The Sakura are blooming

Hello there! 

The trees are very beautiful! Only the Sakura are blooming though. Most other trees still look dead haha. But yes I do have more pictures with them! I am pressing some pedals too so I'll have those when I go home. Or I may send them home with the package I want to send home this transfer, which by the way already ends in 2 weeks! Man time is flying! What stuff do you want me to send home if I send this package? I am going to have to send a big one because I have a bowl that's Ishikawa San made me and my yukata and geta I want to send home. It's just really hard to transfer with all of that so I really need to send it before I transfer again! 

Man I really want to get my Spanish and French back! I just finished the English Book of Mormon again and now I want o simultaneously read English Japanese French and Spanish. It's so weird because with Japanese it's a completely different writing system, obviously, but that makes it that when I read Spanish or French I understand it almost completely. I just have a hard time speaking it that's all. 

Yes the toilet, (I asked if it was normal that the toilet is in a separate room than the shower )is almost always separate from the shower and sink room. Our shower is normal, well for a Japanese shower. They always have a bath tub, and then next to it is the shower head. You so just stand where it looks like the floor. 笑い話(funny story) so my first transfer I spent the whole time standing in the bath tub holding the shower head to take a shower. I had no idea that you could just stand in the floor. The whole room is the shower! Like the day before Elder Laird transferred I asked him if I was using the shower right... I wasn't. 

Nope. No ovens. Those just aren't a thing here! If we want to make a cake or anything like that we would have to use the rice cooker or buy like a separate thing that makes cakes.  It's still so weird to me that Alan and Natalie (his cousin Alan and his wife were in Japan and very close to Haydon )were here in my country! They went to Disney land right? That is in the north mission. But it's not too far from me! They were probably a couple hours train ride away from me. The bullet train is called the Shinkansen and there are like at least 3 different types of them for different lines and different weather situations. But everybody loves them! They have like action figures of the Shinkansen haha. We do have one in our mission but it goes from like odawada to Kawasaki or something like that. And then it goes somewhere around shibuya I think. Anyways it's really expensive and we aren't supposed to use it as missionaries. 

So our conference will be next week. We have to wait for the translation to come in Japanese. Actually one sister in my ward is the translator for some of the talks they do! She translated the third talk in the women's conference into Japanese! She speaks fluent English because she served somewhere in America. Her husband is from Sri Lanka and speaks Chinese English Japanese and Sri Lankan. He's way nice! He teaches English class on Mondays. Actually last week and today we are going to help him and then we go get dinner with him after that around 8 pm. He is so nice. He is currently trying to get onto the Japanese national cricket team! He owns a cricket club here. 

Ya the pictures of the fire looked so fun! I love thinking about the week where we tore down the green houses. I use that story a lot actually about how God protects us, because I know God was watching out for us that week. Everyone almost died like 3 times at least! 

I'm trying to remember what we did this week. Hey while I remembered, I saw one gold Ferrari and one bright blue Ferrari this week! There are some pretty sweet cars here. But this week we tried visiting a lot of less actives but either they weren't home, moved, or wouldn't talk to us. 

So ya last Monday I got a haircut. I like it. I have had to lower my standards on how I like my hair cut because they will probably never get it just how I like it because I have no idea how to say it. (Maybe Kendra, you could find out how to translate his haircutting instructions into Japanese. ) After that we helped Asala Kyoudai, the Sri Lankan brother at his English class. I was new so we had the three students ask me questions to get to know me. They are all like 60 or older. The last lady's question was, "how many girlfriends do you have?" Hahaha we all busted up. I said, "I have one girlfriend" it was quite funny. Then I told them all about Audrey in English. They like that. 

On Tuesday nights I go on splits with Elder Molen so Elder Uemura and Elder Kaesler can visit a specific guy together. Me and Elder Molen teach Pepe Kyoudai, he is from Peru, kanji. I love kanji. But it's usually way hard for him to learn because he doesn't put any practice time throughout the week. We are trying to help him understand that if he wants to learn kanji, he has to put more effort into it that he is now. 

Wednesday was way awesome! We had a stake blitz in kunitachi! I went home! It felt so so good to be back there. It seriously felt like I was home. My home in Japan is kunitachi. I walked up to the little church and Elder Frischknecht threw open the 2nd story window and smiled at me and I yelled , "I'm home!" And then I ran upstairs and gave him and Elder Allred and Elder Lunt a big hug. Elder Ishikawa was there too because he transferred back into Musashino stake. He doesn't seem to be too fond of me. We fought when we were together but not that much, and I figured he would get over it. Oh well. But it was so nice to see everybody again! I went out with Elder Allred to dendo around Tachikawa. We were able to talk to 2 people. We shared about Jesus Christ and his birth and atonement, death, and resurrection and how we can be freed from the consequences of imperfection through him. It was so good. Man I love Elder Allred! I love this work! I love sharing it with people. When they understand it and the spirit touches them and they know there is something more, it is an incredible experience. 

On Thursday we met Yamamoto San at night. We answered his questions he had about the Book of Mormon. We had gone it to the lesson with the plan to ask him to be baptized. The lesson was so great. We ended up bearing our testimonies about how the Book of Mormon is infinitely more than a book from which we can gain knowledge. It is the most important book in the world and through reading it we can come closer to God and experience the greatness and the happiness that comes from knowing our Heavenly Father. We were promoted to have him re read a scripture and then pray about what he should do which will be get baptized! We are asking him to be baptized again next time we meet him. 

Friday we had kids English class again. It was pretty fun we all drew pictures of our families! 

On Saturday we met with Azuma San. He thinks our lessons are English class lessons. Somewhere in the past someone set up wrong expectations with him. He was meeting with missionaries and then he was all the way up to a baptismal interview but he canceled. To get him back they told him they would just teach him English. So we have been trying to fix that. This time I had a strong impression to just let him talk about English all he wanted and to answer every single question he had about English. I even taught him how many feet were in a mile and yards and what not. Elder K kind of tunes out and does something on his iPad during that time. But I just kept thinking that even though he doesn't have the most interest, we still need to treat him like he is important and we want to be there with him, just with seem different expectations to be set. So after the English I felt like I should tell him our purpose as missionaries and then tell him as missionaries we need to share the gospel. I then asked him if we could share a message right then. We taught him the plan of salvation and then told him about how important it was. Then we asked if we could focus on the gospel when we meet and then only a little bit of English. It was really good. Also this morning at 6 am we went with some people in the ward to a baseball diamond and played softball! It was so much fun!!! I never loved sports before the mission but now I just want to play them every opportunity I get! I was the first baseman and got quite a few people out. And my hits were pretty solid too. They were going past the outfielders! ( Jared you should appreciate this! If I remember correctly before the 2 of you left on missions you were playing catch in the back yard, and neither of you can catch!) I thought it was way fun especially because I can't even remember the last time I have played! But baseball is huge here. We had painted lines and everything! We also had a baptism at 10 am. Kyou San is his name. He is elder Molen and elder uemura's investigator. He is awesome. When me and elder Kaelser went to fill the font it took us so long to find the thing to turn in the water haha. We literally looked all over the church looking for some hidden button. It was just around the corner from the font. 

Yesterday I was so tired! I was almost falling asleep in church! And I really make sure I never fall asleep in church. It bugs me when people do. But I was so close. After that I went home and called sister Wada and just let her know I was really tired and was probably going to take a nap for a little while. She told me to rest as long as I needed. When I woke up I felt totally fine! Except now my throat hurts really bad for some reason. 

Right now we are in kichijoji and Elder Kaesler is backing  up his iPad and some people are playing basketball downstairs in the gym. And then we are going back to the apartment later to clean! 

This week was way quick of course but it was way good! Saw miracles and Ferraris and Lamborghinis and we are loving the work as representatives of The Lord Jesus Christ!

I love you all!

Elder Draper

ドレーパー長老