It only has to be as perfect as you are!

Something I told some missionaries as we were cutting out paper hearts for our valentines party at English Class.

Heyo heyo heyo! Younger Elder Brooksby here, lovin' everybody!

We went to Enoshima today! Sadly, I didn't get Elder Taylor attacked by sea hawks this time. Too bad, ne? Well, there's always next companion!

Weekly Questions!

So how is your favorite Missionary doing?

Assuming that's me, pretty good, I think!

Is it starting to warm up at all here?

Maybe a little bit? I didn't think about it until today, so if it has been getting warmer it's not quite noticeable yet!

So am I interested in seeing a show while we are in Korea?

See a show? What kinda show? I guess it'd be fun? I call an NEI!

Do I like to ride bikes?

I generally prefer to walk. You pass too many people on bikes, and often your only focus is to get to your destination.

What would be the worst thing to mistake while in Japan?

I would not recommend getting on the wrong train in a big station like Shibuya. That'll get you lost for hours!

Does the Spirit direct us to which subway or bus or any form of transpiration to get us where we need to go?

Well, the spirit generally speaks to me through logic, or will point shtufts out to me, and that's how I normally travel, so I guess the answer is yes? It's not like I have a voice that yells at me "Get on that train!" or anything like that.

What advice do I have for someone getting ready to put papers in for a mission?

Do it bro. Don't drink the orange juice. I've decided that that will be my advice when anyone asks me for shtufts like that, but other advice I would give would be to spend some time living away from home, if it's early enough, and after you get your call, spend some time learning about the culture, if you're unfamiliar with it, and if you are familiar with it, spend some time on things specific to that culture that you won't be able to do as a missionary.

Before I came to Japan I had seen some anime and shtufts, so I had a fairly clear idea of what the culture was like before I came, but it would've helped as well to listen to some modern Japanese music or learn some shtufts about their government or something.

What is my favorite holiday (besides Christmas) and why?

Mmm... asking me right now, it would prolly be Valentine's Day, because I transferred to Hodogaya the day before Valentine's Day last year, so that day was my first full day in my favorite area.

I know it is late but... Will I be your Valentine?

I think Ima need a legal contract including all the details of becoming said "Valentine" before I accept your offer!

We walked to the all of the most extreme sides of our area(Yomiyuri Land, which is a theme park, the industrial section of the bay of Tokyo and kodomo no kuni, or land of the children, although when we arrived it was dark and we couldn't really tell exactly what it was) this week! In total we walked 96.6 kilometers from Monday to Sunday, and another 7.3 if you include today! That's over 60 miles!

Random Story Time!

Wow... Fun bit of drama that makes my random story this week, along with the story I was already planning! I'm writing this on the train on the way home from Enoshima, and across the aisle from us is this high-school couple that look like their on their way back from a date or something, and they're being all cutesy and holding hands and the girl is all resting her head on the guy's shoulder, all the classic couple shtufts that is supa' embarrassing but everybody loves anyways, until we pull into the station. Then, all of a sudden, the guy sits up, says something to the equivalent of "Oh crap oh crap oh crap!" and gets all anxious and nervous, with the girl asking him over and over what's wrong, and all he does is lean forward and rock back and forth until the train stops completely and the doors open. Then after a couple of seconds another guy with the same uniform runs up along the train to the door that was nearest them and steps onto the train. They all stare at each other for a couple seconds, then the second guy, kinda breathing heavily from running basically the entire length of the train, says something to the effect of "Wow, you've been working hard, huh?" and the couple guy says back "You know it. What are you doing here anyways?" and the girl is all silently freaking out and Elder Taylor and I are just kinda sitting there watching this epically tense scene going down and just kinda laughing, then the other guy just says "My gosh this is so awkward. We'll talk later." and ducks outa the train.

From what I could catch from what the guy and his girlfriend were talking about afterwards after they had a bit of a breakdown moment, I guess that they were students in the same class at school and that guy liked the girl he was with, who was not only his girlfriend, but was actually his girlfriend-as-of-a-couple-of-hours-ago girlfriend. That was like, a scene from a movie or something.

Random Story #2!

We aren't allowed to start conversations on the street of in trains or basically anywhere with people of the opposite sex in our mission because of it being Japan, but sometimes you're on a train and you can tell that someone wants to talk to you extremely badly, but is just too nervous to do so, and that's way annoying 'cuz you can't do anything about it but hope they muster the courage to say something. I finally did this new tactic this week while we were on splits that I've always wanted to try. There was a girl across from us that I could tell could speak English that really wanted to talk, so I started explaining to Elder Cook in English that I would love it if we had some kind of tag underneath our missionary name-tags that explained that we can't talk to girls unless they talk to us first and things like that. It actually worked, kinda! She asked just before we stopped where we were going and where we would change trains, and we all got off at that stop, but then she got nervous as she got off and said "I used to live in New York!" and ran off. It worked, but it just has to be the right timing, I guess... either way, I won't likely do it again; it was kinda freaky, actually.

That's all for this week! Thanks for reading!

Love you. I friggin' love you. I love that I can tell you that with the electronic messages that I love so much.
Younger Elder Brooksby