October 20, 2013
Hey everybody, I hope everything's going great, and that
everyone's enjoying life, cause it's meant to be enjoyed. Sorry about it being
a week lake, but here's my weekly letter for two weeks instead!
Monday 10/7/13: So today was a little crazy... We woke
up at 5:30 so we could get ready quick and go straight to email. After email,
we biked into Sapporo to go to the train station so I could do some sight
seeing and a little shopping for Christmas presents for the family. First
though we took Purikura. Now purikura is very very interesting... Basically
it's a Japanese photo booth, but it makes your eyes huge, and you can color and
decorate each picture. Now I only did it because my companion loves it and has
done it with every single one of his companions, so I couldn't ruin that for
him. But ya it's kinda weird, but I'll try to send copies of it soon... But ya
it was very interesting... We then went to this really good restaurant inside
the Eki (train station) where we had Tonkatsu and stuff like that. After lunch
we did the shopping, and I looked for Jinroh, but I couldn't find it... I want
a copy to play once D Choro is gone cause he won't be here forever. After a
while we decided to just go home, but we had to stop at the Seiyu(basically a
Japanese Wal-Mart) to grab some Tim-Tams to show an investigator how to do a
Tim-Tam Slam. If you don't know what I'm talking about look it up, and it'll
change your life. ;) That night we had a Mogi lesson (role-play) with a really
nice couple in the ward. They fed us some good food, and it was a lot of fun.
Sadly it took and hour and 10 minutes to find their house cause the address we
had was wrong, but it was a good day!
Tuesday 10/8/13: So today we had DTM (District Training Meeting) again except for
everyone was supposed to bring a member this time. So ya it was on member
missionary work, and it went super well! Afterward we had take out at more of a
fast food place and took it to the church where we played this game where we
wrote our names at the top of a piece of paper and passed it, and as it went
around each person drew a facial features until it makes it back. It was way
fun, and my picture looks very interesting... After that we practiced our
musical number for a bit and then went to go dendo, mostly streeting, and then
had a quick dinner to make it to Eikaiwa. The topic this week was hobbies, so
naturally I brought my rubik's cubes which everyone thought were amazing! Once
we got home we had a ton more food and went to bed.
Wednesday 10/9/13: So the earlier part of today was
kinda long and boring, but tonight we went to a former(doesn't want to listen
to the missionaries, but wants to be our friend) investigator's house,
where they made Takoyaki(octopus cooked in like little balls of okonomiyaki
maybe? but it's super good), and Sobameshi(basically yakisoba with rice in it),
which was also amazing! We did the Tim Tam Slams with them so it was fun! I
also had to do a little math problem for them where they had to find where two
circles intersected so it was a bit of a challenge without a calculator, and
after not doing math for so long, but I did it! Also I got a haircut, so we'll
see how I like it. (I now think it's too short, but it just means I won't have
to get another one for a while... :) ).
Thursday 10/10/13: So today I started to be either
afraid or excited, I'm not sure which. I'm afraid because I may be getting fat
really really soon. But I'm excited because I may just be on a growth spurt,
which would be super nice, since I'd love to be 6'... But either way I have a
problem... I have been eating so much lately! I had a ton of food last night,
but still had a big bowl of cereal for breakfast, about 2 cups of rice and some
candy for a midmorning snack, 4 big pastry things for lunch, some candy(fruits
and veggies are too expensive, and as usual, sugar isn't! ;)) and more rice
before dinner, and then a bunch of sushi for dinner, and almost had a before
bed snack cause I was still hungry.... Not good! But dendo was fun today. I went
with S Choro today for about an hour, 40 minutes of which we found this
awesome guy who took a Book of Mormon, agreed to meet with us, and gave us his
number which rarely happens! D Choro and I also had 2 mogi lessons with
members and the second member bought us sushi! It was super fun!
Friday 10/11/13: So today we had splits and I was with
K Choro today, and it was a blast. For study he basically gave me a list of
vocab to study which will be super helpful, and then we went housing, but it
was raining so no one really talked to us, or even were on the street, so we
mostly just talked. But it was a good day.
Saturday 10/12/13: So today for Personal Study I went
over my mission farewell again, and I couldn't believe the stuff that I knew
back then! My farewell really has helped me a ton, so I'd recommend taking a
copy of your farewell on your mission and studying it every once in a while and
try to go even deeper if you can. Also take notes on your setting apart cause
that's helped a ton too. Anyway, we went to Atsubetsu for General Conference
and I thought it was amazing! We watched the 3 Saturday sessions with one hour
breaks in between so it was just enough time to eat. Our dendo didn't really
exist though so that was a bit of a bummer.
Sunday 10/13/13: So this morning was a sad morning for
our bikes. D Choro had a flat, and mine was having some troubles(I've
basically fixed them though) but it was killing my legs. But I'm dealing with
it, and am going to have super buff legs when I get back home! ;) But General
Conference was great again today and again I thought it was amazing! After it
was over, we walked back to the apartment, then went to the church to go to a
dinner at another member's house with all of the missionaries. The food was
great and the members are awesome! After dinner and the short spiritual
message, we went back to the church and practiced our song again.
Monday 10/14/13: So today, we woke up at 6 so that
we could clean our apartment a ton because we have a cleaning check coming up.
We're planning on doing that every morning so that we can clean it well enough.
After cleaning, we went on a small little run to a little park close by,
exercised a bit there and came back to get ready for the day. We then shopped,
and had study. I tried to send my package today, but it turns out that today
just happened to be some national holiday so the Post Office was closed which
really stunk. So for the district P-day activity that we had, we went and did
Purikura again for the Shimaitachi (Sisters), so I was again forced to do it, and I'll
try to get copies of those as well. We then went to the sushi place again
which was good, and then we went to the cheap candy store again and
then went to the church to play Jinroh! Afterwards we went and chilled at the
apartment and then went to email. Sadly D Choro's bike still has a flat so
we spent about and hour and 15 minutes walking to the email place. I forgot my
journal when going to go email, so that's why I couldn't write the email last week,
because that's how I've been making them good, and I couldn't tarnish my record
by sending a bad one, so I waited to send it...
Tuesday 10/15/13: So you know how I said we made a goal
to wake up early each day to clean? Ya well... we were so tired from walking
so much that we didn't wake up early (and actually haven't really since...), so
it's not really going to happen anymore... So one of the action items for this
week (basically assignments given by the zone leaders) was to enjoy dendo, so we
were supposed to make up a cool handshake thing and also take a funny picture.
So, since D Choro's trainer was the recorder, and then trained him in
Ebetsu, and he was the recorder right before training me in Ebetsu we put a
bunch of the things that the recorder does on my desk and had a sign that said
"Recorder in Training" on it so that was pretty funny! For our
handshake we made it sweet... We stood on opposite sides of the room with our
backs towards each other, then at a signal, we both turn and run towards each
other, where I jump over him, I pull out my planner, and he pulls out the
phone, then we turn to each other, point to the things in our hands, nod, and
walk away, and it looks sweet! I'll try to get a video of it to send. Also
tonight I watched videos of Yosakoi which is this dance festival that D Choro got to go to this year, and is absolutely amazing! I would reccommend
looking up good videos of it. But make sure you have a bunch of time because
even if you only plan on watching one, it'll draw you in and you'll look at the
time and have lost an hour ;)
Wednesday 10/16/13: So today we woke up at 6 to get to
Zone Conference on time, but when I woke up, bad news awaited. My voice was
super hoarse and my throat was dry. And I still was supposed to sing a musical
number... My Remedy: Call Sister Evans and call it all off... Just kidding!
Basically I drank as much water as I could and prayed as hard as I could. Then
things got even more crazy. We finished getting ready and ran to print off our
funny picture, accidentally left our rainsuits in the apartment even though it
was a Typhoon today... We were low on money to get there since we didn't have
bikes like we planned, then got on the wrong bus, so we had to take an extra
train. We got there later than expected so we didn't have time to practice our
song, and man, was I surprised to see that I would be leading all of the
missionaries in the missionary purpose in Japanese, that I haven't actually
finished memorizing yet... D Choro wrote it down for me, incorrectly, which
was super embarrassing, but then we were up to sing. That's when things started
going super well. Our song turned out great and everybody loved it! We had some
awesome workshops, great food for lunch, got to watch each district's birthday
video, got to listen to R Choro's birthday song, got Birthday stuff for
my upcoming birthday (today was a very Birthday oriented day), got a bunch of
stuff from the other missionaries as a welcome gift thing, had another great
workshop, got to do our handshake for our zone, listened to the returning
missionaries' testimonies, and took the correct bus home! We also played
Shogi(basically Japanese Chess) which is super hard, but interesting and fun!
Crazy, but fun day!
Thursday 10/17/13: So I've been on my mission for 3
Months now and I can't believe how fast the time has flown! We had Weekly
planning and Companionship Inventory, which was actually really good today. We
are a good companionship already, but we really seemed to bond during it and
got even closer which was super cool! Also I've been feeling like my
confidence isn't quite where it should be... I've felt like I've never been
super confident anyway, and that when it seemed like I was that it was just a
mask. So I decided that I'm going to study confidence for a while which will be
good for me. But ya it was a great day!
Friday 10/18/13: So today was a little rough honestly...
I studied confidence for personal study like I planned and D Choro had some
talks that he let me borrow, but they weren't quite what I was looking for...
We tried Shizen dendo again but I felt like my Japanese wasn't good enough and
it was pretty rough... Later I had to Denwa Dendo (call people from the Area
Book) but that was super scary. I called people but I barely understood half of
what they said so it was a bummer...
Saturday 10/19/13: So today was planning out very good,
we had 3 appointments so we should've been teaching a ton, but they all
basically fell through. We had our first one at 12 so we missed a little
language study which is something I really need. But that fell through. The
second one was supposed to be a lesson after this weekly Ping-Pong thing, but
it took too long, and we weren't able to teach our investigator a lesson. Then
we had lunch, and ran to another one, but that fell through as well, cause they
forgot about it, and went back home where I denwa dendoed and filled out the
weekly Progress Record. For dinner I took a 45-minute nap, made dinner, ate
while planning, ate after planning, and wrote in my Journal. Also I had a
spiritual thought that I wrote down yesterday. It was this: "The trials we
have are there for us to better prepare us to become exalted. Which means that they are individual challenges that we need to have to get closer to becoming
perfect, so they're good for us." Also a scripture that goes with it is
D&C 121:7-8
Sunday 10/20/13: So today D Choro woke up sick... We
still went to church where we found out that it's not just him, but 5 of the 9
Ebetsu missionaries are sick... Anyway, after church, we had Ward council, but
since there are so many missionaries right now in this ward, they had one from
each companionship. So afterwards when we went to have lunch at the apartment,
we talked about what happened with that and all sorts of stuff going on this
week. It's going to be a crazy week, but pretty fun. After that he went to bed
so he could get better and I started to call people, but I've been super
exhausted lately so I soon fell asleep as well. But we woke up, had dinner,
planned for another crazy P-Day, and went to bed!
So ya it was a crazy two weeks with some ups and downs,
but it was enjoyable overall! I hope everything's going well at home, and that
everyone's doing well! Sorry again about missing last week, but hopefully this
is making up for it! ;) Talk to you all soon!
Love,
Elder Bickel
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