Spiritual Growth, FebruarL 23rd

My Future Plans may Change

I would love to room with my friend in college, but I also feel like I probably will be going to college in California.   The mission might be changing my mind a little, but I was thinking about applying at BYU when I get back just to see what my options are anyways, but that's a few years off.   I did meet a missionary here that is going back to BYU when he gets home. And its crazy how close in personalities we are.  He is majoring in film at BYU so he kind of wants to do the same thing as me.   I also found out that his mom has cancer as well and has been going through chemotherapy and all of that.  He is almost done with his mission but he is a really cool guy.  He made me think about trying for BYU, but then it would be really hard to transfer to USC and that is where I ultimately want to go.  I have heard that the film department at BYU isn't bad but I don't know.  I think I'm going to stay in California for school, of course that's a few years away so I don't really know at the moment, but it seems all of the missionaries here are planning to go to BYU when they get back, that just seems to be where Mormons like to go.  

Spiritual Growth

The Lord is definitely blessing me, but Ive been getting very humbled first.  I also came to a realization this past week that I have been a very selfish person, not just on my mission but my whole life.  I'm very quick to judge others, especially my companions because I am always with them.  I felt like the son of Alma the other night, I said my prayers and then I was just laying in bed and just suddenly was thinking about all the mistakes I have made while I have been on my mission, and how much better I should be.  That's the amazing thing about Christ's Atonement, I can't make it through a day without making mistakes, yet Christ loves us so much that he is willing to forgive us of everything that we do wrong.  I've always known that but it didn't really hit me until last night. 

Its really hard being with someone 24/7.  Especially when my companion is the district leader, and a Japanese person that doesn't speak much English.  He is at the end of his mission so he wants to see lots of miracles.  I have felt like we only ever do what he wants to do, and sometimes I think there are better ways to do things because I have been in ishinomaki for a while now and he just got to this area.  But since he is the district leader all of the other missionaries usually just want to talk to him.  This last week I have felt like I was just his companion that he had to drag me around everywhere.  But he is a really good person, and last night I told him I was sorry for everything.  Then he looked really confused and asked me why I was apologizing.  I guess he didn't think I had done anything wrong.  

My Companion is always pushing me to talk more with people and to improve myself.  The hardest thing though is I can't really have an in depth conversation because I don't speak much Japanese and he doesn't know much English.  My Japanese is definitely getting better though. This last week I taught a 45 minute lesson and my companion didn't even say anything during it.  One of the hardest part is just understanding what people say.  The interpretation of tongues is a completely different spiritual gift altogether, so I have been praying for that as well.

But, anyways my goal for this week is to be more Christ like by being more selfless and less selfish so hopefully that will go well!

Great Branch, New Investigators and a Visiting 70

 My heath has been pretty good, I threw up the other week, I must have eaten something bad, but I'm doing fine, I didn't go to church that day, but several members including the Branch President came over and brought me soup, the branch here in ishinomaki is really great! I'm going to be really sad when I transfer, but President Rasmussen hinted at me staying here next transfer when I was being interviewed so hopefully that will be the case. 

Also last week we got 2 new investigators, and today we are going to teach a family that we met so hopefully that will turn into another 3 investigators also.

Anyways the only other thing going on is next week we have our zone conference which should be really good, I forget his name ( Elder Koichi Aoyagi)  but we have a member of the 70 coming, he is Japanese, he had an article in the liahona this last month, so he is coming here to talk to all the missionaries in the Sendai mission,

Love you!

Elder Canepari

Mother Nature! February 10th to the 16th

Let it Snow, Let it Snow, Let it Snow! 

February 10th

The snow has been really crazy, its the most snow they have had here for 91 years.  The snow in Sendai has been all over the news (I was at a members house for dinner and they were watching the Olympics so I got to watch that for a little bit) but we have like 3 times as much snow here in Ishinomaki.  We spent all day yesterday just helping people get their cars out of the snow, my gloves and everything are pretty warm so that's not usually a problem, it actually snowed so hard that church was canceled yesterday, and the church was actually pretty hard to get into because of all the snow, its supposed to snow some more this week also.  There is way to much snow to ride our bikes so we have to walk everywhere.  We had a lesson today and it ended up being like an hour walk to get to her house.  Well we are about to leave to go teach a lesson with a member so I have to go, talk to you later!

Earthquakes

 There has also been earthquakes like 3 times a day, I keep getting woken up in the middle of the night from everything shaking. One of the members here said that when earthquakes become more frequently that a really big one is probably going to happen. And he said that will probably mean another tsunami, but Ill see what happens.  But besides all that things area going pretty good

Teaching English

There are 2 english classes, the other Elders teach the advanced one usually and I take turns teaching the other one with the sister missionaries, but since only me and one of the sister missionaries are American and my companion is Japanese and her companion is Chinese its usually me or her. 

Elder Canepari

Bowling

February 16th

 Today we went bowling which was a lot of fun, it wasn't much different from bowling in America, except of course everything was in Japanese including our names. One thing that was cool though was that we got a copy of or score. Next week we are going bowling again with a potential investigator so I will have to remember to bring my camera for it next week.

Elder Canepari

Changing Companions and Earthquakes January 19th

Teaching

So far I haven't seen much more than McDonalds and KFC, but being out in the country you don't see as much of that stuff, in the mall here there is a Tom and Jerries though. We taught Tacamotoさん once so far and we covered the first lesson which is the Restoration, since we taught in English I was the one that said the first vision, I still don't have it memorized in Japanese, but its like twice as long. We gave him a Book of Mormon and asked him to read and pray about it, we are teaching him in about an hour so hopefully it will go well.

New Companion 

Oh, I also have some new news, I found out who my new companion is; his name is Akiamaチョロ he is another Japanese companion, and like with Elder Ohori this is his last transfer, so next transfer I'll already be on my 3rd companion, I guess he is like 26 and he speaks less English then Ohoriチョロ so that will be interesting although my Japanese is a bit better. But now I am the area 先輩 which basically means that I have been here longer, because he probably won't be familiar with the area or anything, but Im just glad Im not transferring to a new area already. On Wednesday me and Elder Ohori will go up to Sendai where I will meet my new companion and have a transfer meeting and then come back and Elder Ohori will be on a bus back to 子米.

Site Seeing

Ishinomori Shotaro Manga Museum, which had been closed after the Great East Japan Earthquake, will open the door again tomorrow, Saturday, November 17.

On the day, six- to eight- meter-high tsunami attacked the building and the almost all part of its first floor was flooded, and the upstairs was used as a shelter for about 40 people hit by the tsunami in the areas for a few days.

The building of Manga-kan survived against the tsunami. As a symbol of recovery, it will be a venue with many smiling faces.　We are all happy for that.

Well, last P-Day we went to the Ishinomaki Mangakan Museum, which was pretty cool, its on its own little island, and after the tsunami it was the only building left standing.  I wanted to take some pictures inside but we weren't aloud to. But I did get some pictures outside.  I'll have to try and find time to send them, hopefully next P-Day. We have 3 lessons today and Elder Ohori has to finish packing. Usually on P-Day we just explore stores and stuff around here, sometimes when we have lunch with a member or something they take us somewhere. 

 A few weeks ago one of the brothers in the branch took us to the top of this mountain that overlooked Ishinomaki, and I was really sad because I forgot my camera. 

Eating with Members

 In Japan the missionaries don't get to eat with the members very often, but whenever a big thing is going on like New Years we always get invited to like 3 or 4 peoples houses in a row, and its really rude to decline dinner so we just go to each persons house.  Usually by the end I feel like Im going to throw up but you have to eat everything they give you. Some members are really nice though and take us to cool places to eat, we actually ate at a Chinese place last week, and today we went as a district to this Indian place because its Elder Ohoris last time.

Earthquakes

Also incase anyone was wondering, there are a lot of earthquakes here, I probably feel one every other day, but only a few times have they been big enough to shake the whole building.

Well, I think thats about it for this week!

いしています。
カネパリチョロ

Elder French Money? January 28th to February 2nd

Jan 26

Tracting

Well there hasn't really been much new this week. Although we did go trackting at these homes by the ocean and we found this mansion, and my companion wanted to go ring the bell, which is on the outside of this big gate with cameras watching us, but he rang the bell and a woman answered and we told her that we were missionaries and she said we could talk to here for a bit, so she came outside and we were taking with her, and then she invited us in, and her house was huge and I had no idea what to say. But we left here our contact information so maybe she will call us at some point.

French Money or French Light sword?

Also, I keep forgetting to mention this but canepari actually means something in Japanese, I found out like the first day I got here because some people will laugh when they hear my name, because cane means money and pari means paris, so sometimes people tell me my names means french money. But I found some cool kanji that mean light sword and they are pronounced cane, so maybe I will see if I can get a name-tag with kanji on it. Apparently some of the American missionaries have done it before.

I was trying to send some pictures but everything on this computer is in Japanese so Im not sure how to and I don't have much time so I will try next week!

あいしていますよ！
カネパリチョロ


February 2nd

Hey, hope everything has been going well. The time is really starting to go by fast here, I cant believe that its already February.

Look me up on Youtube!

Me and my companion were doing some trackting by the train station here this last week and we saw these to high school kids practicing a dance, we decided to go and talk to them, and I had this great idea since my companion is Japanese that I would only talk in English and he would just translate what I said to Japanese, even though I could have said most of it in Japanese, so apparently they have a youtube channel and I invited them to come to our English class, and and she asked if we could have an English conversation right there, so she recorded me talking to her friend and then I was super excited to see that she actually came to our English class this last week! Although I don't know if she will be here next week, but she pulled out her phone and showed me the video from the day before so I guess she actually did put it on youtube, I cant watch it because Im on a mission lol, but the youtube channel is hebeimetatoron , its probably going to come up in Japanese, but see if you can find the video on there.

The weather is starting to warm up, I think today is the first day that it actually hasn't been cold outside.

Teaching

Tacamotosan the investigator we met at McDonalds is like our only investigator right now, we had a few drop us, and then the others we might half to drop because we are having trouble getting ahold of them, but things are going good with him at least. Last week we watched the Joseph Smith Prophet of the Restoration movie with him, he was having trouble with Joseph Smith so we thought it would be good to watch, he said it helped clear things up a lot better, and I think he felt the spirit watching it, its a great movie, sadly though I only have it in English, there is a Japanese version but I guess its only for missionaries in the MTC, so no one in Japan has watched it before which is really sad because its such a great movie about the history of our church, I actually wanted to write the first presidency about it because I think it should be commercially released here in Japan, but Im not supposed to do that so maybe one day it will happen.

Effects of the Tsunami

It is nice being able to see the ocean a lot, although its also a little depressing because there isn't anything left because of the tsunami, just a picture of what the coast used to look like, and a big graveyard.

We were visiting an inactive last week, she stopped coming to church about the time of the tsunami (a lot of people went inactive because of that) She told us that she wasn't in Ishinomaki when the tsunami hit, but it killed her husband, father and mother. I had no idea what to say, especially since this was a conversation in Japanese, but on the other hand a lot of people after the tsunami that didn't believe in god now do. I think it was definitely a wake up call for the people of Japan, and there is supposed to be a huge earthquake in Tokyo soon, I think god is trying to send these people a message. Most people here have no interest in learning about god whatsoever, so usually our trackting is inviting people to come to our English class.

Warming up?

Its crazy how dry it is over there, its hard to imagine with all the rain and snow that we get here, but its really starting to warm up, and I heard the summers are really hot here, but I am from California so we will see how it compares. Anyways thats all the email time I have for today, hope all is going well!

love,
Elder Canepari

Great Experience! December 29th to January 13th

New Investigator

December 29th
There hasn't been much new this week, except that we did get a new investigator, or investigators wife decided she wanted to have a lesson so that went really well, I'm hoping that by the end of January we can get them both baptized on the same day.
I still love Nintendo!

One of the Elders in my district found a thrift store and they apparently have a whole bunch of old Japanese Nintendo games and stuff for really cheap, he showed me this Japanese Nintendo 64 he got there for 500 yen which is like 5 dollars, and he said they had a Super Famicom there for the same price so when me and my companion go shopping for food and stuff we are going to go over there also.

Tonight we also are going over to a members home for dinner, and I believe a few of our investigators are coming to so that should be good, anyways Ill talk to you next week!

カネパリチョロ,

Traditional Japanese Beliefs are Strong

January 13th
Well, in Japan they seem to have a strong belief in that stuff, at least the traditional Japanese culture, but I think that most people these days don't really believe in that stuff its just a cultural thing.

Well the best parts of the Book of Mormon by far in my opinion is 3rd Nephi and the last book that Moroni wrote, but I find a lot of symbolism and parallelism in what happens to the Nephites in the end. I can really see that happening in todays time at some point with all that goes on in the world. Well the one thing I wish I did was read the scriptures more, now I can't imagine not reading them for at least 30 minutes everyday, its so helpful in day to day life especially as a missionary, I didn't even really think about the fact that we would have lost part of the Book of Nephi, that's interesting to think about, because our lives aren't predestined but God knows exactly what will happen anyways.

Great Experience!

I had a really great experience this last week, we went to get McDonalds and on our way out we started talking to this family, it was a Japanese man but his wife was American, turns out that he lived in California for like 15 years and so his 3 little kids speak English and Japanese which is crazy, I think they speak it better then me, but he was talking with us and we found out that he is christen and has a strong belief and knowledge of the Bible but he doesn't go to a formal church on Sunday, he wanted to talk with us so the next day we had lunch with him. Lucky for me his English is perfect and he knows it better than Japanese so I talked to him in English, he told me a very sad story about his dads death a few years ago so it felt perfect to talk to him about the plan of salvation, and he was interested in learning more so we are teaching his family this wee. , I'm super excited for it!

Today was our district P day so we went to a Manga museum here in Ishinomaki which was really cool, but because of that my email time is super short so this will have to do for this week,

love you all
-Elder Canepari

Star Wars Yoda Chopsticks

Chopsticks Ediquette

An answer to River's question: How do you eat soup with chopsticks? and Is it ok to just stick your chopstick in your food in order to pick it up?


Hey, River.

When you eat soup you use the chopsticks to eat the bigger parts and then you just drink the rest of the stuff in the bowl. Everyone here in Japan eats everything fast but I like to take my time because I hate rushing when I'm eating. But last week I found Star Wars Lightsaber chopsticks at the mall so I use those when I am in my apartment. Oh and btw its really bad manners to stick your chopsticks through the food to grab it, but I had no idea how to really use chopsticks before I got here so thats ok.

-Ashton

Happy New Year Japan Style! January 6th

Happy New Year!

So new years was very cool here, it's a lot bigger holiday here. Everyone takes like a week off of school and work and everything for it.

We went to a shinto shrine which is something everyone goes to on new years, and it was right by the ocean which was very cool to see. I have pictures from it which I will have to try and send next week. You go up to the shrine and toss in a 5 yen coin and then pull a rope that rings a bell. Then you clap your hands twice and bow twice and then you pray. But before you can do that you have to get water from this dragons mouth and wash your hands with it which was very interesting.

Also for a 100 yen you can buy this small white paper which will tell you about how good your luck will be for the new year. If your luck is bad then you don't take it with you because then you will have bad luck so you tie it to a tree, I got one and I guess it was just ok, but I decided to keep it because it was really cool.

I just finished my current read through the Book of Mormon. What I think is interesting is that in 3rd Nephi after Jesus visits whats left of the nephites when he leaves he tells them he has other sheep of his flock to tend to, and I think he is talking about the people in Asia. The Japanese people in the shinto religion here have this tradition they do once a year, and whats really interesting is its a lot like the pass over that the jews do. I've now been reading through the Doctrine and Covenants. I've never actually read through the whole thing before so its been really cool reading through it, I feel really sad that the Book of Lehi was lost, but whats really cool is that a lot of scriptures in it really stick out to me, and even in the Book of Mormon because so much of it is about missionary work and sharing the gospel which is the most important thing we could be doing while we are on this earth.

I would suggest everyone reading through the book of Moroni, especially the last chapter which I think captures everything that is most important about the Book of Mormon in those few verses. Anyways I hope everything is going well, I just got done visiting one of our investigators, his wife has now started sitting in on the lessons. He has been telling us that his friend is really sick, and today while we were teaching him he got a phone call that is friend passed away, so we did the best we could to share an uplifting message about the plan of salvation. Anyways Ill talk to you all later!


あいしています。
カネパリチョロ