Elder Dylan Sadler's Adventures in the Japan Tokyo South Mission

皆さんこんにちは! Another great week in Japan! This past week we had my first Zone Conference, and it was great! A lot is about to change in the everyday life of a missionary including daily schedule and reporting stats. More info on that soon to come! This past zone meeting happened to be the last for three missionaries in the Fujisawa zone including one of our zone leaders, Elder Leach, who is from Texas. Because this is their last, they were asked to bear a final testimony before going home. Elder Leach's testimony was particularly inspiring to me. He talked a little bit about becoming a "Renaissance Man". He said a Renaissance Man is basically a Jack of all Trades, and in order to become a Renaissance Man, Elder Leach would talk to everyone and learn something from every person. He said that when he was younger, he devised a plan for his life and how he would become a Renaissance Man; college, career, wife, how many kids, vehicle, retirement, everything. When he was called ...

Another great week in the Land of the Rising Sun! I was able to go on splits twice this past week and both times were with elders who are about to finish their last transfer. It was awesome to be with such experienced elders and to learn a lot from them. Tuesday , I was with Uemura長老 and Saturday I was with the Fujisawa zone leader Leach長老. Leach長老 is from Dallas, TX so it was way fun being with him for a day. First person I've seen in a while that is from the South. It felt a little bit like home. Last Thursday, we were able to go on splits again with the two young men who are preparing to serve missions this spring. It was way difficult to find people, it was a bad part of the day (like 2-5pm ), and on top of that, it was way cold with high winds and sleet... That's always fun! But yea, the weather here is a lot like Alabama; very bipolar. Last Monday, we had a zone p-day in Atsugi where all the missionaries in the zone got together to play soccer. It way way fun, and also ...

皆さんこんにちは！I can't believe it's already p-day again! The time has flown by this week. Elder Dowdle and I have been working hard so I guess it gets pretty easy to lose track of time. This past week, was definitely one of dendo (missionary work). We did splits with members almost every day. The members that we went out with are preparing to serve missions and will sometime this spring. That means when we were on splits, I was the senior companion. It was really tough trying to set a good example of missionary work and talking to everyone, especially when I can't understand Japanese. It was a great experience though, we talked to tons of people and saw miracles every time we opened our mouths. People would listen to us and a few became investigators. It was great! A week full of dendo! As of today, I've been in Japan longer than I was in the MTC. Now that's crazy to think about! My MTC experience seemed like it lasted a while, but time here in Japan has flown by. It fe...

Sorry for the late email everyone. Today was temple p-day so we had to wait an extra day to write our emails. But, it's all good because we  got to go to pile up into the insanely dense 7th wonder of the world, trains of downtown Tokyo, and then go to the temple! Truly an amazing experience. Anyway, this past week has been great. We finally finished up all of our Shogatsu shokujis and got have a little bit of dendo time. So, doing what any good missionary would do after about two weeks of no dendo, we talked to every person within earshot. So, we got to do a lot of dendo including housing in the freezing cold with heavy rain and high winds. Tons of fun! During our dendo spree, we got to talk to a lot of cool people. One was found through housing near our local Eki. Her name is Rose and she speaks Japanese, Tagolog, and English so that was nice. Anyway, she was way nice and was interested in our message. We have already followed up with her once and will stop b...

皆さんこんにちは! Hope everyone had a great week because it was great here in  Japan. This past week has been incredibly busy for the missionaries and for everyone else. So basically, Japan sorta celebrates Christmas, but Shogatsu (New Years) is the big one. Everyone goes back to their hometowns for a week or two and spends time with their family partying it up. Because of this special holiday season, the church members here in Fujisawa have been feeling particularly generous and have been feeding the missionaries a ton. We have had at least one shokuji (meal with a member)everyday for the past week but most days we had two shokuji. Because of all the time spent with members, traveling back and forth, and preparing for the new year, we haven't had much dendo (basic missionary work i.e. streeting, housing, etc.) time though which was kinda a bummer. In top of that, our investigators are out of town with their families so we haven't really been able to work with them either. But, this ha...