10/13/13 Splits, bad news, good news, conference in 5 languages!

Hey! What's up? Adam's girlfriend is going on a mission? Where? That's lame they didn't let Adam even contact from the airport! I wonder how he is doing. I'll shoot him a mail afterwards.

So I'm in Kushiro again! We have zone conference tomorrow in Obihiro so we decided to have P-day here again because it's more effective time wise. Let's see what's happened since then....
So we had our in person DTM last Tuesday which was pretty fun! I am still not used to doing DL workshops and usually take up too much time, but I guess that's better than not using it, right? Afterwards we headed to sushi with everyone and on the way I got a mail from Ozawa Kaicho saying that... Jay Andrus Kaicho (the Kushiro branch president) passed away. I was already pretty bummed about Uncle Merril dying and this made me double sad... He was such a good friend and like a second dad to Andersen E and I... He went to America to go to his own dad's funeral and while he was there he fainted and had a brain aneurysm or something like that.... I hope his family is doing okay. He has 3 sons (1 on a mission) and he was a big influence on everyone here in the Kushiro District (stake). All the stuff that happened made me rethink my future plans a little bit. Not 100%, but I thought of how cool it would be to be like him and live in Japan and help the church here. I could maybe get a job for Toyota or Honda kinda like Bro. Proctor always suggested when I was in Auto shop. Just an idea still, but it might be more sturdy for supporting a family as well. Anyways. It was lots of thinking about different things time.

We ate sushi for Morgan E's first time and he wasn't a big fan unfortunately hahaha. I then went on splits with Miyaki E which was pretty interesting. We met this guy they met on the street before who is Ainu. They are like the Indians of Hokkaido and they're really rare. He of course was raised in Japan his whole life, but whoa.... He was a crazy. He was telling us about how he's been abducted by aliens and he even used telepathy on me. hahaha! He was really nice though and has interest, but might be one of those people that you let God take care of...? He also wouldn't really let us talk. I never thought I'd meet anyone like that though! Before we left he told me that I had a really high midiclorean count. Not those exact words, but a Japanese equivalent. ANYWAYS I was feeling pretty down so it was hard to do my best dendo-ing with Miyaki E, but we did some service for a member, some good finding, and a good less active lesson. Wednesday Morgan E and I headed home and it was raining pretty hard/way tired from the train so we had DKK that day instead which took up the remaining day time. The next day (Thursday) went pretty well. We got a lot of finding done and met with Hayasaka and read some of the Book of Mormon with her. We were able to get some good stuff out of it the she can apply to herself and raising her son so hopefully she'll read on her own too. We also taught the Abes and they are starting to progress a bit! They've been praying regularly and we helped them to make a Book of Mormon reading plan. He has also been thinking about the word of wisdom even though we hadn't taught it to him fully yet. He also talked about how he wants his funeral to be in our church (because he's old, and Buddhist funerals cost TONS of money). It went pretty alright though. The main thing we taught him is about coming to church. He still has some worries, but hopefully with our explanation and talking to him about them he will be able to come and feel comfortable :)

Friday I woke up with a fever, so I slept all day and Morgan E studied. I felt really bad, but after sleeping for a few hours I was good again and ready to go out to dendo. However it was raining really hard again so we stayed in until Eikaiwa and went to teach that. It went pretty decent! Okuchi Shimai brought another friend:s kid! Saturday was conference ALL day! It was great though. I had to watch the first session in Japanese like last time because the comp only had one headphone jack. I went and bought an adapter after though and was able to watch the others in English :) I can still pretty understand almost all of it in Japanese, I just have to concentrate way more.

Sunday we also had conference and Van came to watch the first session too! She watched it in Vietnamese, which was awesome. I had to watch the first session in Japanese again because of that, but it was still good! The crazy thing is that in all, there was English, Japanese, Vietnamese, Tagalog, and sign language all going at the same time at one point!!! Whoa! I was pretty moved. In between sessions we filled out Van's baptism paperwork, but she was having a little bit of worries about disappointing her father back home. I was worried and didn't know what to do at first so we prayed together right there. After we were done praying I asked her "how about your other father? Your Heavenly Father?" and we talked a bit and she firmly committed to everything for next Sunday! After conference we spent some time with everyone and then Van introduced us to a friend she works with! We actually taught her a lesson about God and prayer and Van was like our member team up! She's gonna be an awesome member!

I'm not 100% sure what we'll do today, but I really need to buy a new rain jacket. The one I brought with is pretty torn up. The pants are still in way good shape though ;) I don't know how much money is in my regular account right now, but I'll check on it. It might be something I can only get in Kushiro. Anyways, thanks so much and I love you tons. I'm so grateful for families and the plan of salvation! I'm also grateful to be a child of God and priesthood holder and know that I have a great responsibility to follow Him in all that I do.

Aishiteimasu
Hutchinson Choro

These pictures are mostly from our district activity where we went with members to the famous Kushiro marsh

District shoes & nametags

The marsh

Sushi with Morgan E