6/8/14 Transfer Week!

Hey! It's been hot and rainy this week. School isn't out, but it sounds like everyone is running wild over there. Tell Mara to keep up the good work!

The only thing I said to Elder Christofferson was "thanks for coming" and when he asked me what we were doing I said we were taking a picture together and he said he wanted to join in. He didn't talk about "preparing for marriage" I guess. It was more like why it's important and stuff. It's still scary.

Transfer week went great! Elder Lee is my new companion along with Tomita E staying! It's not crowded at all because the Honbu is big. There are six desks and two showers so we have room for one more if necessary. If you can see the list online, what more can I tell you about where everyone went? hahaha

The Evans will actually live in Salt Lake when they go back! Pretty cool. You'll probably be able to meet them for sure! Sister Evans was just asking about when Connor got back and I had no idea so thanks for letting me know! Is your comment about him getting a job just a light version of saying the same thing to me?? W

By the way. I realllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllly want to extend!!!!!!!!! I've been thinking about it a lot and it was one of the biggest things on my mind lately. There's definitely a lot of praying and stuff to do about it, but I don't have anything to do when I get home besides speak at church and wait til next year to try to go to BYU. I also really wish that I could spend my last transfer as a normal missionary. It's kinda tough having to be in an office almost all the time, but I need to have joy in what the Lord wants me to do. Right now I really hope he wants me to extend. Would you be ok with that? Kaicho kinda said that they would probably be happy to have me extend, but he thought that you wouldn't be too interested in it. Anyways yeah. That's what I have been thinking about lately.

A new porchlight/carpet/paint? I won't even recognize the house when I get back which is 100% daijoubu (OK)

So yeah. Monday was way fun. We went to the Moiwa district activity and hiked Moiwa mtn. We took some pretty sweet pictures. Did I ever tell you how much I love melon pan? I love it. I've gotten recipes from members before, but you should try to find some and maybe make some. They had melon pan ice cream (Melon pan right out of the oven with ice cream in the middle like a sandwich) and it was really good. We shopped and cleaned and then I did Lee E's training from 6 til the end of the day. Tuesday we had a lot of transfer calls, prep, eating lunch with Andersen E's district and then found out that I will never be able to drive in Japan. Lee E too! He had an Idaho license so he would have to renew it in person. Kaicho might not be too happy about that hahaha. After all that, we went to get the beans at night! They are way fun!!! There was only one Elder, Elder Gubler, but he was way chill. The shimai were especially fun this time around. Two nihonjin, one from Okinawa and one from nearby Tokyo, but used to live in Hokkaido working on different kinds of farms! I wish I could be a bean again. I've probably seen the new missionary training more than 5 times now w. Wednesday we had all the bean stuff; breakfast at the Evans, workshops, meeting trainers, more workshops, dinner, testimony meeting, the works. During testimony meeting, Kaicho made me bear my testimony too because he will be gone at the end of this transfer and won't get to hear mine in that kind of a setting. It was completely totsuzen (unexpected), but I think I did pretty well. All the beans went home, so Thursday night we ate the Evans breakfast with the missionaries that stayed the night the day before. The transfer spot went well, but was way short. I didn't take any pictures or anything. After that the sisters had a taikai IN OUR APARTMENT. ah. We cleaned it a lot before, but they had like a clothing exchange.... So now there are like 4 giant bags of old shimai clothes... ew... wwwwwww I don't really remember what we did after that! Friday was a day of a LOT of preparations for this transfer. At night we tried to shizen dendo at the Yosakoi dance festival, but it wasn't too effective... Yeah. On Saturday was the same kinda feel, but we had a talent show at night. I played with Evans S again. It was the same song as before. Sunday was good too and we actually had time to dendo!!! Yay!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Today we have a zone activity (for all the missionaries that are close to Sapporo... two zones and a half) so we'll do the scroll signing thing. Yeaaaaah. I had to wake up early to get email time. sleepy.
Here are some pictures.
I love you! Aishiteimasu!

Hutchinson Choro

View from the top of Mt. Moiwa

Odori and and Atsubetsu Zone Activity, climbing Maruyama

Pres. & Sister Evans at the Zone Activity BBQ

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

6/2/13 Back in Nemuro

Is it really 33 celsius there? That's insane. Yesterday didn't even make it to 10. Some days it's around 15 and that's nice, but that's as high as it's gotten. It is of course very rainy as well. I'm glad the music fireside was on Youtube as well. It was lots of fun, but I'm glad I'm done running back and forth to Sapporo (at least for now, I'll have to go back when they send Inumaki Choro home).

That sounds really tough for Uncle Merril. I have been doing my best to pray for him too. Sounds like it'll be fun to be together with all of Dad's family though! Dad's birthday sounds like it went great too. I feel like I'll be really disappointed with Chinese food when I get back. I'm going to try to send him something soon. How long ago did you send the conference Ensign? Since coming to Nemuro I haven't gotten a single letter from America. It's kinda strange. There wasn't anything at the honbu either. Also did you ever get my letter for the young men? I sent that 3+ weeks ago. Thanks for giving Cash my email. Glad to hear that he's working - I hope he's doing great. Super excited for everyone's mission prep as well! When is Adam's availability date???

SO on P-day after we emailed I got on a bus to Kushiro at about 10am and got there at 4pm. After that ate dinner and went on splits with one of the Kushiro missionaries for three hours and that was P-day. The next day went on splits with him for the whole day and it was pretty fun. There is so much you can learn from every missionary. The next day was a zone meeting in Kushiro and then a bus to Nemuro. We just checked in with our investigator Inoguchi who is doing great. He is just so busy with going to the hospital and watching after his sick mom. It's really cool to see how the gospel is helping him find peace in that time even though he's only learned a little at this point. We're visiting him again today right after this. On Thursday we had planning session, went to some appointments, and ate leimen at this yakiniku place. It is like noodles and really good, I don't know how to explain it. The sunset over the ocean that day was way awesome as well.

Friday was a good and busy day of visiting appointments, finding, rescheduling lessons, and getting ready for Eikaiwa. We also stopped by this place I did service at last week because they have a special needs day service there. They remembered me and were really happy to see us. We might be able to do more service there some other time. Eikaiwa was way awesome. 2 new people came that saw our flier on a store window. The classes are getting bigger and bigger and it's way fun. Saturday was visiting some members, a non attending member who is really nice, and lots of housing. The non-attending member is named Unosawa Shimai and was the first person to ever get baptized in Nemuro. She had a hard time at church a long time ago and stopped coming, but feels like us visiting her is a sign from God that she needs to come back. Hopefully we can get her ready to come back and help her kids come to the Gospel too. Yesterday was church and the Ozawa kid's baby blessing. The grandparents from both sides came plus one more guy from Tokyo came for a seminary thing so there were a lot more people than usual and it was really cool. After church we met another non-attending member Inamura Shimai and talked to her a bit. She got busy in the past and had to miss church, but after a while because of that she felt guilty and it was hard to come to back. She told us that she has a desire to feel the good feelings she felt back then and committed her self to pray everyday and make steps to come back. That was pretty good news. I'm excited to see this branch grow :) Other than that it has just been great being a missionary. I get very tired and sometimes frustrated about certain things, but I can always find a solution in the scriptures or in remembering why I'm here.

The guy from Tokyo Onda Kyoudai bore his testimony on Sunday, but he shared a cool though about member missionary work. Set a goal to share the gospel, introduce the church, invite to activity etc. even if it seems like you'll be rejected. He said that even when we do that and get rejected we are seeing success because being a missionary isn't about bringing a billion people into the church, it's about declaring the word. The missionary purpose is to invite others to come unto Christ by helping them receive the restored gospel through faith in Jesus Christ and His atonement, repentance, baptism, and receiving the gift of the Holy Ghost. The thing that we do is invite. I like to think of it like invitations to a party. If you don't invite them, they won't even know that it's going on. However, in order for them to want to go to the party and actually know how good it is, we use our testimonies, examples, friendship, and love. I think that's a good example of what missionary work really is. I love you all so much and am super grateful for such a great and strong family. How is FHE lately? I'm excited for that when I come back ;) You're the best!

Aishiteimasu
Hutchinson Choro

5//26/13 Happy birthday, Dad!

Hey Mom! This was a busy week too with lots of running around. I totally forgot what Memorial day was for a second. I wonder if Japan has it too. Glad you got your project done and must be so busy working hard that you forgot your shoes! That's too bad about Bonnie's friend, but it's good that you could attend with some good shoes. Send me a picture of the house next week if you could please :) I realized I don't have any pictures of it. If Mara and Adam work for Justin my advice is to just work really hard, not care about getting dirty, and work hard. Always find something new to do if you get a job done early. I hope Mara gets awards too!

That's crazy dad is turning 50! I feel bad because I completely forgot how old you and dad are. Someone in the branch asked the other day and I couldn't answer so I was a little embarrassed. That means you are *** right? That's exciting for Max's blessing! Thanks for the picture of Lauren's house, that's the first time I've seen it. That's crazy it's almost summer there. I don't think I'll need sunscreen here for a REALLY long time hahahaha. Can you tell me how hot it is there in Celsius? Adam and Mara's pictures are great wow they are really grown up looking. I can't wait for Adam's mission call! His hair looks great. I actually cut my own hair the other day and it looks pretty decent I've gotten compliments from pretty much everyone.

So this week for P-day we wanted to go to Nosappu cape which is the farthest East part of Japan, but it rained way hard so we just stuck around and did music practice. We had some awesome lessons that day too. We visited 3 people that we had appointments with and they all became investigators. One particularly awesome guy named Inoguchi went really well. We first met him on the street, but he was busy and couldn't listen. The other day we found him housing and he remembered meeting us and we made an appointment to come back. It wasn't a really strong feeling and we actually were a tiny bit late for it because the lesson before it went kind of long. When we got there he told us that he was worried that we wouldn't come. We talked to him to get to know him a bit and he is having a pretty hard life. He is 50 and has diabetes pretty bad. It affected his eyes and he had to quit his job. He has been searching for a new job, but the hard thing is that he has to take care of his sick mom too. Long story short at the end of the lesson he said that he thinks following Jesus Christ is what he needs to do to make his life better. The next day went really awesome, just lots of finding cool people. Wednesday we had splits with the District leader and did some service helping plant a garden. That day we had another lesson with Inoguchi. He understand faith and repentance pretty well and when we invited him to be baptized he just asked "where?" He is pretty strong. The only problem is that his eyes are bad so the Book of Mormon is hard to read and also he has to go to the hospital on some weekends so church is kinda tough too. We had a ton of fun with the district leader and his comp afterwards. This weekend we had to go back to Sapporo for the music performance and it went great! Maybe you'll be able to see it on Youtube again.

Thanks so much for everything! From here we are headed back to Kushiro for a couple of days for splits and a zone thing. Talk to you next week! Love you!

Aishiteimasu
Hutchinson Choro

The new haircut!

I have no idea what these are, but I hope he didn't have them for dinner :)

Another mystery photo

8/28/12 I am here and safe and happy!!!

Hey everyone! Sorry I didn't have much time to talk at the airport! I'm really glad that I was able to. We had to hurry a lot from there on out. It was so great though! The airplane was one of the coolest things ever!!! The one from Utah to LA was the best for sure. It was a lot smaller of a plane and the flight was shorter too. One of the coolest experiences of my life for sure! When we took off I was so excited! I felt like a little kid hahah. My mouth was wide open for at least the first half hour because I just couldn't believe how amazing it was! Seeing the whole valley and then seeing ABOVE THE CLOUDS was thee most amazing thing! The flight from LA to Tokyo was on a super huge plan and wasn't quite as fun because it was so long and crowded, but still not bad! I did my best not to sleep on the plane so that it would be easier to deal with the jet lag and so far I think it worked. I got a lot of studying done too. Airports are pretty interesting as well. Arriving in Japan was the coolest thing! The airport wasn't as overwhelming as I anticipated it to be (lots of English friendly signs etc.), but still so neat! Oh man, I wish you could feel/taste the air here! It is so neat! I love it a lot. Pretty humid and soo clean! We hurried around there for a bit and made it on our flight to Sapporo just as it started to get dark. The plane to Sapporo was not very full of people at all so I got to spread out a bunch. I dozed off a bit on that one, but it wasn't too bad. Once we arrived at the airport in Sapporo we got our bags and the Evans were there to greet us. It was so great! They are WAY cool!

Sister Evans is so peppy and lots of fun. Evans Kaicho (president) is really cool and chill as well. Sister Evans asked lots about my experience and interests with music and talked about how they do lots of music things here for stake activities etc. that missionaries participate in/talent shows and how she is really excited. We went and ate miso ramen at one of the shops in the airport and it was fantastic! Kind of funny too because they were playing old country music in the restaurant. After that we drove to the mission home which is about an hour away and I didn't sleep on the way there either. Hokkaido is pretty much the most beautful place in the world hands down. Even though it was pretty dark on the drive I was able to see lots of the city and areas around. There are lots of 7-11s! hahah! Everything is so neat though! The buildings, cars, people, all soo cool! I am so excited to be able to explore and meet and find! We arrived at the home and I got to sleep on a futon! They are great! It isn't what I first imagined. Basically a thin-ish mattress type thing that you fold when you aren't using and just lay on the floor when you do use it. Way smart! Saves lots of space too. I think I would compare it to a super thick down comforter hahaha.

This morning we woke up and I looked out the window to see the city. It's so amazing. I still can't believe that I am actually in Japan! We got ready and everything and went to the Evans' side of the home for breakfast and a bit of hanging out. Evans Shimai made some WAY yummy french toast stuff that had walnuts and also this yummy fruit dish that had these cool jelly things that Japanese people eat a lot. Way cool! Talked a bit more about music and things like that afterwards too. After that we went back to the other side and had some training from the missionaries at the home about finding and stuff like that. It was great! We also got training about money and the crazy garbage schedule/method here in Japan. I got my Japanese badge and meishi(business cards with my name and info etc) that are way awesome! I will take pics to send. After that I found out about my first area and trainer!!!!!! My trainer is named Elder Hansen and he is super awesome. He is from Ogden and lived in Japan for five years when he was young. He is way funny and super good at Japanese. The area I'm serving in is.......... ENIWA!!!! It means "blessed garden" and is the city that the airport was in! It's going to be soo amazing! Elder Hansen also served there before so he knows the area well which is good. After that we watched a really awesome video about the Sapporo Temple (which so far looks like it will be done after I come home :( That's ok though! I can always come back, eh? :)) and talked more about important things in serving and about training. That's everything so far though! Please reply soon! I don't know when my P-day is yet, but I'll let ya know for sure.

Thanks so much for being so amazing and helpful and encouraging and for your prayers. I know I need them and they help me often! I can often feel the spirit strongly and the presence of Grandpa Price and Grandpa Hutchinson helping me and encouraging me. I know this is the Lord's inspired work and I am ready to do everything possible for it. I know that the Savior lives and knows each and everyone of us personally because of the miracle that is the Atonement. I know that His doctrine is the only way that we can inherit eternal life and happiness in the Celestial Kingdom of God. God hears and prayers and loves us more than we can know. Through the book of Mormon I continually receive answers to my prayers and revelation that is important for me to know. On the airplane I read Mosiah chapter 26 a few times because I just opened the Book of Mormon to the first place I saw and it is an amazing chapter. I don't have my scriptures with me, so I don't have the exact verse, but it is about Alma being asked to judge the people that have transgressed and so he asks the Lord for help and the answer that he gets is just so powerful. Please give it a read if you have time. Maybe as a family if you can. I hope that you are having time to have FHE often. I feel bad that I didn't do more to help make it happen. I'm so grateful for the miracle that is this gospel. As the Lord's servant I testify that this gospel is true and the most important thing that we can strive to understand and learn in this life.

I love you!!! Cheers from Japan!!!
Aishiteimasu! Keep working hard and good luck with everything!
-Hacchinson Chourou