Blog of Elder JT Lamoreaux

Monday, November 9, 2015

Concrete Jungle where dreams are made of

Dear Everyone,

Okay, it's not like New York, but compared to what I am used to from my mission, it's pretty close. Man, life in Osaka is so much different than the places I have worked in. There are people EVERYWHERE. You hear cars and sirens all day, everyday. Buildings are huge! I ride my bike here and it feels like we are dodging and swerving just to get around people. It's pretty hectic and a big change, but I like it. We have lots of adventures. I'll describe in a little bit.


Higashi Osaka!  Sorry, don't have a lot of pictures here yet...
Being here is like Las Vegas compared to Maizuru. Maizuru, you would
be lucky to find a building higher than four floors. Here, you are
surrounded by buildings and everything!
Last week in Maizuru was pretty nice. I sent a package to my family, and finished packing and said goodbye to some members/investigators. The best parts of that week was the "farewell party" that the Nishi Maizuru Eikaiwa puts on for every missionary who transfers out of Maizuru (I'm so sorry Van Cleave 長老... Bad timing of your transfer...) and also visiting the recent convert family one last time. A very funny thing that happened there. They fed us dinner and I needed to refill my drink. I grabbed the big bottle of C.C. Lemon (a soda in Japan) and I was going to pour it into my drink, but someone started talking to me, so I was distracted. After a minute I instinctively started drinking OUT OF THE COMMUNITY C.C. LEMON BOTTLE! I didn't realize I was doing that until their 8 yr. old daughter looked at me with a shocked look on her face. I thought "why are you looking at me like that?" Then I realized that I contaminated their C.C. Lemon.... We were all on the floor laughing! (Well, we were already on the floor, but you understand.) long story short, I haven't laughed that hard in a long time and they gave me the C.C. Lemon as a bye-bye gift. I love that family so much and I am excited to one day see them again.



This was the last day at the Eikaiwa (English class) we teach in Nishi Maizuru.  They always throw a big "farewell party" when a missionary transfers out of Maizuru.  It's crazy!  They give presents and give a speech as well.  They are all so nice and they love the missionaries.



   

Tradition that they do. So fun

The last time with this amazing family.  Kinda sad, but memorable.  It was a great day.

So now I am in Osaka. My companion is Elder Wharton from California. We get along well. It will be a really fun time. The ward we are in (yes, Ward) is fairly big. There are about 70 people that come every week. I have a goal to know everyone's name in 3 weeks... It's gonna be harder than I thought, but I'll try my hardest. This church is huge! I have an actual church building again!! It is two floors; bottom floor has a lot of classrooms, baptismal font, bathrooms and even a library like in America. The second floor has the chapel and even a "cultural hall" type thing with a stage and everything. And the chapel has a pulpit, an actual sacrament table and benches like in America. Crazy stuff! Yesterday was the first Sunday and so I gave an introduction talk. Afterwards everyone said my Japanese was ペラペラ pera-pera (fluent). But, they say that to first transfer missionaries too, so it's nothing to brag about. Japanese is hard, but it's fun.

The Filipino people are following me I swear!! We have a couple Filipino investigators that haven't been progressing for a while, so we will work hard with them. Also there is a Filipina Recent Convert as well as a couple Filipino less active members/active members who we are going to try to get better relationships with. I am excited to do that. Pinoy Pride!

This place is different, but we have adventures all the time with these people. Osaka is crazy! We have a college in our area called Kinki University. We went there on Saturday and were able to stop and teach 6 people right off the street. It was actually really easy to talk to people because they are just right there! They come to you sometimes. Way different than needing to actually knock on a door to even see people. It's pretty fun. You never know what could happen in a day here in Osaka. For example, last night, we went to an investigator's tattoo parlor to follow up on his Book of Mormon reading. He lets us in the shop and we sit down with a guy in his underwear who is getting a tattoo on his inner thigh and we begin talking about the gospel and about English to both of them. We talked for a good hour or so and we were able to become good friends with these guys and teach them about the restoration and part of the plan of Salvation. They both want to continue to meet and also learn English from us. We taught them "the struggle is real." And that was super fun. You never know what can happen in Osaka.

Well, that's about it for this week I think. Be prepared for next time when I talk about more of the adventures that I am sure will come every day here in this crazy city. It is exciting! The work is hastening here and I am excited to see more miracles. I hope you all have an amazing week. The church is true, Joseph Smith is a prophet of God and God loves each and every one of you!

Love,
Elder Lamoreaux ラムロー長老
Japan Kobe Mission 日本神戸伝道部

    This is at our investigator's bike shop. He challenged me to a Rubix
cube competition. I should've won, but I got so unlucky at the last
part... P.S. Don't mind the Celine Dion in the background. He loves

America.

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