Home and General Center of the Living (Week 14)

こんにちは！[Hello!]

I hope all is well in the Liddle house on the prairie. All is well here in California. I mean Japan. Sometimes I can't tell which one it is. Okinawa is like a Japanese California with a lot of Americans polluting the population with their whiteness. And on Kadena air base it is exactly like the base we stay at in San Diego only with different trees and everyone drives on the left side of the road. And yes I bought my bike at the base. Its totally hot stuff.

So I hear Jeff and Ben are home. Tell them I say hi. They are cool. I miss them and I'm sad that I won't get to see them for a long time. So Elder Peterson is one of the zone leaders. I live with him. And he said something that boosted my confidence in myself learning Japanese quickly so much it will make your ancestors dizzy. He said he is so glad he has Elder Kusakabe as his companion or he would lose all his Japanese being here in Okinawa where we are over three american military branches and one Japanese ward and spend most of our time working with american members and stuff. That made me feel real good about learning Japanese here. I also here the Japanese in Okinawa is weird. So if I do ever learn it then I'll have to relearn if I ever leave Okinawa. He also says this is very american Japan. The rest of Japan is even more Japanese than this.

I love Kusakabe Choro. He is so funny. He can't speak english very well so its hard to communicate with him. But he keeps learning the weirdest sentences and says them to me at random times. Like love me tender. And the black magician is cruising for a bruising. He is so funny. And it is our goal to speak each others languages only. So I speak to him in Japanese and he speaks in English. Its super hard. Japanese is so crazy.

We went around knocking on doors and found an old man that let us in. I couldn't understand him. And he couldn't understand me. His house was very Japanesey. That was cool. He said we could come back next week but not every week. We also tried to visit a guy that Elder Buckingham has met before but he wasn't home. And then we saw a dog but it would keep walking away when we tried to get near. And Elder Buckingham shook his finger at it and said Don't make me teach your family! And then the dog ran off. And Elder Buckingham said That's it! You asked for it! And we followed it home to a house with the door wide open. And talked to the girl there for a while about religion and anime and manga. She showed us a manga book she's reading about Jesus Christ and Buddha hanging out together on earth just having fun. It was a little weird and she was worried we would get mad about it. But it was kind of funny. I've never seen such a book. And she said we could come back sometime this week. So we'll see where that goes.

We are teaching a kid named A_____. We are teaching him in english so I can participate equally. And he's awesome. I love him. He needs to be baptized. And I think he's almost there. And I had a cool experience teaching him on Saturday. I think it was mostly just for me and not so much for him. But he said he was looking up the church on the internet and found stuff about tithing and asked about it and he said he likes to see where his money is going and I then said members of the church can see where there money is when another temple is announced and built. And people get so excited because the temple is so important to the church members and stuff. And I felt the spirit so strong when I said that. I almost cried right there. It was a really cool experience for me. I love temples so much. I am realizing more how important temples are. Its super cool.

So I found a smashed lizard on a door frame in my apartment. On the part where the door touches it when its closed. The side with the hinges. A lizard was there and then the door was closed on it. And I guess its been there for a really long time. I took a picture of it. I'll send it home sometime.

I get to watch general conference next week. So don't worry. I get to see it all. In english. Because of all the americans here. I'm excited for it.

I'm glad to hear you got a letter from President Margetts. He's super cool. I like him a lot. He's such a nice guy. I'll miss him when he changes into a different President. But the next president should be good.

We haven't been able to see our alcholic investigator having problems with evil spirits yet. We're pretty sure that when he gets really drunk he's being possessed and stuff. Its scary but the last couple times we talked to him on the phone he was sober and seems to be doing a little better. He leaves for america on wednesday. And he wants to have all four of us over on tuesday. So I think that will be the time we go into his room. And after he leaves we will hopefully still teach his family. So I think this story is going to conclude well.

Well I think that is life right now in Japan. Its weird. Its hard. But its fun. I'm really lucky to get to go somewhere this cool. And I tell myself I'm lucky to get to speak a really hard language. Maybe someday I'll believe that. Have yourselves a nice day. Don't crash any more cars. I don't enjoy hearing about the deaths occuring among our cars.

I love you. Don't forget that.

Love Josh