1/19/13 Japanese Will Ferrell

Hey! I'll see if I can get some pictures (of snow) this time. I forgot my camera again though. I am actually pretty sure that today is a normal p-day :) Yeah, everything was pretty good this week. Just tons of train time. We only went to Asahikawa (2nd area called Suehiro) and Wakkanai. (Plus Ebetsu for DTM but we go there every week.)

Silly mom! You know that if you have Japanese you want translated you don't ask google when you have a Japanese missionary right here haha. Akira Tsunoka is the branch president from Nemuro. Keep doing your best on the clean house!

Sounds like there were a lot of cool miracles as far as being helped by relatives and friends. That's so nice :D

SO I guess here's the week! Monday we got home late from the Honbu because of the forever music practice + having to do email there so all we could do here was a little planning. Tuesday we went to Ebetsu and had a good DTM on teaching to people, not just teaching lessons, done by me. It went good and we ended it early so we could make our train to Wakkanai. It was pretty long. We went to Asahikawa and transferred there to a smaller train. For some reason it was crazy packed and we had to stand for like four hours, but we met a really nice high school student. He's from Kagoshima (south Japan) and he came up here for this high school in this WAY middle of nowhere place (1000 people maybe) called Otoineppu. He didn't seem like he wanted to talk at first, but when his stop came up he came back up to us and started to ask us what we were doing here and seemed pretty interested. I hope he meets missionaries again someday. We got to Wakkanai at about 6:45 ish and I worked with Sakihara E for a bit that night. He is super strong and diligent. He is almost on his last transfer and just got finished done being AP before leaving to open Wakkanai. We worked way hard the next day and even though all we had to do was housing, we made a ton of appts and got lots of lessons in the doorway. Way fun because it's been a while since I got to work with another companion like that! We also had Institute there that night. Wakkanai's branch is pretty small (smaller than Nemuro) but they have institute classes every Wednesday. There we got to meet the members and recent convert Shibuya B who looks like Will Ferrell! He is way funny and cool and has a super strong testimony. He also rides his bike everywhere even in the snow. He named his bike Milk Cocoa express (it used to be called Milk Coffee express, but then he learned the WofW!)

Next morning we took a faster train home, got some study and planning + Eikaiwa done and then headed to Asahikawa! Friday was splits with Goddard E who is way cool. He used to be in a pretty rough situation (he lived in LA and was a pretty big stoner/partier) but he came back to the church and completely changed and gave up all the bad things right away! He is super cool and has such an incredible testimony he pretty much shares nonstop. We got along pretty good. Also his Grandfather is the explorer John Goddard. I don't know if you've heard of him. I hadn't. haha We had a pretty fun day! First we taught a Baptist minister from Wisconsin! He is pretty nice and was really open. He's reading the BoM quite a bit as well as other church books. He had lots of questions and we were able to answer them with the scriptures pretty well, but he set on his beliefs (and unfortunately, employment) so even when we showed him proof in the BofM and Bible about the need for baptism he was pretty steadfast. Super nice guy though! I also helped teach Eikaiwa there and that was pretty fun too! Not to mention I finally got to eat Naan and Indian curry again :)

Next morning we came home and went to visit a really nice NA and then head to Bibai to do some finding and meet Yamashita. He is doing way good faith wise, but is in really dire straits money wise. He had his heater on the lowest setting and had to cut off his phone bill. We worked with the branch pres to get him some rice and an electric blanket so hopefully that'll help him out. He is 59 and is having a really hard time searching for a job despite being really smart and fluent in English. Otherwise in his lessons he almost seems like he is already a member sometimes. He says he hasn't been able to read the BofM much, but sometimes in the middle of our talks he'll bring up random BofM stories! (i.e. we were talking about how so many people deny the existence of God and he said "I wonder if they'll end up like Korihor?")

Sunday was pretty all right. Church went good, but none of our investigators were able to make it. After church we also weren't able to meet our other investigators we usually meet on Sunday so we had some decent finding. I feel so bad for our poor area. Because they are only ZLs here most of the time it's not getting dendo'd at all! We had dinner with the Oota couple and Kaneko B and it was pretty fun. They are way cool and down to earth. The couple was recently married last year so that's cool.

That's pretty much the week though. Thanks for all your faith, prayers, love, and support! Love you times a million!
Aishiteimasu!
Hutchinson Choro

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

10/20/13 More typhoons and more miracles!

Hey! It has been another pretty great/crazy week again! We spent a lot of time not-in-Nemuro again, but it was good! On Monday we went to Kushiro again. I bought my rain suit/back pack cover that's way sweet. I also walked around a bunch. I went on mini splits w/ Yoshikawa E again that night and met this guy we taught last time I went with him. Tuesday we got up way early and rode the train to Obihiro for zone conference. There were some way good workshops on the spirit, comp relationships, and helping all the young missionaries with Japanese hahaha. It really was awesome though and a lot of it really answered my prayers. I love being in Nemuro, but because of how separated it is, it's so crazy how fun it is to meet other missionaries again. We also had Morgan E's bean shower. Very different from how mine was. No Japanese and no singing as sisters in Zion in Japanese, but whateva. It's probably better that way ;) It is really great that so many new missionaries are coming, but sad when other missionaries die... Especially Japanese ones. I feel like I get along with them the best/like the diversity. We went back to Kushiro and I streeted there a bit w/ Morgan E. Wednesday I went on splits w/ French E and it was the craziest typhoon of my life. Luckily I had my new rain suit and it protected me pretty well. We walked through it pretty much all day and even though we made it to a few of the people we wanted to visit everyone was like "you're crazy! go home! we can talk when the weather is better!" hahahaha Thankfully the member we visited let us come in to dry off, and gave us dinner out of nowhere. He is way awesome btw. He kept showing us stuff on facebook. If you ever get a chance will you put up a new profile pic for me? Maybe even change my current location to Nemuro or something. That'd be fun.

Thursday we went back to Nemuro and then had weekly planning session. Friday was a pretty good/awesome day of dendo! Cool miracle too. This girl randomly runs up to us and asks us why we are in Japan. I explain who we are and she gets really excited and starts speaking to us in fluent English about how she just moved to Nemuro for work and really wants to practice her English. We invited her to Eikaiwa and she came! She even turned down a drinking party haha. But anyways after class she was really curious about what made us decide to be missionaries and it was a great opportunity to bear my testimony to her. Maybe she'll become an investigator soon! :o

Saturday was nice too. Lots of housing and trying to visit non-attendings/investigators to invite them to the baptism which went WAY good! Okuchi Shimai hasn't been feeling well lately and wasn't able to come to church which was sad, but Van came in this traditional Vietnamese dress and enjoyed the lessons really well! The baptism happened after church and there were some great talks and a song from the primary. Then I did the baptism and confirmation and it was really awesome and spiritual. The best was her testimony afterwards. She is such a boss. I can't wait to do lots of missionary work with her! I also want to make sure that I keep working with Okuchi Shimai enough as well to keep her strong! So after church we had a little potluck and Van brought some pretty good Vietnamese food. We headed out to dendo and this investigator that we haven't been able to visit for 3 weeks (Hebikawa) has been reading the BoM the whole time! Little by little, but she's through 1st Nephi! We had a good short lesson with her and then saw Van again because she wanted to give us more Vietnamese food. She also introduced us to her Mom and little sister over skype! It was way cool/funny. I realized that moms are the same no matter where in the world they are. That's it though!

Glad stuff is great at home too. I'm definitely good here on medicine and stuff. You made sure of that before I left ;) It has been cold here though and the typhoons blow all the leaves off the trees. I bet Mya's primary program is gonna be sweet!!! That's also way tough with Lily and all... :( Let me know how she is. I'm still definitely thinking about the future and nothing is decided, but if you could maybe ask Bro. Proctor if he has any advice for possibly going into auto to eventually work with a Japanese company that would be cool. I still really want to study music and all, but I think having options will be a good thing. Thanks for leaving the note on Andrus Kaicho's stuff.

Glad to hear about how well Mara and church lessons are going! I really wanted to mail Adam as well, but I'm out of time ;( Let him know that I think his attitude about the work is way awesome. Also that I'm glad he isn't in a car mission because biking is real work B)

I love you tons and am grateful for all your prayers and love! Tell the young Baird family congrats! crazy.
Aishiteimasu
Hutchinson Choro

New rain suit just in time for the typhoon

At church with Morgan E and Van on her baptism day

Baptism day for Van!

Morgan E's bean shower!

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

10/6/13 Working hard w/ Morgan E and more Vietnamese adventures!

Whoa! Your letter this week had a lot of pretty eventful things! Lots of awesome things and a few really tough sounding things, but I'm always happy to hear about what's going on. Uncle Merril (Braden's uncle who passed away this week) is definitely in my prayers along with his family. I'm grateful I got to spend a bit of time with him before I left giving him blessings w/ dad etc. He and his awesome example to everyone in the family and all the scouts that he helped out will never be forgotten. Tell everyone on dad's side hi for me. I'm way excited for Adam to get into the field and I'm glad that he's going to go out to see tons of real miracles! We were watching "the district" the other day and I realized that the mission they have in there is one in Texas so I wondered if it'd be really similar to Adam's. The district is a missionary training video, btw. (Note: The one Adam watched was set in San Diego?)

Dad looks good with his old mission pres! Is he growing out his beard again? Haha maybe it's because he isn't wearing his glasses, but he looks a little tired. Probably just working super hard huh? That's cool you got to spend time with missionaries! All the time here I think about how I hardly ever got to meet missionaries more than maybe a couple times a year at most and I'm so excited that you get to see/hear from them often! I'm especially excited that there was another baptism for the people that live behind us! Wow!!! I can't believe so much missionary work is happening around West Valley. I feel like I never really got to experience it except for maybe Sheriann, etc. I'm excited to participate a lot when I get home! Of course I don't know how long I'll be in WVC with school and everything haha.

SO here's the week!
First off, yesterday the Zone leaders came to give Van her baptismal interview and she passed!!! She actually had a meeting on Sunday morning and said she'd be late to church so we waited the whole time and she never came! I was really really nervous and was praying hard the whole time she'd be able to come. Evans Kaicho actually visited as well to do some business and stuff, and he said that as long as we could meet her that day it was the priority. So we just waited after church and tried to get in contact with her. Finally around 2pm I found out her meeting just got over and she would come to the church right away after getting some errands done. Her errands ending up taking longer than we thought so there was more waiting, more praying, and more being nervous. She showed up around 4:30 and the interview went great! I was looking forward to going on splits with the ZL Watanabe E who is way cool, but it ended up being waiting, having her baptismal interview, and going home. She introduced us to 2 new friends and we walked them back to their dorm. She introduces us to lots of friends and we have a stockpile of Vietnamese BofM's, pamphlets, etc. now so we are excited to do missionary work with her too!

I kinda put that first because it's the biggest news I think. Her baptism will be either next week after conference or the Sunday after that!
So last Monday was a decent P-day. I was really tired for some reason and it was really rainy. We did a "heart attack" to the Ozawa family and Okuchi S as a challenge from the zone leaders to do something nice for ward members that help you out a lot. We also had a lesson with this cool guy named Kantou who is from Fukuoka and teaches high school. We actually got into a really deep conversation about God's commandments etc. and he asked really hard questions! Hopefully I was able to get inspiration from the spirit and end with a pretty good feeling. I think he has a lot of potential. One of the questions he asked is "Are you trying to be like Jesus?" which isn't a deep question really, but I was really surprised when it came out of nowhere and I had only talked about Jesus a little bit before. I feel like he's researching the church on his own or something... Tuesday was great and DTM was good too! I was able to get everyone to participate more which can be pretty tough when everyone is on the other side of the phone. We had a lot of good follow-up lessons and we did a lot to help our not-so-strong (yet) investigators to remember to read the BofM! We taught the plan of salvation to Okuchi S as her AB lesson and as a practice lesson for Morgan E. Her understanding is getting better and better! Funny story. That morning we watched some videos about using family history for dendo. We discussed afterwards about how hard it is in Japan because not THAT many people in Japan are interested in it/it's really hard to search your ancestors in Japan because most records aren't public. BUT when we taught the plan of salvation to Okuchi S we felt prompted to tell her about it and she got really excited! She's especially really excited to find names and take them to the temple someday! I kinda feel like Heavenly Father came up and said "yeah huh you can use family history in your dendo!!!" Haha I thought it was pretty cool.
Wednesday we met this guy from before named Tominaga and passed him a BofM. We had to get through a lot of just talking to him to get him to open up even a little though. He is lonely and likes talking a lot. I really hope he reads though! Same with all our other investigators! We had DKK the next day and it was crazy because of how many investigators we have. We have to choose who to focus on and it is tough because I just want to help everyone. Who woulda thought in this little area, hahaha.

That night it was really rainy, but we met with Van to have her practice baptism interview underneath the eave of a post office because there were no places we could go nearby protected from the rain. She did super amazing and her testimony is way strong. I feel like it just came out of nowhere, but that's what happens when you actually follow all the commandments I guess! Friday was lots of finding and lots of cool people! Oh yeah Thursday night we tried going to this matsuri in a far offish area and it was alright. Not very big at all, but I should've expected that from such a small outskirt town. We did a little shizen and actually met a guy who was an old investigator. When we left he chased us down to give us hotdogs because he thought we looked hungry. Saturday we had a lot of finding and a lot of follow up type lessons. I want them to read and pray soooo bad!!!! AhhhhH!!!!! I know when they do it's going to bless them, but everyone has such a hard time making the choice and making the time... They definitely will someday though!
Anyway I'm in Kushiro right now. We have a district activity today and then tomorrow we get to have DTM in person!!!!!!!!!!! Yay! :) I'll make sure to get some good pics.

I love you tons and the gospel is 100000% true!
Aishiteimasu!
Hutchinson Choro

These are pictures of us with the ZLs, and Watanabe E and me with Van and her friends:

9/29/13 District conference and other awesome stuff

Hey! Thanks for the mail as always! Conference won't be until the weekend after next for me. What do you mean about Priesthood being live streamed? Is it not always like that? Mara looks pretty good! Starting to look like Lauren a lot I think :) Sounds like that date was pretty fun though! Glad Hunter is doing well in football again. Also I bet Granger is huge!

The district is Me and Morgan E and then 6 missionaries in Kushiro. Inoue E and Yoshikawa E (his bean on his 2nd transfer), Miyaki E and French E, then Sugihara S (half Japanese, but raised in America) and Baker S. They are all way awesome. It's crazy though that I'm the oldest (missionary wise) out of everybody. I have to be a big example and stuff. Not to mention prepare all the DTMs/go on splits with everyone, but it'll be way cool. Me and Morgan E get along great, but I think we are pretty different. I think partially he is still getting adjusted to Japan and stuff.

So for this week last P-day was a lot of fixing my bike and going shopping for stuff with Morgan E. Also we had FHE at the Ozawa's and it was way fun. They had Morgan E do the lesson and it was a bit tough for him so I helped him, but it went great. We played some fun games and had a great time. I had to call lots of missionaries on the phone, copy music, etc in order to get ready for the mini music fireside after the district conference on Sunday. Tuesday I had my first DTM and I feel like it went really well. Of course there are still lots of ways to improve, but I definitely was able to take up all the time with no problem. We met Hayasaka who is an investigator who has a hair salon and lived in Europe for a while. She is super nice and really interested in us, but not so much the gospel quite yet. Because of that we do our best to get the gospel into regular conversations with her. This time around we ended up teaching her half the plan of salvation so hopefully it sticks! We have committed her to pray as well so we'll keep doing our best w/her. We ran around to some appointments and ended up doing a bit of finding. I also introduced Morgan E to Tatsuya since we were nearby and he is doing great still. We taught a lesson to Abe and his wife (plan of salvation) and it went pretty good. Abe still has a lot of doubts especially about his own ability to believe, but we encouraged and praised him a lot and I think it is starting to make a change in him. We also swung by Van's company to give her juice that we bought to help her keep the word of wisdom.

Wednesday was pretty great too. Until it got all typhoon-y again. But before then we were able to have a really good morning study and meet with a guy named Tominaga. It was a little tricky to get into a lesson with him, but we were able to talk about a lot of our beliefs and remind him of the stuff he had heard from missionaries in the past particularly Joseph Smith. Then it got really rainy and we were trapped in the house... we still used time to get other important things done though! Thursday was a good/longish day in the apartment with DKK. It went pretty smooth and Morgan E is great at thinking of the needs of investigators and helping to plan for them. We stopped by Okuchi S to talk to her about working together to help Van get to baptism. She actually volunteered to help us out! She has been doing WAY good lately and her testimony is ridiculously strong. We also talked about other ways she can dendo and she is bringing her friends kids w/her to Eikaiwa! The sunset was crazy pretty that day. Morgan E got some nice pics I think. All the people we wanted to visit that night were either sick or busy so we streeted around the "mall" for a while and got some good contacts. Then we went by Van's to actually give her a bicycle... haha! A member had an extra bike and she had been talking about how she wanted one so we delivered it to her. She was way happy and forced us to let her buy us food at a convenience store. We stopped on the side of the road to follow up on her reading etc. and she has been reading consistently everyday. She basically bore her testimony about how her life has gotten so much better since she started reading and coming to church. She still has somethings she didn't understand about the priesthood and Joseph Smith, but we were able to address those concerns for the most part. She prayed in Japanese for the first time and it was really good.

Friday we tried finding in a different part of town and it went alright. We were able to teach some decent doorway lessons too. We got ready for and taught Eikaiwa which was awesome as usual. Did however find out that one of our really good students is moving to Tokyo which was sad, but he wants to keep going to Eikaiwa there as well! Also I found out the Pres. Andrus (who went to America because his dad died) fainted and got life flighted to the emergency room! He is at university hospital and apparently in way bad shape. I have been praying for him lots. Saturday morning we got a call from Hayasaka because she needed help building a chest of drawers. We helped her out and were actually able to get a better lesson in and pass her the Book of Mormon. She seemed pretty excited about trying it out. We also met this lady again named Minato who Andersen E and I found. She let us in and gave us this really good peach flavored water and we taught her a short lesson. Her family was there and all of a sudden a friend came over and it got all crazy so we had to end the lesson short, but we gave her a pamphlet and she said to come again anytime! We had some really good finding then as well. We followed up with a few other investigators Itou and Itakura and then went to teach Nakagawa. Nakazawa B teamed up and it went pretty well. He is kinda old and forgot parts of the first lesson, but we reviewed them and then taught L2 plan of salvation. He really wants to be purified by baptism and go to the celestial kingdom! When Nakazawa B was bearing his testimony about how baptism changed him he brought up the word of wisdom which we didn't plan on teaching right off. Nakagawa was a bit surprised, but we explained it to him pretty well. It seems like he won't have a problem with anything besides coffee. He seems to like it a lot. We'll have to work with him lots to help him overcome it! Otherwise he seems pretty resolute on doing his best. We had some decent phone dendo that night and when we ran out we decided to street around the house for a while.

Sunday was awesome. Woke up early to meet Van and go to the church to ride in the branch pres's car to Kushiro! In the car I was able to follow up a lot/teach her all the remaining commandments/lessons. It doesn't seem like anything will be a problem! She is starting to get more sure about wanting to be baptized and she has even talked to her parents/family about it and they are so happy about how much happier she:s become. She said they want me to go to Vietnam to meet them. District conference itself was WAY awesome! Almost everyone had been fasting or praying for Andrus Kaicho to get well. It was super great to see everybody again and also to hear all the awesome talks! Okuchi S gave a WAY awesome testimony and blew pretty much everyone away. The other talks were a youth speaker who had a big change of heart and decided to serve a mission+an awesome sister from Kushiro who is leaving to Sendai mission in 2 weeks! Then Pres. and Sister Evans spoke and Sister Evans had the coolest experience with her brother who had left the church coming back! He had gone off on a crazy path and had lots of money trouble, but her other brother decided to show him a talk about tithing. It changed his heart and he did everything he could to pay all the tithing he owed since he had gone astray. However in order to do so he had to get rebaptized. Anyways way awesome story and it focused on tithing a lot so it made it that much easier to help Van understand! Evans Kaicho's talk had a focus on tithing and also on becoming more Christlike. Afterwards we had a big picnic with everyone. A member from Obihiro (not even in the Kushiro district) who has a farm brought a TON of vegetables for everyone to take home! Literally probably a ton. We then started the music fireside and it went awesome. Van felt the spirit super strong. We headed back to Nemuro and tried to meet some investigators. One wasn't home, but her son was so we talked to him and he said he heard about us from his school teacher who is another one of our investigators! He even knew that I studied guitar and stuff...!? I feel like almost everyone in Nemuro knows me. Not only that, but another investigator invited us over to eat because there was a family she invited over that she wanted us to meet. I was all excited about getting a referral and then we arrive at her house. The family she wanted to introduce was also already an investigator!!! Hahaha way funny. It was a great opportunity to build a relationship with both of them though.

So many cool and fun/super spiritual things happen every week. I will probably be able to talk about/remember it for the rest of my life and still have stuff to talk about! It's the best though and I wish everyone could experience it.
I love you tons and hope that I can be a better son/brother/uncle for everyone.
Aishiteimasu
Hutchinson Choro

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