First things first: on the offhand chance anyone wants to send us mail, it should now be sent to the mission office:
Elder Bruce and/or Sister Bonnie Adamson
Japan Tokyo South Mission
1-7-7 Kichijoji Higashi-cho
Musashino-shi, Tokyo
180-0002
Japan
We spent the first week and a half of June commuting daily from Fussa to Kichijoji and training with Elder and Sister Powell in the mission office. It was a bit overwhelming at first, with people assuring us that it was "easy" and we'd do fine. We've heard that a lot, by the way, since arriving in Japan -- getting around on the train is "easy", recognizing road signs and train stations in Kanji is "easy", driving on the left side of the road is "easy", communicating with people who don't speak English is "easy" (actually, no one believes this one, but someone did say that to us, "because everyone understands kindness". This was from someone who actually speaks Japanese, of course. We're not convinced, but we do try to always be kind anyway!). Well, we've concluded these things actually are easy -- once you learn to do them! We've been in the office on our own for a month now, and I won't say it's easy, but is is getting easier. We'll probably be reasonably comfortable with our responsibilities there by September, when a new office couple is scheduled to arrive and then we'll be back at Yokota Military Ward full time. And that'll be "easy"! :-)
The Powell's last day in the office was Monday, June 8th, they then spent Tuesday packing and cleaning the apartment, and flew back to Idaho on Wednesday, June 10th. We moved into their apartment in Kichijoji on Thursday. It's a little smaller than our apartment in Fussa, but very comfortable and adequate for our needs. It took several days for us to get wifi up and running (that was tough, because everything's amazing and nobody's happy... but it's all good now!). We don't have a parking space here, so we park the car at the mission office; the apartment is a 10-12 minute walk from there. I'm happy about the walk and love the city, looking forward to exploring it as we have time.
Bruce is the financial secretary for the mission, and it's been a pretty steep learning curve for him, but he's doing fine. He had an interesting challenge on the very day that Elder and Sister Powell left for the states. An accountant from the Asia Area church office building was in the mission office to help with the transition, and he inadvertently turned the combination lock on the petty cash safe. Bruce had never used the combination, only the key lock, as did Elder Powell and the financial secretary before him. Nobody knew the combination! So they were unable to get into the petty cash box, which is how all reimbursements are handled in this mission (payments are either electronic or petty cash, they don't write checks). It took a a few days and some detective work, including finding the original receipt from the purchase of the petty cash box over two years ago, but Bruce was able to communicate with the manufacturer and get the combination. Once he got the cash box open, guess what he found inside, under the cash trays? Yup, the combination! That little piece of paper is stored elsewhere now.... In the meantime, the office elders had been pretty excited at the prospect of breaking into the cash box, I think opening it with the combination was a little anticlimactic for them.
Bruce felt out of his element at first doing office work, paperwork, financial records, but as the last month has progressed, he's doing well and even enjoying it. We came into the office at a good time, just about in the middle of the six-week transfer cycle. So by the time we experienced TRANSFER WEEK, we weren't entirely green. More on that later.
My responsibilities include general secretary and receptionist kinds of things in the office -- I know how to say "Chotto matte kudasai" when needed -- "Please wait" for me to get someone who speaks Japanese to take this phone call or answer your question. Or I say, "Ima, Nihonjin ga imasen. Mata denwa shite kudasai", which means "No Japanese here, please call back later." Sister Wada coached me on pronunciation and inflection. I still make people laugh when I say it. :-)
I'm told I'm the office manager. Hmmmm..... At this point I don't feel inclined to be telling anybody what to do, maybe that'll ome later (I doubt it).
I handle the paperwork, records, correspondence for arriving and departing missionaries. It's fun to see the profiles of those who are coming -- because there are a surprising number of Spanish speaking members and investigators in this mission, President Wada has requested some Spanish speaking missionaries be sent here. We have several arriving between now and the end of the year. Also missionaries who speak Portuguese, Finnish, Russian, French, and Korean. And Japanese, of course. Amazing! I would never have guessed there would be a need for these languages in Japan.
In a recent sacrament meeting in Yokota, the opening prayer was offered in Spanish, and one of the speakers was a woman from Peru who was baptized just last December -- she gave her talk in Spanish, with a ward member translating. The sister missionaries who live upstairs have two Chinese investigators who are being baptized on July 18th -- they have used a couple of members of the Yokota Ward to translate as they're teaching, but those members had either moved away or were out of town for a recent lesson. So they got on facetime with a Chinese-speaking member of the Kichijoji Ward who translated for them. Sister Jolley discreetly recorded a few minutes of that lesson, and it was something to see, the two Chinese girls reading from the booklet, Sister Bybee with the iPad set up, and the Chinese translator on the screen, reading from the same booklet.
The missionaries tell us they generally don't understand the Japanese language used in Church meetings, it's a more formal, higher form of Japanese. It really brings home to them how important it is that people have the opportunity to be taught the gospel in their own language, and they go to great lengths to make that happen.
Anyway, our routine these days is that we spend the work week in Kichijoji and are at the office normal business hours, Monday through Friday -- longer when there are events such as new missionaries arriving, transfers, missionaries going home, leadership conferences or other meetings, etc. One or another of those things is happening most weeks. We drive to Fussa Friday evening or Saturday morning. We have a specific P-Day now, and it's Saturday, so we clean the house and we shop at the store (so we won't have to work until Monday -- it's a special day!), and try to squeeze in a little sightseeing, socializing, etc. Then we go to Church on Sunday at Yokota Ward. Bruce has been called to be a high councilor of the Tokyo South (English speaking) Stake, so we may do some travelling on Sundays when he has speaking assignments.
We feel really blessed to be able to experience the mission from these very different perspectives, it's kind of the best of both worlds. We love the missionaries in the office and President and Sister Wada, they inspire us with how hard and how effectively they work. And we love going back to Fussa and associating with the families in the military ward there. Counting our blessings!
Cute Sister Bennett, one of the Yokota Ward missionaries who lives in our apartment building in Fussa. She's an aspiring artist, wants one day to illustrate children's books. As we were preparing to move from Fussa to Kichijoji, she decorated this Japanese fan for us -- so sweet!
And here we are, moving our little garden in the back seat of our Toyota Corolla. We don't have the same kind of space in Kichijoji, so several of the flowers we transplanted into containers at the mission home. We've since harvested the spinach -- I had wonderful fresh spinach in my smoothies for several days, but's its done, too hot for spinach now. Still waiting on the carrots. Our tomatoes and cucumbers we left in Fussa and they haven't fared well at all, although we did harvest a few ripe tomatoes this weekend. The Powells left us potted and tomatoes and cucumbers here, which are starting to produce. Hope springs eternal!
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