Hachinohe

Wow, this week was a good one.

 

 Since a lot of people have been asking about where I live and what my arrangments of life are like here I will tell you a little.

 

I live in a apartment which is small, but for Japan it is actually a pretty decent size. I do sleep on the floor and at first my back hurt but now I wake up just fine. I have noticed since coming to Japan my body is much more limber. I certainly am more flexible than when I came. I sit Japanese style with no problem anymore. if you want to know Japanese style sitting, look it up and try it. Its very uncomfortable at first. Oh and food.  The food I have eaten is pretty basic, Ramen, Pasta, and Curry, Rice. That is basically my diet. One thing that has taken me some time is that they really don't drink much water here. They drink a lot of flavored drinks. It's delicious though. They don't have garbage cans anywhere here.  I don't know if I have told you that or not yet. We are all walking trash cans.  Anything that you want to eat away from home you need to expect to keep the trash for awhile. 

 

Just to tell you a little bit about the landscape. It's hills everywhere! My legs are going to be ripped! At least my quads. My hamstrings will need some work later on but that's all good. In the city there are a lot of building and the houses are very close together. I think this is a huge place, but for Japan Hachinohe is like Montanna or Wyoming. Its kind of the Hick town of Japan. I love it, its a bit of a cement jungle in the city but when you get outside of the city there are beautiful Mountains where every inch of the mountains are covered in trees and vines that drape down from the top of every tree going to the ground. The Rice fields are beautiful.  They beautifully place them between mountains and hills. There is a big river which runs through all of Hachinohe. The river comes from the ocean which is maybe 35 minute bike ride to get to. Its not that pretty because Hachinohe is very much known for the fishing industry, and there are power plants by the ocean.  I have hardly eaten fish here, just squid every once in awhile. 

 

Okay this week,

 

This week we weren't able to get ahold of our potential investigators but we did a lot of tracting and finding and just when I thought there was no luck we found someone who would listen. It was actually today. My companion doesn't really like street contacting because he says it's really weird for Japanese people to go up to strangers but he said that its okay for Foreigners to do it. So I am the contacter and he is the saver when I don't understand what they say.  We went to a large park and I saw a lady sitting with her daughter having a small picnic and I contacted her and handed her a simple pass along card that had a picture of the temple and she asked me about the temple and I was able to tell her that thats where families go to be sealed so they can live together forever in happiness. She seemed intrigued but anything that has to deal with religion people aren't too interested here in Japan. But I talked to her more and got to know her.  She apparently studied English for a little bit so I gave her a Family English Program thing that we do here in Japan. What that is, is we offer to teach english to a family and after we get to practice giving them lessons of the Gospel in Japan even if they don't have interest in the gospel. She seemed interested in that so I gave her my missionary card and we were able to get her phone number which is unheard of here in Japan not very many people give out there phone numbers according to my companion. So I have high hopes for her.

 

Well I love you all I don't have much time so I'm sorry but I love you and I will continue to do my best here. I'll do better at giving you more details next week of what tracting and contacting is like here in Japan.

 

Elder Nebeker