food blog

Yeah..

My comp always eats some kind of meat over plain white rice

Brazilians actually like this

weekly mission email (1st baptism)

Three baptismal interviews in one week! Man, we're pooped.

The ZL's in Fukutoku had us go down on Monday to see their candidate.
He's the perfect convert: young, male, Japanese. Exactly everything
any ward wanted. The ZL's really scored with this one.

Elder Ferreira has a guy ready for baptism over in Toyohashi (two
zones away). Problem is, Ferreira is District Leader and the Zone
Leaders don't speak a lick of Portuguese, so they had to pull in the
next best thing: DL Elder Ribeiro from Inuyama. Well, this turned into
an adventure. Turns out that Ferreira is also training, so that meant
that I got to go on splits with a Brazilian Bean (Mission newbie)
who's four weeks fresh. Elder Ferreira asked that I teach his bean
anything about Finding because they haven't been able to do that much
yet, so we went out to test our housing skills! Yeah!
It actually turned out almost miraculously because we ran out of
pamphlets to hand out within two floors, and then managed to place all
our BOMs on the third. Yeah, crazy.

Lastly, the sisters have been working with a Golden investigator who
has her date set for Sunday,  May 28th (yesterday). She was passed
good to go by Pres Ishii and just needed a follow up interview. Just
an incredible lady with immovable faith.
She took me entirely by surprise when she asked that I be the one to
perform her baptism. Haha wha? Why? Well, apparently I was her first
contact with the church when I passed her an Eikaiwa flyer out in
front of the station forever ago. I feel bad because I don't actually
remember that. But I was sure excited for her then!



So we had a beautiful ceremony on Sunday just full with the Spirit. It
was my first time baptizing someone. Wondrous to behold.
Nozawa came up to me afterwards and told me that today's baptism had
felt different than the ones he had see before. He felt more moved
than before. Fantastic! The entire ward has gotten excited for
Nozawa's baptism that's in a couple weeks after Brother Mizuno boldly
pressed him for it in front of the entire Elder's Quorum a month ago.
Hahah what a great moment that was.

I love this gospel and it is truly a miracle to see a person come to
the waters of baptism.

愛しています！ [I love you!]

カードん長老より
Elder Cardon

food blog

Spoils

Deep fried with red bean paste inside 

Have I sent pictures of Indo Curry before? The pumpkin curry here was divine. The bread is all-you-can-eat. You dip and eat like chips n salsa 

Spiritual Email

This week I gave a talk in sacrament meeting about the restoration of
the priesthood. Basically, I would outline my talk as:
What is it? God's power and authority. The Essence of Eternity. The
living hand inside the glove our our church. (See Gordon B. Hinckley
book ch15)
How? Well, Joseph Smith was instrumental. This is the church of
Christ, and it could not be founded until Christ had given the go for
the restoration of His power/authority. All things in the church are
guided and sustained by this power.
Why? The Gospel. Connect this to the saving ordinances essential for
us, and I talked about 3 Ne 11:21--25 which I had studied for a lesson
earlier this week we taught to Nozawa. Christ has the ordinance call
the person by name, and acted in the authority of the Godhead
(individually). The gospel is all intertwined; you cannot talk of just
one part without referring to an eternal doctrine.
And I know that each member of the Godhead knows and loves us individually.

Investigators
Nozawa! 野沢さん
Guy in his fifties who's as pure as they come, but comes from a really
dark and messed up past. No details, but there's a lot that's gone on
in his life in terms of family and relationships.
McColm found him. Hahaha McColm is resolute that Nozawa is mentally
handicapped. Nozawa takes medications for that kind of thing, but he
knows his limits well and works around them to the best of his
abilities. He'll tell us in advance when he's good or not so good.
Just a way good guy who's looking to do a lot of good to others. Has
taken in 10 stray cats, and now has four kittens as a result. Plays
the guitar, and uses the same old wooden one he first got from his dad
like 40 years ago--and his dad had already been using it for years.
Scheduled to be baptized June 11th.

Funny moment:
I traded pants with Elder Orton back in Yokkaichi because I got fat
and couldn't fit my nice brown polyester ones anymore. Don't worry,
I'm going skinny again now, but as I was putting my "fat pants" on
this morning a big ole hole ripped right through the center line. they
served me well for about two Transfers. Won't be using those anymore
:/

Weekly Mission Email

Highlights and notable events:



There was a raging sale last week at the grocery store and we bought
lettuce, spinach, bananas and such for ¥1, and other fruits and
veggies for ¥100 (strawberries, eggs, etc.); the stock-house is
loaded.

Zone Conference was crazy. They combined three zones and rolled it
into one conference. We had people from Nagano coming down the night
before to stay in various Elders apartments close by. Elders Nakatsuka
and Nelson came to ours.
Pres Ishii taught about a lot of stuff, but basically we're turning
around our focus on activities and public affairs in order to increase
pure missionary work: investigators and baptisms. Every activity
should be effective for finding--even LA and member visits. If it
doesn't help to find, we're supposed to drop it.
Also, Christlike attributes. There's a direct correlation between
developing Christlike attributes and convert baptisms.

So we're out to hunt Brazilians, mostly. Lots of referrals are coming
in from the LAs, and we hope to reactivate them through their
involvement with the referrals.

Elder Oaks and Elder Gong held a Japan Member Devotional last night in
Osaka that we saw up here via broadcast. Elder Oaks talked about how
Japan has been strengthening its roots for a long time now, and it may
be time soon to start seeing the growth of the shoot. I liked what
Elder Yamashita said about OYM also including showing your teeth and
smiling at people.

愛しています！

カードん長老より
Elder Cardon

food blog

Brazilian meal: basically hotdogs, but the bun is huge, the dog is cut and mixed with sauces and veggies in a crockpot, and you put a thick slice of cheese on top.

McDonald's in Japan! Look, they have wasabi-Mayo sauce and
teriyaki-Mayo sauce. Classic. The wasabi really cleansed my nose. The
nuggets were the same. This Shaka Shaka chicken is Japan MD's only:
you take the cheddar cheese, pour into the package, shake to coat the
giant McNugget, and done! Shaka Shaka means 'to shake' or something.
The drink is a small cheesecake shake. They use the spoon to stir (on
the machine) then pop it off and give it to you! (Which is why it's so
fat).

Missionary lazy meal. My companion puts ketchup and/or mayo on everything--even ramen. 

Made a cake for Mother's Day. Hahaha my companion refused to eat it. That's Fanta, btw.

weekly email

Big Events of the week:



We are so blessed. We've been going around visiting, calling, inviting
all the Brazilians in the area to come back to church and such. Elder
Ribeiro is legend and got about 20 to commit to come to church; about
half of them actually came. It was great! Many of them also want us to
visit their homes in the next couple weeks, so we'll be busy doing
that as well.

Emergency Transfers! Sister Omija was swapped places with Sister D.
Her real name is much longer, but it's hard for Japanese people to
say, so she's been turned into a letter for a couple of years. She's
extremely energetic and loves to make people laugh. Her companion,
Sister Maruyama, loves to laugh. It'll be a great transfer.

Anyone know the MTC teacher, McCarty? Well, he's back! He's officially
a member of Inuyama as of this week. I guess he's here for an
internship until Fall, so we'll have a great time exploiting his
impeccable Japanese and enormous downtime. He's already proven a
capable member in helping with an investigator lesson.

愛しています！

カードん長老より
Elder Cardon

food blog

Haha, it was so good I forgot to take pictures!  I will describe some of the crazy stuff we ate recently:

Bishop's BBQ: 

Well, Japanese people sure like to go all out on the exotic stuff. I wasn't too much of a fan for the intestines. They were all chew (even beyond steak)--like a gum that doesn't wear down and loses its flavor after a while. I honestly couldn't chew through any piece--had to swallow whole. The chicken hearts were much better; small, almost thumbnail size and skewered with four in a row. Kinda weird but not a bad meat. 

There were a lot of sandwiches eaten this week. Regular stuff. Thanks for the bag of mixed nuts--that was lunch on Friday. Lots of natto [fermented soybeans], bananas, and apples. 

I told Becca about a chill cookie shop I ate at; you basically pay $3 for a crazy cookie like cheese-honey, sit and chill with friends and wall-outlets at every seat. Seattle like environment. 

A couple onigiri', ...some cheesy pasta. I think next week should prove more interesting. We have an appointment with some Brazilian members. 

weekly mission email

Transfers! Elder Ribeiro!

Activities all week! It's Golden Week out here in Japan!
The members all wanted to do something on their break so we ended up
doing a bit of everything. I'm pretty tired but we saw a lot of cool
things happen.

Wednesday: Hiking
Thursday: Music Festival
Friday: Stake Sports Event
Saturday: Bishop BBQ
Sunday: Miralces

Met this guy named Ryuuji on Sunday who was the most chill guy in the
world. (His kanji is Ryuu as in 'dragon') He was a referral from the
Sister Missionaries and was marked on our map with a pin named "Crazy
Christ Man." Well, he's pretty unusual in the amount of interest he
showed in the church, Christ, and us in general, for sure. Said he
wanted to come to church and take lessons; gave his number straight up
and we'll be seeing more of him this week. What a guy.

We squeezed in a visit with a Peru family and the Gma w/Alzheimer's
talked to me forever and I didn't get a word. The thing is that she
would keep forgetting, too, so the conversation went like:
Gma: {speaking rapid Spanish}
Me: I don't speak Spanish. Americanos.
Gma: Ah, ah! Americanos! {more in-comprehensive Spanish and a lot of
mentions about Peru}
Me: si, si. (Pulling out every Spanish word I picked up in high school)
Gma: {asks question and looks up expectedly}
Me: uh.....
(Laughter in the background from the family+my companion)
--Repeat prior conversation--

Well, I have better Spanish than Portuguese, at least. Hahaha

We were at the church prepping for Kid Eikaiwa when the door
downstairs opens and footsteps were on the stairs. They've come! We
thought. A guy shows up, Brazilian, and we were called down to talk to
him. He had received a miracle, and in the purest of faith was going
about trusting Christ to provide everything for him. What to eat,
where to go, etc.
so he had surgery about two years ago. Went the the hospital after
work and they discovered a huge brain tumor. Went to Brazil for
operation and was told he would go deaf, blind, mute, and lose
function in half his body from the operation. Four days later he was
coming back home, supposed to be in a coma but somehow just fine. Half
his brain was taken out.
So He was telling us to believe in Christ. Ranting about it, really.
Came to the church because he saw the huge sign of the church outside,
plus the pachinko* Number One sign across the street. Jesus Christ=#1!
He yelled. We prayed in the service room, felt the Spirit, and asked
him to come back tomorrow and Sunday. So that happened. Never showed
up, though.

Brother Mizuno is just the funniest member. He kinda scrapped together
the Music Festival so of course he was the one to debut the most in
it. Two solid performances and several accompaniments. First the
piano, the the violin.
He opened with a funeral procession-like piece on the piano in which
he played slow not because the tune called for it, but rather because
he was so busy looking up at the sheet music and then down at his
fingers to confirm position before he struck one that he left gaps of
time between each note. Ended up taking 20 minutes.
And then Mizuno got up again. This time it was six violin pieces. It
hurt. I laughed as Mizuno squeezed out squeaks of a supposed song one
after another. It sounded like we were sitting in on his yearly
practice session. His bow was swinging wildly across the entire bridge
as he struggled to squeal out a resemblance of "When You Wish Upon A
Star". Hahaha

And lots of other stuff, but maybe for another occasion. Love you all!

愛しています！

カードん長老より
Elder Cardon

*pachinko=casino in Japan