11/3/13 Russian Islands and Halloween parties plus a surprise calling!

Hey! It was a way crazy, but good week! On Monday we went to Nosappu Misaki and the weather was finally good enough to see the northern territories! I was way happy. I also had my favorite yakitori bento and chocolate covered melon bread from the local convenient store here + at night we got invited to the Ozawa's FHE! I felt like I got to do all the things I wanted to do in Nemuro before transferring... However I am not! I mostly expected it, but I'll be doing 6 transfers here in Nemuro. I feel really lucky, but sometimes am a little tired hahaha. Let's just say I'm excited to see some new parts of Hokkaido. It probably means that by the end of this transfer I'll have at least knocked on every door in the main city area.

Anyways, I also had my last DTM as district leader because I got 'demoted' to just being a normal trainer which is totally ok. Harper E my MTC comp transferred to Kushiro and is the new DL. I probably won't be going to Kushiro very much this transfer, but I guess that's ok. I think part of the reason I am no longer DL is that on Sunday I was surprise called to be 2nd counselor in the branch presidency. I was way shocked. I'm looking forward to working a lot more to help the members though. After church we had branch council meeting and assigned everyone's HT and visiting teaching. It reminded me of when I was in Elders quorum presidency at USU. Otherwise, Tuesday was a lot of finding plus a good lesson with this lady Satou who we passed a Book of Mormon and taught the restoration to. She said that since she is so busy she wouldn't be able to read the BofM, but Morgan E bore his testimony and she decided to accept it. Wednesday was pretty interesting. We were going to go to lunch with this Eikaiwa student, but it didn't work out and we decided to go on our own anyways. Morgan E crashed his bike and we had to go buy new lights, so we got stalled a little bit. Anyways, the timing worked out perfectly that we were able to meet her on the street in the end and share the gospel with her a bit. We also found in that area a ton and taught this really young mom about prayer.

Thursday was DKK and lots of finding plus a bit of Halloween party preparation. We also were introduced to another friend of Van named Thuy and taught her a mini lesson with Van! She is Catholic, but pretty interested in why our church is different! We actually have more than half Nemuro's Catholic congregation as investigators or possible investigators hahaha. Friday we were able to get in 2 really good lessons with this lady Ishiyama who is way nice and prepared, but busy watching after her mom who is really ill. We also taught this really cool older guy that Morgan E found on splits last night. His name is Minakatsu which means 'everybody wins' hahaha I think it's a way awesome name. We did party prep a little bit early and then had the party! We had a bunch of games and a TON of people came! We counted around 50 which is a pretty big deal. We left a bunch of pass along cards and a BofM out on a table and one girl who came just sat in the corner and read the BofM the whole time! It's a member's friend and she committed to passing it to her :) It was cool to finally have an activity here. Okuchi Shimai and Van Shimai brought a lot of friends as well. We have been wanting to meet with Okuchi Shimai more, but she has been a bit busy and it's been hard to meet. Saturday was pretty much straight finding all day... Way tired. We were able to find a few nice people, but no one particularly strong. We were able to make some good appointments over the phone and actually randomly got a call from a weak street contact that we got a while back who wants to go to lunch! We'll meet him today.

Anyways my time is about up, but your Halloween sounds like it was fun! We don't have daylight savings here... kinda tough. ***** would love that present! I'm excited to see the photos of Adam's plaque. I have no idea what to do about college apps. That's really unfortunate to hear about Brother Hardy too... I'm really grateful for the gospel as well! I have been really tired lately, but I hope I'll be able to get back on my feet 100%.

Love you love you!

Aishiteimasu
Hutchinson Choro

ps
nice phone hahaha

Russia!

View from big tower

Me and a bear

Ozawa S, Meg, Van S, Okuchi S

Vietnamese friends

Okuchi S and Ozawa kids

My costume wasn't anything in particular, hahahaha

10/27/13 Splits and lots of cold wind

Hey! It has been a good solid week of being in Nemuro. I used my district leader powers to bring the other companionship of Elders from Kushiro over here this time. Also thanks for doing stuff with my facebook profile! Please accept pretty much any friend request unless they are suspicious looking Americans (haha). Van also sent that message to my phone probably about the same time. That's cool you guys saw it too! She said she took 30 minutes trying to figure out the English for it. To answer your question, I used the same pants that Andersen E borrowed from Nakazawa B.

I'm grateful I've been able to see Heavenly Father perform so many miracles here as well! Okuchi Shimai is doing pretty good and we actually spent some good time with her last week. She actually taught primary yesterday! Way cool. Glad Mara's dance went well! I had a hard time imagining how her date's last name might be pronounced. That's cool what Margaret said! Did bishop ever get my postcard? Halloween stuff sounds like it's going good. We are having a party for Eikaiwa. Hopefully lots of people will come! It's gonna be a little simple probably, so we'll so how it goes. I didn't hear/feel anything relating to an earthquake, but if it happened to transfer into the air in wind form, I did. I'm good though! Just had to bust the scarf and undershirts out.

Starting from last Monday, it was kinda lame weather so we just chilled inside and I practiced guitar a bunch. We did some decent finding that day. Tuesday my DTM went really well! We went to this area called Nishihama and did lots of finding there and met some nice people who could have some potential. Afterwards we had some plans to visit people that didn't work out and we were a little stuck because of how early it gets dark here lately. We did find some people to contact on the street plus people to call at home before the Kushiro Elders arrived. I went on splits with Yoshikawa E who is on his second transfer. We walked all day and weren't able to meet a lot of the people we wanted to, but the people we did meet we were able to teach awesome lessons to! It was fun to dendo with a nihonjin again and I learned a lot of things I could apply to helping Morgan E out. We also visited Okuchi S and she is still doing awesome and studying a ton. She is always really happy to meet new missionaries and is collecting signatures and stuff like that. Afterwords we stopped by Van's work and she introduced a lot of her Vietnamese friends! They might not be super interested in the gospel at first like Van, but with her help we have been able to share the gospel with them a bit! She gave us some interesting Vietnamese food and we gave her friends lesson pamphlets in Vietnamese. My Vietnamese has been getting better too hahaha. The next day I went on splits with Inoue E who is 8th transfer and is awesome. He gave me a lot of advice for being a trainer and we had lots of fun finding and walking! In town we ran into an old investigator who was with his friend. He introduced him to us and told us to invite him to church and Eikaiwa so we did! He was really nice and pretty good at English. We also met Tatsuya again for the first time in a while and gave him more snickerdoodles I made (which are my new secret weapon. I've been giving them to lots of people). We taught him the first part of the plan of salvation and he was interested, but it got a little deep and hard for him to follow so we took a break. He seems to have pretty good potential to progress, but his wife isn't interested so he is a little embarrassed to read the BoM or pray at home. He's also really busy with his son. Anyways after that, we all went out to Sushi w/ Okuchis and it was way fun! Next day (Friday) I hadn't been able to sleep very well, but felt good enough in the afternoon to have our planning session and then go to Eikaiwa. The guy we met on the street came and it turns out that he is Catholic and had a lot of questions about church too! It went pretty well. Maybe he'll become a good investigator.

Saturday it was really bad weather, but we took a bit of time to plan for our Halloween party. We also went out to do a bunch of finding and there was a lady who was busy working so couldn't talk much, but gave us an umbrella since we were out in the rain! That's Japanese people for ya! Sunday was really windy! Church was good though! Like I said Okuchi S taught primary and was a little tired afterwards, but did pretty well! I got asked to speak in sacrament meeting... IN sacrament meeting! I spoke about agency since it was what I had planned to teach in gospel principles but didn't get to teach because Van S was late. I didn't ever think I'd be able to give a 20 min talk on the spot let alone in Japanese. It went good though. After church we worked with the members a bit to get ready for the Halloween party. Then we met Van and reviewed a bit of the first lesson on the restoration with her, but it was so windy we gave up halfway. We stopped by the dorm of some of her Vietnamese friends and they were happy to see us again/gave us chocolate/were impressed by the 5 Vietnamese words I know. We went home and got into warmer clothes, then went to see Hebikawa who has been reading the BoM. She gave us potatoes and onions because she liked the snickerdoodles I made for her. We taught her a bunch about families and temples, etc and she was pretty impressed that we do so much for our ancestors since Buddhism is all about ancestors. She also randomly asked about crosses and the sabbath day, since she had learned about them when she was younger. We were able to show her a lot of the cool and unique things about our church and hopefully it'll get her to want to come! She also prayed for us at the end which was pretty cool ;)

That was pretty much it though! Thanks for all your support and love and little favors. As for a package I just still want that RM/singles ward soundtrack and Sufjan Stevens. I'll be happy with that I think :)
Aishiteimasu!
Hutchinson Choro

11/4/12 Amazing Miracles!

First off here are some pictures to blow your mind.

#1 a tim tam slam party celebrating #2

#2 self explanatory ;) I'll tell that story in my letter

#3 Candy and stuff from bean shower #2

#4 Haramai, Nodoka (left) and her sister




Ooooh man! My new nephew Max is going to be such a bomb kid! That'll be cool if he is born really close to my birthday. I'm really excited for him! Sounds like Tohi and Jameson both going to California is way cool! I'm not sure if either of them are going to the same as missions that some of my friends are in right now. Stoked for them! Mara sounds crazy as usual. Mental torture? Oh boy.

Halloween here was pretty chilly! Rainy. All that good stuff. That's way nice of the Fullmers to have a BBQ for everyone. They are way cool. Please keep up with them for me ok? I'm glad you got to play with the nieces too. I bet they were a ton of fun as usual. 10 hours of overtime sounds tough! But I'm proud of you for working hard. I really appreciate your sacrifice for me so very much. I did get my package and it's really good! I can't believe you packed so much stuff in there! It was heavy too. Some of the Japanese Elders were hesitant about the orange oreos hahaha. They actually have a lot of that candy in Japan, but the Reeses stuff was especially nostalgic. The cereal too, but it isn't lasting very long for how much space it took up. For Christmas I want another suit coat from H&M in black and those earmuffs I thought you were going to get a while ago. It would be really tricky to find a suit here and I have enough pants so even one of the not so expensive coats would be fine as long as it's all black.

What's my favorite Japanese meal and treat? That's too hard. Right now I'm eating a fried squid lunchbox and it's great. My favorite things are okonomiyaki and udon I think. They have way good dessert bread (melon bread, etc) but they have no wheat bread which stinks. The coolest thing I've seen here is picture #2. For Pres Evans' birthday we went and took pictures, ate cake, and played sports in a park in Sapporo. Not too bad.

I was way happy to hear about how you are doing with missionary work yourself!! One thing that I am learning very quickly is that members can pretty much do a lot more than missionaries can. When we met someone who has never been acquainted with the church before we have to make their friend before we can actually teach them well. Without members, once we leave, it's incredibly hard for them to stay active. That's why it's so important for members to do all they can to introduce people to the gospel because that friendship makes everything so much easier. Please keep it up and I know the Lord will bless you with people to share with and how :)

SOOOO here is my story of this week.
After partying with the President we ate shabu shabu at a members house which is way good. Look it up! Then on Tuesday we had our Halloween party which was a big hit. Probably around 60 people came including quite a few investigators and non-attending members. There weren't too many fancy costumes (at all), but not too bad of an amount! We had lots of games and candy and it was pretty fun. Us missionaries spent the whole time making sure everyone was having a good time so we couldn't really play anything, but we got people settled pretty well. Way great. It took a while to clean up, but was great. Halloween itself wasn't that eventful. Just went to Chitose to meet with this guy who is really nice, agrees with a lot of our teachings, but not quite humble enough yet to accept religion so we are probably dropping him. He will still come to Eikaiwa lots though. Then we housed a little bit in a place called Megumino and got some appointments and taught a spontaneous lesson which was pretty cool. I'll pause here and send this since you're waiting right now hahaha.

Ok so here's the awesome story.
Thursday the Zone Leaders came over to go on splits with the other Elders and we were having our weekly planning meeting. We started and were worried about our two most progressing investigators. Nakamura who has been sick recently hasn't been able to meet or even respond to calls in a while which is tough and Haramai who is way solid in the gospel, but worried about discussing everything with her husband. That morning Nakamura sent us a mail about how she has been sick, going to the hospital a lot, and searching for a job. She also said she missed 2 days of Book of Mormon reading and felt bad about that. It kinda sounded like she wouldn't be able to meet soon. We moved on in the planning meeting and wanted to finish fast because planning is not as exciting as Dendo at all when all of a sudden Nakamura calls. We almost didn't answer because she likes to talk and it'd probably give us a lot less time to dendo, but we answer anyways. She tells us she just got done with a job interview and is on her way home, but had a dream where she had her baptismal interview and confessed all her past sins and that she saw it as a sign that she should..... GET BAPTIZED ASAP! We were blown away... She has been having a hard time getting to baptism because of various concerns, but this was a total miracle. We asked her what led her up to that point and she told us how since she felt bad about not reading she prayed to God to help her to do better and to teach her the truth. She then read all of Mosiah and found verse 26:22-23 and was really impressed by it. It wouldn't leave her mind. She said that she wanted to help make God's workload lighter by keeping his commandment to be baptized. Crazy. She wanted to get baptized next Saturday, but we suggested this week and she was happy about that. Luckily since the Zone leaders were there one of them could do the interview the next night after zone conference (which was also awesome) which is another miracle because there is no way our district leader would've been able to make that time! So after ZTM we hurried home to the church and she had the interview while we had our meeting with the ward missionaries. Afterwards she passed (Yay!) and we started planning stuff. She asked Elder Hansen to baptize her since he has been teaching her for like 6 1/2 months.
The next day we invited lots of people and had normal dendo housing in Chitose. The baptism was that night and we had a pretty good turnout considering how suddenly we told everyone about it. Hansen choro forgot the phone the first time we went to the church so we had to run to the apt and back when he realized he also forgot his white pants. Nice. So after biking to the apt and back twice we started. The speakers at the meeting were great and the baptism went super awesome too. Afterwards a member named Brother Takasugi gave her the Holy Ghost and a WAY powerful blessing. So incredible. We had to have it that day because she couldn't make it to church the next day. Then she bore her testimony which was crazy amazing as well. She is so strong and has gained a huge testimony of prayer, the Book of Mormon, and serving God. We still need to work with her a bit to help her transition, but she is pretty solid. PLUS Haramai came AND Nodoka convinced their Dad to leave watching baseball to take them to the service! Crazy miracle. We are planning on their baptism next Sunday so I'll let you know about that.

Well I hope that was a satisfying letter because I sure feel very blessed when I think back on how many amazing miracles I've been privileged to take part in. Thanks so much for your support and everything!!! Love you tons and tons!!

Aishitemasu!
Hutchinson Choro

and some more pics...

#1 Hansen Choro's costume (The Book of Mormon). boss right?

#2 us with an investigator and his friends at the Halloween party. My costume is Moses.