How we meet people.

This week wasn’t super eventful. It was actually the week with our lowest amount of contacts in a single week this transfers. But we did a lot of good work :D We have a less active member who we were talking to, and he doesn’t feel like he can feel the spirit at home because it’s such a mess. So we responded with a “well, lets clean it up.” So we’ve been doing mini service projects at his house to make it a cleaner place. 

We had a really cool baptism in our zone last Sunday. It was a daughter and mother. The daughter is a professional opera singer. During Christmas we had an Open House at the oldest Church where we first came to Japan. She volunteered about 4 hours each day and sang hymns in the upstairs chapel. And then there was a culture sharing night at another church and she performed a song. Before the song she introduced herself and then announced that she was getting baptized in the next few weeks. It was great because the event was put on for the community so after all the missionaries were getting asked “what’s baptism?”  

Today was a temple P-Day so I got to take the train all the way up into Tokyo to go to the Tokyo Temple. It’s always super nice there. We got to go to an all you can eat Mexican place for lunch. Apparently Elder Allred became such good friends with the workers there that any time missionaries come we get a discount. It was really good, but really the only thing they have is fajitas. But I love fajitas so it’s ok. 

As a quick side note. This week I had the chance to listen to the CES devotional. Here’s a link. It was broadcasted January 12th and the talk is by Elder Tad Callister. If you want to learn about the fundamentals of not only this Church but Christianity as well I recommend giving it a watch. 

The questions of the week.

1. How do you generally meet people?

    Usually on the street, on trains, or passing out flyers for English class. Our mission president’s big thing is called the power of ten. We are expected each day to have at least ten meaningful contacts a day. If every missionary was to do that every day in 15 years we would have talked to the entire population of our mission.

  

2. How hard is it to get Japanese people to talk with you?

    It’s pretty hard. Most people don’t want to be bothered. And as soon as they find out you are Christian (which is fast since I’m wearing Christ’s name on my shirt) they usually want to leave you.

3. What’s their general first impression of you/do they have any idea what you are doing?

    Well old ladies always try and talk me into marrying a Japanese wife. The old men usually say Christians shouldn’t fight and walk away. The younger generation will usually want to try and practice English. And most of them have no idea the exact detail of a mission. I think most of the people here think we make money.

4. How would you say people generally treat you?

    Most people completely ignore us. And it’s a fairly harsh ignore.

5. Do you do any door-to-door tracting? If so, how does that go?

    I have buzzed one house my entire mission. We really don’t house. Most houses in Japan have a gate with a box. At the box there is a camera and speaker. Most people will not speak to you or will just tell you to go away. To say the least it’s not very effective.