Japan - Week 2

こんにちわ (konnichiwa)

How is everyone??  Well anyways, things are going good here! Elder Shitami and I have been working hard to find some people and have a few people that are really interested but still haven't found a real investigator. Hopefully we can soon. :D 

We went to Sendai to see all the things that happened, we got on a bus Thursday night at 10pm and drove all night. We got to Sendai at about 730am and it is really scary to think that it was three months ago the earthquake and tsunami hit Japan. There was still a lot of houses and cars that have probably never been touched yet. There is a lot to be done still. We went to a man's house and cleared off the top soil around his house because it had all the ocean pollution in it and they wanted it out. You could see the water line outside the house and it was about 4ft maybe 4 and half feet high or so. Just incredible to see the destruction first hand. After doing that we went to help some other missionaries with all of the sewers. They are underground but just covered by small rectangles of concrete that can be removed to access them. They are only about 2 ft deep or so but they wanted us to clean them out and there was a lot of mud and other stuff that was in there that we had to remove so that the water and stuff could flow down it.  We had to shovel it out and put in bags where they would take them to a dump I guess. I don't really know the details of it but that's all we did most of the day. Then at about 4pm we finished our service and got to go closer to the shore and see more of the areas that were hit worse.  It was so sad to see all the houses and cars just flattened. Like nothing was there, only scraps of things. Even a pretty big boat, like a fisherman boat, was up past the houses and just sitting there in the dirt. We even saw a buoy sitting in an empty field. Crazy stuff happened. I took a lot of pictures of it but I don't know how I can send them to you. I check into that. After that, we stopped by a church and had dinner. Then drove all the way back to the Tokyo area and stopped at a church for a few hours to sleep until about 6am then got on a train to take back to our apartment.

So from the Mission home our apartment is about 1hr and half by train I think, maybe more. I didn't really keep track of time. The size of our apartment is probably about 600sq feet. It has a bedroom and a shower/lanundry/sink. Ohh and our washer is both a washer and dryer, super awesome!!! Then a toliet room. Two study areas where all our clothes go. And the smallest kitchen ever. Like only one, maybe two, people can be in it at once. We have two other missionaries that are there with us in the apartment. Very small living spaces. My bike is a GIANT type bike, a mountain bike. Bright blue with white handles and seat, not my choice of color but they had a very limited selection. Ohh I also just bought an electronic dictionary today because it is very useful to look up words quickly.

My companion knows the show ninja warrior but I think the place where they record the show is somewhere in Yokohama or something, it's not on a mountain. It's just a production studio in the forest somewhere, I think. But they call it Mt Modoriyama. (The green mountain haha)  His whole family are members of the church - 3 older sisters, 2 older brothers, and 1 younger brother. He is just a little shorter than me, probably 5ft 8in maybe. Before his mission, he went to college and worked as a mechanic, which is what he wants to be. He had his year mark last P- day - I found out after I had emailed you. Our ward is called the Sagamihara ward. HAHA, so original. There is one other white guy besides the missionaries. But he served his mission in Japan and is fluent. His wife is Japanese and I don't know how good her English is but that is about it. I didn't get to bear my testimony on Sunday because they are having us do it next week. But it will be very simple since I don't know a lot of words still. I can understand a lot more and get the jist of what they are saying but can't say a whole lot yet.

But things here are going good. Trying to spread the gospel, very tough work, more than I had thought, but still worth it. 

I love you all!!! <3<3<3<3 Please write everyone!! I would love to hear from everyone!!

Elder McKinney