General Conference

Hey family.

 

How was your week this week?  This week was again way WAY slow.  I just dont get it! Can't get out of this rut but not all is bad. Conference is always way enjoyable so we enjoyed that greatly over the last 2 days.  Overwhelmed with gospel knowledge though.  Nevertheless we loved it.  We were slightly disappointed with Elder Holland.  He is always good for a good yelling about there is no time left.  Oh well. We love that talk. 

 We had an investigator come to church this week for the first time so that was interesting for her for her first time to be general conference.  And  it got even more exciting when between sessions we were just walking around talking to members and she comes up to us with a member that she had known clear back from investigating 10 years ago and he comes up to us and asks how often we meet with her.  The  answer, well actually she doesn't have any interest in the gospel and doesn't want you to visit her.  "Why?"   Well she has never really wanted to listen for various reasons, eh?   She's a japanese old woman, she can't say no to you.   Apparently she did once and the missionaries back then cried.  Sigh.  So that was fun.  I love Japanese people but they need to get a little bolder.  Sigh.  So that was an adventure.  

Other than that it was just a lot of knocking doors and such this week.  We start the new eikaiwa this week so that shall be fun.  Other than that lets see.  There are really no exciting stories when you spend your whole week knocking doors and finding no one.  In two weeks we have a meeting with Elder Grow from the 70 so that will be fun.  It will also be on a Monday so we will have to email a different day.  Not a whole lot other than that. 

Random request, not sure if I will be able to do it but could you send me the recipe for pumpkin pie?  I want to try to make it, maybe for eikaiwa or something.  Knowing from last year they don't really have pumpkin pie here.  Since I have a few more minutes and no more content to write about I will say random things.  So in the movie "Finding Faith in Christ" in English there is a part where they are on the sea and wake up Christ and he says "Peace, be still"  Well its a lot more....interesting in Japanese.  He says the equivalent to "shut up and be quiet."  The first time I saw that it made me laugh. Especially since he whispers it.  Well that the only random thing I have.  Love you all talk to you next week. 

 

Elder Carter

Becoming a More Creative Planner

Hello peeps,

 

Another roughish week to be honest. Lots of random annoyances and everything.   But its forcing me to be a more creative planner for how to use time because all our investigators and people we are teaching are falling left and right (all for health reasons strangely enough).   Its an adventure.  We worked really hard to find new investigators this week, but in the end no one. 

Have one good chance though that took a Book of Mormon and gave us his business card and this ridiculously delicious apple juice that he grows the apples for.  He is just way busy because of it being harvest time.  Its funny to watch them harvest. Its not white like wheat it is gold which is kinda cool and when I say the scripture now to people I say "The field is gold, all ready to harvest".  I always had an image of a man out there will a sickle, which we have seen a little of, but welcome to our day.  Out comes the harvester which is a fascinating machine but takes like 10 minutes to harvest the whole field.  Fun stuff.  

Didn't really meet with any investigators this week.  Just the ones we can just show up to and that mainly like missionaries.  We have an appointment to meet with "R" tomorrow so hopefully that all comes through. 

Anyway, random stories.  So jealous you went to a football game. They don't have football here as you may imagine.  I'm glad you enjoyed the Jesus the Christ story. Didn't find it that humorous myself but oh well, glad I could bring joy to others. They are playing The Beatles here at the library right now.....TORTURE!!!! I miss my Beatles. 

 

Anyway. Hope all is well with you people. Enjoy conference without me! Way jealous you get to watch a week before me.  But oh well.  Bye bye.

Some weeks are rough

Well here we are at another week and boy was it a brutal week when we looked at it in the end.  Total of 3 lessons when normally its closer to ten. No one progresses, no one at church, no new investigators, etc. Ouch.  Little embarrassing to report our results last night. Oh well though. Just need to keep working hard.  Anyway.  

But yes this week EVERYTHING fell through. We were lucky to even get the three lessons in.  We had one day where our whole day's plans and backup plans all failed in 45 minutes. Partly we could have just planned better but still thats was disheartening especially for Hunt choro.  He absolutely despises tracting.  But oh well. Make him do it anyway and he's a good sport about it.  

Also part of the problem was also being out of town for part of the week for zone conference. (Leave the day before to go to kitakami, all day zone conference, come home the next day).  But zone conference is always good.  Its kinda like general conference to me.  Get revved up a little and then can go out with a hunger to share the gospel.  Although that day also was an adventure and a half.  But at all zone conference we have a "sudden role play" where people get called up to role play in front of the zone.  And as you may have already guessed, "H" choro and I were called up.   This three weeks under his belt and he's taking care of business. I was pretty proud of him.  We also had a little more of a plan than last time but yeah he trusted that when I would look to him I had him set up to say what he needed to say. Not perfect by any stretch of the imagination.  But it was kinda fun.  

Learned lots of stuff and then after all the trainers got together and the trainees got together for separate meetings to talk about the training.   My whole district is training right now, Its actually kinda funny.  The average "age" of our zone right now is a transfer and a half. WAY YOUNG!!!!  Anyway.  Other than that it was a lot of knocking doors this week.  Watched that Elder Holland movie twice this week.  I have been able to add another phrase to my phrases   "I don:t want to practice this lesson" "Feed my sheep!"  But it works, he  just laughs and then does it.  

Also president "R" and Sister "R" came to our branch on Sunday. Thats about terrifying and a half.  But the members loved him and he loves the members and, well, he's just president so it was fun.  Had a "linger longer" type thing after so yep lots of fun.  Anyway. I think that does it for this week. Always just a bunch of random stuff.  Love you. Hope all is well with you guys.

Teaching in ENGLISH!

So here we are at another week of emails.  Yay! Just a note before I
forget, so with this first week in the month thing we are going to try
and email the day before so adjust your emails accordingly because
there is no reason to read emails if there are none.

Anyway, second full week of trainer missionary work.  Oh the joys. Its
not all bad. I probably complain too much but that whole feeling of
the mission flying by? Kind feels like the brakes were put on for
these two weeks.  One of the member came up to me yesterday and just
laughed and said, "You look tired" "Yeah, I'm a little tired" "Why?"
"Just missionary work, sometimes happens"   Yay for constant state of tiredness.  

But one bright point is we picked up an old investigator this week
that I have been trying to teach since I have got here.  "R"! Does
that sound Japanese, no, because she is Phillipianian (Person from the
Phillipines) which if you aren't aware one of their official languages
is.....ENGLISH!!!  So yes, an English lesson and a Christian
background.  Talk about not knowing how to handle her.  Basically
handed over the lesson to "H" choro and he did good. He teaches VERY
seriously! Ha.     Its so depressing that
I can't even teach in English anymore.  I'm translating from Japanese
to English in my head.  She speaks Japanese too. Therefore halfway
through the lesson I was testifying and I broke into
Japanese.....basically at that point I gave up and finished my thought
in Japanese.  It was like going home.  Ha.  I can't speak Japanese or
English at this point.

Anyway.  Other stuff. Unfortunately "S" san and "T" san didn't
come to church this week but they are still strong.  

Ok so I am way jealous you guys are going to Wicked, just saying.

Other than that not a whole lot going on this week.  Just the normal
stuff.  Had my first experience with someone straight attacking the
church and our beliefs.  He was not a nice man at all.  Oh well.  He
gave us cake while we attacked the church so I guess it wasn:t all
bad.

Anyway, talk to you next week. Love you. Peace out.

Training

Hello my family. Sorry about the whole not emailing thing last week. Apparently the library is closed every first monday so I need to seek some approval from president to email on a different day once a month. He will probably give it.

 Anyway. Training! Wow. Lots of fun experiences already. The most random of which was when we went to the training meeting for trainers we were all foreigners so we weren:t exactly sure what bus to ride but it seemed like the right one from the train station to the mission home. So we just chillaxed in the back and talked until the driver yells at us "destination!" Ha. Whoops. Wrong bus. So we get off and run down to a connecting bus.....doesn't come for the next 2 hours.....well thats not going to work. So we call the assistants. No luck they are busy in training the new missionaries. So we all just look at each other 4 kilometers from the mission home. What should we do? Then all our eyes lock onto the taxi coming up the road, "Shoganai" (nothing we can do about it). So I road my first taxi. Wow they are expensive! Ha. Anyway. Short training meeting and then "H" choro and I are off to Yokote.

 Not a whole lot with investigators except for "S" san. He and "T" san have come to church for the last two weeks. Its way awesome. I don:t really see him as "golden investigators" but all the japanese people do. Ha. Our branch president danced around with the other person that taught the lesson with us yesterday. I don't get it. Also he speaks like an old man so its way hard to understand. So I have my hopes up for him. The rest of the investigators are just continuing in their previous state. Fun stuff. What else do we have. Not a whole lot else to report. "H" choro is pushing me to be better. Which is good.

 Yay for Atreyu being ridiculously cute. I miss that little man. He:s growing up so much without me. Also I hope you are trying to help him learn my real name and not just "nerd*" like Kris is probably teaching him. ;-)

 I haven:t received this package yet. Soon maybe. 

Take that Utes. Thats all I have to say about that. ;-)

 So this is a little random and maybe hard to find on youtube or maybe way easy. B ut when we had our trainers training we had a little extra time so president wanted to show us this video. It was made by the people of Tohoku (northern japan, my mission almost exactly) and its all in english but it had all the sisters crying. Basically it starts with a home video of the earthquake. Kinda shows the devastation from that. Then words come on the screen "But that was just the beginning" Then tsunami footage. All the devastation. Basically this part of the video rips out your heart and stomps on in. Throws up all the statisitcs of how many people lost their homes and died and all that. "All hope was lost" ......"Almost all" Then there are interviews with these little kids that talk about their english teacher who helped them be safe in the earthquake. Then she went home and when the tsunami came was never seen. "Taylor sensei wasn;t the only one that helped us" Then a ton of footage of navy ships, helicopters, food falling from the sky. All this humanitarian footage. Way awesome. Makes you proud to be a human. "Now we have a message for our friend" Then in like 15 languages and 50 people theirs just these Japanese people yelling "Thank you" "We will never forget you" etc at the camera. Way awesome. Look it up. Then download it and put it on my camera card when you get the next one and send it to me. http://www.nikkeiview.com/blog/2012/02/arigato-video-from-tohoku-region-of-japan-sends-thank-you-message-to-the-world/

 Anyway. Kinda weird email today. Love you all. Heres hoping for a better email next week.

So another week is upon us! They really do fly by in hind sight. However this week we got a lot more done than we did last week so that was good. This week we went to a Japan wide famous firework show in Omagari. Try to get some LAs there to come with us but that didn't quite work and because we had to get home by 9 we couldn't get very good seat so that kinda took most the fun away from it. But oh my goodness were the trains crazy. Go on Youtube and look up Tokyo subway system and you will see kinda what went down. One nice thing to report. "M" shimai came to church this week. Not everything is resolved but she is doing good. Yes she did have a friend in the ward, actually a family of friends. So I did splits with one of the elders in my district this week. Wow was that an adventure. And the final thing and the reason todays email is super short. Transfer calls came this morning........."M" choro is out to Nigata-ken nigata city. And as for me............................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................... I'm going trainer. Ugh. Scares me to death. I actually had a feeling that this might happen but still. His name is Elder "H" and he is from Las Vegas. It shall be very interesting to see how all this works out. Not a whole lot of information on his but yeah. I head to Sendai tomorrow and pick him up Wednesday and then we are off to return to Yokote. I may die. But that being said it could be a lot of fun. Anyway. I guess I will just leave you with that. Love you all. Talk to you next week.

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.