Yokote Festival

Hey peeps! Its still taking some getting used to to get used to this computer and the little amount of time I have left. My time is already almost gone because I was fighting other things for most the time but here is todays report. So this week was a festival call Obon. Basically its the one time of the year that everyone returns home and becomes Buddhist. Basically makes it impossible to find anyone to talk to. Except Yokote didn't get hit too hard but still mission wide it was a rough week. But the good thing was we were way busy with other things this week so we really didn't feel the effect. One of the things that made us busy was interviews with President! I think we all just freaked out about it too much. Waiting in that room until he comes and pulls you out to rip you apart with words. But in the end he was way nice. Laid out a few things that I should focus on, not that I wasn't doing them but that just focus on them more. Then the rest was praise and encouragement. Also told me that one of the elders in my district that he had just interviewed had said that he had been having a hard time but that through my district meeting he got over it. Score! Sometimes I feel like I'm talking to a brick wall in those meetings. Also Mandy may be interested to know that my guess of which of my lessons that affected him was "Oh the Places You'll Go" Quite the hit when we read it in district meeting. We also had splits. This time I was with the zone leaders and who would it be but Fukuta choro. If you don't remember he was one of the elders in the Aizu apartment so it was fun to talk about the good old days. We both loved Aizu so kinda fun. There was also a Yokote festival. It was way cool. So they had fireworks but 1, they sent them off from like 50 feet away, and 2 they were cued to music. How cool is that! Awesome I tell you. Another funny thing is that one of the songs was "Born this way" by Lady Gaga. :-) Then the other part of the festival was people build these big boats and then compete with them by ramming them togetehr. Super dangerous. People have died in years passed. This year 1 person went to the hostpital and a couple people got hauled away by the cops apparently. Ha. Fun stuff. It was crazy to see all the people though, didn:t know there were that many people in yokote. Especially young people. "M" shimai is still up in the ari and to be honest not a whole lot new in the investigator areana. Also slightly new thing is that I have a new return date. Not July 30th but Aug. 2. Ha. Slowly getting father. Which made me think. Maybe we should slowly start working on figuring out school because its going to come fast I think and knowing my academic advisor she will be slow. First thing to figure out is if I can even do the 5 year masters. So yeah... That "Feed my Sheep" thing sounds pretty cool father. If you can find a way go ahead and send it to me. Well I love you all, hopefully I will have something more interesting to say next week.

I Can Email Again!

I:m back! Try as Japan will they can:t keep a nerd from his computers. Now I will be emailing from a slow way old PC in a run down library but hey it works and I:m happy. Miyaki choro is kinda mad I found it because it cuts into our time on p days but I have kinda decided he needs to learn that he is on a mission and needs to stop thinking about himself (maybe I just need to learn the same thing but techinically I:m following the presidents guidance, just guidance that I like to do. ) Anyway, not a whole lot of time today because I just read a ridiculous amount of emails which is awesome. Thanks for having the faith to keep sending them. You can probably stop with the real letters, they were fun while they last but yeah. Anyway what has happened in the last few weeks. A lot! Lots of random drama but mostly everything has just stopped. We were riding high leading the district and the zone for awhile (in Yokote none the less) and then everything fell apart! The last two weeks have been super weak. Not meeting with people etc etc. Also one investigator has been meeting us in secret and her boyfriend found out and freaked out so yeah that stopped her progress quick. Then the saddest of them all. Anyway, other that that our two *golden* investigators are a little sketchy. Met a ton but they love to learn but the whole repenting and changing thing is hard for them. When I say hard I mean they won:t do it. They keep going at this rate I:m just going to drop them. Sick of people that won:t change. Anyway. Those are the biggest highlights of the last two weeks. Next week will probably be a much more normal leter. So anyway, love you all. Talk to you later.

An "atta boy" from the President

Hey Family, How's it going? Another week of handwritten letters. I don't even know if you emailed this week because we didn't go the the electronics store today. I'm still working on another emailing place. Hopefully I can figure something out soon. Anyways, This week was an interesting one I guess. So on Monday morning, we went to meet our referral for our planned lesson. New experience for boh of us because you just don't get referrals here. Anyway, he shows up and what would you know, he brings his friend too! Two new investigators in one day!" What the what? Thats a good months worth of investigators. Anyway there is this things called "The Standard of Excellence". Mandy should know what I'm talking about. Anyway. It's basically this goal the mission president sets that if you achieve in a week, you get this cool letter from President and bragging rights. Anyways, One of the hardest parts is 3 investigators in a week and since we already had 2, might as well go for the kill. Still needed 19 more lessons and a new investigator. Probably my longest planning session Monday night trying to get it all planned out. Anyway we knew it would be hard with no bikes (Miyaki choros bike is broken too.) And then the fun started. Woke up the next morning and Miyaki Choro is super sick. But he says he is good, so we go out and take care of business. Got some lessons in and then called it a day. Wednesday we had a lesson in the morning and after that Mikayki choro basically looked dead so I had him get into bed. Lost all productivity that day. Next day he was like death but still got in enough lessons to still be on track and if we kicked butt for the next three days we could still make 17. Reach into my pocket Thursday night and the phone is gone. Left it in our branch Presidents car. Sigh~ No way to get a hold of anyone without that thing. Didn't have it all of Friday and finally got a hold of him on Saturday on a pay phone and got it back. And at that point we had given up. Absolutely impossible to get to it (our goal). Only made it half way to be honest. Oh well. Anyway. That was the most eventful part of the week. Dad might find interest in this: Our President letters are all online now. No more paper. Yay! It's was superior. Church did a pretty good job of putting it together too. Makes it a lot faster and so much easier to read than before. Then today got a call from the mission office; normally just the couple missionaries complaining we did the paperwork somewhere wrong. Always puts a pit in your stomach to hear "Rasmussen Kaicho Riso" at the other end of the line. What did I do wrong? runs through your head a billion times. Got through the pleasantries...at this point you always brace for impact. "So.. Elder Carter. I just saw your kekka (results from last week)" "Oh really? OK" "...way to go!" Huge sigh! "Oh...thanks." From there one of the most pleasant conversations I have ever had with that man. Basically made my month. Sometimes it feels good to hear a little praise. Especially since today marks exactly one year before I return. Just a little "well done thou good and faithful servant" except its from President Rasmussen, so it has an assumed "....but lets double it." added at the end. Anyway, I guess that's it for the day. Kinda a weird letter. Love you, Elder Carter.

No email, but two baptisms!!

For Kyle's readers.....the library that he had been emailing from decided to ban email from their facility. His town is small, and there are not many options for emailing, so for the present, he is sending hand written letters until he finds a new place. Dear Family, Sigh. This email problem is going to kill me. I will try to solve it as soon as possible. It doesn't help that Miyaki Choro doesn't like emailing really so I have been figuring out all of this stuff by myself. Frustrating. Anyway. Wow, you have missed some good stuff. So try your best reading this letter. So what has happened over the last two weeks? A lot. So first off, the Kakisakis got baptized!! That's a story for another day (when I return). But it went well. For the most part everything was perfect and they took the plunge. Then yesterday they got confirmed. That was funny because we thought we had explained it well enough, but when they called them up front in Sacrament meeting, they kind of freaked out. After a little explanation they were fine, but it was a learning experience. It was a learning experience with all of it. Thats one thing that never stops. Also, I'm constantly being humbled. There are times when my prayers are basically, "Why?" I've decided that I just want to go back to Junior Companion. We also had transfers recently. Miyaki Choro and I didn't change, but 3 district members changed. We also received an Australian missionary. She is crazy cool. The other two were in the MTC with me. Which brings us to the next drama. When I was first put with Miyaki Choro he told me he absolutely didn't want to meet "K" shimai (Sister "K") They come from the same area and have some weird history which has caused him to despise her, but he won't tell anyone why. So, I get the call from the Zone Leaders about the changes to the district, and who is coming but K shimai. Miyaki Choro literally starts beating his pillow yelling, "No, no no! Daikairai kanojo" (No, no, no I hate her, I hate her.) Everyone in the zone knows he hates her because, well he has made it quite clear. When she tried to talk to him he ignored her, and when he has to convey information to her he does it through her companion who is right next to her. I'm sick of dealing with 16 year old girls. Sigh. So those are my rants. Other than the drama, the baptisms were awesome. Also we received a referral Saturday (which is unheard of in Japan). We met with him today and he brought a "friend." We are not sure of the relationship, but they aren't married. The lesson went great! They are true investigators who want to find the truth. We have a lesson with them again on Wednesday. So two investigators now...crazy and a half. Sorry I didn't get a chance to read your emails today so I can't really respond to those. Anyway, guess I will end here. Love you all. I'll write again next week. Sigh Elder Carter

Busy week in Yokote

Hey family! Hows it going? Hope everything is going well with you. So every week I write a list of things I want to write about and guess where that list is? At the apartment so this might be a short email. Sounds like things were still pretty busy this last week but that you are finally getting somewhat of a break that you deserve. Sounds like the reunion was really fun though. Glad to see that Atreyu is learning young the art of the flirt. That boy is really going to go places. ;-) And of course its great that Kreigh and them could all go. Doesn;t seem like those opportunities are coming around as often as before. I got the wedding video and watched it with my zone leader for splits. ;-) Ha. Even before I told the zone leader who made it he said, "Even though its basically the normal wedding video idea its really well done" So once again way to go Kreigh. But I fear his head is getting big with all this acclaim for his work so you can do better Kreigh. ;-) This week there was absolutely crazy rain. Everyone had been telling me it is the rainy season but there was like no rain. Then the heavens opened this week. Never seen so much rain in my life. Wow. Had the zone leaders sit in on my district meeting this week which to say the least was stressful. One of my zone leaders is Fukuda choro. If you don:t remember when I got into Aizu he was the other japanese person in the apartment so we are pretty tight. So anyway. Monday morning they called me and said that we were doing splits that friday ( which I knew) and that we should really have the "K"'s (mother and daughter) interview done a week early so that I needed to finish all the lessons that week. Well that was an adventure ending up with visiting every day of the week. Which our branch president was not happy about but its written in PMG as something you should do before baptism so I kinda ignored that. But anyway. They were both awesome leading up to the interviews. The daughter was the first one with the interview and Fukuda choro did that one. Came back that night and I asked him how it went. He kinda got sad and just shook his head and then Miyakichoro ruined it with, "She has had quite the past." Well that was a complete lie so I knew it was all a lie. They fessed up and then Fukuda choro went on to tell me his biggest problem with her is that she may have been too good. Ha. He was just in awe. Not just the right answers but the right reasons, feelings, etc. He was kinda left speechless. Really is the golden investigator. The mom did well too. Expressed it was difficult in her interview but that she was ready and wanted to. Great stuff. So that led into the great fun of planning this baptism. I feel like I understand the wedding planning now. They haven:t had missionaries here for years so there have been no baptisms and therefore we have to prove that all these 10 year old things still work including the "font" oh wow. I'm sending home a video of that and it is quite the adventure. Ha. But it will be good. So this week is going to be super busy. Tomorrow is splits in Kitakami. Wednesday is Leadership training in Morioka. Back to Yokote. Full of lessons. Then Sunday they get wet (baptized) So anyway. Fun stuff. Also good luck to father with his nasal surgery. I love how dad didn't even write anything about that in his letter. Mah. Everytime I get asked how the family is the answer is basically, "Good as far as I know but they wouldn't tell me if something was wrong" ;-) That basically it for today. Next week we will have the picture of the baptism so stay tuned. Love you.

She got baptized!!

Hey Family. Yay! doing this from a real computer this time. Ok so quick update from last week. Wow that seems like a long time ago. Had my first splits with an elder named OhoriChoro. Oh my goodness is he dilligent. He is still in his 3rd transfer is a trainer and schedules down to the minute (for example; at 5;12 we will arrive at this place and spend 4 minutes talking to this person). It was crazy. He is a great elder though. I learned a lot. from him. From there we had zone conference. So this is the power of President. He comes up to me. "Hey elder Carter" "Hey president" We Talk about Yokote for a little bit "So what do you think of sister "T"?" (Run through my head, there is no Sister "T" in Yokote) "....Think Furukawa elder." (There is no Sister "T" in Furukawa either......wait) "The baptism went through didn:t it!" The president just watched me dance for like the next 5 minutes. So yeah. Takahashi san got baptized. It was a good day. Yay. So then we had District Conference that next weekend which was a broadcast from Salt Lake for Japanese members. It was super weird. I didn:t even know they did that type of stuff. But it was cool. Finally we have the "K's" (the mother daughter investigators) They are what we like to call kinjins or gold people or probably in english the Golden Investigator. The daugher has read the JSH 7 times already and is on page 200 of the Book of Mormon. Loves church. Drank tea but gave it up because we told her to. Ha. Her mom is also doing great. A little worried about coffee but she is really working hard so thats awesome. They will have their baptism interview this weekend probably so if all goes well they will be baptized on the 15th. Super fast but great. Its ridiculous how prepared they are. Other than that this week was service in Miyako so it was fun to see all the missionaries that are in Iwate-ken, Akita-ken, and Aomori-ken including MeadChoro. He:s doing good. We came back. Did the regular missionary work for the next couple of days. Miyaki choro is kinda freaking out about time so yeah. Ha. This will be a little shorter of letter but things are going good. Ok so did you receive no videos? They weren:t copied to the same place as the rest of pictures so if you copied them by hand that might have been the problem. I back up all my pictures and stuff before I send them but I need to know if you have any videos or what. Other pictures missing. Some of those things you said you were missing were pictures not videos. Yep so I:m a little confused with all of that. Well anyway. I guess that will be all for today. A little short and you always hate those but oh well. Our church is in an old business so the rooms are actually just big cubicles. We email from this library like place, also where we do a lot of lessons

Birthday Jello

With Elder Chipman Pondering...something He is getting pretty good at crouching Elder Carter wearing his wedding tie on Mandy's wedding day Hey newly added to family: Wow you know to make a man trunky in an email! Jeez. My life doesn:t really seem that exciting now that I have read about your last week. Although I knew when all of it was happening. Sitting on the train back from Yuzawa (yes I know don:t know where that is) trying to figure out the times in America it occurred to me that you were probably just waking up to get things underway. Pretty crazy thought. Although I handled it pretty good then. Reading those emails was worse though. Anyway I:ll get my stuff out of the way. So investigators. There are a lot of them here but most of them are eternal investigators for one reason or another. Either they don:t have the desire to go that last little push or they have something/someone holding them back so that is annoying. If all went according to plan yesterday (your time) Takahashi san got baptized but of course there is no way to find out. Actually I will be seeing the APs soon so I will probably just beat it out of them then. Other than that we have two good investigators. A mother and daughter. The daughter has a lot more interest then the mother I think or maybe is just vocal. The mother follows commitments so i:m not too worried about her, maybe she is just super quiet. We did two lessons this week and they are doing pretty good. Baptism date is 7/15 so gotta move fast. (I may have told you all this stuff before) Their names are the "K"s. Nice little mother and daughter. Thats basically it for the investigators. So have I ever expressed how high of quality my bike is? Well the thing that holds the gears on snapped in half this week so thats probably going to be super expensive and will take a month to fix. This same problem I have seen 4 other times among missionaries bikes. GT......why are you the devils bike company? So I found a bike in the storage shed of the church and the branch president told me to use it so its what I:m using now. Hard to describe. I will have to send you a piture sometime of this high quality product. So I had my first district meeting. That was stressful and a lot of it was cleaning up where the last district leader kinda forgot to, like making goals for June even though we are already halfway through. Oh well. Also it went 15 minutes over and....well yeah. Room for improvement! Wasn:t a complete failure though. A lot of really good missionaries in this district. Birthday was pretty normal. Some awesome used to be LAs but now super strong active members gave me this birthday jello (who knows) which was super nice. Other than that baked my own cake, used the stuff Lyssa sent, and had a little 10 minute party that night. Miyaki choro didn:t really know what was going on. Oh well. Nothing really different about the day. Miyaki choro took me out to dinner. That was nice of him. So onto the real news. Mandy is a married woman! Wow. Sounds like the wedding went off without a hitch....except the heat thing. Thats great though. Definitely send more pictures when you get them. I feel jipped still. Ha. As I kinda said above the day off didn:t really bother me that bad. Wore the tie and then just went off to work. Ok what is it with this Rochester mission. People marrying Zone leader and assistants. Are we sure they were focusing on their purpose in that mission ;-) Oh well. Yes you need to send that video. I will just sing I am a child of god super loud over the lovy music! I want to see it. Also good job dad. Yard looked awesome. Although you should also include a picture of your water feature thingy cause I still haven:t seen it and it intrigues me. I don:t know what else to say about that woman going off and getting married. Lots of feelings, no words. Never how I imagined the whole mandy getting married situation to go with me across the world but nothing we could do about it. Sigh. Well kinda a wimpy letter this week. Don:t know what else to say. Love you. Talk to you next week.