Boxing Day in Japan

Merry Christmas to everyone, unless you are in Japan with me right now and it is the day after Christmas, then Happy Boxing Day!

A really popular advertisement here reads "Happy Merry Christmas" I like that, though I don`t think they quite understand what Merry means. They try hard though.

So Christmas this year was one of the best I have had, though completely different than any before. Very surpirisingly, no one invited us over at all for dinner or anything. The members here are kind of shy I guess, so we were all alone for Christmas. However, determined to not let that be a drawback, we pressed on. We woke up at our usual 6:30 and opened presents. The mail is very slowed down lately so I had only recieved a couple presents so far. However, they were extremely entertaining. My companion and my most treasured present I recieved was from my little brother Andre. It is an item called Flarp. It is a goey substance than one can play with and make rather realistic gasticular noises. So we played around making farts for at least 45 minutes. It shows how truly immature we really were. I cried laughing it was so much fun. Elder Doxey talked to his family and then we were off for adventure.

We visited one of our investigators who is half-paralyzed and watched a church movie with him. He was glad to see us and we felt a good spirit together. After that, Elder Doxey took me to the Beach. It was absolutely gorgeous. It had black sand and you can see mt. Fuji in the distance. I`ll send some pictures, but it is hard to describe how beautiful it was. It was also very windy and freezing cold, but that just made for some nice waves.

After enjoying the sights, we headed off to the mall. Getting there, we were surprised to see a large crowd gathered around filming the news. News in Japan is a little bit different I think. It has absolutely nothing to do with events that happen but is more like a Jay leno type show with guests. In addition, the entire filming crew was dressed in Santa suits. Also, Pizza delivery men that we see driving around are dressed in Santa suits, it`s very funny. So anyway, the news was quite hilarious, mostly because we has absolutely no idea what was going on, only that some Japanese band performed. They sounded just like all the other Japanses music, but still good.

Then we returned home and ate stakes. I am not sure how we acquired stakes, the pricetag on each of them being around 20 dollars, but they were in our freezer. It was perhaps the best meal I have had in Japan thusfar.

So it doesn`t sound increadibly thrilling, but it really was a great Christmas. One of the weirdest things though was seeing eveyone out and about and having the post office open. It is not a holiday at all over here, not more than perhaps Valentine`s day. Nevertheless, we as a group of missionaries were able to do some different kind of misisonary work this week.

On Christmas Eve, 6 of us went to the Fujieda Train Station and sang Christmas Carols while handing out fliers about our English Class and our church. My favorite parts about the whole experience was singing Silent Night. Although so many people don`t know about Christ, don`t understand Christmas, or have never seen the inside of the church, somehow they all know the tune of Silent night and will hum along when we sing it. What an amazing opportunity it is to see the Spirit touch people as they walk by and feel the meaning of Silent Night.

There were about 10 members who also joined us in visiting less-active members and singing to them on Saturday night. That was a great experience getting the members involved, though our singing was at times ugly it was so bad. The people we visited appreciated it very much though.

I love being a missionary and spreading the restored gospel to these wonderful people. I laugh at a lot of the funny things about this society, but I truly love them as my own family. They are such a strong and kind people. The Light of Christ burns deeply in their soul as they search out in their own way eternal truths. There is much confusion from evil influences, a lot of confusion that we as misisonaries can do little to help, but when those precious souls see through the darkness and catch a glimpse of the light of their Redeemer, there is no greater blessing than witnessing such.

I love this work and love my family. It was so great to talk to them, though I am somewhat less homesick now..haha...and now can move on and keep striving for the cause of Christ. May the Lord bless and watch over each one of you.

Always,

Elder Alexander Todd Fuller
Japan Tokyo South Mission
The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints