The Bullet Train

Hello family.So we end another busy week. Unfortunately it wasnt so busy in the ways I would like it to be. Tuesday we went to Sanjo for district meeting which was not that exciting until we came home. So in my apartment above my desk is my bucket list pertaining to my life as a missionary. One of the things was to go to Sado. Checked off last week. Another was to ride the shinkansen, or as you would know it as, the bullet train. So we took that back and it was way fast and smooth and 13 minutes ha. But it was a good experience. We tried to focus more on finding a new investigator this week which didn't end up with any results so the end of the week our numbers looked like crap. Also worked a lot on this Excel spreadsheet of all the members in Niigata and organizing them in such a way as we can use it better. Let it be known that I may have not really touched a computer in two years but I still dislike Microsoft. I have wanted to run my head into the wall a thousand times working on that although this week we talked with the Elders Quorum president and he asked me if I could make excel do something and oh how that became a problem. You dont challenge me to something like that. Although I realized how much I miss free use of the internet. In the end I wasnt able to do it but yeah. Other than that really nothing interesting this week. I had a good birthday. K長老 took me out to dinner and I received 3 cakes, and all that jazz. Even some crappy singing of Happy Birthday made it feel like home. Kinda funny presents. Tie and "P-day shirt", you do realize we wear normal missionary clothes on p-day right? But I could feel the love and to be honest, no offense to you mother, but I really was impressed with your tie choice, I really like that tie. So yeah. Tonight is our family home evening with president and sister R. And before that K長老 and I each have 45 minute interviews with president for our temple recommends. Either he thinks we are big sinners or he is going to use it as an opportunity to give us a "pre-final interview" since he wont be there for the real one, half excited, half terrified. So that shall be fun. So we will keep working. This week is zone conference so that shall be fun. The last zone conference. And then it will just e back to the old grind. It will be interesting to see how the switch off of missions is going to be. I thought it might be a little hectic but as things are going now we are just going to become an island at that point. We have heard zero about the switch over. I guess there is not much to say. Im assuming President B will come do a zone conference type thing real quick to introduce us to Tokyo mission and meet the assistants and stuff. Then after that basically going to tokyo to end the mission. Shall be interesting. So I hope all is well with you guys. Talk to you later.

Blind Soccer

Really no time today so no time to fix mistakes. Hello people of the Americas and people living on other other continents. Another week is behind us. It was an interesting week more than I would call it a exciting week but whatever works. We did various things. FHE with members and visiting a ton of LAs. Anyway. Elder K found his first potential investigator which was nice. I think it may have helped his faith some. Had zone training meeting which was nice not to have to stress about and just sit and listen. Also funny how small this zone is. Ok this is where it gets interesting. This gets us to Saturday. So since I got here I have been talking back and forth with this lady and trying to get our two schedules to meet. Well anyway we finally were able to get a time together on Saturday. Well the first thing that was weird was that she wanted to meet at a shrine but she is a female so we would have to meet outside anyway so we agreed to this. Well most shrines are inside but this one wasn't. So we go into this building and they give us visitor passes and we are walked through this place with a ton of incense buring and people meditating in the hall and lots of statues. So she explains her religions basic beliefs and talks about how you can be any religion and also her religion at the same time which makes no sense to me. Anyway, I was about ready to leave when she sat us down in this normal room and asked us what we believe and of course I cant pass up this so we gave her the 10 minute version of the restoration and she already has the Book of Mormon so yeah. And my goodness and then on the way out they gave us little care packages. And their book of doctrine in English. Then we went to the welfare center and played Blind Soccer which is exactly what it sounds like, playing soccer with no sight. First strange thing is that no one at blind soccer was actually blind. So this is how it works. You put a blind fold on and the soccer ball has like rock sounding things inside so it rattles when it rolls and then you have a seeing person who yells from behind the net to tell you where to go. Sounds hard right? Now try doing it with half your hearing gone in one ear! Actually surprisingly I could do it. Do I think the broken ear made it harder, yes but I still have directional abilities. And actually the majority of the time we helped the official Niigata team practice for their tournament next week so we were allowed to see. Way interesting though. Then finally yesterday. It was on my list of things to do before I went home and I did it. We went to Sado. That would be the island off of Niigata's coast. We woke up and 4;30, left the port at 6, arrived at 8;30, Took a bus and got to the church at 9. Adventure, right!? It was way interesting though. There were a total of 6 people there including the two of us and one non-member. They all have to give talks like every other week so they were way excited when we came and made us give talks. Sado is amazing though. Way beautiful, cool members, and goodish dendo. Kinda has always been a joke in this mission but way awesome. They have three or four potential investigators here. Thats more than I have in Niigata. So after church we just went around with the first councilor and we visited LAs and PIs and all that jazz. Way fun. So that kinda does it for this week. I got the birthday package this week so thanks for that. Still haven't opened the wrapped stuff but used some of the other stuff to celebrate Elder K's B-day which was yesterday. We will try to make it a fun day.

Learning Nepalese in Japan

Hello family! How are you all today? Its been a so-so week here in Niigata. I know you love it when I have nothing to report but at this point I have nothing to report. We did various things this week. Since Elder K is a new missionary I have been using that to my advantage of having members have us come over and let us role play with them, especially since we have no investigators as of now. I have done these role plays in various other areas but by far here is the most interesting. Apparently the members here have done role plays with missionaries so much that they have grown tired of the normal ones and now just take the weird personalities and we go from there. Yes there are these type of people out there but I'm not sure they are "those that will receive you" Fun stuff. This week was our first taste of the rainy season. We had two days of rain this week which is always rough. You either choose to get soaked from the outside in, or the inside out. You you decide to wear rain gear you sweat a ridiculous amount. Gives me the heebee jeebees just thinking about it. But the last few days have been nice. Also a super random thing this week was the ridiculous amount of Nepalese people we met. Of all places you would think to meet them Japan wasn't one of them but there are a ton of them here and I'm still not sure why. I ask but they say they are here learning the language, why learn the language? To go to school. Now realize these people can basically all speak Nepalese, Hindi, and English fluently, couldn't they go somewhere where they don't need to learn a fourth language. Just seems they cause more stress than they need. But oh well, they are very nice, but busy people. We also started biking out to some of the farther areas in our area which has been fun because Elder Kondo played a lot of soccer before coming out so he can actually keep up pretty well when we bike but when we come home he just collapses on his futon and is out like a light. Apparently hes not quite used to it.

Figuring the Niigata area out

Hello family! So how is everyone today? So here's the thing. Today we would have had time even with the 8 people on the computer but A sister invited us to lunch in 30 minutes and well.....yeah. So I will have to make this short but although you people think you are being cut super short on these letters I really am not cutting them that short. I really don:t have that much to say, I realize I should but yeah. Not really. So as for the area. This week went by way fast and it felt like we got nothing done. Seems like everyday there is not enough time to get things done. A lot of stuff is just getting consistently put on the the back burner and that back burner is getting pretty full at this point. Technically I am not the district leader because our district is 10 people and the district leader is in a different area but yeah. There are 8 missionaries just in this area so yeah it takes a lot of doing to keep everyone working effectively. And there are also almost 600 members in this area with every week 60-70 coming so you can see there is somewhat of a crazy balance there so I have also taken it upon myself to sort out the ones that don:t need to be dealt with right now and try to get some of these people to come back soon. Still no investigators. The guy that came to church we still haven't gotten in contact with. Last week we had two old investigator lessons planned but one out of my stupidity didn't work out and the other was a high school student who never showed. This week as of this moment no lessons are planned. We will try to pull something together though. Also probably the most embarrassing moment of my mission we went to visit an LA member and he wasn't home so we talked to his dad for a bit then left and the next day in missionary coordination meeting there seems to always be new random people that sit in. Then we explained what happened with this LA and the ward mission leader just chuckled. Looked over at one of the brothers sitting in who also had a funny look on his face and said, "So......why weren't you home? And why are you *LA* anyway?" Then he looked at us and said, "I realize I don:t come every week but come on." Yep. Hes active, very active but on our sheet in the apartment he is not marked as active. Super embarrassing. I kinda wanted to die. We had splits which was fine. Also I really wanted to ride the bullet train there but just didn't work out. Maybe I will ride it to district meeting in two weeks down there. It actually takes more time because you end up shooting past the city and then have to take another train back to the city that he lives in but it might be worth it for the experience. Lets see. Not much time left and not much to say. By the way does Sister O email you in English? You will probably be getting soon another email with pictures because we ate with them last night. And yes members bring us food every week. Good stuff. They are way nice. Well I guess we will end with that. Not that short is it! yay for me. Love you, until next week. email you in English? You will probably be getting soon another email with pictures because we ate with them last night. And yes members bring us food every week. Good stuff. They are way nice. Well I guess we will end with that. Not that short is it! yay for me. Love you, until next week.

White washing Niigata

So 8 missionaries on one computer is a disaster so I typed this on my electronic dictionary so at least you have something. Hey family! How have you been this week? So its been kinda a long week this week. Kinda still feels a lot like running around with my head cut off. Still dont know what I'm doing in this area but yeah. We have been working pretty good this last week visiting a number of members and a few LAs. Trying some finding considering we are starting from nothing. We have had some good blessings. This week and next week we already have a number of appointments with members so that should be good. Then also this week while housing we met a guy that we were able to set up an appointment with for yesterday which he ended up having to do something else in place of the lesson so we invited him to church and believe it or not he came! I was a little shocked but glad. The gospel principles teacher definitely was trying to make him feel involved which in the end was a bit stressful because I think she was focussing a little too much on him. Then apparently he has a business trip so doesnt know when he will be able to meet next. So that part was too bad. Other than that I dont know what to report. Never really do. Had some good things this week, had some not so fun things, had a member sing "Love Potion No. 9" to me in English, had an old man at a old folks home we were doing service at call me names so yeah....pretty normal week. So there you go, thats the report for today.

Big Changes! Transfer to Niigata

So yeah, eventful week here. We started it off with doing 4 splits this week! Talk about awesome planning! Holy cow I kinda wanted to kill myself. Spending that much time running around and taking care of these people was kinda super busy. But we ended up doing splits with everyone that we needed to do splits with and even attending every district meeting we had to. So yeah. That's always fun. But, yeah because of that, or maybe even though that happened our results stunk! Lets see. That cool you met W choro. He was pretty good at Japanese himself.....he never worked with me in Yokote. Then of course transfers. Holy cow is this transfer crazy! So many new missionaries there are crazy things going down. "H" choro is going Zone Leader! A lot of people you wouldn't think were going to train are training and even white-washing areas. Then you have me. First I guess I should explain this for the person that doesn't keep their eyes on mission boundaries changes. So last year with the 58 or whatever new missions they created in the world one of them was in Japan. That is the Tokyo South mission. Now they don't just split Tokyo into two. They also take some from either side. Now I didn't know this until recently but apparently Niigata prefecture has been the ball that is passed between Sendai mission and Tokyo mission since Sendai has been made. But anyway. The new borders are taking Niigata prefecture out of the mission. So this means any missionaries in that area at the time of the split will move missions from Sendai to Tokyo. So I didn't think this would touch me and I have known for months. Well in interviews president told me that I would be white-washing Niigata with a new missionary. So the minimum time you are with a new missionary is 2 transfers, 3 month, which brings me to the end of my mission and past the deadline for mission switch. Crazy stuff indeed. So this week I have the new version of Zone leader council (but now has sisters) and then zone training meeting, then the next day training to be a trainer and then pick up my new Japanese bean-chan and head down to Niigata. I would be lying if I didn't say at times it feels like I like a lamb going off to the slaughter. It will make sense in time. I hope. All these things happen for a reason. Its funny to have read all of your letters with the idea I'm leaving Sendai mission. Well love you. Talk to you next week. Bye.

Allegory of the Bonsai tree

So yeah! As always a busy week this week. So I guess I will get the information out first. I don't know if this is how it actually happened but what I heard is that President R has a Mission President seminar in two weeks and that was also transfers so he called the church and said he wouldn't be going and they didn't like him not going so they said they would send his new missionaries a week early and so yeah. This transfer became a 5 week transfer which means, yes if you are counting them, next Monday is transfer calls. I don't know. I kinda feel like I'm out of here because as you said I have been here for awhile and well. I sure don't want to be transfered with only one transfer left. That would stink. So yeah. Then next transfer is 7 weeks so it will all even out with my coming home date. But yeah that was a big news cast. Lets see what else. This week was splits with the assistants which were fun and we visited "W"-kyodai which ended up going well. Gave him a Book of Mormon and the 2011 October Ensign (The one about the Book of Mormon) so he could brush up on the church. Sure hope he will read it. And possibly the proudest commitment of my mission; I committed him to read Jacob 5 about the Bonsai trees. ;-) Who commits a recent convert to read that!? This guy! Ha. Our ward mission leader lost it when I told him that during our coordination meeting. When he composed himself he just said, "Well it might be crazy enough to work" I think it will. He didn't seem so keen on reading the book of mormon but when I explained that it talked about tending trees he just responded with "Ok I'll read it" Score! What else. Went to Furukawa because they were having their first district meeting as the furukawa district after the split of districts. That went well I guess. Nice to be back in that church. After almost a month of not meeting we were able to meet with O-san. Hes been way busy with school and it doesn't look like it will lighten up any more. Way too bad. But he's coming to help us move a couple in our ward this next week so that shall be good. That man is a saint. Today we have a lesson with a new investigator (at least we expect she will become a new investigator) so that shall also be good. If we get this one it will be 1 new investigator for 3 weeks in a row! Yes I'm sure thats probably even embarassing for Mandy and Steven but its kinda a miracle in this mission. Especially lately! Love u bye