked he would get mad. He would never answer our questions and he would yell. Everytime he talked we listened and tried to answer, but he wouldn't let us. But I learned that the worst thing that could happen is they don't listen. That is it. We tried so hard to talk to him because we feel bad for him. God loves everyone and we should too. We love him and tried to help him, but he wouldn't let us. If anything he was a testimony builder. He showed me how I just need to testify and hope they listen. Truth is really easy to notice when you hear it. Truth is way simple. You just have to look for it and want it. That is this weeks learnings and like such as. I am always out of time.... Well I love you all! Stay cool kids! Be excellent to each other!

-Mecham Choro

Japan 1 month 3 weeks-15

We had a bbq up in the canyon on Saturday. Way fun!! This is my investigator Takahashi san! he is probably going to be baptized in 2 weeks. Yes that is for real you read that right.

The Odori Missionaries. Taken Today out in front of the mission home

Minasan Konichiwa!!!!
First I am very sorry to hear about Cat. She was such an awesome person. She was such a good friend to Chandler and I over the summer and really helped us out. That was a big shock to me to hear about Cat. Cat's family and Nick are in my prayers. 

Just like you said, I will now change the subject.

I am actually going to start this email by answering the weekly questions. How did my lesson go with the Spanish lady? It was amazing! It was such an awesome experience to be able to teach in spanish... in Japan.. Haha Well I taught her the first lesson. I asked her questions about her religious back-ground and she said that her family was Catholic and she went to mass a few times, but didn't really know much. She didn't really understand what the Sisters taught her in Japanese, so I had to teach her everything. It was so much fun. The spirit was flying all over the place. I testified to her that I know that her Heavenly Father loves her. I know this because He wanted her to hear this message in her native language. It was amazing. She really felt the spirit. I extended the baptismal invitation and the lesson kinda exploded. She started talking about how she wants to know if it is true first, and I agree she needs to know, but she doesn't understand prayer and doesn't feel anything when she reads the Book of Mormon. That was very difficult. I had some big blanks trying to answer. She didn't have the Book of Mormon with her so we weren't able to read from it, but I testified like crazy. I had her pray in Spanish. That was the best thing for her. She said that she doesn't understand prayer because she feels like it is just words, but I told her it is what you want from you heart. It is talking to somebody that completely and perfectly understands you and wants to help you. All you have to do is ask. She said an amazing prayer where she thanked God for all of the blessings she has. After I promised her that as she prays she will be able to understand and feel the spirit more in her life. I may not have another lesson with her though. She has a test coming up and she wants to study for a month... Kinda confusing, but what'er. I will keep calling her and trying to meet with her. Even if I never meet with her again, I know she felt something during that lesson. That is what I have been learning lately. To testify all of the time! Planting seeds is a huge deal. Stand up for what you believe in cause if you miss out on an opportunity, it will never come again. 

This last Wednesday we went to the Sawaguchi family to visit with them. It was great. We did not know what to share with them though. We usually do a role-play lesson but instead we had a little testimony meeting. They bore some amazing testimonies that I barely understood. I bore mine about how God loves all of us and how important our testimonies are. She then started telling me some stuff that I did not understand at all. After we left Brown Choro began to tell me what she said to me. She said that when we bare our testimonies we should not expect anything out of it. We should not expect some amazing experience where they say that their life changed and we were an answer to their prayers. Don't get me wrong those things definitely happen. There are no coincidences. But if we expect praise or recognition for our testimonies we will be upset and doubtful when the outcome is not what we anticipated. Bare you testimony and be the best example you can be because you want to, not because you are told to or you want praise or recognition. That was a great lesson. It really helped me out this week, because I feel like my testimony does not count because I can only say a few things. I repeat my testimony a lot and it is so simple. BUT that is what a testimony is! It does not need to be some eloquent or elaborate statement, It can be as simple as I know that God is our Heavenly Father. I know that through prayer we can feel God's love. That is what tends to be the most powerful anyway. Brigham Young said that he would not have been converted by an amazing speaker, but rather through the simple testimony that Joseph Smith shared that allowed the spirit to testify to him. Just some cool stuff I have been learning. I am always learning. We are all always learning. Woooo! It's way fun huh? Life can be way hard though sometime, just remember that it is only for a little bit, and that trials are one of the greatest blessings we can have, because it means that God knows we are ready to progress. 

Oh! Something fun. Last week right after emails I went and ran up a mountain with Sotto Choro and Hansen Choro. That was a lot of fun. Then we went to a park and played ultimate with everyone in our zone. It was so fun to run. I ran probably 6-8 miles that day. Basically this week has been a lot of walking, but a lot of fun! I hope you are all doing great. I love you! 

Mecham Choro yo!

Japan 1 month 2 weeks-14

All of us

Classic missionary photo

Lovers cage

Lovers sign

This is at the park before the hike

Sapporo at night

cause yolo

Hello everyone! HAPPY FATHERS DAY! Happy day to all of the fathers, future fathers, and mothers in the world. (really the mothers are the real winners because they are the ones that work the hardest on fathers day, and probably all of the time) Dad you are the greatest and I love you. Thank you for the amazing example you have set for me. I hope to be just like the amazing missionary you were.

Well here is what has happened this last week. On Monday we hiked Mt. Moiwa. That was a lot of fun! It felt so great to be outside. I was able to wear normal people clothes out in public. That was weird. The forests in Japan honestly remind me a lot of utah. There are random buddhist statues all over the place, that do not remind me of utah, but the trees are almost the same. There are a lot of aspen trees that are cool. Wow why am I talking about tress. That is super boring. Anyways the hike was about 2.3 miles long. Not a very hard hike, but a lot of fun. The top of the "mountain" was way cool and funny. That was the most asian part of the hike. You can drive to the top of the mountain, which totally takes the fun out of it, (but I really want to bike it) or you can take a giant gondola thing to the top for like 9$. We hiked up for the sunset and then rode the ropeway thing down so that we could be back at the apartment by 9:00. So at the top of the mountain they have this builiding and they play this magical music to make it seem like you are in some crazy far away planet. They have this random metal cage thing that has a bell in it. My companion and I went and rang the bell as loud as we could together and yelled, "Dekimashita!" Which means we did it! We then got a lot of weird looks from everyone, because 1. it was really quiet and we were super loud and 2. because we read the sign after we did it and it is called the "lovers sanctuary" It is for couples who ring the bell to symbolize being together forever. Then they buy a lock and lock it onto the bars to symbolize their love. SOOO funny. We did not know this. We rang it and laughed so hard after we realized why everyone was being so weird. Well that was monday. Tuesday was a normal day. But we did meet this new amazing family. Their name is the Nada family. Right now we are teaching the mothers. She is 29 and looks 18 and has 2 kids. One is 9 and the other is 7. Oldest is a boy and the youngest a girl. She explained to us that she has really felt like there is a god when somebody has died in her life. She really felt help from something else. We taught her about how we will see these people again and about eternal families and testified so hard. Then we extended the baptismal invitation and she said yes! She is going to be baptized on September 8th. We want to teach her family so bad. Her husband is a doctor and basically only is home on Sundays. He works so much that most of the time he just sleeps at his office. We really want to bring them to church and allow them to feel the holy ghost. They are so great. They are such a happy and loving family. My companion and I are really excited to keep teaching them. Wednesday and Thursday were sick days. My companion was sick so we stayed in the apartment all day and I studied for 13 hours straight. My brain almost exploded. Well on Friday I met my investigator from Columbia! Her name is Sra. Rena. I was able to talk in Spanish! Wow that is an awesome experience. It was just get to know her kind of stuff, but I set up an appointment with her for this Friday. I also recieved a refferal for a man from Madrid Spain!! What?! Am I on a spanish or Japanese speaking mission? Well I just wanted to tell you all how important you are. You are so important to me and you are so important to God. It is amazing how much of an example everyone is to everyone. If you saw somebody dancing on the street you would either be happy, upset, weirded-out or whatever, but either way they had an impact on you. Everyone you meet you have an impact on. What kind of impact are you leaving? What are you really about? What kind of person do you want them to remember you as? For me I want people to know that I teach about God and Jesus Christ. I want them to know that I know that this message is true and that I know they can recieve the happiness that I have as well. Always be the best example you can be. It is extremely important. Remember that you have bad days, and there are times were you will not be the best example you can be, but it is from these times were you learn who you really are and who you want to me. I really screwed up a lesson this week by not even talking about the gospel. I was too concerned about what he thouht about us and that he thought we were normal people. I did not even bring up our message before he told us that he did no have time to talk today. I was SUPER down about this. I was very very hurt by my poor example. BUT I learned that I can be a better example. I learned that I really need to take a step back evaluate what I really want and who I really want to become. This is something we always need to be doing. We are always improving. Life is always moving and we are always learning. YOU can do this! I love you all! Your heavenly father loves you perfectly and completely. He always understands you no mattter what the circumstance is. Trust Him. Be excellent to each other. I love you.

-Mecham Choro

Japan 1 month 1 week- 13

A shrine we ran to in the morning. First run since my first day in Sapporo

The shrine or jinja in japanese.

First split

missionaries at yosako

Yosakoi

What is wrong?

Yes that is a random African American girl in a group of only asians dancing.

All old ladies

Sapporo

Hello Everyone! I have officially been in Japan for a month now! Woo! Time flies when you are on a mission. Cause they are always fun. Anyways I have like no time today because our schedule changed so we can go climb a mountain! We are going to go hiking at 4:00 and so we are going to go out and dendo at 11:15. Oh dendo means to do missionary work. Anyways. I will tell you about the amazing experiences this week. First I found out some crazy news. I am teaching a lesson in Spanish. The sister misionaries here have been teaching this one investigator from Columbia. She is interested, but does not understand as much as they thought she did. So I am going to now be teaching her in Spanish. Wow. The Lord really does have a plan for us. So the next awesome thing that happened this week was Yosakoi. Yosakoi is a festival that happens only in Sapporo. It is a crazy festival where everybody dances and goes crazy. I want to show you the videos I took, but I can't send them. So look up Yosakoi Festival on Youtube or google or something. You will be very impressed. That was a lot of fun to go to. We could only go for an hour because we had to go dendo the rest of that day too. Wow I am so out of time. So I am going to tell a really quick story about what I have learned this week. I have leared a lot about pride this week. Pride is something I am really good at. When people ask my talents, I should say I am really good at being selfish. We had a split this week. It was my first split. I was with Chiba Choro from Chiba (Its in Tokyo). I learned a lot from him. He is 26 and when he left on his mission his family said that they would not let him come home. He said that he is not worried about where he will live when he comes home, because he trusts the lord. He is very brave. I am grateful for how blessed I am to have such a loving and accepting family. I learned from this experience how we cannot mistake others personalities for sin. We are all so different. We all have fun differently, mess up differently, and love differently. Some people don't have serious problems. Some people don't get offended. Some people don't need to constantly hear they are loved. I learned this week to love others how they want to be loved, not how we want to be loved. I learned to always be outward and selfless and I will recieve the help I need. Well I am out of time. I love you all!

-Jake Snow Mecham Choro

Japan 4th week-12

I just took this today. I forgot to take one during the week. This if from my appartment. I will take the hashtag to great places soon.

My bed

Hello Everybody! I have been in Japan for 3 weeks now and starting on week 4. Whoa. Time is crazy on missions. Almost like it doesn't exist. Anyways here is what happened this last week. So this last week was the week to teach lessons. A lesson is whenever you talk to somebody about the gospel and then listen and they say that you may talk to them again about the message. Our goal for the week was 7 and we had 13 I think. 2 of those lessons were from housing. We went and housed this one apartment that is just for college students. They live in little boxes basically. It is crazy. It is not healthy. The walls are really small and the doors are really short. It is funny. Anyways random things I want to change from Japanese culture... So we were at this one door and the way that the doors open I was standing on the stairs and it took up the entire hallway so the person that opened the door could only see me. I could see my companion but he could not be seen from the person inside of the door. So I had to do an entire lesson by myself. I talked to a college student, whose name I cannot remember at all, all by myself and taught him about god. I testified that he would receive the help and love he needs from god. He said that he liked the message and it would be okay if I came back. He is taking a test this week, but we are going to go back and try to talk to him again. I did it all by myself! I understood like 60% of what he said, but I was actually able to talk to somebody by myself! My companion did not look at me to help me and honestly just sat on the ground. It was kinda weird... But Anyways. That was a great experience. I have met some great people who really want to hear this message. So out of all the people we are teaching the oldest is 23. The youngest is 18. We have been told to focus on the younger generation, but we are not even trying. These people just come to us. They always happen to be walking right next to us when we need to talk to them. They are everywhere and always wanting to listen. They are great. That is what I love about Japanese. There are no swear words. The meanest thing somebody could say to you is that they think that they don't want to listen to your message. They may say they don't really like you, but it is imposslbe to say that you hate somebody in Japanese. Also impossible to say that you miss somebody. But we did meet this one guy who is studying drama and he knows a little bit of english. I called him yesterday and he told me that he misses me. I just laughed. Cause first his english is super funny, but also that he said he misses me. So great. Yesterday we went to visit some non attending members, but none of them were home. So we went housing. We got invited into this one house by this guy who was in his underwear. He said that I am a beautiful man. He said it in English. Whenever Japanese people talk in English it scares me. It sounds way funny. So we talked to him for a while and he said we could come back, but who knows if we will. Honestly he was really sketchy and he gave us chocolate after. So funny. My language is really getting so much better. It blows my mind every day that I am talking to people in Japanese. Seriously it is amazing how quickly I am learning. Gift of Tongues is for real! So I don't have a lot of time because all of the missionaries want to email (14 missionaries) 4 computers. Not good. Anyway I love and miss you all. I am going to try and send a letter soon. They only take about a week to get to America from Japan, but they take like 2 weeks from America to Japan. Crazy.

Be excellent to each other.

Love you.

Elder Jake Snow Mecham choro

Desk

Just in case you need some anus loving.