Long Time No Chat

What's up everyone? Sorry it's been so long. I didn't get to email
last Monday because we actually didn't get P day until today. Soooo I
get to email today, and in 3 days on Monday. I'll try to keep it
shorter because a ton happened, but I don't feel like putting a whole
lot of effort in right now.

Just a head ups. Transfer calls are on Tuesday. I'm banking that I'm
staying, but you never know.

3 things I want to talk about:

1) CHRISTMAS DAY! I hope everyone had a great Christmas. I got to call
my family like all the other missionaries (via Skype) and it was
awesome. The time went so fast. With a couple minutes left in my call,
my mission president showed up at the church where we were skyping. To
clarify, he called me and elder Rees earlier in the week and said he
wanted to go dendo (missionary work) with us on Christmas. To clarify
further, that is not very common. I'm one of 3 or 4ish missionaries
still in the Hokkaido to have done that. I was so freaking nervous. My
mission president is the nicest guy I've ever met, and his English is
really good, but I was so afraid he was going to give us tips to be
better by tearing us apart. That didn't happen. Elder Rees and I were
freaking out that whole day. Walking from place to place was very
quiet, because we were both too scared to talk. Taught a lesson with
the 3 of us, and visited a member. Everything went really smooth. I
love my mission president so much. He truly is a man called of God.

2) this week I had the opportunity to go on splits with a Japanese
elder named Elder Tamura. I was in his area, but right before we split
elder Rees and I went down to their area, because as district leader,
elder Rees was conducting a baptismal interview with those elder's
investigator. I ended up teaching the investigator with the baptismal
date later that night. He was one of the coolest people I have ever
met. He was so grateful for the missionaries, and you could literally
see the light the gospel has brought in his eyes. It gave me a lot of
desire to be better. Idk what it is, but so far I've had little to
none success. I'm on my 6month mark exactly, and still haven't found a
new investigator in 2 areas. It's tough to stay motivated, but after
seeing the light in this investigator's eyes, I forgot all of that.
These people need to gospel. I need to truly forget myself and go to
work!

3) just an awesome thing about this ward. Because it's Christmas time
(even though the Japanese people don't celebrate Christmas hardly at
all) and the Japanese people know how much Americans love Christmas,
we are getting fed 2 meals every day for the past week. We got from
one ward member's house to another. I'm going to get so fat!

Culture and weather: in Japan, new year's (shogatsu) is like
Christmas. Everyone is out partying and buying ridiculously expensive
food

It's pretty freaking freezing. When I went on splits, I woke up and
the apartment was 8-9ish degrees Celsius.

I'm going to send so,e good pics. Hope everyone has an awesome year!

I won't be home till 2017!!!


敬具 (sincerely yours)
ー  シャイト長老 (Elder Scheidt)

Almost Christmas Baby

Quick breakdown I'm running low on time:

Monday: I bought a guitar for 10$. Now after planning I can do
something because I swear I give up on Japanese. Jk sometimes I just
need a break. Check on the capo I made. Think I should change my major
to engineering!

Tuesday: had English class and it was my idea to make something nice
for one of our students. He always brings us a snack before class, so
i told elder Rees we should do something for him. Made him cookies and
he was really grateful. He told me later in the week that he ate them
all that night. They were too good to sit in his house!

Wednesday: we went to the church with the sisters (both Japanese) to
help them with a lesson. Ended up spending 2 hours talking about life
and then going on to eat for another 2 hours. We had 8 hours to go do
missionary work, but because of that we had almost no time that day.
Had to go back and do the rest of our study. Eventually got out and
did housing with no success. Kind of a bummer of a day

Thursday: we had our weekly planning session (dkk= 同僚計画会) and another
English class in another area. Every Thursday we teach higashi Eikaiwa
because all the missionaries there are Japanese and we advertise the
class as 100% American English teaching.

Friday: went on splits in higashi with a Japanese missionary. Spent
the whole day going hard! We took one tiny break and I've never walked
so much in my life. It was also good practice for my Japanese. I only
speak Japanese when I'm with a Japanese missionary.

Saturday: we held an activity at the church (shogi-> Japanese version
of chess/ ping pong / and this game called majangu-> way to confusing
to describe)
A ton of people came and I got to meet some less actives and just some
friends from Eikaiwa. I spent most of the time playing ping pong.
Japanese people are freaking so good. Don't worry dad, I dominated the
night though!

Sunday: President Nakatsuka came to our church, and boy I was so
nervous. I just felt like everything I was doing was wrong. He's such
a cool guy, but I was trying extra hard so he would be proud of me.
Sucking up to its finest. Jk I was just trying to show that I'm
working hard. We also we to a resting home and sang Christmas hymns in
Japanese. Awesome to watch the really old people brighten up.

The ward here is so awesome! Since its Christmas season, they really
wanted to show their love for the missionaries. I'll show a picture of
all of their charity. I'm seriously about to get soooo fat!

Success right now is really absent. We taught only 3 lessons all week
and it's really hard, but I'm doing my best to show my faith. Right
now we have 2 investigators who just need more faith! They aren't
progressing but believe our message is true! Really hard, but please
keep them in your prayers

Hope everyone has an awesome week and a Merry Christmas! I'm excited
for my first Christmas in Japan. Never forget the true meaning!

Love you all

敬具 (sincerely yours)
ー  シャイト長老 (Elder Scheidt)

YOU ARE WEAK

December 13, 2015

So first, I forgot to make a quick list of things I did to put in my email, so I'm just going to write about what stuck out most.

For the most part the snow has melted. Kind of sad to be honest. I'm learning to love the snow, especially for a California kid. Every day I look out my window and think "oh there's no snow, it can't be that cold." Then I go outside not wearing warm clothes, and every time I regret it. Of course the only logically thing to do the next day is do the same thing right? Yeah I'm pretty stupid ha.

This week I went on splits with a 2nd transfer Named Elder Romney in his area (Atsubetsu). Yeah he's related to Mitt Romney. Very close actually.... He's his 2nd cousin twice removed. No he's not that close lol. Anyway, Yep that's right a 3rd transfer with a 2nd transfer. His companion is on transfer 16, and mine is on 11. Yeah we didn't understand why we they went on splits together, and us left out to dry. We did see success though

On splits we taught a Shuwa lesson to start off our day. Shuwa is Japanese sign language, and is pretty different from ASL. I don't know any Shuwa and he barely knew any so we knew we were in for a fun visit. We were asked by his companion to teach the law of tithing, so we knew we were screwed right from the start. Luckily, we had a member team up that would just sign things to the guy when we didn't know the Shuwa for it. The only problem being that we didn't know the Japanese for it either. It was super frustrating because he would ask a question and sign in to the team up, who would ask us the question in Japanese. We would both look at each other and ask if the other person understood, but we never understood haha. We then talked about Joseph smith, and the guy thought Elder Romney was Joseph Smith. It sounds funny, but it was really bad because this guy is already baptized. These are his after baptism lessons. I think he has some mental memory problems because he asked who I was 4 or 5 times.

We also did a lot of housing door to door, but it was amazing how many people talked to us. Elder Romney kind of just stood there really nervous, so I had to do most of the talking with my garbage Japanese. We ended up teaching 2 lessons that night in just 2 hours. It really strengthened my testimony about God making weak things strong. We were two nervous, inept at Japanese, young missionaries, but still fulfilled our duty for that day. Awesome experience.

We had our Christmas party this last Saturday and it was way fun. We had a quiz for everyone about common questions about Christmas. Japanese people don't know anything haha. They all thought Santa was from Greenland. I thought that was freaking hilarious. We also had a ward member dress up as Santa and give out presents to little kids. They attacked him and he kept yelling "agenai" translating to "I will not give" haha It was a super cool party and Elder Rees and I sang a Christmas hymn with some wards members. A lot of the members brought non member friends, so I got to meet a lot of people.

Yesterday we had a meal at a members house. He's the one from the Sapporo temple video. I mentioned this last week, but he's my bishop. He put the angel Moroni on the Sapporo temple. He's a super funny guy, and he has 3 sons who are super hilarious. They're always causing some tension with another brother haha. The bishop always messes with Elder Rees and I. I'll show you what I mean in one of my attached pictures. In this picture elder Rees was actually nervous okay? The smile was out of fear! Ha

That's all. This week was pretty normal, but still awesome. There really aren't boring weeks on the mission, you always feel good about what you're doing, so it's hard to feel boring. 

I know this church is true. I know Thomas S. Monson is a prophet of God and the Book of Mormon is The word of God. Don't believe me? Read it and pray about it. It will change your life. You'll feel a happiness you have never experienced before. Kk shenanigans pics are coming soon

敬具 (sincerely yours)

ー  シャイト長老 (Elder Scheidt)

Sick Week

December 6, 2015

Hello everyone!

This week was very uneventful. My companion and I got really sick. I'm talking not leaving the apartment. We were realllllyyyyyyy sick. It sucked because I was literally 2 days behind him, so I knew when I would get better, and what I would feel like the next day. For example, he had a cough on Monday and I didn't. Literally Wednesday morning I was coughing my lungs out.

We did almost no missionary work (dendo) so honestly nothing really to report on. I think we were in the apartment 45-46 hours in 2 days. Actually probably closer to 54 hours in 2 days. Yeah do the math!

Since we were closed down to the apartment basically all week (probably like Gary. Yeah that's your shoutout for the week), we decided to clean a little and ended up rearranging the whole apartment. Sorry not very exciting I know.

I guess one thing happened. Last Monday, my companion lost his gaijin card (card that shows you're allowed to be in Japan for religious purposes). We talked to the cops and they needed his passport to get information, which was at the headquarters in another area. Mission president came down and gave it to them. We were scared he was going to be mad, but we were still sick so he had sympathy.

Well that's it, so I'll attach a video my companion took of me today walking to the church.

Hope everyone is having a good time. Best time of the year!

敬具 (sincerely yours)

ー  シャイト長老 (Elder Scheidt)