The adventures and misadventures of Elder Shaw as he teaches among the Japanese, and is no doubt taught in return.

Head to the 'Profile,' section to read more about who I am, and what I believe in. For more information on where I actually am, please click here.

The adventures and misadventures of Elder Shaw as he teaches among the Japanese, and is no doubt taught in return.

Head to the 'Profile,' section to read more about who I am, and what I believe in. For more information on where I actually am, please click here.

My name is Brian Shaw, though you can just call me エルダーショー (Elder Shaw). As of the 19th of May 2010, I have been rigorously engaged in serving the Lord by laboring to bring the Japanese people back to their savior, Jesus Christ; and I will continue to do so faithfully until the 19th of the same month in 2012.

I belong to the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, and I have an unshakable testimony that this church is of Christ. I know Christ lives, and I know he suffered for my sins, so that I could return to live with my Heavenly Father after this life. I know that Joseph Smith, the founder of this church in the latter days, was called of God to restore Christ's authority to this earth, and establish the covenants and ordinances that were lost long ago. I also know that Joseph Smith was given a set of gold plates to translate into scripture called the Book of Mormon. I know the Book of Mormon to be the word of God.

If you would like to know this just as I do, please click here, or click here for a free copy of the Book of Mormon.

2 Nephi 25:26
"And we talk of Christ, we rejoice in Christ, we preach of Christ, we prophesy of Christ, and we write according to our prophecies, that our children may know to what source they may look for a remission of their sins."

Hey everyone! How are you doing? I'm doing fantastic! This last week has been lots of fun! We did a tonne of finding and had marvelous success. At least I think so. haha, we found two new investigators, the Nakajo family. So I'll be teaching them, and we found a whole slew of potential investigators who we plan to visit this week and turn into real investigators! Yay! So the majority of my week has been finding... Housing and streeting. Lots of fun ;)
 
Some interesting things that happened this week though are, first, I had splits with Elder Suzuki again. He's lots of fun and I enjoyed learning from him. He is a great, and very natural contacter. I also had a Japanese Donut for the first time. They're different! I don't really know how, but they are. If you're ever in Japan...
 
At any rate, also interesting this week... Elder Aiura took a tumble. Haha. So... Yesterday we were riding to an appointment that we were going to be late for, and we were going pretty fast (surprise!). And I was being careful and staying in the middle of the sidewalk... But Elder Aiura rode a little too close to the edge and... Took a tumble. Outside of a nasty bruise, a few scrapes and a big rip in his pants he is fine (and his bike too,) but it was pretty scary. But the story doesn't end there.
 
So on Sunday nights after planning you have a 'Call-in-Summary report.' That's where the ZL's call in and check up your weekly results and what not. Well, last nht at 9:30 we were looking for the phone, and we couldn't find it! Uh oh! We suspected it fell out of Elder Aiura's pocket when he fell, but it was after 9:00 so there was nothing we could do about it.
 
Then, SURPRISE! At midnight this morning (very early) we got a visit from President Tateoka! No one could get a hold of us, so President drove all night to make sure we were okay. I explained the situation and expressed my utmost sincere apologies for keeping him up so late. Of course he said it was fine (because he's amazing) but I felt pretty rotten for having caused him so much trouble. At any rate, this morning at 6:00 we left to search for the phone. And we found it. Hidden in a bush, right near where Elder Aiura fell. We called President and he was very relieved that we found the phone.
 
Very fun experience me to say the least.
 
At any rate, for my spiritual message today... I have to say. BE CAREFUL! Going close to the edge is very dangerous... Not only can you fall and hurt yourself, but you can cause a lot of people heartache by not being careful. Better safe than sorry they tell me right? So please, everyone be careful, and 'cling' to the iron rod. What's that saying you always say Dad?  yeah. "Paste makes cakes." That's it :)
 
Okay, I'm out of time... I'll quickly go through the pics.
 
IMG_2528.JPG (image/jpeg) 746.00K - This is me with my new haircut. Side shot.
IMG_2504.JPG (image/jpeg) 926.00K - This is me. My companion showed me a cool trick you can do with a camera and some led. Muahahaha. I love Star Wars :)
IMG_2508.JPG (image/jpeg) 985.00K - This is another comic I drew.
IMG_2509.JPG (image/jpeg) 1,003.00K - This is a random picture of some study that I do everyday. That's KANJI. It's pretty fun to draw. I think up till now I've gotten around... 15? Regular sized pages filled with that stuff. I'll learn it one day!
IMG_2525.JPG (image/jpeg) 998.00K - Me and my new haircut. From the front :)
 
Thanks again to everyone. I love you all. Until next week...
Live deliberately!

--
Truly,
Shau Chourou
Elder Shaw ;)

OH! I forgot to mention really quick. Chiba San is on route for Baptism still... But he DIDN'T come to church this week. :( But we taught him a lesson about Temples and he was very excited about the prospect of some day being able to enter one. And he said that he doesn't have any problems (at the moment) with any of the commandments. Sounds pretty good doesn't it?
 
Kbyeeeeeeeeee

A list of my writings by their entry date:

05.25.2010

06.01.2010

06.04.2010

06.08.2010

06.15.2010

06.18.2010

06.22.2010

06.29.2010

07.02.2010

07.06.2010

07.13.2010

07.20.2010

07.21.2010

08.10.2010

08.12.2010

08.17.2010

08.25.2010

09.06.2010

09.15.2010

09.20.2010

09.28.2010

10.04.2010

11.01.2010

11.30.2010

12.24.2010

12.30.2010

01.22.2011

01.26.2011

03.02.2011

03.07.2011

03.14.2011

03.18.2011

04.25.2011

To my friends and family... Write me! And I promise I will write back as promptly as reasonable.

First, please do not contact me through e-mail. I have an e-mail, but have been told by my mission president not to read e-mails from anyone (not even family!). Sure, some other missions might do it differently, but for Sendai, I'm not supposed to read your e-mails. Just write me lots of letters instead!

And please direct all mail to this street address: