9/22/13 Somehow I knew that Morgan E's parents were going to find you hahaha!

Yeah! So it wasn't Sizilio E (referring to the bean he was supposed to train last time)! He did get to make it to Sapporo though, which is something that is really cool. I still got to meet him and tell him the whole story. When we went to meet our beans I saw him in the room and got mentally ready to not be surprised when they told me he would be my bean, but then all of the sudden I heard Evans Kaicho say my name (as Elder Morgan's trainer)! I was a little shocked at first, but I felt the spirit really strongly that Morgan E is the missionary who I need to work with for the next 2 transfers here. So not only did I become trainer, but District Leader! Also, they brought Sisters to Kushiro so the district is now 8 people. I'll get to go to Kushiro for splits quite a bit! I'm really excited though.

ANYWAYS I'll start from the beginning of the week. Last week on Monday... HUGE typhoon!!!! It started during email and we just thought it was a bit of rain and so we decided to wait and write letters until it died down so we could go shop, but it didn't! We eventually manned it out and barely made it to the apartment soaking wet. We called the assistants and told them and they said they actually heard about it too. They told us to not go outside for dendo that day. Crazy! There was a little part where it died down a bit and we went to have a birthday/bye bye party for Okuchi S since we knew one of us would transfer. She made us some Okonomiyaki (look it up) and we sang her and Yuka the song we sang at her baptism again. Super cool and she totally cried. We headed back to the apt and magically it wasn't too bad at all until we got back. We tried to do phone dendo and organize the area book. The wind and rain were so crazy, a big tree across the street fell down and the fire dept. came to clean it up!

Well, that night we got our transfer calls! Andersen E went to Hakodate as planned, and I got the trainer/DL news. That night/next day was lots of packing! We were planning on going on a 11:00 train to Kushiro, but got a call from Ozawa kaicho saying the trains weren't running because the tracks were flooded! Buses couldn't go either because the roads were bad too... We were way stumped, but then Ozawa Kaicho (he goes to Sapporo for business trips pretty often) offered to take us! We had a little bit of time, so a few members came to see Andersen E off. Then we got in the car with Ozawa K for a 9 hour ride to Sapporo! Yay!!! He had to take a bunch of mountain/back roads to get around the closed off places which took a little time. We stopped at a few cool places to rest. We also stopped in Kushiro to talk with Andrus Kaicho for a bit too.

When we drove through Chitose it was pretty late at night and I noticed an airplane coming in. First thing I thought was "airplanes! that means my bean area is coming up!" but Andersen E pointed out it was probably the beans' plane! Turns out it was, hahaha. We got to Sapporo and stayed with the Odori Elders. One of the Elders there, Mecham E, really likes a lot of the local Provo music I'm into and I felt like he was my long lost brother. He's also way good at the piano. Maybe I found a band mate for after the mission...? Anyway the next morning had a little bit of study with Andersen E and then we headed to the Honbu! We mingled with a bunch of the missionaries there and then went in to meet the beans! Really nostalgic and cool presentation for Evans Kaicho. We also had some more training and way good food. We also got to have our first 1 1/2 hour of dendo in Sapporo around the Honbu! I remembered being impressed by Hansen E (his trainer) then and not knowing what was going on. We were able to get 2 phone numbers and pass a Book of Mormon to a way awesome guy! Morgan E was doing awesome at calling out to people and introducing himself. We'll have lots of work to do on learning Japanese, but he definitely is ready to work towards it! We slept in the honbu and the next morning had a great breakfast then got ready to go to the transfer spot! My first time in 4 transfers. It was way fun to say hi to so many missionaries and get pics with them etc. They were a little slow in bringing the luggage back, so we missed the bus we were originally supposed to go on. Because of that we had more time to hang out w/everyone and shizen dendo a tiny bit in the Eki (train station). Got to eat lunch with Andersen E and talk about stuff a lot. He's definitely one of my best friends I think. I'm way excited for him to be Sr. comp in Hakodate!

We got to ride a train to Kushiro and we were both pretty tired. Showed Morgan E lots of pics and told him a bit about when I went to my bean area. I'm so excited to be able to teach so many awesome things! We ended up sleeping over in Kushiro apt that night after attending their Eikaiwa. The next morning we caught a train at 8 am and arrived in Nemuro! Morgan E was super excited, but still so tired. We had a good planning session telling him about all the investigators etc. here. Then we went to get his bank card and teach Eikaiwa! I had him teach the advanced class and he did great from what I heard! He introduced himself to the members that came and it went great. I don't know how much you heard about him from his parents, but he is from Beaufort, SC. It's a pretty small town on an island! He was valedictorian and student body pres. He also played tennis and did lots of other awesome stuff. Not to mention there are 10 people in his family! He's great though. For real. Saturday was our first real day of dendo! Other than the fact we had no bikes. Haha. We were still able to get a decent amount of housing in and it was fun to introduce him to that. There was also a decent sized matsuri that day, sanma matsuri(refers to a type of famous fish here)and it was way cool. We got some decent shizen done there and got to get on a coast guard boat! I've been wanting to do that since I got here hahaha.

Sunday went awesome too. Morgan E's bike came the night before so that was a very happy thing! Van came to church and we finished teaching her the plan of salvation (almost). She was pretty blown away by people in the spirit world having another chance to receive the gospel/3 degrees of glory. It was a tiny bit tense and she said "that's not what it says in the bible..." but I was able to answer with a testimony about the restoration plus scripture in the bible that talks about 3 degrees of glory. It ended really strong and spiritual and Morgan E tied it up with his way awesome testimony!!! I was way proud of him jumping in on his own right there. I also gave a medium talk on the Atonement. After church Morgan E met with all the members and then we ate lunch before meeting up with Van again. Funny story. Since her job's only day off is Sunday, that's the only day she can shop. We taught her about keeping the sabbath day holy (which she understood in a sec cause it's in the 10 commandments) but it can't really be helped if there's nothing she can do right? She might actually be trying to have one of her friends go to the store for her though. That's how awesome she is. After that, we stopped at this little tiny park by the church to follow up on the Word of Wisdom we mentioned last week because we saw her drink green tea again. We had kind of a deep conversation about it, but I was able to answer her questions with scriptures (mostly Nephi being asked to get the plates from Laban) and it went really well. She pinky promised to keep the word of wisdom and we worked out a deal of buying her a present of the mugi tea that we are ok to drink. After that we went this other investigator named Hebikawa (snake river) who Andersen E and I found a while ago. We were worried since we didn't meet her last week, but I went with Morgan E and it turns out she read like 20 pages in the Book of Mormon! Way awesome. Afterwards we met Ayako S (Okuchi Shimai) and Morgan E shared a scripture he liked. We were both impressed by his good Japanese. Guess what!?!? She is speaking at District conference next week! It'll be just like when Haramai S spoke when I was in Toyohira. I'm way happy and excited and feel super blessed that I get to see it. She is seriously getting stronger and stronger everyday, it's so cool!

Anywho that's pretty much the week! I felt like not a lot happened because there really was SOOO much traveling time. There are a bunch of new little things to do, like having to hear everyone's numbers/other stuff so I have gotten a bit more busy, but I'm excited for the new responsibilities. I feel more and more how real it is that this is the Lord's work. Morgan E is a huge example to me of all the little things I forgot since I haven't been a bean for so long. Looking forward to lots of miracles and I know they're there!

Glad Mara's party went well and sorry I wasn't able to get any good recipes or messages in time for the missionary mom thing. It will probably be a little bit harder than that to get me to go!!! (Mom told him we think we'll have to drag him home physically when it's time to leave Japan) Hahaha but I know that the Lord knows when my time will be done and there are other important things afterwards as well... I hope they don't come too soon though!!!!!! Also I'm super glad that Lily is feeling better :) Have an awesome week and here are some great pics! Thanks for the Pics you sent. Mara is definitely looking like a high schooler. Crazy!


Aishiteimasu!
Hutchinson Choro

Coast guard boat with Morgan Choro

Ringing the bell on the boat

First meeting with Morgan Choro, w/Pres. & Sister Evans

Akkeshi on the way to Kushiro

Me and the (still alive) up til now comps (Ishiga E went home!!!)

Russia

3/24/13 I went to HAKODATE!

I went to HAKODATE!!!!!!!!!!! Also it was awesome.

I hope things are going way good. Well it seems like they are! I have had an awesome week. I'm so excited for all the new missionaries! Most of all I'm excited for the new missionaries coming to Sapporo next transfer, not gonna lie... Also Adam! Crazy proud of him. I remember about this time last year being crazy giddy and telling everyone how excited I was about having my call. Thanks a TON for telling me about everything back home though! I'm really proud of Mara with her friend Emily as well. That's crazy cool! :) I'll bet she is starting to feel the missionary spirit quite a bit. Good luck on the taxes! Crazy to believe it's almost Easter time already though. Most Japanese people haven't even heard of Easter actually. I hope I'll have lots of time to think of how great the atonement is and how through it we can overcome death and return to our Heavenly Father as well. Sounds like Dave had a good birthday! HAPPY BIRTHDAY!!! You're the best big brother ever. I'm really excited to see the Gandy's and tell them thanks again if you have a chance!

So my week was pretty big! Last week on P-day after finishing music practice we had a pizza party and I ate way too much. Costco pizza. Good stuff. After that we went home and met this guy named Ono who loves feeding missionaries! We taught him a little bit which was a little tricky because he initially was only interested in feeding us, but we taught him about baptism and he said it is something that he'd want so that was really cool. The next day in the morning we went to teach Arai with a member named Kurami who is way awesome and strong and close to Arai in age. We taught the doctrine of Christ (faith, repentance, baptism, etc) and he accepted everything. He also accepted the modern day prophets. He wants to get baptized so bad. We just need him to have time on Sunday to come to church. After that we taught Nakagawa who is a member referral and way awesome. We have taught him a bit and he is pretty strong. Not quite sure on whether God is there or not, but once he gets that confirmation he'll progress WAY fast because he understands the doctrine really well. He just needs the faith. That time we taught him the restoration and Joseph Smith. After that we tried to visit some other invs that weren't home then did lots of phone dendo.

Wednesday was an interesting day. It was kind of a big inv exchange with the sisters that are in the area called Odori which covers all of Sapporo. We spent time with them visiting the people we wanted to "exchange". After that we housed a bunch of apartments and met some cool people that used to be investigators. Then we had Eikaiwa and quite a bit of new people came! Way fun and good lesson. Thursday was the ZTM that Yamashita Choro came to. He is from the quorum of the 70 and is WAY cool. He spoke in English the whole time, but it wasn't for us gaijin missionaries, it was for the nihonjin missionaries to show them an example of working hard to learn English! He taught so much amazing stuff to us and it was way fun. I actually went to the Odori zone's ZTM instead of the Hakodate zone because they needed me to play the guitar for the musical number. Because of that I went on splits with my zone leader Olsen Choro. He is a boss and went to USU as well. He played the clarinet in the number. I felt the spirit so strong in the ZTM. Yamashita Choro spoke with so much power and actually reminded me a lot of Pres. Uchtdorf. It was also really fun to meet the missionaries in the other half of the mission. I've now officially met everyone in the mission at least right now. Yamashita Choro focused a lot on member relations, the younger generation, referrals, and lots of other really important things like how the doctrine of Christ ties into everything we do.

After ZTM I went on splits in Higashi which means "east" because it's the east part of Sapporo. It's the zone leader's area. I went with Hatch Choro who was the AP when I came to Japan. We just dendo'd for two hours, but it was really cool and fun. He is going home next transfer. That night we slept over in the Higashi apt and I got to hang out with Sasaki Choro a lot who is from my MTC group and I get along with him waaay good. Anyways the next morning I had to wake up at 5 to make the train to HAKODATE!!! I went with Olsen Choro and the train ride took a little over 3 hours, but it was WAY pretty! Would've been even better if there wasn't so much snow, but still sooo amazing... I'll put lots of pictures on. Anywho we got to Hakodate and rode on this little tram (kinda like in San Francisco, Hakodate has them everywhere) and while waiting met a really awesome high school girl who goes to a Christian school and ended up being WAY interested in the message. We were pretty suprised how interested actually. We passed her on to the Hakodate sisters to teach when they get back. After that I ate a GIANT hamburger at this store that's only in Hakodate called Lucky Pierrot. It was way big and good. Then we went to dendo and had a blast. There are so many cool people in Hakodate and it was really fun with Olsen Choro, because he used to be in Hakodate for 4 transfers. We visited some of his old investigators and one of them fed us! His name was Mikami and he was so cool. He is married with a way cute little kid. I totally forgot to take a picture. He wants to get baptized so bad. He's only been taught the first two lessons and word of wisdom, but he researched the church online and has such a strong testimony he wants to get baptized sooner with his family! He also liked me a ton because of my good Japanese. He wanted me to come back to Hakodate when he gets baptized hahaa.

After that we taught Hakodate's eikaiwa (which is the reason we came. the Hakodate missionaries had to go to their ZTM that day) and it was super fun. The members there are really strong as well. The next morning we woke up at 5 again with plans to eat this thing called the odori ika before the train left. Odori means dance (different from the Odori area) and ika means squid. Yes. It is eating a squid while it is still alive. I wanted to do it so bad because squid is one of my favorite foods. We got on the tram to go there and I met another cool guy who said he was going back to Sapporo that day too and he wanted to come with us to eat the odori ika. We went to the fish market, but the odori ika part wasn't open until later so he told us he would take us to a close by seafood place and pay for us. He was way cool! He had fluent English and lots of crazy stories about being in America. He wasn't very interested in the message, but knew a ton about it and us and respected us a ton. It was an incredible experience having someone spend around 40 dollars on you even though they just met you on the tram. After that we headed back to Toyohira where there was a wedding party for a member who got married in the temple. So much like an American wedding hahaha. Lots of great Okinawa and Hokkaido food though! Then we had a lesson with this kid who is 19 and a member of a church called toitsu from Korea. He doubts its teachings quite a bit and wants to hear how we think. A member who barely got back from his mission teamed up. After that we went to eat soup curry with the member we helped shovel snow before. Crazy day with lots of food! Sunday was great! Had missionary coordination meeting before church and Nakagawa came to church! He had a really good time and afterwards we taught him the doctrine of Christ and he understood it way well. After that was planning session and phone dendo! What a full week. There is so much of the Lord's work to do here it is overwhelming at times, but I'm glad He's pushing me forward to the places I need to be.

I LOVE YOU! AISHITEIMASU!
Hutchinson Choro

View on the train

Hamburger at lucky Pierrot

waiting for the tram in Hakodate

Squid that Sasaki bought us! He also bought us bowls of seafood donburi which is just seafood on rice. I got crab, shrimp, and sea urchin

Me, Olsen Choro, and Sasaki

Wedding party

Way cute kids at the wedding