Weddings and Crazy Dudes

June 27, 2016: Week 87

Area: Izumi

Companion: Bruce Choro

Hey everyone!! It was so great to hear from all of you! It sounds like it's been super hot in Utah! We got straight rain like everyday this week so it was kind of a bummer. When it rains, the humidity in Japan goes to ridiculous levels. Seriously, this country is so humid!!

So this week was super fun! It was the first week of the transfer so we were able to welcome two elders into our group here in Izumi. My new companion is named Elder Bruce from Oklahoma. He went to BYU for a year before coming out and is hitting his hump day on my birthday this week. He is striving to be a fighter pilot after the mission so that's pretty cool. We have a fun time together. The other Elder is Elder Murakami. He is from Salt Lake and is a lot of fun too. Both of the guys love basketball, classic rock, and funny stuff. 

Like I said, a lot of this week was rainy and when it rains and the ground is wet, we aren't allowed to ride bikes, so we walked a lot and knocked on a lot of doors. We still haven't found anyone who will listen to us but since I have a comp that is easy to talk to and fun to be around, we still have a good time so its all good. 

So I don't have a ton to tell you guys about but there were a few funny/cool things that happened this week. 

So this past Saturday, a choir from BYU Hawaii came to Sendai and did a fireside/concert in Sendai and we got to go to it. When we walked in the building, it was filled with American college students and it totally freaked me out. I've gotten to the point where I almost feel like a Japanese person in a sense because white people kind of scare me. And talking to them is even worse. I feel so uncomfortable and awkward! It's so bad! So don't be surprised when I come home and I'm a way awkward RM! So I had a pretty scary wake-up call to having a social life once again. Fortunately, I still have a little time before I have to worry about that. But the concert was way good. They sang songs about Christ from all around the world. They sounded super good. Also, the president of BYU Hawaii and his wife spoke at the end. I didn't realize until the end that Sister Tanner was once the General Young Women's President of the church. It was cool to hear from them. The spirit was really strong too. They also had a few members in the choir who had served missions in Japan so they got to give talks in Japanese. I was thinking how cool it would be if I could do that kind of thing but then I realized that I can't sing soooo yeah. 

After the concert, we went back to Izumi and went street contacting for a bit. We had a couple of interesting things happen. First, we basically found a new investigator but he unfortunately lives in Tokyo. I stopped him and gave him a pass-along card and he said that he had thought a lot about the purpose of life and life after death. So we pulled out the Book of Mormon and read a few scriptures with him. He said he was interested but he unfortunately was in Sendai just for a day and actually lives in Tokyo. We gave him the book and encouraged him to hear more back home. Its a tad frustrating that most of the way good people I've found don't live in my area. Oh well, hopefully someone gets to see the fruits of it. But he was a super cool dude.

A few minutes later, we were still walking around and we saw this normal looking guy sitting on a bench smoking, so I said hi to him and he just started talking to us. So, thinking that it was a good opportunity, we walked over to him thinking that he knew the missionaries or something. But turns out he was one of the craziest guys I've ever met. He started just going off on some story (I couldn't understand a thing he said, he was using some crazy accent/dialect thing). After sitting there for 5 minutes listening to this dude blabber, I kind of just said we had to go and ran away. As we ran, he continued on talking as if we were still there. It was super weird. Gotta love crazy people. 

Church was super good, then afterwards, we had like a wedding reception type thing for Kumagai Kyoudai and Yuri Shimai. Kumagai Kyoudai is the guy who got baptized last year and married a member in the temple last week. They are a way happy couple. It's cool to see how Brother Kumagai found the gospel and has a temple marriage all within a year of each other. It was such a fun party. Sister Yuri's family lives near Costco so all of the food was from Costco. We had tacos, cake, cinnamon rolls, etc. It was pretty awesome!

But yeah, that is about it. I am really liking this transfer so far; its been a really really nice change. The work is still a little slow but we will keep trying to find people to teach. This week should be good. Elder Bruce and I are going to Sendai to work there with the zone leaders for the next couple of days and then my bday is on Friday! I'm in denial of the fact that I'm turning 20 and how its already been a year since my last bday which I spent in Izumi. It's super weird. But yeah, it should be good! I hope you all have a great week everyone! Love you!

Love,

Elder Nathan Didericksen

Chilling at the wedding reception with Elder Bruce

The conference with Elder Stevenson and Elder Gong last month. I
'm on the right side kind of in the middle.