Japanese Graffiti

(In America, we publicly profess our love for someone by carving our initials in a heart on a tree. They do a similar thing in Japan, only rather than hurting a tree, they write their names on a padlock.)

(Then they "lock" it onto a designated public place, such as this observation tower.)

(Click on any image to enlarge)

Now here is Elder Mumford's e-mail, dated May 18th:

Dear Everyone,

We are having the best time ever in Koiwa!

Let me tell you some of the exciting things that have been happening.

1. We have this really cool guy named 'Sho'. He's from China and is here studying politics. And he's the most awesome person I've ever met. We were trying to see if we could meet him sometime, and so the missionaries before me invited him to a Music Festival which was at the church on Saturday. We called and called but couldnt really ever get ahold of him to see if he was coming. And then the night before he called us back, and said that he was coming. But not just that, he had come to the church already on tuesday for practice - because he was going to be singing IN the music festival. It was really cool, he went up there with all the young single adults and sung that 'Sisters in Zion' EFY theme song. (Click here to see this song sung in Japanese by a group of Japanese Young Single Adults.) AND... he brought his entire family with him to watch it (6 people). And he went around afterwards introducing himself and his family to all the ward members. He hasn't heard any official lessons yet (there hasnt been time), but he heard about the Word of Wisdom from us and decided he wanted to follow it. He also saw a baptism last week and decided that he would also like to be baptized. So I think that if you could pray for him, that he would continue on at that great pace, it would be amazing.

(The Missionaries prepare for a recent music night.)

2. Koiwa is the best! We have a massive 180-200 person ward, the second largest in all of Japan I think. And it's just full of people who are willing to help each other and us. I think that after the music night, Sho introduced himself to, and became great friends with all of the young members of the ward. Everyone helps us out a lot, and we're doing our best to help them. Since Koiwa is right in the middle of the big city, (but slghtly less populated then shibuya), there are people everywhere at all times of the day. We can simply go outside of our apartment and talk to people all the day long.

(Busy Train Station in Japan)

In fact I have been very suprised, but there are actually a lot of Chinese people living in Koiwa. We have met som many Chinese couples and families here already, and they are always fun to talk to. From what I have heard, Christianity is actually getting very popular in China, so everyone that we talk to from China says they have a relative or two who is Christian and that tghey really respect that. But so far we have been working extremely hard, talking to every single person possible. There's simply so manhy people in our area that we could bnever possibly meet a decent portion of them. We ask each person we meet if they have ever seen us before, and pretty much 100% of the time they never have. There's just so many people. Its a bit of a shock actually, Im not quite used to it because it has been so long sincew Shibuya. But Im very impressed with just how many of the people we talk to actually listen to us. I thought it would be hard, because its a big city and everyone is so busy, but in fact the majority of those we talk to are willing to listen.

(List of missionary contacts)

3. We meet a lot of fun, interesting, and sometimes crazy people here. It is the BEST for cool stories.

-We ran into this genki old fellow who started talking to us about this crazy book he had just bought, about life and how people are spirits and can dream... just interesting things. But he was talking and talking, and woudn't even give us a break to get a word in. But then he offered us these little seaweed cracker things he had, and shuffled off. Wierd, but fun.

(Interesting Book)

-This man was just about to get into his car, and so we complimented how nice a car it was. He said, 'come here' and he turned on the engine and showed us the inside of the very very expensive looking car. The he talked for a while about how he races sometimes, and how fast he can gol. We didnt know anything about cars, but it was still fun to talk to him.

(That's a lot of headlights)

-We were talking to this older man about true happiness, and he went off about how there is nothing to be grateful for. I offered that becsause we have all our senses, we can see and that is something to be grateful for. He agreed, but then started off on how blind people cant possibly be happy. They might pretend to be happy, but they cant ever feel real happiness because they cant see. I think we talked to him for a while, but he was rather stuck on being depressed and 'woe is me' that day, but I think we were able to bring a ittle more happiness to him that day though that conversation.

Anyways, things are great here. Technicaly it's supposed to be entering the rainy part of the year, but so far so good! Not a drop! And today its still sunny :) I think that Im going to have asome serious 'tie tan' when I get back though. Where its so hot thatyou get a permanent tie-shaped white stripe on you :)

(Elder Mumford shows off his "Missionary Tan")

Alright, Im running out of things to say, I hope everyone is doing well, good luck and have fun! Ill see you soon! Also I have to apologize for the lack of letters/contact outside of email. We have been so busy. Ive never been this busy before as a missioanry, because every second we're really working to the MAX. But its so much fun. And tiring. Mostly fun.

K, love you all!

See you,

-Elder Martin D Mumford

-TOKYO,JAPAN