6/15/14 Happy Father's Day!

Hey! Being in a 3 some is mostly for the mission president transition because I go home like a week and a half after Nakatsuka Kaicho and Shimai get here. I'm really lucky I get to meet them! It would've been fun to extend, but I think that was just me wanting to end my mission in the way I wanted to end it. What's more important is ending it how the Lord wants me to which is obviously the Honbu! I did talk to President Evans about it for like half a minute and he kinda said the same thing. I'm not bummed about it at all. I'm glad you are so trusting in the Lord and would've been okay with it if it were to happen! You are the best family. I'm so excited to spend time with you again. I'm definitely not excited to leave this wonderful place, but it will be wonderful to give everyone big hugs and play with Lily again.

I'm glad they sent the itinerary! Hopefully Haramai Shimai and maybe some other Chitose/Eniwa members can come see me off. :)

I have no idea where I will apply or even try applying at this point so there will probably be some time. I also don't really want to go back to USU unless there is nothing else to do.
The melon flavored melon pan is the best. In Nemuro they had a cantaloupe one that rules.
Sounds like you had an awesome Saturday! It's Father's day now right? I wrote dad a letter and I'll send it today. The house sounds like it will be crazy! Condie pool parties are definitely natsukashii... (nostalgic) I am kind of nervous to go to church in America hahaha. Thankfully Tomita E and Chiba E took the shimai clothes away to a recycle shop! It was great. :D

I'll try as far as pictures go! I feel like anything that happens here, Evans S gets pictures and puts them on facebook anyways w.

Here's the weeeeek
Monday was the Sapporo activity! We had a barbecue (I cooked) and then hiked Maruyama (round mountain) and it was fun. It reminded me of a YSA activity or something so I had to do my best to not get trunky wwww. We did some great streeting after that around Odori Park. Tuesday was an Asahikawa adventure! In the morning, kaicho was getting his visa renewed so we went to Andersen E's DTM that was pretty fun! It's always nice to be able to go to DTM. After that Chiba E needed someone to go with him to Asahikawa to sign off for a new sister's apartment and since we are a 3 man AP and the recorder is busy doing the job that normally 3 people do, I went with him! We mostly just rode the bus, I wrote note cards, and in Asahikawa said hi to Nishime E, Spurling E, and ate ramen that was amazing. Wednesday was ML kaigi. It went pretty good and we had a workshop on teaching people without a Christian background from PMG and it was mostly discussions on how we can teach our missionaries to do it better. Thursday was a long day in the office. I think... I can't really remember what happened on this day. We did do a lot of streeting at night around the honbu and Odori park. Friday was similar, but we did a lot of cleaning and preparation too because Ringwood Kaicho from the Asia North presidency came to give Kaicho his returning interview. He is a cool guy, but didn't remember meeting me when I was a bean w. Other than that, Lee E and I are owning microsoft excel. The spreadsheet I made from hearing reports got way more convenient. It was tiring to be in the office. We would've left, but someone had to stay with Denison E. That night we went to Moiwa because I had splits with Andersen E the next day! (He is a ZL now) I see him a ton lately, but it was really fun to talk and stuff again. We had decent splits the day after. It is so great to have a normal schedule! We did a bunch of streeting in these rich mountain neighborhoods. We found an older lady with great English who heard the Mormon Tabernacle choir before. We also saw a Rolls Royce. We stopped by a Matsuri that was nothing compared to the Nemuro one, before dendoing around Odori park. Matsuhashi E (Andersen E's comp) broke his bike so they had to stay at the honbu that night. Sunday was great! I was really tired, but the talks were super good and we had lessons on the sacrament and the oath and covenant of the priesthood. This cool inactive member who's about 19 came coz we invited him and I didn't think he was going to stay, but he did! He then came to the Pres Evans Fireside that we had after church! I sang with 3 other missionaries at that. Their talks were really awesome. Because of that though we didn't have a lot of time to do anything else! I am still a little sleepy, but am looking forward to doing something fun today! (probably shop or something0 btw! I had to buy new shoes(because I only had soft leather ones) and I found these really good ones that are waterproof that were on sale from 7000yen to 2000yen! wooo). :)
I love you tons and tons! Have a great week!!!
Aishiteimasu!
Hutchinson Choro

5/11/14 AP Adventures!

Hey! Tomita Choro has glasses. I only have one picture of him right now. (attached)
I'm glad I was able to share something that helped you out.

Evans Shimai takes pictures a lot, but they should all be on the mission facebook page.

I didn't get any pictures of the cherry blossoms... I just ran by them... Sorry :(

Asian star? hahaha Reminds me of all the wannabe American restaurants here.

Inhumanely proud? wow! hahaha

It's ok the mail was short because we got to talk on the phone.

Here's what happened this week.

On Monday we hung out here for a bit and then ate at MATSURIYA!!! It's one of my favorite sushi places from Nemuro and Kushiro, but there is one in Sapporo too! It was almost exactly the same :D
We were way tired that day and did phone dendo afterwards.
Tuesday we did some office stuff and a bunch of streeting! It was pretty neat and we met some really nice people. I'm surprised how many people listen. Everyone always made it sound so hard in the city.
Wednesday we had our first transfer talk. It was really stressful at first, but I realized that we didn't pray first. The next day we continued it, but I suggested we pray first and it went WAY better.
We had a stake coordination that night as well. Thursday we drove to Obihiro and had an interesting experience. We ran out of gas and had to have a guy come bring us gas at 10:30. The splits the next day were way awesome! I worked with Fukushima E and he told me a lot about how awesome stuff is going in Nemuro! We drove back and had the Kotoni talent show that went great! Church was also awesome because we had ward conference. Tomita E and I taught a lesson in primary and it was awesome!
I love being a missionary! I'm out of time!

Aishiteimasu!
Hutchinson Choro

Elder Tomita (with Elder & Sister Aoyagi)

at the airport pickup with President and all the new incoming missionaries

Welcome dinner for new missionaries at the honbu

recent mission leader conference

with the outgoing missionaries at the airport

5/4/14 Successful ML Kaigi

Hey!!!! I'm trying to remember what happened this week.
Thanks for your email!!! I'm way stoked for the Takaras! That sounds way cool about the ward getting bigger. I hope lots of people are able to go on missions! The senior couple here is leaving this month and there will almost be a whole transfer that we have no senior couple because there aren't enough sr. missionaries. I probably won't recognize half the people in the ward though, huh hahah.

Speaking of Vietnamese and Japanese, Nguyen E and Sakamura E (in Nemuro) are teaching so many it's ridiculous. Van S is going crazy with dendo.

It is still hard to find dendo time, but we are doing our best and I'm feeling more satisfied with what I can do. I am definitely learning a ton. I have to learn to be better and finding things to do when I get other things done.
Anyways...

I still haven't been taking any pictures, but we saw some amazing sakura by the giant shrine this morning when we went running. I got the shorts at uniqlo and no I wasn't freezing because it was inside, plus it's way warm now. I bought short sleeves at uniqlo the other day as well.

Thank you for the prayers!!! Thanks to all the prayers, this transfer there have been 6 baptisms so far. Based on the reports we have, there are a ton of baptismal dates, but at least 8 more will probably be baptized this transfer! It might literally be an all time record for the mission.

This week on Monday we hung out, went to the eki with a few other missionaries and I bought shirts. I think we prepared for a stake meeting or something that night. Tuesday we met to have a preparation meeting for Elder Christofferson coming. We also prepared a ton for mission leader kaigi (conference) the next day. A bunch of missionaries slept over. It actually went really good and a lot of people said it was their favorite ml kaigi so far. That night we had the stake meeting over skype for Asahikawa stake. Thursday we followed up with beans and got a lot of stuff done in advance for Elder Christofferson. Then we did some phone dendo. Friday I went on splits in Moiwa with Elder Inoue and it was pretty fun! Moiwa is probably the most metropolitan area in the whole mission. The funny thing is that all of their investigators and recent converts are grandmas hahaha. I biked all over and it felt great. Inoue E is way fun too.

Saturday was Elder Tomita's b-day. We sang to him and gave him cake etc. Randomly, a bunch of RM's showed up so that was pretty fun! We did lots of computer stuff and made some time for phone dendo. Sunday at church was good. It's way different to be at a church with other missionaries. There are 8 missionaries in Kotoni. Crazy. It's pretty big though. We had a way good AB lesson with Tadano B and a member actually taught him this time! His name is Kumagai B and we had dinner with him that night! It was super fun and spiritual. He used to be bishop.

Anyways I'm out of time, but love you so much!!!!
Aishiteimasu!
Hutchinson Choro

2/9/14 Zone Conference

So I'll just start with the week. Monday was music practice at the Honbu again. Then we came back and tried to visit some old investigators. The next day I went on splits with the Japanese AP Asai E who is really cool and fun. We just did lots of finding. Even though we weren't able to teach many real lessons, I learned a lot from his style and example. We had pizza hut for dinner because it was half off day and so that was pretty good. The next day I went on splits in Ebetsu with Shoell E who is 6'7" and way cool. Super obedient good example. We did lots of finding and found some pretty cool college kids. He just barely transferred in and didn't know the area super well + it was crazy cold, but we found some good things to do. Next day was running all over. We went back to Iwamizawa, set up for Eikaiwa (some other missionaries came to teach it for us) ate dinner, and headed back to Sapporo for more music practice. Friday was Zone conference and the mental and physical health representatives came and did workshops that were pretty good. They have this new "adjusting to missionary life" book that is really great. Otherwise I was super tired, but I still got a lot out of it. That night we went to Yuki Matsuri (snow festival) and it was pretty disappointing compared to last year. There were still lots of giant snow sculptures and stuff, but maybe I'm just used to that already, haha. We stayed the night w/ Toyohira elders and that was pretty cool for me. I called up some of my old investigators there to encourage them to meet with the missionaries again, so that was neat.

Saturday we were back in Iwamizawa and we met Hayashi again! He is a boss for sure. He told us how 1 year ago in Taiwan, he met missionaries and gave them his information for his home in Hokkaido, but they never came. We taught him the rest of the restoration and about the BofM and challenged him to be baptized and he accepted! He's gonna be such a cool member. After that we headed to Bibai, but weren't able to meet anyone we wanted + it was basically too cold for us to do anything so we hung out in the eki to try to get the planning for zone training meeting done. Still lots to do. That'll be on the 18th. Sunday was pretty nice. Church went good and the stake president came. I gave a talk on the work of salvation and apparently the members got really pumped up by it so I was really happy about that. Basically what Pres. Evans wants us to focus on is not telling members "hey, we need you to do missionary work already!" or "do missionary work this way!" but to find out what kind of dendo they want to do and help them to do it. Also I'm getting a bit better at JSL (Japanese sign language) so that's been fun translating. After church we rode with Adachi Kaicho to visit some NA's and investigators of ours he has been wondering about. Nothing too special happened with any of them, but he was real happy to be able to work with us even just a little. We were too, especially because of the temperature. It's anywhere from -14c to -30c and there isn't much you can do about it clothes or hand warmer wise. You just have to do things in increments I think. It's completely different from last winter, but I'llbe able to make it through just fine :)

So anyways thanks for the pics! Where did you get the really bad pic of my face? The picture of the temple (construction) is way cool! To let you know, I don't get updated on that AT ALL. All I know is when I leave it still has like a year and a half before it gets finished. I haven't even seen the spot where it's being built. Your mini vacation is going to Sharon's wedding right? I hope that goes well. I want to live in Okinawa some day. The climate is probably similar, but I think there are a lot less dangerous storms.

Anyways. Yeah, Hokkaido needs way more missionaries. It is the smallest mission in Japan population-wise, but what I hear from other missionary friends in Japan is that basically every area in their mission has AT LEAST two elders and two sisters. Next transfer 14 missionaries go home and only 10 come in so we're going down a little bit more again. I:m sure the church has a plan for what they want to happen here, but I feel like it's pretty tough right now at least here... We did go up like 35-ish missionaries since this time last year so maybe they just have to do things more gradually. We'll see where things go by the time I leave. Thanks for your testimony about still being able to get all the important things done. I know that's true!
Mission leader council? I thought told you about it when I went w/ Hatch E, but it's just like a meeting with all the zone leaders, APs, and the 2 sister leaders. We talk about what the mission needs and then have a workshop from the APs.

I'm excited for all the great things happening and that is super cool of dad to lose weight! After new years here I have to work out more... But it's nothing really haha.

Love you tons too!!! Happy valentines day!

aishiteimasu!!!!!!
Hutchinson Choro


Some older photos taken by Elder Hatch:

I have no idea what this big thing is :)

Teaching via train window

A very large icicle!

Cool unidentified family (I hope he tells us next week)

Snow

Lots of Snow

And still higher Snow

2/2/14 Coldhot

Time doesn't feel like it's going fast, but every time I look, it's already gone...!

I'm glad everyone is finding fun stuff to do. I don't know how excited I am for chocolate cake day though... Sing along screening (of Frozen)? That's interesting. I'm glad Mara is making time to go to the temple. Do you know if Adam gets to go to the temple in his mission? I'm way excited to go. I'm also for sure proud of Mara's bargain skills. There's definitely a lot of clothes I want to try to snag here before I head home though. The zone is pretty much fine. I just wish we didn't have to go on splits so much because our poor area hardly gets any dendo time. Even if we find anyone cool it's hard to find time to meet them again :p We don't have DL responsibilities anymore, but there are more other things that make me feel like I'm even more busy than last transfer. Keep encouraging and praying for the missionaries in the ward for me! The translation means: happiness, isn't it? (Mom asked him to translate something) Makes more sense in Japanese. If I knew the context there's probably a better phrase.

I'll see what I can do about two weeks ago. Not anything too special happened before Hatch E left from what I remember. After that Dixon E and I made plans to focus on our area more (since we thought we would have less responsibilities... oh well). But because of that we headed out on Friday to find by the college and found some really cool students and stuff. It was a really fun area to dendo. We also found a guy who is a college professor named Hayashi. He's way cool and he seemed a little different, but he was way nice. On Saturday we went to Bibai and did some finding there and found a WAY cool family called the Hisatsunes. We made a weak appointment through the intercom, but as we were writing down, the dad from down the street walks up to us and asks us if we can speak Japanese. We say we do and have a pretty conversation with him and explain what we're doing. He thinks we're really awesome and is pretty interested so he introduces his son to us who is about 22 and way cool! He used to go to college in another part of Japan there and went to church at the time. Got their numbers and made an appt so that was pretty cool. Sunday was the normal translating into sign language and getting lots of food from members. We also had some ok finding. Monday was a pretty awesome p-day. We went to an onsen and a big mall with the Ebetsu elders. The onsen was WAY nice and cool because they had some out door pools as well with snow falling around.

That night we dendo'd a bit around the church and then got on the train to Asahikawa. I went on splits with Fukushima E who is awesome. He is working way hard as DL there. We did lots of finding and it was fun because he is really motivated. Wednesday morning we had a crazy adventure getting up way early, running through a blizzard, and riding a long train back to Sapporo in order to make it to mission leader council which was really awesome as usual. I felt like everything was said right to me. It basically took all day so we didn't have time to dendo when we got home. Thursday we went back to the college area and met Hayashi again. Turns out that he is from Taiwan! He married and a Nihonjin and graduated with a doctor's degree at Hokkaido university, but he's also fluent in English. We talked to him in his house. He told us his life story and we taught him a short, but really good lesson. We also showed him the Book of Mormon and he committed to read it before we could even ask him to. He is pretty kinjin so we're excited about him.

Friday was having the Takikawa Elders come on splits in Iwamizawa. I went with Kojima E who is a bit younger as a missionary, but a way cool guy. He went to Snow college for a year studying English! We did a lot of finding and had fun, but had to run for shelter in stores sometimes when the blizzards got bad. Saturday was originally planned to do a lot of dendo, but we had a stake coordination meeting that we had to go to and it took a lot of time to prepare for. We went to all of our Bibai appts, but we had to go super early so they were almost all not home. We did meet a really cool guy named Nagae though. We also found out that Yamashita didn't get his job and still can't come to church. Otherwise he's doing good. The stake meeting was actually pretty fun and went well. It helped to know more of what the Stake wants us to do as missionaries. There are a lot of wards and branches that don't have enough priesthood to have ward mission leaders or other callings like that, so it's pretty tough for some missionaries to work with the members, but I guess that's what finding new members is for, kana?

Sunday was good! It was fast Sunday and Adachi showed up randomly again! She went to Hawaii on her business trip and ended up meeting a bunch of RM's at the Polynesian cultural center! One of which (her group's guide) served here in Iwamizawa for a long time. She had been puzzled(?) about how many random meetings she had been having with the church and came with lots of really good questions. We had a great lesson with her at church about the spirit. She won't commit to a baptismal date right now, but she has a ton of promise!

That's about it! Thanks and love you!

Aishiteimasu
Hutchinson Choro

12/22/13 Way Too Amazing Timing, Several Times

Hey! It's been fun being a zone leader, but surreal. It's really cool to work in other areas and with lots of other missionaries. I told you about the Christmas party last week, didn't I? I didn't get any pics so I'll send some from Hatch E's camera. I'm jealous you got the mission CD. We don't get it until Christmas :P That's too bad about Grandma and I hope she gets doing better. Do you think she'll be around when I get back? You work on Christmas eve? hahah That's like Japan. Won't Mara be home then? I'm looking forward to the call too! BTW I have my own phone now as a ZL so we don't have to worry about coordinating time. Therefore, if you want to call earlier than 9 (my time) feel free to do so because I'll have time. After that is district meeting etc, but yeah. I hope your Christmas lesson goes well! Not gonna lie I probably have the hardest time teaching out of manuals... Sometimes they just get too complicated. I'm WAY stoked for Michael!!!!! That's way boss! Nice!!! Also I don't have any addresses on me so I'll tell you next week (Stilson E, etc) Stilson E going home was depressing because he is one of my favorite missionaries ever. He did go a transfer early for school, but yeah.

Also, I got the package!!! The stuff is way awesome!!!! The Sufjan Stevens cd's are way amazing (though there are a bunch of random non-missionary songs on there I have to filter out... same with the singles ward [I think the rm soundtrack was a little less heavy hahaha!], but that's what SD cards are for! :)) Also please give me the track listing for the random blank cd you gave me. I was super super super happy though. Pretty much all my favorite Christmas candy and I am almost done with the last journal I was using so that new one will do great. The sweater is awesome too! I don't know if I was supposed to wait til Christmas, but I'm almost sure I wouldn't be able to wait anyways haha. Thank you tons and love you!

THE WEEK
P-day wasn't anything too special. We kinda chilled here, found, and went to Ebetsu in preparation for splits and DTM. Tuesday DTM went great and I went on splits with Brackner E who is a bean and way awesome. He has a lot of confidence so even though he is younger in Japanese and missionary stuff he does his best to participate and learn fast which is way way cool. We had Eikaiwa there that night as well. There are some pretty nice members there too. Wednesday was Mission Leader Conference which was pretty cool. I felt old. We talked a lot about what we'll do for zone conference and how all the zones are doing. Kaicho is such a boss and always answers our questions using the white handbook, PMG, or the scriptures. Anyway that was practically all day. We got to eat Costco pizza for lunch. Thursday we did some finding and then members took us out to sushi and made us eat a ton. It was good, but Kushiro/Nemuro sushi is of course still the best in the world. After that we had a makeshift DKK and then went to meet Yamashita before Eikaiwa with a member. We went over what we taught before and then made a baptismal date with him! He actually chose the date himself because he really wants to get baptized, but also know more about the church and know it's the right decision first.

English class went great and then we headed to Asahikawa. IT'S HUGE! Of course not as big as Sapporo, but I was surprised. BUT on the way there, super miracle. We were waiting for the train and this guy comes up to us and is like, hey I used to live in St George! And we're like what? Turns out he got baptized 30 years ago, but because of bad relations with other people in the church at the time he quit. However we talked to him the entire train ride and he still remembers everything about the church. He basically still has a testimony and stuff. Anyway we told him about how much the church has grown in Japan and he got pretty excited about it. He said he would consider coming to church again and we gave him a new BoM. He lives in Asahikawa so we gave his info to the elders when we got there. Also he looks almost exactly like dad, but Japanese. Even he thought so! (I showed him pics) Asahikawa splits were fun (I went with 4th transfer Strachan E who is Canadian and way strong testimony). We also did Eikaiwa there as well (3 in one week! It's all we can do with so little time to do splits because of the holidays) Asahikawa is a way awesome area though! Saturday we came home and were way tired, but we finished DKK and then headed out to this kinda far away area to contact a referral. There was no map of that area so we asked people in town and they drew us a map and were way nice and everything, but it was about a 40 minute walk a way (on top of almost pure ice, but we're used to that already hahaha) so we started to walk and it was getting dark but there was nothing else we could do. After maybe 10 mins. this car pulls over and asks "are you Mormons? We'll give you a lift!" Turns out missionaries saved their kid's life or something a long time ago. They took us to the referral (who wasn't home) and then all the way back to Iwamizawa! (a little ways away) It was a couple and the mom actually works with some people who are members in Sapporo! She actually invited us to her work party which we are probably going to tonight. It was pretty crazy timing that we met them and they were really happy to meet us.

Sunday was great too. Yamashita came to church and had a great time. After church a way awesome NA named Kazama B came. He used to be in the branch presidency, but had hard stuff at work. Sounds like he wants to try to come more actively from now on though! We got so much stinkin candy in our fruit basket I think I'm gonna pass out, but it's pretty awesome. We had some good cold dendo that night and a great time getting everyone's reports! This work is overflowing with miracles! Christmas is awesome! I feel like I'm really bad at giving material gifts, but I want to be better at giving spiritual gifts or gifts of service.

Aishiteimasu!
Hutchinson Choro

Santa!

Weird, gross, foam candy

Japanese Christmas (KFC is THE popular thing at Christmas there)

Members want to eat us so they are fattening us up (did he mean, 'the members want us to eat?' I hope so)