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

Today is a day of mixed emotions. As we come to the end of this two year adventure they call a mission, my heart is filled with nothing but gratitude and joy. The past two years have been an experience like no other, but I’m just grateful that the Lord saw fit to let me be a part of it and see his hand bless the lives of folks through me. There is a quote I saw once that I think sums things up pretty well. “Anyone who imagines that bliss is normal is going to waste a lot of time running around shouting that he has been robbed. Most putts don’t drop. Most beef is tough. Most children grow up to be just people. Most successful marriages require a high degree of mutual toleration. Most jobs are more often dull than otherwise. Life is like an old-time rail journey: delays, sidetracks, smoke, dust, cinders, and jolts, interspersed only occasionally by beautiful vistas and thrilling bursts of speed. The trick is to thank the Lord for letting you have the ride.” It has been truly h...

This past weeks has definitely been one for the books. A lot has happened and we don’t have a whole lot of time to write today so I’ll cover the highlights. 1. Last Monday, we had Zone p-day and zone blitz over in Machida. Got to ball up a little bit on the court and top it off with some family history dendo that night. We asked everyone to prepare and bring their own pedigree chart and then a couple blank ones to hand out. It was a lot of fun and a huge blessing to be able to use my own family stories to invite the people of Japan to come unto Christ. 2. Tuesday, we had a combined Kofu and Hachioji District Meeting. Had lots of good trainings and learned a lot. Also had the opportunity to write a gospel haiku. Anyone who knows me, knows that language arts isn’t my specialty, but I think it turned out pretty good. 善に向けて、悔い改めを、清めなり 3. On Wednesday we taught a lesson to our friend Sanosaka San. Talked a lot about the gospel of Jesus Christ and how faith leads to repentance and repentanc...

What’s up everybody!? Hope everyone had a great week! We’ve got some big plans over here today, so not too much time to write, but we had quite the adventure this past week. It seems like we’ve been around the world and back this past week, but one way good experience was this past Friday. So we went out to Takao to go on splits with our amazing District Leader, the one and only Elder Thorin, hailing from South Dakota. Now, for anyone who knows anything about the Takao area, you know two things: the delicious soba shop right next to the apartment and the legendary number 7. Basically, on the Takao area map, there is one mountain man of a less-active member who lives ridiculously far out and is labeled as number 7. Eventually, we decided that we had to make the most of the opportunity and hit up both. So we plan accordingly, hop on our bikes for the two hour up-hill journey, and get to work. It was a beautiful ride, right along side a river in the countryside, but biking in slacks and a...

おはようございます！ Hope everyone had an awesome week! This past week in Hachioji has definitely been one to remember. For most of the week, Elder Matsunaga and I were running around from district to district for meetings, going up to Kichijoji for MLC, and teaching lessons, doing baptismal interviews, and so on in between. It's been a blast but the real party was going on this past weekend. Now usually, Japanese people are very much the “stay in your own lane” type, and typically aren’t big fans of causing a scene in the streets, but let me tell you, when the annual Hachioji summer festival rolls around, they know how to turn up. The prep for this festival has been going on for several weeks now, and the turn out was huge. The actual party started Friday morning and didn’t end until Sunday night. There were so many people on the streets, you literally couldn’t walk. It was just a matter of friendly shoving and foot shuffling until we made it through. It was a lot of fun though. There were...