My Hometown

Dear Family and Friends,

An essential part of missionary work is building a good relationship with your investigators.  So, the usual when you first meet someone or have a first appointment is you tell them about yourself.  Like your name, family size, what country you are from.  A lot of Japanese have traveled to America or even Canada (which by the way, Happy Canadian Thanksgiving [which I believe is this week] everyone).  So, many missionaries will find out during this getting to know you phase that the person has visited their hometown.  This happened to Elder Smith a couple of times as he is from Washington and a lot of Nihongen travel to the Pacific part of America (and everyone here loves Ichiro too).  He has been pretty happy about it and uses that as a connection to build a relationship with the person.  For me however, I realized I can`t do that.  Everyone but me can be happy that someone they know visited their hometown.  If you are from Utah and your investigator said they have been there, you say `Oh, I am sure they know a little about our church.`  If you are from Brazil and they have been there, you think, `Maybe they know Portuguese and I can further confuse my bean who barely knows the difference between Portuguese and Japanese by talking with them in Portuguese!`  If you are me, your investigator says `Oh you are from Vegas?  I`ve been there!`

 There are three ways to re-act:

1. Obliviously- `Oh, have you been to the Coca-Cola factory and the M&M shop?  A couple of the best things to do on the Strip!`

2. Ignore- `Oh, that is cool.  How about we talk about the Gospel now!`

3. Dread- Remain absolutely quiet as you realize that teaching the Law of Chasity and the Word of Wisdom, just got a lot harder then you thought.

So while I do have Vegas pride, I might change my hometown to Henderson.  Or maybe I will just carry around a picture of the Las Vegas temple and ask if they have seen it.  Actually that is a really good idea.  I think I will print off some pictures of the temple after I finish writing this e-mail.

Besides this little advice to all missionaries that happened to live in Vegas, this week we welcomed the new senior couple missionaries!  Basically there job will be to not only help us find and teach people but to also help the Numazu Ward in their ward mission plan.  They both lived in Osaka and Oshi Choro used to be a Japanese Area Seventy.  They both speak no English so that is pretty much all I can tell you about them for now (except they have five kids which is A LOT here in Japan) but they should be fun to work with.

Everyone have a great week where ever you might be in the world and enjoy General Conference next week, although I will be waiting an extra week to watch it in English here because the churches here don`t have satellites so wait to send me all of the really good General Conference memes from the BYU meme page until next week and don`t spoil anything!

Elder Hall

Welcoming New Guests

This Saturday we are welcoming a senior couple here in Numazu whose names are the Oshies (which literally means tasty) so today has been spent cleaning up the apartment so that it is nice and representable. Here is to show that procrastination still exists even amongst missionaries. Stupid Satan. But this is the reason for a short and late e-mail so I apologize.

This past week has been really good and we were able to teach more lessons than usual. We had an awesome zone conference though about including the members in missionary work and we talked about how we could include them in the work better. And we talking about using the book `Power of the Everyday Missionary` which, should be canonized alongside the Quadraple Combination and Preach My Gospel. If you haven`t read it yet, read it and if you have read it, live it. Also at the conference, I got a late birthday present from Sister Yamashita, some chocolate and a nice orange tie I will have to send pictures of.

This week though some good moments were eating raw horse over a lesson with an investigator (and besides my Western ideas of killing horses and eating them, it was actually really tatsy when dipped in soy sauce) named Takeda who live in a near-by city where we had to get a train to. The lesson was pretty good and we was our first lesson and we learned he was a Physcologist and when we introduced the Book of Mormon, he was really excited to read it since he had studied form the Bible. Also, we found a new investigator out of a former investigator which I am sure I will have to tell you more about after we had a lesson with him next week. Everybody keep the faith and I hope you all have a very enjoyable week.

Love y`all!

Escape From Numazu Part 2

So the highlight of my week was when we decided to escape Numazu for the second time!  But instead of going all the way to Tokyo South accidentially, we decided to go to a town in our proselyting district called Atami which is about a half hour train ride from here in Numazu.  We meet someone on the street who had actually gone to a Protestant school over in America who we got an appointment with next week so we decided to check out the city, find his address, and maybe even create an Atami Branch while we are there. So, on Saturday, we packed up our bikes and went off on the train to Atami which is a city on the coast.   We got there in the early afternoon and, well, started dendoing!  It felt like those early pioneer missionaries going to a foreign country where they had never heard the Restored Gospel before or like the Final Frontier.  It is in the ward boundaries but there are no active members there.  Atami is set up really weird though.  It has super narrow streets and all of the houses and apartment buildings are squished together and when we housed we had to climb up a bunch of stairs.  The city was basically just squeezed onto a hill and a ton of people live in it.  So we ditched the bikes a lot because it was too steep to ride up it.  I will have to take pictures when I go again Thursday for our lesson.

But while we were in Atami, we also ate at McDonalds.  Now, McD`s is pretty much the same in Japan as in America but some things are different.  One of the special items they had for a limited time was something called a Purple Sweet Potatoes Milkshake.  And so I am trying to live the culture as much as possible (#hashifordayz) I ordered it off the dollar menu.  First off, purple, what the heck?  And sweet potatoe in a milk shake?  I guess yams and sweet potatoes work well with marshallows (shotout to my Mom`s amazing yams with marshallows on top we have every Thanksgiving) so I tried it out.  The purple still weirded me out but it was actually really good.  So next time you go to McDonald`s see if they have the Purple Sweet Potatoes Milkshake for me.

I`d just like to quickly apologize for not being able to answer everyone every week but know that I love everyone and I read all of your e-mails.  Keep up the good work and know I always love to hear from you.  If you want any specific questions answered, I will try to answer them next week.  But everyone have a great week and keep on going.  Thanks for all of you being a great example to me!
あいしてます!!!

Transfer Calls

Saturday was the first experience of transfer calls.  If I had to describe it to someone who is not a missionary, I would pretty much say it is just like that time in Middle School when the teacher was assigning group projects and was reading off the list of the pre-assigned group of people.  Am I going to be in the group where I have to do all the work, where the cute girl that is across the room from me is in, or am I going to have a group of all of my friends where we can slack off and joke around until the last minute?  But instead of getting assigned a project on the Great George Washington, you are being assigned missionary work with another person who you could possibly be assigned to work with someone else besides your current companion and live with them for at least six weeks.  So that is the basic feeling as you wait to see if the phone rings. 

It started right after personal study or at 9 a.m. and we were told to not leave the apartment for the duration of transfer calls.  I was hoping to not be separated from my trainer and I thought the other two elders who just got here as well wouldn`t be transferred so I wasn`t expecting the phone to ring.  After transfer calls were over though, Elder Martini, who we live with, was suppose to call the other people in our district in Fuji and there we thought there would be a couplewho  would be transferred from the four.  So, I waited for two hours so we could call the Fuji Elders.  So, as soon as they texted us at around 11 a.m. that transfer calls were over, Elder Martini called and find out nothing had changed.  So, in my district, no one was moved so another transfer with everybody staying put!  One of our zone leaders did get transferred out though and a couple of people in the zone were transferred but no one close by so Transfer 2 will be pretty close to transfer one, except for the fact that I know a few more things about mission life and Nihongo.

This week has been pretty futsu (normal) expect for the fact a older gentlemen in a Hyaku Yen Shop (dollar store) asked me if I was American and then he started to proceed by talking about American atrocities in World War II which was definitely unusual.

This past week I have been reflecting a lot about my first transfer as it had been coming to a close.  And as I was thus reflecting during Fast and Testimony meeting, I was getting a bit down because I hadn`t progressed in my Nihongo as much as I wanted to.  So, to ease my mind, I turned to my English scriptures as I couldn`t understand anything anyone on the pulpit was saying.  A couple minutes into that, I think the Lord somehow rebuked/blessed me when I suddenly heard English over the pulpit.  What the heck, is this what the gift of tongues really means!?!  So when I looked up I half-expected/hoped it was someone speaking in Nihongo but it was one of the two gaigen (foreigners) in the ward, Campus Kyodai.  So I put away my scriptures and began to listen.  He was saying how his daughter was this last week unable to compete in the Shizuoka Stake`s English contest because of her father being gaigen.  He and his daughter were really excited for it and were expecting great things from it but it was disappointing when they learned she couldn`t compete.  Then he talked about how God sometimes doesn`t let us achieve our dreams or He lets us face setbacks.  And that's where I was then as I sadly looked on the lack of progress I made.  Campus Kyodai then said Einstein`s quote `That there are two ways to live life, to see nothing as a miracle or to see everything as miracle.`  And then I started thinking.  Four months ago I was sitting on my couch eating Cheetos unable to speak a lick of Japanese.  Now I am out here living in Japan and speaking to people in Japanese.  Yeah, my Nihongo isn`t great but isn`t just being here a miracle in of itself.  So I have been trying to see my progress as what I have done instead of what I have yet to do.  Yeah I need to set goals and work my butt off but it is easy to become a little distressed.  We just sometimes need to be really grateful for the little things we have instead of asking why we don`t have more.  Even if the glass is only a 1/10 full, doesn`t mean it has to be 9/10 empty.  It is still better than 1/100 full I guess.  So hopefully this next transfer can be spent improving and learning instead of wondering when I will get it all because I am far from that.

Hope everyone has a good week and is getting geared up for the lovely season of Autumn.

Love you all!

Escape From Numazu

Well, as I said last e-mail, I went out to Nagoya for the meeting with all of the beanchans who came over to Japan with me.  It was also for the trainers so me and Siedschlag Choro went over and we took the bullet train after connecting with a smaller train and then got off the train and took the Subway and walked twenty minutes to the honbu (mission home).  Then I was re-united with my doki (group of Elders that came over to Japan with me) and all of my best friends chorotachi from my MTC district.  We got trained by the Assistants to the President and President Yamashita himself.  Apparently since our doki is so huge some of us might be transfer three trainers but, I don`t know how I feel about that quite yet.  (Transfer three trainers means that one would train after three transfers)  After the three hour training, we ate out at some Chinese place and then took the Shinkatsen back to Numazu.  

We had learned at our training to not always do what our trainer does if it is not right and we can still be an example and make own choices but I didn`t really understand it until the train ride back.

Right after we had bought our ticket, we entered the nearest train.  We were seated and I said to Siedschalg, `Doesn`t this train take different stops than the one we got one coming to Nagoya?  Is this the right train?`  Then the train started to move.  We decided we were fine but then my trainer pulled out his phone later in the ride and starting laughing.  `What happpened?`  DUN, DUN, DUN!!!  `We are out of the mission!`  Turns out, the bean was right in the end.  So, we got off of the train, took a quick video and a picture to prove to everyone else of our adventure to Shin-Yokohama (a city in the Tokyo South Mission) and waited for a call from our zone leaders with further instructions.  It was around 8 so we thought we might need to stay the night in Tokyo South and maybe meet our MTC friends that went to Tokyo but it turns out we just got back on a train that took us to Fuji and we got to the Fuji Elders` apartment at 10 which is an hour past when we are supposed to return.  So although it was an accidental adventure, I learned that even beanchans can know what is going on, so always listen to your heart and use a map.  It was only 80 km out of the mission and we didn`t go all the way to Tokyo so it could have been a lot worse.

This week has been kind of weird because of our mishap and the training so not much has happened noteworthy dendo wise but summer vacation here just ended so we are expecting more usual appointments as some of our investigators come back from foreign countries.  So next week`s e-mail should be chalk full of more spiritual stuff.  

Hope everyone keeps the faith and has a great week as they relish in the start of football season and BYU football as I am now suffering from withdrawals.  

See you next week!

Here are pictures to prove our escape......

Shin-Yokohama is in the Tokyo South Mission

Wrong Mission.....Whoops!!