Radical Face!

Good morning America,

Japan says hello. It`s somewhat cloudy in the low 20s (we use Celsius here in the real world) and life is good. We had a great week.

I can`t believe it, but I`ve had the opportunity to rep the guitar up in front of big groups of people about 5 times now. Who would`ve thunk that it could relate to missionary work, but I`ve seen miracles from it several times already! Our ward mission leader, Bro. H, is the MAN (I borrowed his guitar....). Just two days ago, we got to participate in the ward talent show (I got to play two songs with Elder A backing me up on percussion and vocals, "Welcome Home" by Radical Face and the beautiful hymn "Nearer, My God, to Thee," which we sang in Japanese), from which we now have a new potential investigator! 

Brother H, our ward mission leader. Repping the guitar!

His name is Ki-san, and we`re meeting with him again this Wednesday for lunch to talk more about music (and somehow weave the Gospel into the conversation). He doesn`t speak much English (hardly any), but he and I like a lot of the same music, and he also plays guitar, which is how he and I hit it off so well in the first place. We just started talking music. One of his top favorite groups is Crosby, Stills, Nash, and Young. Legit.

we're singing in Japanese

Elder A is a Native American hoop dancer. SO COOL!

This past Thursday, Brother H, Elder A and I went to the middle of downtown Ichinomiya to hand out more invitations to that talent show. I played guitar while Brother H and Elder A handed out flyers. Ended up talking to this one guy for like 20 minutes as he tried to teach me some kanji, haha. He was kinda weird (just came up to me while I was playing guitar and started showing me some kanji) but I got his phone number and contact info, haha. Whoo!

N-san is doing well again. We had a bit of a rough patch a couple weeks ago, but it`s all good now. He still wants to continue with his goal to finish reading Doctrine and Covenants before deciding on a baptismal date, so we`re going to respect his decision. We saw him about 5 times this past week.

Tonight we`re driving down to the mission home with him for a special FHE presentation with President Yamashita and other missionaries and their investigators. It`s gonna be fun, methinks.

One of our other investigators, Ko-san, just got back from a trip to Israel a couple days ago. He went with another Church member who`s been fellowshipping him, and we`re excited to hear about how the trip was. We`re going to try and meet with him tomorrow. It`s perfect because we`re planning to teach him more about Jesus Christ and the Atonement, which will probably be really cool for him since he just got back from the Holy Land where he got to see a lot of that stuff in person. I sent you guys a picture of us eating sushi with him either last week or the week before. Super nice guy!

Elder A and I have started organizing ping-pong parties ever Saturday morning. We invite members and investigators and potential investigators, and sometimes get a really good turnout. It`s a great finding opportunity, plus a chance for me to get my Forrest Gump groove on. Asians are really good at ping-pong, haha. Every church in Japan has a ping-pong table. It`s kinda a thing here. I`m learning the Asian style of ping-pong, which involves holding the paddle backwards....it`s hard, but pretty cool. I`m starting to improve, haha.

now that really IS a Radical Face!

I`m making a rough estimate, but think Elder A and I have ridden close to 100km on our bikes in the past week. Our investigators and members are spread out over 4 different cities within our proselyting area here, so sometimes it can take more than an hour to get to someone`s house. The scenery is beautiful though, so it`s usually a nice ride (unless we get caught in a typhoon or rainstorm, like we did last night, hahaha). Last night while we were riding through some pretty heavy rain, we all of a sudden heard these loud sirens all over the city, like disaster warnings. I briefly felt like I was back in World War II and the bombs were about to fall. I still don`t know why the sirens went off....everything seems fine this morning, haha. Maybe it was a drill or something.

officer, what do you know about the Mormon church?

Take care! I love you all!

Love always,

Elder Matt Naylor

Halloween Party! we went as missionaries