I got exiled to Taiwan? I think?

OK I'm not actually in Taiwan but me and my amazing trainer, Elder Nagao (ながお 長老) just got to 石垣 (Ishigaki), a small island way closer to Taiwan than it is to Japan. There hasn't been young missionaries here in 5 years so we are opening this area up for missionary work! We don't have an apartment yet so we are staying in a hotel for a few days and then we are going to move in with the Shimada's, the senior missionary couple that has been serving here until we can get an apartment.

Okay, week breakdown!

Sunday-Thursday: Finishing the MTC! Horita 兄弟 gave me an awesome hot pink tie with light blue pineapples on it! Saying goodbye to everyone in my district (Except Elder Phillips) and my teachers! 

Friday and Saturday: Wake up at 3:30 am tame a bus and then 3 planes, get my Japanese Residency Card made, meet the mission president, drive to the mission home (underneath the Fukuoka Temple!) eat Japanese fast food, and sleep at just before 11:30 pm Japan time. Total of 30 hours straight.

Easter Sunday: Go to Church in the Fukuoka ward. See Sakura (cherry blossoms)! Training from office Elders, the APs, and President Hara! After that they announced companions and areas! I'm with Elder Kensei Nagao from South Tokyo and we are serving in Ishigaki! We had to leave like 15 minutes later to catch a flight so we took pictures, President Hara interviewed me, and we caught a flight to Okinawa (Disclaimer, our flight was delayed two hours so we didn't actually need to rush lol)! We spent the night with the Elders serving in Okinawa!

Today! (Monday): Woke up and we had a few hours before we had to go to the airport so we went to the Okinawa church building (3 stories!) and played knockout and chair soccer. We got my first McDonalds in Japan (MaKu) and ran back, showered, and went to the airport! We made the flight to Ishigaki! The beaches in Okinawa and Ishigaki are so beautiful, I could see them from the plane! The Elder and Sister Shimada picked us up and took us to lunch, the beef stew was amazing! They don't speak English and I can't understand everything, but I'm starting to understand a little bit! (I say that but earlier I thought they said they eat the lizards around their house but what they really said was that the lizards eat the bugs around their house.)

OK I got to go, so much work to do! I love you guys and I love Jesus! He loves you more than I even know!

Bye bye!
Elder Jared Rasmussen

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Costco haul from the STLs

Image
Cute sisters: What? Elder Rasmussen, you're AP?   Me: yes  Cute sisters: Do you have a car? Me: Yea!   ...  Cute sisters: Wow that's so cool!   you're so handsome, I wish I would mar...  Me: but I don't have my license so I can't drive it Cute sisters:  That's totally a joke, cute sisters don't exist while I'm a missionary, but boy do I wish I could drive.   Well! It's been a fun week! (2 Weeks, sorry last email was so bad)  Last week: So yea, transfers were crazy with the beans coming in at the same time the returning missionaries were supposed to be doing all of their stuff. My mission president is so amazing, he doesn't make the elders wear suits during the winter to meetings like ZC or other things, so I didn't sweat through my suits! This week: I've felt so much LOVE this last week! I'm not really sure why, just like, even as I'm typing this email I feel like overflowing with love from God! I've been ab...
Read more

Fukuoka???

Image
Hello! Well, I got transferred. I'm now in Fukuoka, Japan, the biggest city in the mission! I'm companions with Elder Wendel and we are the APs (Assistant to the Mission President). It was a crazy week with all the new missionaries coming in and the old ones leaving, so lets get into it!  Tuesday: We had our mission-wide transfer announcement zoom at 9:30 pm, but President Boss called me at around 9:15 and asked if I would be willing to serve as AP. Then I started packing to leave Thursday morning! Wednesday: Finished packing and said bye to all the people in Kitakyushu Thursday: Put my suitcases in the car and drove down to Fukuoka, easiest transfer ever. We parked at the temple and took everything across the street to my new apartment.    We went to hakata station to get the trainers ready for training, and then had lunch and dinner with the new missionaries.  Friday: We ate sukiyaki at the mission home with the returning missionaries and then had a ...
Read more

I accidently started writing this in Japanese

Image
Hello everyone! Welcome back to another weekly email! We had a nice week so buckle in. Companion exchange! I exchanged with a missionary named Elder Takamura! He just came to our mission a few weeks ago from his original assignment in New Zealand. He will finish his mission in November! It was a pretty busy exchange, we had 4 lessons right after we got back from Yamaguchi, and then the next morning before we switched back, we had 1 more lesson. We invited 2 of those 5 friends to baptism and they both didn't really go as planned, but were still really good lessons. We only had 30 minutes to go streeting/housing, but it was super yokatta (good)! After I finished talking to the first people we stopped elder Takamura said something like this "Wow...this is why you have so many progressing investigators"   All I did was invite them to come unto Christ. Also we didn't even get to exchange contacts with those 2 people. But yea, I think that the exchange was really good for E...
Read more