お久しぶり！

皆さんお久しぶりですね！
I'm sorry it's taken me so long to write!
Last week I was transfered. My new area is Sakado. It's a tiny area in Saitama-ken really close to my old area Okegawa.

I'd send you pictures of the apartment, but I somehow managed to lose my camera.

The apartment is crazy small. It was small when there were two people living here, it's even smaller now that there are four people living here. The area itself however is great! Sakado has been struggling in the past but that time of struggle is at an end. With eight missionaries and a ward that's super fired up we're sure to see success. Bishop Tetuanui (from Tahiti) has a tenacious plan that unites the ward in fasting and prayer for 28 days starting two days ago. He put his name was on the fasting calendar every other day and the members,  seeing that he  was fasting a lot more than his fair share volunteered to help out. Sakado is united in fasting and prayer and we're going to see the baptism that they've been waiting for for close to 3 years now. We're planning on a baptism on the 23rd of February at 1:00 pm. We don't know who it will be yet, but there are a lot of people that have a lot of potential.

My room mates are also a lot of fun. Elder Chen and I are having a blast. Yesterday we gave our zone training. The theme of the Training was preparing and sanctifying ourselves so that we can recieve the Lord's blessings. We talked alot about Changing our Natures and what the difference is between changing our behaviors and changing our natures. It was a great meeting. Tomorrow we have the opportunity to hear from Elder Whiting of the Seventy who is touring our mission. That's also happening in Sakado. We're going to be busy.

On the fun side of things, We had a pizza party a little while ago and had an absolute blast! It's too bad Elder Healy wasn't there to be with his 3 favorite people (^_^)  (I'd add pictures but the computer won't work ごめん!)

Saitama

Transfer calls just happened today. I'm plenty pleased with my transfer. I'm going to be a Zone Leader in Saitama West Zone (Sakado Area) with the Legendary Elder Chen on his last Transfer. It's going to be a blast!!
Okegawa (my old area) is in my zone so I'll get to visit it at some point. Elder Hansen is going to the other side of the Matsudo apartment to be with Elder Beckett. Elder LeFevre one of the District Leaders here will be Zone Leader with Elder Norman. Elder Day is going to Senzokuike (my old area) to finish training someone. It seems like everyone is pretty happy. We had a giant Zone P-day today to play sports and stuff while we all awaited transfer calls. Guess who else is a Zone Leader. Elder Justesen. He's transfer 5!! and Elder Gray who was in my district back in Oyama is also a Zone Leader at transfer 4!! crazy!! I knew that it would happen too. Those Elders are just way too good.

I'm gonna be sending home a small package this week, by boat mail. It will take about a month. Costs next to nothing so don't worry about that.

Things have been really good. I've learned a lot about myself during my time in Matsudo and I'm really looking forward to applying my new found knowledge in Sakado. This could be my last area. Who knows!
Sounds like B has got things figured out. Hopefully she's trying to follow promptings as well. She'd make an incredible missionary ;) I know that's her choice though.

We're getting Ipad Minis two weeks from now. Did I mention that? Every missionary gets an Ipad Mini with Facebook... not sure how that'll work. Updates soon!

Stay Healthy! Keep using the oils. I love peppermint. I could use another bottle of just peppermint actually. Also On Gaurd toothpaste rocks. I haven't even had a headache in like a month.

Give the family my love!

New Year, New Possibilities

This past week went by incredibly fast. I'm not sure if it was excitement for temple day or if it was stress from preparing trainings but it went by so fast!! Our trainings this week went really well actually. We had a Zone Meeting on Tuesday last week with all 35 missionaries and then yesterday we had our new missionary training meeting which was for all of the 1st and 2nd transfer missionaries. That went well. The meeting itself was bigger than any zone meeting we did the transfer before. Not only that but Sunday was a zone wide Japanese only day. It was incredible I spent about 10 hours speaking Japanese and was able to really pinpoint some of the things I've been trying to improve on. It did stress out some the of the younger missionaries but I would say everyone thought that it was worth it.

Today the temple was an amazing experience. Since last weeks shocker I had been feeling a lot of concern about what my future held or what I would do when I came home etc, on top of all the regular missionary stressors. I had a chance to just lay it all in front of the Lord and felt my spirits lifted. I'm really excited for the next few transfers. This next transfer is Elder Norman's last transfer and we are hoping that we'll have the opportunity to really work and grow just the two of us. Training and being a Zone Leader is really too much. We don't really have time to help our new missionary at all.  Anyways things are looking good from today forward.  I got the Christmas card. Funniest thing ever. Absolutely loved it.

This week will go by fast as well. Transfer calls are in 6 days and I have 3 exchanges this week so we'll be spending a lot of time traveling to other areas. Then I'll be on transfer 12! The big question is what I'm going to do for school... I have a couple of ideas but I still don't really know. Elder Healy and I were talking today and we both want to stay till the 22nd of August but that leaves no time to prepare for school and I really wanna hit the ground running when school roles around. I guess we'll figure that out when school gets closer. I've been thinking a lot lately and I think since I'm going to have to retake my first year of college anyway (I've been gone for 2 years) I thought it might be cool to experience ROTC. I'd like to sign up for that. I don't have to make a decision until Junior year and who knows maybe by then I'll have found my future wife. I'm going to ask dad to do a little ROTC research for me. I Think I've got a general idea about school but I wanna learn some things first. I'm thinking mechanical engineering would be cool. If I can learn Japanese I can learn math. I also was thinking about doing a minor in Japanese but if I graduate and complete ROTC then I'd have a Naval Science Minor so Dual Minor? or do I go Dual Major? I'm not sure what I can handle.. ha ha anyways just thought I'd let you know what's been running through my head. Thanks for all the
Love and support Mom.
I'm so glad I came back. This has been the most incredible year and this next one is only going to get better.

Give the Family my love!

DEAR JOHN

That's all I have to say on the matter. Life goes on.