Oh my heck...I laughed so hard with this letter. Randy is having way too much fun, but yet great success in his ability to communicate and understand the language. This letter you will need to remember that "Tateishi" means Standing Stone, then you will understand what Randy is really saying. As far as the picture...well, just read along and you will see.
Dear Mother, Father, Sisters, Brothers, Family, and Friends
Another busy week has flown by faster than I could blink. I swear it was yesterday that Kamacho Choro came to Sennan, now we`re already halfway through the transfer, President Interviews are coming up, General Conference is here, and I`m just plan lost as to where all my time went.
So I`ll start off with what I did this morning.
I Looked at my pedigree on Dad`s side of the family tree and saw the name "Zenbei." I looked to my companion and asked him. "What`s the Kanji for this name?" He shrugged, and after a moment said, "There are lots of Kanji for that name, but Here`s one."
He then gave me this Kanji: 全米
He told me the meaning of it, and I now wish to name my son Zenbei Tateishi. And this will be his conversation.
"So Zenbei, where does your name come from?"
"Japan."
"What does it mean?"
"All-American."
So my son will be an "All-American Standing Stone."
That was my adventure this morning, and me and my companion where laughing for too hard, and for far too long.
Tonikaku.
This week, we did a lot of biking, a lot teaching, and I did lots of baking.
Monday I started trying to make Molassas sugar cookies, they ended up getting burnt, until the very end of the batch when I realized that they are supposed to look doughy until they cool down. Then I made a second batch of them that actually worked. Tuesday we taught a few people, and rode around a lot, then the Assitant Presidents came down and did a companionship exchange with us until Wednesday night. I spent most of Wednesday listening to Elder Solomon quote movies, songs, and random comedies. It was highly entertaining. Wednesday night we had a party, loads of fun, You`ll just have to look at the pictures and try to find out what I was doing. (I`m not even sure what I was doing.) Thursday we went to Iwade for District Meeting and ate at a Buffet, and a buffet that dad would like. All you can eat meat, which you cook yourself to your own liking. YakiNiku as it`s called in Japan. It was very delicious.
Friday I cut grass with a kama all day. Saturday we rode about an hour and a half to the northern part of our area, only for our investigator to sleep in and not show up to the appointment. Then rode back. It was a total of about 35-40 Kilometers there and back. Sunday we spent most of the day at church talking with members and recieved the "Fruits basket" from the ward. We basically don`t need to do any shopping this week we recieved so much.
Today, we plan on going to the golf range with one of the members, Kamacho Choro has never been Golfing before and so we`re going to see how well he can hit a golf ball.
Elder Tateishi`s Gospel Message of the Week!
So what should I talk about this week. It Gets hard coming up with new messages every week.
I`ll just share an experience from this past week in one of my lessons.
We were teaching Itami-san this week, the very stubborn old man who has read far too many religious books and now beliefs that everyone really just beliefs in the same thing. We first attempted to teach him about the Plan of Salvation, but he wouldn`t listen to us. So my companion tried harder to get into the actual lesson, but Itami-san bluntly told him he didn`t want to hear it right now and said, "I already know about this `plan` thing, what I want is just a regular conversation just to bounce off ideas." He then proceeded to talk about Reincarnation and how everyone lives multiple lives.
By this time, I had listened to him recite many different bhuddist beliefs and I had only been understanding maybe 70% of the conversation, and so I decided to actually start trying to say something useful and proceeded to explain why Reincarnation wouldn`t really work. As soon as I was done speaking he looked at me, silent for a moment, no reply, and then turned to my companion and said "See, like that! That`s the kind of conversation I want."
This happened about 2 or 3 times more during the visit, in which I started quoting from the New Testament, and Old Testament to support what I was saying. Which I have yet to read the Old Testament all the way through, and have only read the New Testament once.
Where am I going with this? Well the Lord really truly does guide his servants. When I stopped worrying about what was going on, and stopped thinking or fretting about wether it was the right thing to say or not, and when I started trusting in the spirit of the Lord, I was blessed. I was able to teach him, and I was able to remember scriptures from long ago. It was all through the Spirit.
I know that with the Spirit, all things are possible. That there is no need to worry. In all things the Holy Ghost will "lead you by the hand."
Your Son, Brother, Friend
Elder Randall KK Tateishi
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