金人の金曜日(Kinjin no Kinyoubi)

This was a crazy fast week here in Okegawa but it was full of Miracles!

We decided to call last Friday "Kinjin Kinyoubi" because the first person we talked to that day became and Investigator! and He's Golden! That's what Kinjin(Keen-Jeen) means literally golden person. I may have explained that before but hey I feel like it's my place to teach you all a little Japanese. We were headed to the Sato family's house to drop off a thank you card and saw a guy walking down the street. We called out and he stopped for us and we started talking. Turns out that he's Brazilian and he's been living in Japan for a while. The language barrier is no problem because he's fluent in Japanese, but I've started brushing up on my Spanish now too. Looks like my new goal is to be tri-lingual when I come home. (Senior Smith would be proud). Anyway, His name is Marcos and he's a really great guy, turns out that he's been looking for a church to come to because he doesn't like his Catholic church and his friend in Brazil actually gave him a Book of Mormon but he left it there when he moved to Japan so he asked us for another copy. After we made plans to get him a Portuguese copy we also mentioned our English class and he got even more excited. He wants to learn English! We'll definitely be seeing him this week. Brother Maeno our Brazillian brother in the ward is excited to meet him too. That'll be a blast! Lessons will probably be in Japanese, Spanish and Portuguese and maybe even a little English. That's not an experience you see every day!

Time for one more miracle. We're walking down the street after an appointment fell through and a little boy about 6 years old calls out to us.. "Hello!" he says. That's pretty common here in Japan when 2 americans are walking down the street, so we said hello and kept walking. Then... "What's your name?" the boy called after us. We froze. That's not so common and he said it with perfect pronounciation. We quickly back tracked and sparked a conversation. Then the Boy's Mom and sibling came up and we told her that her sons english was amazing and that we taught free english class. She was surprised but gracially took a flyer as we High fived the 3 kids and left. 2 hours later we got an E-mail from that mom and the 4 of them came to English class Saturday Morning!
It was so cool! 

These past few days have been great we did some dendo, watched conference, ate some really really good food that the members made for us and today Elder Gallacher and I hit up the batting cages a few blocks from out apartment. Since you all probably think all we do is play, here is a picture from Friday that proves we are working! Isn't it cool?

We took it from a street corner mirror while we were doing some housing. The next picture is one of the many reasons I love Japanese people and their English abilities, for those of you who think that making fun of asians who can't say their Ls is racist you should see this.

Can you see what's wrong? :) I love Japan, it's the best.

Before I go here is neat fact: Okegawa is home a Coke Bottling Factory. That's pretty cool right?

I love you all have a great week!!!
-G

P.S. Yesterday (Sunday) I had the privilege of experiencing 2 Earthquakes. One a 4.3 hit during General Conference and a second 3.6ish hit while we were brushing our teeth. It was CRAZY!!! Earthquakes are seriously the weirdest thing.

Sakura

This is all my Cherry Blossom Pictures. The thing with Cherry Blossoms is they come for one week and then their gone! But I hope you enjoy these. I'll be sure to get some apartment pictures this week and send them to you next P-day. We haven't cleaned out apartment yet today and it's just a little bit of a mess. 

The work goes forward in Okegawa but we're struggling teaching Investigators consistently. They always have excuses for not meeting with us. That leaves the time to Dendo and we go streeting for hours. It's generally pretty fun. Elder Gallacher and I are pretty fearless with talking to people  and we've seen some great miracles. On Saturday between afternoon and priesthood sessions Elder Gallacher and I decided we'd do some streeting without our heavy backpacks and we only had about 40 minutes before Priesthood started so we grabbed a Book of Mormon and set a goal to give it to someone before we ran out of time. We ended up giving it to the 2nd person we talked to. People here do want to listen, the trick is getting them to commit to meet with you. We'll keep working hard though and hopefully continue to see some great miracles.

I actually don't really know what I like more. I think as a missionary I like the country or suburb areas more because the people are just as a rule friendlier. if you say konnichiwa, you almost always get one back. In Tokyo that doesn't happen hardly at all, the people are colder. But in Tokyo there are millions of things to see and do and it's fun sometimes to feel part of the daily rush. It's just a really busy city and I love the feel of the city because my whole life I've lived in rural suburb areas. It's just something new. It doesn't matter where I am though, every day I leave the apartment there is some crazy new thing to see or to learn. it's awesome. I love Japan.

Eternal Investigators and Bruce Lee

Hello Everyone!

It's a bright and Sunny day here in Okegawa!

Elder Gallacher and I are rocking are newly purchased workmans pants and tabi.  I've wanted a pair of these since I first came to Japan last year! There so great and so comfortable! I wish I'd had a pair of these when I was working my old tending job, this is what every construction worker wears. Are they not awesome?  They look like Ninja pants and Shoes. So we took a Ninja Missionary picture.

This is totally what missionaries in Japan should wear. It's been a wonderful week for us here. Elder Gallacher and I hit it off nicely. In fact he's more of a friend than a companion. It's awesome! I've sure been blessed to have good companions so far. We teach really well together which may be what gives us our success here in Okegawa. We have a few "Eternal Investigators." Wakutsu-san is probably our best investigator, but honestly investigator isn't the right word, he's simply just not a member. He met the missionaries here 15 years ago and has taken every lesson and learned every commandment multiple times. He reads the Bible and/or the Book of Mormon daily, he's prayed and he says he know's the church is true, he's met many members including our Stake President, President John Dorff, and he lives the Word of Wisdom and everything else. He's even said he wants to be baptized, his daughter is even a member. The only thing he won't do is come to church on Sunday because Sunday is his busiest day at the hair salon that He owns. In 15 years he's been to church twice. He's a great guy. really smart, he just doesn't know where his priorities are, it's the weirdest thing. We are going to keep working with him. We actually are going to visit him tonight so Elder Gallagher can get a haircut and so we can follow up with him. We'll see what happens! I'm trying to have faith.

We've been working with so may part member families that we haven't been able to do any serious proselyting to build a teaching pool. Today we're going to try to find some people. Our zone is focusing on inviting people to church. We're trying to bring 2 new people to church per week. so that it widens what we call the Funnel. If we have 26 investigators, then 6 come to church, of those 6, 4 will set baptismal dates and of those 4, 1 will be baptized, and that's if we get 6 people to come to church! the funnel tends to be a lot smaller statistically, but if we find by inviting people to church that funnel automatically widens so by the end of this transfer we want to have 10 people consecutively coming to church. It'll be interesting to see what happens but Saitama Zone is the smallest in the mission and we've already had the highest number of people coming to church on Sundays. It's time to find more sheep. Bruce Lee said

                             "I fear not the man who has practiced 10,000 kicks once, but I fear the
                              man who has practiced one kick 10,000 times."

This quote has to do with focus, as we focus on our goals we WILL see miracles. Stay focused everyone!

As this conference, from what I've seen so far, has to do with missionary work there is a sweet book that I want to recommend. I haven't read it yet because I can't manage to find a copy in English but I'm going to get it because of a training we had recently. It's called "Every Day Missionaries" by Clayton Christensen. It's amazing and it applies to my mission as much as it applies to you all! :) Get it! Read it! That's my commitment to you! (you knew it was coming, I'm a missionary.)

Have a great week everyone!
愛しておられます！
ハワード　長老

Transfer

Transfer Part 1

Hey Mom! I'm transferring today so I don't know if I'll get another time to write. If I can I'll fill you in on stuff tomorrow, if not you'll know more next week.  I'm leaving Senzokuike and going to an area called Okegawa. It's in Saitama-Ken good news is that's North Mission Territory,  bad news,  I was only in Senzokuike for 8 weeks!!   AAH!  Packing is the worst thing ever!!! I'd go so far as to say it literally is the Bane of My Existence. But I know that I can see Miracles in Okegawa. I just need to keep a good attitude. My new comp is Elder Gallagher. He's almost done with his mission but I've talked to him once or twice and he's pretty cool. We'll see what happens!
Give the Family my Love!

Transfer Part 2

Well I've moved. I'm settled in here in Okegawa. Yesterday was a long day but I survived. The weirdest part was traveling by myself for an hour or so to get to my new area. It feels a lot like Takasaki over here except that it's all flat. From what I've seen so far it's a good area. I can not believe the apartment!! It's Soooo COOOL!! It's one of the newer modern apartments. It's all super sleek inside and it's way comfortable for the 2 of us. It's got solar panels on the roof and the city actually pays the church because our house generates so much electricity. There's all kinds of gizmos to see how you're using the energy you're producing etc.  Also I said I knew my companion and I was right! Elder Gallagher and I met before I left last time. He's way cool and his Japanese is way good. It's going to be a fun transfer. The ward apparently is full of Dendo Fire so I think we'll really see some Miracles this transfer. He's almost done with his mission. He's 2 groups above my MTC group so he goes home in August. He's "dying" soon so it'll be interesting to see what happens.  There is a good chance we will stay together for a couple transfers. My predictions have been wrong before though ( I did not think that I would get transfered ).
 
Random Side Note. That Bike is Heavy!!
I carried it from train station to train station! 
I made it though and I'm enjoying a good P-day with Elder Gallagher.

You wanted to see my Senzokuike apartment so I took some pictures Saturday night. I'll get some for Okegawa soon.
 
Have a Great Week!! I Love You!
-G

 Senzokuike Apartment

Ueno Zoo

Hello Everyone!

We went to the Zoo today!! I thought I'd throw some pictures in and tell you about it.
First things first. They have a Panda!!! Is that not the coolest thing ever!?!?
 

We went to the Ueno Zoo today for what was supposed to be a Zone P-day, only half of our district showed up, but it was sooo fun!!!

Today was spring opening day at the zoo and there was a lot of people there. Ueno is right in the middle of Tokyo so you can see for yourselves just how many people were there.

It was perfect timing though because the cherry blossoms are in full bloom today. Aren't they great? I feel lucky, this is my second spring in Japan!

The Sakura are only in bloom or a week or two before they're gone so it's pretty rare to see them unless you live in Japan. Well this e-mail doesn't have much substance to it unfortunately but I just don't have the time I did when I started it. It's P-day but I'm still a missionary and I'm still busy.

Transfer Calls this week. I'm pretty sure that Elder Tauchi and I will be together
at least one more transfer. That would be great, my Japanese is getting super good because
of him. I'll let you know what happens.
Love you all!
-G

Getting Down to Business

Things are going great. It's starting to warm up finally. Elder Tauchi and I are breaking out the short sleeves. Kawasaki-san is doing great, he has desire to learn so hopefully he'll continue to read and meet with us. It looks like he'll miss his date by 1 or 2 weeks but only because we can't meet with him enough. He's really busy this week but we'll probably meet him Thursday and again on Sunday. If possible we'll teach him over the phone tonight, or give him homework.

People here a great at saying no. There are some who will say yes and go along with it but most people say are great about saying no. I guess it makes our job easier because if they say no then we can try with the next person right away. There are A LOT of people to talk to!! I'd say we talk to 50-ish people a day. maybe a little less since recently we're teaching more lessons than finding, which is nice.

It's crazy that there will be so many missionaries from our ward out. We currently have 140 something in Tokyo. When the mission splits both missions will have 250!   There will be a lot of missionaries in Tokyo!!  We're really excited to see what happens, I'm hoping that I can stay in Tokyo Mission. I think Elder Healy wants to go to Tokyo South. It'll be interesting to see what happens. It's a good time to be in Japan!

Lots of Love,
G

 P.S. I ate lunch with Elder Healy and Elder Kerr today. That was fun.

Colonel Sanders holding a Dragon Ball. I took this today in Hiroo. Make sure Nick See's this ha ha.

Takoyaki! These little round balls are battered and fried octopus and they are soooo goood! They make them the coolest way!

Pac Man: In the window of a classroom at Tokyo Tech. We were out streeting when I saw it.

The Omata Family and Friends: One of our investigators and her friends and family. We had a party where we made okonomiyaki. Chiharu the little boy is so awesome.

Gotanda: A beautiful day here in Tokyo. Like I said, Concrete Jungle. 


Part of his letter to B:

bahahah! that's so awesome! i'm so stoked for you b! the sign looks great and so does the note. haha pretty easy to understand japanese. prom ni ikimasuka? ha ha i love it. I'm gonna start writing you notes too! You gotta study it so we can have a secret language. I'm glad you got asked to prom. I like the dress it's beautiful. Have a lot of fun at the dance. the picture of you and the girls is super cute too. take care of them :) hey get after nick will you? he won't email me back. punk. Have another great week B. I love you.
G

The Fruits of Our Labors

Yakitori and Root Beer!! That's about as awesome as it get!

We decided to buy these spoils from a little bar near our apartment when we were coming back for the evening. We walk past it everyday and thought we'd give it a shot. It was fantastic. Especially after a full day of Proselyting.

This week was a turning point in Senzokuike.  Honestly it's been the busiest week of my mission thus far. It was crazy.  Tuesday we did Splits with our Zone Leaders and I went to Shibuya with Elder Hogue. (Fact: The Shibuya Elder's apartment is the most expensive Elder's apartment in the world, two companionships live there.  The Sister's apartment is the the most expensive Missionary Apartment in the world that being said they aren't incredibly nice apartments, it's just the location. Shibuya is an Expensive place.) Elder Hogue and I knew each other before the mission and were in the same group in the MTC so it was a lot of fun to get together with him. We dendoed (janglish) in Hiiro which is where the temple is and we did it all in English. Shibuya has 2 areas just like Senzokuike but it also has 6 missionaries. Japanese proselyting eisters and elders and then English proselyting elders. It was a lot of fun. Elder Hogue is one of my heroes and it was a blast working with him. I learned a lot. I still feel like I'm learning at a crazy fast rate and that it isn't fast enough but the difference now I think is that I can really focus on the important things I need to learn, like stuff for lessons.  When we split back with our companions and went back to our respective areas Elder Tauchi and I were talking and decided that we needed to work harder. That we were doing a good job but that for the next 3 weeks we were going to go the "Extra Mile." We were both pumped after splits and from then we've been going like crazy all week. And it's paying off! We found 3 new investigators this week and a man we met on Thursday, Kawasaki-San, has a baptismal date! We're excited! Hopefully we can continue to see Miracles this week as well. Next P-day is Temple day so my e-mail will likely be very small and it'll come on Tuesday.

Take Care!  I love you all!
G