Tuesday: transfer calls actually came in after we gave up on an appointment somebody never arrived for. It was a dinner appointment, so we were going to find something to eat instead. Right before we entered the resturant, Elder Dawdy gets a call. It's transfers. We both expected to just stay and watch over Ebetsu and the two ともだち (investigators) the Lord had given us. Then, Elder Dawdy's phone call goes on for a full 5 minutes. He finally hands the phone to me for my turn and I say "that was pretty long for somebody saying you're staying here". I start listening to call and it takes me a while to figure out President McClure is talking to me. He told me Elder Dawdy was going to be a zone leader somewhere else and that I was going to Muroran, with a Japanese companion! After the call, we were kinda shocked. We would have to leave the next day, so I suggested we get the epic katsu one more time while we had coupons. Afterwards, we had eikaiwa, which was depressing because we had to say goodbye.
The epic katsu
saying goodbye at eikawa class
Wednesday: finished packing and got out the door. Met Minegishi 長老 (Elder Brown's new companion - Minegishi Choro) at the subway near Honbu (the mission home). We got some sushi with his old companion, then headed off to Muroran. It's a little more rural than Ebetsu. The apartment is great. All hardwood, so easy to clean. Minegishi 長老 is awesome. He's great at English so if I really have no clue how to say something in Japanese, or I want to learn how to say something in Japanese, it's a lot easier. I'm definitely gonna learn a lot from him.
Elder Brown & Elder Minegishi
Thursday: weekly planning today. Talked about the one real person who's interested that we have. Eikaiwa was tonight as well, and because of some deal the church has with Japan, Japanese people can't teach it. So...I have to. All of it. Didn't go too bad. Kinda ran out of material this day, but we played hang-man to finish it.
Friday: Taught two more eikaiwa classes. One was with 2-8 year old kids and the other was a conversation class, so a bit more advanced than regular eikaiwa. Fun stuff. Did plenty of dendo today. Minegishi 長老 is a wizard in the kitchen. He makes lots of Chinese stuff. I kinda just let him do his thing, and then do the dishes afterwards. Also, his stomach isn't too big, so he takes all he can handle, and I take the rest.
Saturday: volunteered at this food place. Mostly just took a few trays of food to people, but service is service. They gave us a couple meals, which was super nice. Other than that and a meeting at the church, pretty normal day.
Sunday: oof. Spent a good part of the day pounding Jacob 5 in Japanese. Met some members at church today, which was fun. Bore a rough testimony. Dendo the rest of the day. Just working and doing what we can.
Arigato gozaimasu!
愛しています！
Brown 長老.
MURORAN STATS
- Population 93,000 (2012)
- 31 square miles
- capital city of Iburi Subprefecture
- a port city - large cement factories, steel mills, oil refineries, and shipyards clustered around the port
- oceanic climate - a climate type that is very rare in Japan. Despite it being located on Hokkaido, Muroran typically does not see the very cold winters that the majority of the island is known for, yet it does experience some snowfall in the course of the year, averaging roughly 210 cm (83 in) of snow per season
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