Elder O'Reilly in Kobe, Japan: Japan is everything I`ve ever thought it could be and more

So I`ve been in Japan for 6 days now! Let me tell you, Japan is everything I`ve ever thought it could be and more. But more of that later.

Ok, so I have been assigned to the Joyo Area, in the Kyoto zone! pretty dang awesome! being near kyoto, there are tons of really neat shrines and things everywhere. It`s a fairly large area, mainly country but it has some city-like parts as well, so that`s pretty cool. ^^ I was in Kobe at the mission home for 2 1/2 days, I bought my bike there! It was kind of funny, I bet the bike guys there love us. We come in, look at bike for like 10 minutes, and then buy some of there more expensive bikes after testing it out for a few seconds. haha. We always buy from the same place because they do a 2 year insurance plan for about $30. how convenient. ^o^. Anyway, while in Kobe we went street contacting with the more experienced missionaries. I went with a Japanese missionary, and we talked to a bunch of people from the way home from a buffet we all went to. it was really cool. Kobe is a really cool place. like seriously.

The next day we all found out where we were going and who our companions are. My companion is Elder Hale, from Brigham City, Utah. So he`ll be my trainer for the next 12 weeks. We are almost complete opposites but we get along well. haha. He is super energetic and social, talks rather loudly to everyone we see. haha. It`s pretty exciting. We do a ton of street contacting, which is actually my favorite way to find people thus far. If you go knock on doors, they usually don`t even open the door, all the homes have cameras and an intercom system so they don`t have to come to the door. Street contacting seems to be much more effective. The people are way awesome, too. We can usually get about 50% of the people to stop and talk to us, and they are always super nice and cool.

The first few days my bike hadn`t arrived yet (we shipped it from Kobe) so we walked everywhere. One day it poured rain like I`d never seen before. Buckets of rain. Literally. haha there was a bucket outside, like a 2 gallon size bucket, and it was filled in half an hour. so we walked quite a bit in that, haha. It didn`t rain too long, though. The weather here thus far is actually been really good. Its been overcast so its not too hot.

I went to the branch and gave my first talk / testimony in Japanese, that was exciting :D the ward is really awesome, there are about 28 members who come every week, but some less-actives come each week as well. We actually taught an investigator during the second hour, and he is really awesome! We taught him the Word of Wisdom, and when we said we don`t drink alcohol or smoke, he said he already stopped both of those. When we told him about tea and coffee, he was surprised, but he agreed to live the word of wisdom completely. Really cool experience! After that we went to Elder`s quorum. There are 3 Elders in the ward, the others are inactive. There is no young men`s yet. Looks like our work is cut out for us! :)

So this area has some room for improvement....... that investigator is actually the only investigator the area had when I came in. We`ve been working hard to get some more investigators, though, and we have a lesson lined up for today actually! It`s P-day, but we`re desperate. haha.

Ok, so now I`ll tell you of all the cool stuff they have in Japan....... ready? haha.

Japanese stuff is awesome. Ok first, the doughnuts. imagine a krispy creme doughnut. now take out half the sugar and multiply the deliciousness by one million. Basically American doughnuts don`t compare. haha ^o^ All the toilets plug in to the wall. usually just for heated seats but sometimes for other stuff as well, I`m not completely sure what yet haha. The place we E-mail from is AWESOME. We have to pay per hour, but the computers are SUPER nice and they have big recliner chairs and unlimited drinks and ice-cream. Yeah. Ok really quickly, they have pens that erase with friction, each room has individual air-conditioning, the microwave is a one-button machine (there is a way to manually set it, but if you put something in and press start, it cooks it perfect everytime), the washing machine tells you how much soap you need, Melon-pan (bread) is to die for, and Japan is, just in general, awesome.

My companion doesn`t really like plain rice or fish or (it seems) Japanese food in general, so we usually eat different stuff. The ward is awesome, so we get a lot of food from them on Sundays for the week. A lot of it goes to me since he doesn`t like it, which is fine by me! haha ^o^.

Anyway, I`m going to see how many pics I can upload before my time runs out.

じゃあ、またねぇ！

オーライリ長老より

A bunch of us from the International Branch

my district in the International Branch

My Japanese District

My Japanese Branch

Window seat!! Here's an artificial ksiland by Kobe. The flight was SOOO long. the buy next to me.... I don't think he spoke English or Japanese... he spoke Chinese and he had out his laptop the whole time. Didn't want to bother him so I o nly got up once the whole 11 hours. ouch!