5/19/13 The first warm day I have had since coming to Nemuro

Hey! Thanks for the email as usual. Sounds like a great week full of awesome stuff. Do you write in a journal? If not, I feel like the emails you send me give a pretty good outline of all the fun stuff you do.

So Mara had a play, choir, and dance performances? (note: she actually did not dance) AND MC'd? She's crazy. That sounds like a lot of fun and a lot of work.
I'm glad that you are ok from bumping your head. You use very hard English sometimes. I still understand it all, but a lot of times words that I forgot existed come out, like "jutted" or "cleaned my clock." I'm glad Adam's excited for his mission. How are his interviews coming? How is Todd doing? I'm glad the car got fixed too.

I'll remember Bonnie in my prayers. I hope everyone in the neighborhood is doing great. That's cool Yvonne spoke in conference! I actually gave a talk in church yesterday and talked a bit about the experience with the Fullmers coming back to church. Mochida is in Hakodate on a business trip and we haven't heard from him. Giving out copies of the Book of Mormon hasn't been too bad either. The hard part is that seeing whether people read the Book of Mormon or not is kinda tough because it's tough to make second appointments with people a lot of the time. Hopefully you'll be able to see the music thing online again. I play guitar in 3 songs.

So the report on this week was on Monday going to Nakashibetsu to play basketball with some Phillipinos that work on Itou shimai's farm. It was way fun to play basketball after not having any chances to play in such a long time. We dendo'd there for a bit too. It's actually a lot more city like than Nemuro, but doesn't have quite as many people. It'd be cool to have a church there someday too because it's pretty far. On Tuesday we had phone district meeting and did a bunch of advertizing for Eikaiwa, putting fliers in mailboxes and handing them out in front of high schools and stuff. We also found 2 really cool people on the street that we taught short lessons and passed the Book of Mormon to. Wednesday was putting up Eikaiwa posters at nearby shops and doing lots and lots of finding. Thursday we had planning session and went to the city office to ask if there were any things we could do as service projects. We did more finding and taught this guy named Takizawa who is pretty neat. He has investigated for 8-ish years, but he actually has a lot of interest, read the Book of Mormon twice, and knows the gospel principles book really well too. He was a Methodist and has a few concerns about the Book of Mormon and stuff like that, but he practically has a testimony. We just need to help him realize that and overcome his little concerns. Friday we tried to visit some less actives and dendo'd around them.

That night we also had Eikaiwa! It was way nice to teach Eikaiwa again for the first time in a long time. 5 people came. (4 members and 1 person a member invited) so we didn't get to see the results of our advertising yet. Still had a great time. Hopefully lots more people will be able to come. Saturday was finding near the apartment and visiting some appointments that we made before. One was a cool lady named Hatanaka who said her biggest desire was for her father to live a long life. I showed my picture with Grandpa Price and told about how it was at his funeral to know families could be forever. It was pretty cool. She took a Book of Mormon as well. We also stopped by the Ozawa's before and after to pray with them and report how things went. The kids were crazy hyper as usual and the two younger ones actually ran us over to a friends house who they wanted us to visit. That was pretty fun. Sunday was great as well. Gave a talk in church on a talk from priesthood general conference that I only had notes from since we don't have the English Ensign yet. It went pretty good though. The Ozawa kids played with us a bunch after church as usual. Inumaki Choro spent a ton of time making these things called scones (kinda like cookies made of pancake mix) that we cooked in our toaster oven to give to members. We were also able to meet with 2 non attending members that we hadn't been able to meet with up until then and gave them scones too. We visited Takizawa again that day and learned more about what we need to help him do to overcome his concerns. Ozawa Karebu Kyoudai (who is 15 and a boss) came with us to help us teach.

Thanks for all of your love and prayers! Keep me updated on everyone's spiritual progress and stuff! Love you to the sun and back!
Aishiteimasu
Hutchinson Choro


Yume no mori (dream forest) park

After basketball