Elder Shinoda Parry

Shelom!

This week was very hard, and had some good involved.  I think it all started when I broke a mirror in our apartment last Monday.  Like I needed more bad luck than I already have haha.  Before I begin, I wanna tell you something cool.  I had a feeling about a month ago to write Thomas's brother, Louie, who is in jail.  I got a letter back from him and he was so awesome and loving and nice.  He kept saying over and over again how grateful he was for me and you guys for taking care of Thomas.  I told him when he gets out in August, that he was more than welcome to visit you guys at the house.  He told me several times to thank you for everything.

We had a bad start to Tuesday but it turned into an amazing day.  I just prayed for a better attitude and help and it worked! I was all over the place.  It did help that the ward is taking food to Narita.  He was ten times happier! And I got to also see a cat that weighs about 25 pounds! It was the biggest and fattest cat I have ever seen! It made me laugh out loud.  All the rest of her 5 cats are pretty normal though haha.  And I was in a weird mood for katsu so we rode around looking for katsu for a while.  In fact, I'm eating some right now too hahah.

We had a fun exchange between three companionships.  I stayed with Elder Hilyard (Woods Cross High School), Elder Bardzinski stayed in Numazu with Elder Nelson, a Zone Leader, and Elder Iwata went to Hamamatsu with Elder Hiruta.  We met up the next day at District Meeting and had a way fun time! We just did a family home evening for our meeting and it was way fun.  We played a game and had a short spiritual message and had refreshments.  I was Papa Parry and we had Mama Masuda, haha it was funny. 

Saturday was tough.  We rode about 40 miles on our bikes.  We had planned to meet 9 people and met with none! No one was home! Another fun thing, I had to give a talk yesterday but didn't know until they announced it haha.  I did a nice 10 minute talk on scripture power on the spot.  Boo ya.  Another thing before I forget, next p-day a member is taking us to the water falls at the base of Mt. Fuji, so I will email later that day, sorry, it will be very late for you guys.

Hope you enjoyed your week.  Mine was good, Elder Iwata is actually a really hard comp but he wants to work and be obedient so it's good.  All the Shimai (sisters) in the district asked the gaijin (Americans) what our 'Japanese name' is.  I was proud to say mine is Shinoda haha, so my Japanese name is that haha.

From Elder 'Shinoda' Parry

Evan Gave Himself a Haircut?

 Well Hello!

Sounds like things are going great/not/exciting back home.  I would probably say that's how this week was for me too haha.  Gosh Grandma she can't stay at her house for very long huh? That stinks, really stinks, about Isaac. I guess I could say that my Valentine's day was better.  We had Zone Conference and it was pretty great.  I got to be with President and Sister Baird and Elder Hollister.  It was great and we had a lot of fun.  I got the package, thanks a lot! I gave some of the chocolates to Nishimuro Shimai because it was her birthday.  It was a really fun day.  We have 16 missionaries in this zone and 4 are going home after this transfer, it's crazy.  We had a pretty good time and it was very spiritual as well.  After the conference, Elder Hilyard and I went on an exchange, we got back pretty late so we didn't do much.  We did eat some Mexican with the tortillas you sent! Amazing as always.  The mission home got a new couple so we haven't gotten reimbursed for money in a long time.  So we have been getting by with little money, but I needed a haircut.  So i found some clippers in our apartment and did it myself.  Haha it looks really good! It's a lot  better than the ones I have had in Japan so far. It's really short so I won't have to cut it again for a while.   

So cool story from last p-day.  There is this kimono shop that has always caught my eye.  I went in just to look at the beautiful dresses.  This lady showed me to a side room that had little pieces of kimono for like 400 yen each.  I looked and wanted a bunch.  I picked out four I couldn't decide between.  She and her husband were like "You're missionaires right"? "You come here for two years and teach about your church and learn Japanese right"? I was so surprised, I said that was exactly us.  The guy was like you can have all four for 1000 yen.  Haha it was so cool, they were way nice.  We talked for a good while after.

So I read those baseball articles Dad sent.  Baseball is not baseball in Japan. Someone in my ward said that they play yakkyu and we play baseball haha, I'm so happy I played in America where I could have fun and not get beat all the time.  I did eat crap on my bike again this week.  I couldn't make it over the stupid lip of the curb and just rolled over and rolled for like 10 feet.  I was already not enjoying that day.  In fact, I didn't enjoy a lot after DTM on Friday to Sunday night.  Elder Iwata is starting to get on my nerves bad.  He is extremely oblivious and has absolutely no relationship skills.  He also doesn't even care I'm senior.  He goes behind my back and makes appointments and doesn't tell me.  He does that same stuff throughout the day,  changing appointments and not telling me. Luckily he can't understand any English, so if I'm mad or need it, I call the other missionaries and vent.  It's super hard. I guess he's been this bad before too.

We went bowling Saturday night.  People in Japan can't do sports at all.  I don't try at sports and win by a lot all the time, haha its pretty awesome.  But we have this investigator who has depression problems and doesn't have money to buy food.  I have been praying for weeks to get support from members and get them to want to do missionary work.  Yesterday, they met together and planned who was going to make dinner for him every night for almost a month! I was so happy when I heard.  I think this will bring the ward together and get them to want to help us out more too.  This is the beginning of something great here in FUJI!

I love you all, don't do anything stupid. I know it's fun, but you probably shoudn't.

Elder Evan

Who Knew That Could Happen?

Good morning to you.

This week was a good one with a few stand out points.  First I'll answer questions.  No one from my doki (MTC group) is in my zone. Elder Dinkel just transferred to Nagano zone, Fuji is way different because it is a huge mountain, lots of mountains.  It reminds me of a Japanese version of Bountiful.  Our schedule isn't too different, my new companion is hard in different ways.  He is older and area senior so he tries to take over all the lessons and scheduling.  I guess that's how it is all the time in my situation, gaijin is senior over a native.  It's ok though, he wants to work hard. And I had members that told me about the Super Bowl haha, it was funny having them tell me, they didn't know how to explain some stuff.

We got two new investigators! One was a referral and the other was from eikeiwa (English) class.  It was awesome and they seem to have pretty good interest. One speaks fluent English so I get to do it all in English. My companion can understand a lot but can't speak at all.  Which is funny, because when I talk about him to the other elders in our district we call him Dexter so he can't pick out his name haha.  Speaking of district, I LOVE our district.  I went on an exchange to Numazu with elder Bardzinski, he is from Australia. It was so fun.  I did Tim Tam Slams with an Australian for the first time.  Ee really helped me with some stuff with Elder Iwata and being a new senior in a struggling area.  It was an awesome exchange.

We had sports night! A member in our ward is a principal and lets us use the gym once a month and invite investigators and members and others come and play.  There were like 15 who came.  We had two investigators I hadn't met come.  They are awesome.  Numazu always comes too and they brought their 6'10" investigator from Senegal who is the number 1 or 2 basketball player in all of Japan for high school, he is awesome.  We played basketball and I did alright, but people thought I was like a God.  I love being American haha. We then played volleyball and I gave Elder Hilyard crap the whole time.  Trash talking about Bountiful and Woods Cross haha it was really fun.

After district meeting, we went to a place called Cats Cafe.  You get a meal then an all-you-can- eat parfait bar. It was SO GOOD! I had like five parfaits haha. I figure I can get away with it now because I can't seem to keep weight for too long haha. One of the sisters in our district thought I was Polynesian, so when I said Thomas was my 'adopted' brother, she didn't think twice about it haha. She thought he was my real brother haha, I love having sisters in our district...

Church was nice yesterday.  I gave a 15 minute talk in Japanese, who knew that could happen? I did mess up and say that Thomas was my younger twin.  I always mess up words when I'm in front of a lot of people.  We also sang all seven verses of A Poor Wayfaring Man of Grief.  That is probably my favorite song.  And we tried to do an FF with someone and he said he has no friends.  He was dead serious too but said it in a joking way. Took me off guard.

This week was good, the more and more I get into my mission, the less and less I want it to end, i love it here! I LOVE ALL OF YOU

The Boob

A Room With a View

Hello! First report from the wonderful land of Fuji! Boy was this week quite a different one.  So the shipping company couldn't come get our bags to ship them on Tuesday, so we had to take them to the shipping place almost a mile and a half away.  Remember, three of the four in our apartment transferred, so we had a long, sweaty, trek to the place haha it was fun.  Good thing it cost almost 60 bucks to send my stuff and I ran out of money two hours from Fuji haha. I got to see the whole doki (zone) at the transfer area.  Me, Ashcroft and Ellsworth (Elders from his MTC district) became senior companions.  Ellsworth became a trainer, crazy.  By the way, we saw a Kariya member at the eki (train station) when we went for transfers, she is fluent in English and loves America.  She said that when you guys pick me up and want to come to Kariya we can stay at her place for free.  She has done it for like 20 missionaries and their families. 

So I met Elder Iwata--weirdest guy in the world.  He is what you call 'KY' in the mission.  It means koki yomenai which is like someone who is completely oblivious to everything.  He was also so surprised to hear I was only one transfer ahead of him.  He talks way fast and doesn't notice when I can't keep up, hence the KY haha. It's ok, he's just a little special.  Got to the apartment and I wanted to cry.  After five hours on the train, I got to the apartment and couldn't see the floor it was so dirty.  There were piles of dust and mold in the whole shower.  So I cleaned up ALL of Wednesday, it had to be done.  It was so awful.  There is still food on the walls so today I'm gonna try to finish it up. 

So some fun stuff, I get to see Fuji right out my window every morning.  The base is like 25 miles away and it is beautiful.  Guess who is teaching Brother Shinoda now? Ashcroft haha, he has called a few times and I'm trying to help him.  Brother Shinoda said he would be baptized if I did it.  So now they're working with his smoking problem and trying to meet Eiji, it's going great! My new district is awesome! there are 8 of us, 4 sisters! First sister district! Haha they are way cool.  My district leader is Australian, and his companion is Elder Hilyard from Woods Cross! Haha so it's a lot of fun and we have a great connection.  On the way back from district meeting, a group of about 10 drunk old guys were passing beers around and eating snacks.  Life is different farther from the city. 

My ward is super goofy.  Someone who grew up in the Mueller Park 4th Ward is in it.  She has lived here for 8 years and said she recognized Ryan's name.  She graduated from Bountiful in 1996.  It's something Suzuki.  So yes, this is the update from beautiful Fuji.  The last elder here was pretty lazy and didn't do a lot of work.  We have nine investigators, one we found on Saturday, so I hope to get this area goin into an example area like Kasugai was! This is the best!

Boob in Fuji,

Elder Parry