"The Lord Uses The Unlikey To Do The Impossible"

Well this week was a fantastic week in a lot of ways.  I'll give you the little things first!

This week Elder Hamada, one of our APs came to our Area and helped us out, then did some training! We really learned how to more effectively use our time and the Area Book! From here on out i think we'll be more effective in this Area It's hard when Elder Tauchi is busy as a district leader, but it's also a good thing. We're really working on using our time wisely. We have a lot because at the moment we don't have a lot of investigators or lessons, but we're building our pool of potential investigators and many seeds have been planted. This week will be a week full of miracles I think. Every week in the mission is.

I still can't get over Japan! There is so much to do here and to learn and to eat! I feel like I'm in an endless vault of information and I cannot possibly absorb it all. I mean I love learning, But I've never felt so defeated by the thought that I can't learn everything. It's strange. Did you know that every prefecture has it's own style of ramen? Like Kushuu ramen and Kanto Ramen and Sapporo Ramen etc.. There is like 100's of kinds!! I want to try them all!! And Japanese! Japanese is the coolest language! It's so incredibly hard! It definitely helps to have a japanese companion! I almost sound japanese again. The problem is the more i learn the language the more i realize I hardly know it.  At what point do you consider yourself fluent? It dunno it's all very new to me.   I'm used to learning at a much slower rate.  

The next awesome thing was on Saturday. We went to a gym with Shuho. He's the area's most recent convert and he's awesome!! He loves weight training and we've been tryng to do something with him forever! So we went to the Oasis Gym and it was crazy! Membership is 200 ish dollars a month!! They have this machine that sends a pulse through your body and uses a scale to take all these measurements, then tells you where your biggest muscle groups are and how much you have, Weight, height, BMI, water content and fat content etc... It was nuts!! And then we did a whole bunch of insane weight training with Shuho and oh man.. I hurt!! It was great though and after we went to a place called "Soul Foods" which is this little tiny restaurant and had steak curry rice. Seriously delicious!!!  All the best food is in the hard to find places!!  That was the second most exciting thing this week.

The Most exciting thing was.....Ready?....

......
A special mission conference with Elder Russel M Nelson!!!

We had the opportunity to shake his hand and then listen to him speak along with his wife and Elder Ringwood and his wife.
I learned a lot. More than I can throw into one e-mail but i can tell you about one thing he said.
"The Lord Uses the Unlikely to do The Impossible"  We all face challenges and difficulties and we all have times we want to quit. A lot of people feel "normal" that there is nothing special about them. It's those people that often are called to do great things. Being a missionary is a Wonderful Calling and I'm grateful for the opportunity.  Knowing how hard it was for me to go on a mission I empathise with those who can see this letter and are either preparing to leave or choosing not to go on missions.
It isn't easy. But it's what YOU have been called to do. You are the Unlikely and you have been called to do the impossible.

Thank you again everyone for your love and support.  Sorry for the grammatical and Spelling errors, there isn't often enough time to spell check before sending my e-mails!

I love you all
Elder Howard

Steak Curry Rice

 Shuho

 Elder Tauchi in Soul Foods

Shocking Annoucement/I Totally Predicted It

Hello Friends and Family!

Well the topic of my letter this week is of some controversy!

On Feb 23rd at 10:00 in the Morning we were told by President Budge that the Mission would be splitting.  The same day the Church announced 58 new missions World Wide.

The New Mission will be the Tokyo South Mission and this mission will stay the Tokyo Mission. The name will not change.

We're unsure exactly how the Elders and Sisters will be split but we do know that we are losing the Yokohama Stake, Fujisawa Stake, Machida Stake, and the English Stake in the Area. The Mission boundaries for the Tokyo mission has also changed and we now go all the way North to Nigata, Which is in the Sendai mission currently. The mission is buzzing with this info. I'm shocked as well, but I predicted it. I'm sitting in the living room of our apartment looking at stats and say "Hey with all the new missionaries coming in they could split the mission." and Elder Tauchi totally agreed with me and then 2 days later we got the news, I wigged out. It's sad because it's separates people from old areas, areas they wanted to go to and friends. It does however mean that we'll be able to focus our efforts more. I know if I've said this before but with the mission the way it is there are approximately 7 million people in Tokyo Zone. Last time I checked there were 23 full time proselyting missionaries. If you do the math that's over 300,000 people per missionary. Well over 600,000 per companionship. We don't have the resources to talk to 600,000 people.

That's the exciting news this week. Things have been good other than that. Elder Tauchi and I are sick but getting better. Well I am at least, Elder Tauchi is going to cough up a lung any second I think. It's a quiet P-day for us.

These are a few Snippets of the Week:
Here's our lunch today. I Introduced Elder Tauchi to Sloppy Joes he loves them. It was awesome.

The other picture is of Brother Busso. He's from Italy and he's a chef.   He's the craziest most passionate man I've ever met, then again he is Italian. He's so awesome.

This is Shibuya. A panorama of Shibuya stole from Elder Tauchi. We went there last Thursday. I dare you to count the people.

Well that was this week! Thanks for all the love and support!
Take care and pray often. I'll write a much more solid letter next week. I just really wanted to share the news!

Love from Tokyo
Elder G

Working Hard, Small Miracles

Hello Everybody!

Today was another Wonderful and Relaxing P-Day for Elder Tauchi and I.
I know from these e-mails all you think we do is play but i promise we do plenty of Dendo.

This week was a really hard week for us honestly. We haven't been able to make appointments with any of our investigators and we pretty much did housing and streeting all week long. It's not that I don't like finding. I just am not very good at it. Thinking on your toes in Japanese is a whole other world from teaching. Teaching I'm good at. Teaching is awesome. Anyway it was a pretty slow boring week and by Sunday night we were pretty run down. (Sundays we have two 3 hour blocks of church, ward missionary council and prayermeeting not to mention all of the Recent Converts and Investigators we try to squeeze in the Last Second.) But it wasn't all bad. Wednesday we got a new Investigator. Her name is Wakanaちゃん and she's way cool. Apparently her mom is a return missionary and hasn't been to church since Wakanaちゃんs been alive. She came to Eikaiwa and then to the Big Country Dance/Dinner we had at the church for the English Ward. That was AWESOME! and we're going to see her again this week. Then Sunday night we we're thinking about what we would do today for p-day and we decided we go see the Gundam in Daiba and then check out some of the stores there. We we're thinking of who we could invite and we thought of an investigator we thought had dropped us, Reuben. We decided to call him one last time. Turns out he'd lost his phone and run out of minutes when he was on his ski trip this past week and hadn't gotten them back until that same day. He still wants to meet us and although he couldn't come to Daiba with us today we're excited! That means this week we have one or two more lessons that we didn't have before! YOSH!!
Here's a bunch of pictures from the Dance and and Today.

Now all of you who heard me talking about Gundam but didn't understand know. IT'S SO COOL!! When we went shopping we found a machine for Purikura. Are we not the coolest missionaries ever?
I hope you all have a great week and endeavor to more fully feel the spirit in your lives.
Lots of love from 洗足池,
-Elder Howard

Translation:  A purikura machine is a photo booth, hence the pictures with flowers and accessories.  Photo booths are obviously much cooler in Japan.

Giant 60 Mobile Suit Gundum:  Link to an article talking about the giant Gundum Elder Howard is standing next to in his photos.

Exciting New Transfer

                                                                                                                      11 Feb 2013
Hey Everyone,

Well today is the First day of a New Transfer and I have some awesome news!
My comp, Elder Tauchi, is a District Leader this transfer. I'm way stoked because i get to go on splits with every Elder in the District Tokyo zone is the biggest zone in the the mission and our District is one of the biggest as well. there are 8 or 9 other missionaries. So i get to go on splits like 6 times i think. It also means i have to study because i may be asked to give trainings at District meetings or during splits. It's awesome! We work really hard here in Senzokuike, which means that  we'll be even more busy! It's a little tough, but it means my japanese is gonna be that much better and his english is pretty awesome as well. We have some great investigators so hopefully this transfer can be a really successful one. Wade's comp Elder Kerr is a District Leader too! I think this is a good sign for Wade and I in the future to become District Leaders or Zone Leaders. It's something to shoot for. I

Unfortunately am running out of E-mail time so I have to cut this one short.

Thanks again for all your love and support. I took these pictures this week on the way to our apartment and one today for p-day. We played soccer with the young men at Tokyo Tech!

Love from Senzokuike
Elder Howard

First Week in Senzokuike

Hey Everyone!
It's a bad start to my weekly e-mailing but i just don't have time to answer everyone's e-mails in depth!
I'll answer what i can every week but plan on getting a big update e-mail from me every week!

I'm in Senzokuike which is an awesome awesome area. It's about 20 minutes from Shibuya, which is like the most
downtown place in Tokyo. When people think Tokyo, they think of Shibuya. Senzokuike is like a suburb i guess but it feels
more densely populated than even salt lake city. It's in tokyo zone though which is cool!!
Elder Roberts and Elder Hogue are my zone leaders! Elder Roberts was my zone leader when i was in Takasaki! He goes
home this Transfer and Elder Hogue is my doki. He was with me in the MTC and was my zoneleader there too! They're awesome missionaries
In senzokuike we have 2 wards. The Senzokuike ward and the Tokyo 2nd Ward the tokyo ward is an english ward which is awesome.
We taught 21 lessons last week. the mission record is 26 if that tells you anything.
I was companions with Elder Lee and Elder Tauchi. Elder Lee just left to go to the Honbu to be recorder but
Elder Tauchi is here with me. We're a good team! We teach some in English and some in Japanese!

Today was Temple P-day so we went to the temple and I saw all my friends. Elder Bingham, Elder Healy, Sister O'rourke, Elder Mosdell. Elder Vandegraff, The Lot!!
Here's a couple of pictures of the day. After the Temple we went and to an American Diner in Yokohama. It was a blast!
Well until next week!
Love frome senzokuike
-G

Back In Tokyo

I landed ok, it was a long flight. It's good to be back in Tokyo. I don't meet up with my companions tomorrow so today i've just been hanging out in the mission home with the APs. We did some Dendo and some shopping and I got to talk to president budge and the galbraiths. They leave tomorrow!! so anyway glad i could see them. My area is Senzokuike. It's a very city area with a lot of investigators and they just had a baptism so that'll be fun. I'm going with Elders Tauchi and Lee. Elder Lee is leaving at the next transfer and Elder Tauchi and I will be staying in Senzokuike. Native Comp!! so nuts!! Also, Senzokuike has 2 wards, english and japanese so that'll be good. i"m really fired up to be back. I didn't think i'd be this excited. I can't write much since this isn't my apartment and i can't use my P-day as i would like, but i'll be sure to write more next week. Write me back when you get this though. Love you. share this e-mail with anyone you want. Next week will be more routine.
Aishiteimasu!
-G

Bolivia, Brazil & BBQ

This week was a really hectic week. It was the start of a great week for us in the Mission. These next 4 weeks may be some of the busiest weeks I'll have an opportunity to see in the Mission. We all had the opportunity to go to multi-zone meetings and hear from our mission president. Which is always a treat. You will not believe it but we met in this building. 

 

 

Yes that is a church building. It's six stories tall I think and it isn't even the biggest in the mission. I'm not sure exactly why they aren't like this in America. Don't worry they don't all look like this here. but they will soon. =) 

 

I had a cool opportunity to experience a miracle yesterday. We went to Tamamura-machi again (by bike) to visit an investigator who we hadn't contacted in a while. She wasn't home but a family from Bolivia was moving out and my comp, being half Mexican he asked if we could help. They accepted and they were one of the coolest families i've ever met on my mission. We spoke a mix of Japanese, English, Spanish and even a little Portuguese. (every time we go to Tamamura-machi it's a similar experience with the language. I've now taken up Spanish along with Japanese. Call me crazy.) We talked for a bit and they gave us their information so we could refer them to other missionaries, We were completely in the right place at the right time. So after that awesome experience and having a wonderful Sunday. (We watch general conference next week in Japanese so it was regular church for us.) We had a Zone P-day today in Oizumi ( which like i said before is basically Brazil so similar language experience) we got to BBQ and play sports like American Football and Ultimate Frisby and stuff with all the missionaries in the zone. About 25 I think. It was a blast. Doesn't the food look great!!

 

 

It was a good fun way to kick off another week for us. We have to work hard we only have 2 or so weeks left in the Transfer i think. Crazy right? I just hit my 2 month mark in Japan! Well now winding down from the day and e-mailing.  Next is a picture of a Sakura ( cherry blossom) they just started blooming here in Japan so within the next two weeks you'll all get a chance to see how pink it gets. 

 

 

Well That's all I have time for this week. Take care of yourselves everyone.  I love you all and thank you all for the support,