The Verdict

Ok.........
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Everyone Ready?........

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I've been called to serve in........
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The Japan Tokyo Mission!
I made into the same Mission as Elder Healy! It is however
bitter sweet. I got transferred.
Elder Gallacher and I began our personal study on Saturday morning fully expecting a call saying one of us were transferring. What actually happened however was not what we expected.

"Elder Gallacher, good morning" "Good Morning president! How are you?" "I'm doing great Elder, how about you, you ready for transfers?....We have a transfer call for you and Elder Howard." "Ok President." "Well we're doing something a little different this time" "Ok..." "We're going to turn Okegawa into a sisters area" "Wow..That is different" "Yup so you'll be going to Machida to be a Zone Leader with Elder Newsom." "Wow ok." "It's a South Mission area, so we're sad to see you go but you'll always be in our hearts and you'll always be on our quilt." "Thank you president." "Thanks Elder. Will you pass the phone to Elder Howard so I can give him his new assignment?" "Sure thing, here he is." The rest of the conversation was similair.

I was assigned to Oyama, a North Area in a place called Tochigi-Ken. My new home for the forseeable future. My new companion is Elder Kim. He's a pretty cool guy. He's a Korean Elder on his last transfer. We're going to be working hard for the next 6 weeks. I've also been called as District Leader. A job that would normally be rather time consuming. As my entire district is sister missionaries I won't be doing any companion exchanges. All I have to worry about is nightly calls and trainings for district meetings.
It was really bitter sweet leaving Okegawa. I really fell in love with that area. We spent all of Sunday and Monday cleaning, updating records and coordinating with the ward so that the sisters would be good to go when they got there. I still can't quite believe they "White Washed" us. There is a chance I could go back though I still have a year. They're going to put Elders In again at some point soon, only this time they'll live in Omiya, not Okegawa. So the missionaries will be spread out across the area. That should be interesting. Sunday night was really great. Brother Kakiki got a bunch of the members together and threw us a farewell party. I'm really going to miss okegawa but I'm excited for new things to come. Hopefully after today I can settle in. I've heard a lot of great things about Oyama but for the past few transfers the missionaries here haven't really been following mission rules. I may have to do a little "area clean up." I am however excited to make new friends. Oyama is a big area. It's going to be a blast!

Well that's the update.I hope you have a great week!
I'll give an update on the area when I get more aquanted with it.
I love you all!
Love from Oyama
-G

"United in so great a cause" or "Divided in so great a cause"?

Hello Everyone!
I hope you are all happy and healthy and hopefully somewhere cool. It's hot in here in Saitama. Today we hit 81 degrees and keep in mind the humidity is at least 95%
I feel like I'm going to melt into a puddle every time I walk out of the apartment. Wearing suits on sundays is like being punished!
I should also say that while Tokyo and Saitama get very hot in the summer there is one place in our mission that is the hottest place in Japan. Kumagaya. And it's right next door. If we walk North about 30 minutes we're in Kumagaya's area. This summer is going to kick my butt if I stay here in Okegawa.

That brings me to my next topic of discussion. Transfers are upon us. I can't believe it. 5 weeks come and gone and we're barreling through the 6th. We will recieve transfer calls on Saturday and transfer next Monday. Neither of us have any idea of where we will go. I've only been here for 2 transfers so I don't think I'm transferring. Elder Gallacher has been here for 4! He however only has 1 transfer left so he's not likely going anywhere either. But simply because we've been together for 2 transfers already means that one of us is probably transferring. We'll see what happens. This next transfer brings with it the risk of changing missions as well. Wherever you are next Tuesday is the mission you are staying in. I could very well be writing you all all from a different mission next week .I'm not too excited at that prospect. I really would rather stay in the Tokyo Mission. I was called here not once but twice. I guess it's all in the Lords hands. Will Elder Healy and I be in the same mission next transfer? That's the real question.

Today was temple day and we had the opportunity to take a picture as a mission and see each other one last time before the split. It was a much needed spiritual recharge. I did have the cool opportunity to see an old friend on Sunday. We were at the church prepping a baptism for one of the 8 year olds in the ward. I walk out of the bathroom and there in the genkan of the church is Evan Albrethsen my trainer! I was shocked. He saw me at the same time. And we bro-hugged. It was so cool to see him! Seriously made my day. He came to the Temple with everyone today so I was able to get a picture with him. over a year since he trained me. It was a neat experience.

Well that's the update this week. I'm sure you will all be in suspense as you await the results of transfers.
Stay tuned!

Have a great week! I love you all!
G

Faith, Hope, Charity and Love

Hey all!
It's another busy week for me and I don't have a lot to write about, but I'm going to give you a little homework.

I'd like to commit all of you to read Moroni Chapter 7 in the Book of Mormon.
Faith, Hope and Charity are the main themes of this chapter.  My favorite among these is Charity.
Verse 46 states that "Charity never faileth."Faith may fail at times. Hope may fail at times, but Charity does not. If you have Charity then Charity never faileth.  Working among the people of Japan can be hard. There are often times we work hard for weeks and see no results.

My faith is weaker at times than I'd like it to be, and my hope that I'll see miracles waivers. My love for Japan however does not.

I love this country and I love teaching it's people. They're wonderful people.

We recently started teaching an investigator named Imai-san. Imai-san lives in a small "one room mansion" in an apartment complex.

Let me tell you. It's filthy. He's a smoker and from the ammount of cigarettes in his ash tray and the smell of his house he's at about 2 packs a day, unfiltered.

The wall paper is peeling off the wall and the sake(rice wine) bottles laying around are a clear indicator that he's an alchoholic. Whenever we meet him he wears the same shirt and pair of shorts he always wears and sometimes it can be hard to meet his gaze because he's got a crazy lazy eye and looks like Mad-Eye Moody from Harry Potter. Even talks like him sometimes. Despite all of this we have the opportunity to teach him. He has a baptismal date for August 4th and When we teach him I can't think about his dirty apartment or the smell of old cigarettes. The only thing I can care about is helping this man recieve the blessings that he wants. He has a lot of desire. We love teaching him because he's so faithful and receptive. Charity is the pure love of christ and I really love this man that we just recently met. It's the same for others as well.
When you are serving the Lord it's hard not to feel Charity and get caught up in the work.
Okegawa is a slower area than my last area in Tokyo, but there are people here waiting to hear the gospel. Elder Gallacher and I have hope that we can find those people and that the Lord is preparing them. I love this area.

I hope you all have a great week.
I want to hear your insights or favorite verses from Chapter 7
愛してます！！
G

Slurpees and Stuff

Well Hello again everyone!
Not really anything super interesting has happened but I figured I still send out a bit of a picture blast to give you all a taste of some of the fun things that have been happening recently here in Okegawa.

Bowling: We went Bowling as a Zone for P-day today. Elder Young (The Aussie) hustled us all and absolutely destroyed us! It was blast, Everyone except the sisters came.

Slurpees: I was actually convinced that these didn't exist in Japan. There is a 7/11 on every corner but never any Slurpees. We were very excited when we found this one yesterday. We came back today and bought some. Fanta: Melon Soda flavor. Yummm. (Yes the fat kid on the left is me.)

Chocolate Cobler: I made this once with my Girlfriend before coming out here. It was really delicious and simple to make, I thought I'd give it a try again. I managed to perfectly half the recipe and replicate with all Japanese Ingredients. Seriously, it's to die for. So good. 

Kids Eikaiwa: We recently started a childrens english class at the church. Every Thursday at 5:00. The kids are all awesome. They're totally crazy too. We love teaching them though. They're all really good at English. 

Hope you all have a great week.
Love you all!
-G

The Blessings of Inviting our Friends

Well the first week of the Transfer is over and Elder Gallacher and I are just as tired as we thought we would be! It was a good week! It started a little slowly and our hayfever is running us down, but we were able to see a lot of Miracles. 

This past Saturday was a really great day for us. Every Saturday morning we do a free English Conversation Class. The turnout is usually pretty good, we have between 15 and 20 people coming regularly. One of the members in the ward Sister Tomoi invited a friend, who had interest in the church, to English class and then to meet with us afterward. We we're excited for the opportunity to teach a “referral.” We've really been focusing on working the with members to teach more of their friends. Sister Tomoi's friend Ami-chan came and brought her boyfriend Tsubasa-Kun with her. They both participated at Eikaiwa and had a blast! We became friends with them really quickly and they both said they want to come again next week.That was a good indicator for us that if we taught well then we'd be able to teach them again the next week. Following Eikaiwa we all went with another member and Sister Tomoi into a classroom and were able to introduce them to the Church and teach a lesson about the Restoration of the Gospel. Ami was already really interested. She trusts Sister Tomoi and wants to know about the church. We were worried that her boyfriend wouldn't have much interest, but by the end of the lesson he was just as excited as Ami, if not more so. He actually said the words “I'm really interested.” It was amazing to watch his eyes light up as they both learned for the first time that God is their loving Heavenly Father. As we always do we invited them to be baptized when they learn for themselves that the message we share with them is true. They both readily agreed that if they feel it's true then they do want to join the church. When we gave them each a Book of Mormon they were so excited. We even suggested that they study together. Tsubasa-Kun gave the closing prayer and prayed for the first time. It was an incredible experience. Tsubasa and Ami are both really great people and they have a strong relationship with Sister Tomoi who is really outgoing and will be able to support them as they Study and Learn. We excited for them. 

After that the day continued to get better. We were treated to lunch by another member who we had a mogi lesson with. Following lunch we had time to go and proselyte but rather than do just housing or streeting we decided to try an idea I got from my cousin (Ryan Zebley). We took plastic signs and wrote on them in big letters: “Free church tours!”, “Free English Class!” and “I'm a Mormon”.( I'm proud of myself, I personally wrote everything on the signs. They look pretty good.) We then went and waved them around on the street in front of the church the way the little ceasars pizza guy's dance with their signs. 

It worked. We got everyone's attention. No Japanese person would stand and dance for hours with a sign, they just don't do that. We became a spectacle as everyone who rode or drove past pointed at the crazy white guys. So awesome. We had some great laughs and talked to a lot of great people. No one came for a tour but we answered a lot of other questions and a lot more people now know that the building is a church building. (Seriously it's like one of the biggest/prettiest buildings in Okegawa and no one has noticed it.) We're hoping to do it a few more times in different places this week so people can get to know the church building, that way when we are streeting people will remember seeing it. It was honestly a blast. That night we had dinner with the bishop's family. 

We ate Takoyaki(batter fried octopus) and okonomiyaki, hiroshima style. It was so good! It's days like Saturday that really make me love being a missionary.
 

That's all the time I have for this week. But I love you all!  I challenge you all to think of someone who could use the gospel in their life and invite them to do something. Inviting is success in missionary work.
 

Have a great week everyone!
Love from Okegawa!
G

Ramen, Goldween Week, and the Doki

Hey Friends!
I hope you are all having a wonderful week! The weather is great here in Okegawa, a breezy 60 degrees. With the Humidity it feels like 80. I'm going to hate it here in the summer that's for sure.

Last P-day Elder Gallacher and I spent the day in Yokohama. Yokohama is a fantastic place. It's sleek and modern, it's by the ocean, it's got some of the coolest architecture I've ever seen, and everything is more spread out. It's not quite as tightly packed as Tokyo is. It actually kind of reminds of a Japanese Seattle. Our plan for the day was to go to the Cup Noodle Museum and then on to Landmark Tower and the Shinyokohama (Literally New Yokohama) Ramen Museum. When we reached the Cup Noodle Museum we were shocked to find it was closed! It isn't open on Tuesdays. That may sound weird but that's really common in Japan. Because most people here don't have a Christain Background the idea of taking breaks on Sunday hasn't really stuck so a lot of businesses take Monday or Tuesday as their day off. Sad but not defeated we moved on to Landmark Tower. Landmark Tower is a super cool building filled with shops, offices and even a hotel. It was built in 1993 and stands 296 Meters Tall. It's roughly the same height as Tokyo Tower. It also has Japan's fastest elevator and one of the fastest elevators in the world. It takes you from the 2^nd floor to the 69^th floor, (273 Meters) where the Observation Room is, in a blistering 750 Meters a second. The whole trip takes roughly 40 seconds. (Side note: I think I'm becoming converted to the Metric System, It just makes so much more sense!) The views at the top of Landmark Tower were fantastic despite it being cloudy. After we had seen what was there to be seen we headed down and discovered that the Pokemon Center was at the bottom! This should get some of you VERY excited. The Pokemon Center is every Pokemon lover's dream. (If you have no idea what I'm talking about then please just bear with me..) They have plush Pokemon of every kind and Pokemon cards, and video games etc. I however was thwarted in my attempt to find a plush Charmander! How could you not have a Charmander, he's the original fire Pokemon! I settled for a super awesome Pikachu. We then hopped on the Train and went to Shinyokohama. The Ramen Museum was by far the coolest place I have ever been to on my Mission. They Museum has nine different Ramen Shops each with a special Ramen advertised by the Museum. These shops are chosen from shops all over the country that have really high recommendations from customers. While in the Museum these shops maintain a rating. If a shop's rating gets below a certain point they are asked to leave the Museum and a new shop moves in. So all of the shops in the Museum have really good Ramen. (This is a little neat fact, but the Shinyokohama Ramen Museum was the first “Food Amusement Park” in the World!! Cool right??) Miso Ramen which is from Hokkaido is my personal favorite. Elder Gallacher really likes Kyushu or Tonkotsu Ramen. Tokyo Ramen is Shoyu(Soy Sauce) Ramen. We tried several of the really yummy Ramen they offered. 

That however was not the best part of the adventure to the Ramen Museum. There are certain street performers that have shows on the Museum floor. Elder Gallacher and I were front row for both show's we saw. The second show we saw was a man who does what is called “Kendama.” Kendama is a Japanese toy akin to a Yo-yo. It looks a little like a hammer with a spike on top and you You try to catch the ball in the little grooves before finally getting it on top of the spike. It's crazy hard but tons of fun. The performer (Ironically I believe his name was Ken, he has a website it's www.Kendamashi.com or something like that) actually has a couple of world records and was doing some crazy crazy stuff. Eventually he got to a point where he asked for volunteers just to prove how hard it is to actually do Kendama. Elder Gallacher and I being on the front row volunteered. Everyone was a little shocked when they discovered we understood his Japanese. We tried our hand at it and with a few minutes of trial and error managed to get the ball in the biggest groove a few times. It was a lot of fun. Afterward we took our picture with him and talked to him a little bit about why we were in Japan. It was the most interesting dendo (proselyting) opportunity of my mission. It was a full day of Sightseeing and Cultural experiences. I just have to say, I absolutely love Japan. It's an incredible country. 

With transfer day just less than a week away Elder Gallacher and I have really been pushing to give the area a little momentum for the coming transfer. Okegawa is an interesting place. It's a bed town. Everybody lives here but no one is ever home. A lot of people commute from here to Tokyo daily because we're only an hour away by train. As a result our timing has to be perfect. The people who are really ready to accept the gospel are busy, they have jobs just like everybody else. We're always working on more effective dendo strategies.

This week was Golden Week! Golden Week is akin to Spring Break back home except that everyone still has school and work. Friday, Saturday and Sunday are the vacation days for people at work. Golden Week is a favorite week for the Mission however because the people who are not working are out and about. Have I mentioned that there are over 40,000,000 people in my Mission? During Golden Week everyone comes out to play.
We spent a few days walking around parks and talking to families. That's probably my favorite way to proselyte now. We have this one park called Maruyama Koen. The park is absolutely massive with lots of different things to see and do. We had a fun time helping two guys, about our age, fish for crawdads (zarigani). That was a blast, I never thought I'd be able to share the Gospel in a different language while trying to catch crawdads. There has been more than one occasion I've turned to Elder Gallacher and said “Only as a missionary..” it's so true! Words often don't describe the experiences of a Missionary.

Sunday I had a really neat experience with Spiritual Gifts. This past Sunday was Fast Sunday and two of the things I was fasting for were The Gift of Tongues and The Gift of Discernment(Which is mentioned in my Patriarchal Blessing.) We had a lesson with an Investigator Sunday night around 5:30. We met him and started talking about the Plan of Salvation. Initially the lesson wasn't really going anywhere and we weren't sure how to help him but as we continued we were able to discover that he has some concerns about church. We asked him what his concerns were and he flat out said he wouldn't tell us. We didn't push, as it's not so uncommon for people to not want to tell us things, but we were able to unfold the Plan of Salvation to him and testify about the truthfulness of it. As we continued his questions became deeper and more difficult to answer, at one point he mentioned something about the Church having a negative impact on his life, or him becoming a negative person by joining the church. He explained that he didn't have the Faith.
I'm not exactly sure how I got around to, but I was able to compare Testimony to a light. An example I'm pretty sure I've never thought of before and I did it all in perfect Japanese.
When I was done Elder Gallacher bore his testimony and then we sat there and waited for our investigator to respond. He thanked us for sharing with him and told us that he didn't know what to say, that he liked the feeling of our message and that he would think and pray about it. We told him to read Alma 32 so that he could learn more about Faith and then we parted ways. When we were walking back to the apartment Elder Gallacher looked at me and said, “nice analogy.” I told him I had no idea where it came from. That lesson was probably one of the most spiritual lessons I've had the opportunity to participate in on my mission. I'm proud of my Japanese knowledge and my willingness to share my testimony, but what happened during the lesson was not from my own knowledge and after Fasting and Praying it's hard to deny that it was the Holy Ghost.

Today was Temple Day for the Mission! Elder Gallacher and I got up at 5:00 so we could make it into to Tokyo in time for the session. It was a great session, Elder Gallacher and I had the opportunity to talk to President and Sister Budge in the Celestial Room which is always a treat. I really want to build a good relationship with them. Today was Sister O'Rourke's last temple day as she leaves next week! In honor of that we took a picture of the doki and then when to eat Sukiyaki in Shibuya. Sukiyaki is the best! It's all you can eat in 90 minutes our group of 16 people made a goal to eat 100 plates of meat. We managed to hammer down 96. I wanna believe that's a mission record. We were all very full. It was nice to see everybody in my Doki and because some of my other friends (like Elder Healy) are companions with the members of my Doki we were able to hang out with them too! I can't believe the Sisters in my MTC group are all done with their missions! That means the Elders only have six months! Pretty soon I'll be the only remaining member of my Doki. I guess that makes me special. I won't be too far behind everyone, my mission is absolutely flying by!

Hope you all have a great week!
Next week is Mothers Day so I may just skip the weekly blast so I can call my Family.
I love you all!
-G

Elections, Archery, and Teaching like a Pro

First off, sorry for the lack of an E-mail last week. Some P-days it's simply too hard to squeeze in. I'm starting to write a little of this e-mail every day after I finish my Journal Writing so I have a little more time on P-days. Next week will be a Temple P-day however so that will also be Tuesday and I won't have tons of time to write.

A lot of fun things have happened in Okegawa these past two weeks.

Two weeks ago was campaign week for all of the candidates running for Mayor or City Council, this happened all over Saitama but we were very much aware of it Okegawa. In the states when it's election time, we usually see a bunch of T.V. ads, maybe a few speeches or some posters, maybe a facebook or twitter page etc.? Well here that is not the case. Imagine vans with megaphones on them announcing their respective candidate in the most crazy formal Japanese you can imagine (It literally get's longer as it gets more polite and with every added formality the message becomes less direct. Pretty much it's just noise that takes up space and has no meaning.) from the megaphone and driving all around the city to perform different rallies. When you have about three or four candidates all doing this it gets super loud! One of the candidate’s election headquarters was about a block from our apartment. He had a really cool slogan that read:

若い市長で元気な桶川。（Wakai shichou de genki na Okegawa.) which means “Through a young mayor we will have a vigorous Okegawa.” We decided one day that he should win the election (not that it really affects us in anyway) because his little slogan was super super catchy and really handy during dendo. We actually met him as he rode past in his bicycle-cade(bicycle motorcade). Anyway long story short... HE WON!!!! yeah that was pretty exciting.

The next fun thing that happened was 3 days with President and Sister Budge here in Saitama Zone. Once for a Zone Conference, and twice for Stake Conference. The best of these three days was the multi-zone conference we had with Matsudo, Kiryu and Saitama. They both gave some great trainings and then we had some fun in workshops with all of the Zone Leaders on specific teaching skills. We did one were we had to teach the Resoration of the Gospel to an Investigator in 5minutes in Japanese. I'm proud to say we can do it in 5.36. You may ask “Why would you try to cram an entire lesson into 5 short minutes?” In Tokyo most people are busy, or at least say they are, but if they stop and listen you can keep their attention for at least 5minutes. The purpose of the 5 minute role play lesson is not however to be able to teach it all at once, but to be able to convey it all simply. In Japan most people only have a basic knowledge of Christianity. We have to teach them the most basic of basic principles of the Gospel, in Japanese I might add. So by doing the 5 minute mogi(role play) we really see what things we can leave out of our teaching in order to teach more simply. It was a lot of fun! We've since done this for every lesson in the Preach My Gospel during our companionship study with Pikachu, Spiderman, Batman, and Bambi and Thumper. They're all progressing nicely.

This past Saturday we had a Music Night activity in Koshigaya, a few areas over. Naturally, Elder Gallacher was asked to sing. I don't know if I mentioned this before but he used to work at the Hale Center Theater in Mesa Arizona both as a performer and backstage. He has quite the voice. He performed two awesome songs. “With all the Power of Heart and Tongue” and Michael Buble's “I Just Haven't Met You Yet.” Both songs sounded great! We listened to a lot of awesome performances and The missionaries did the hokey pokey! I can do the hokey pokey like a pro! Afterward we ate real Costco Hotdogs. That was pretty awesome. Koshigaya actually has a Costco in there area. The members spoil them that's for sure. We were super happy missionaries that evening.

I know you probably think the only thing we do is play. Don't worry we're working hard still. It actually just so happens that when we're working cool things happen, like discovering a Kyuudou (Japanese Archery) Meet in the middle of the park you are proselyting in. We stuck around and watched for a little while and got to start a few good conversations with the people around us. It's great. They all just wonder why these two Americans are standing around watching Kyuudou and speaking Japanese to each other and then end up asking us what we're doing here. Perfect segue (I think that's how you spell it) into a gospel discussion. I wish it was always that easy! A teaching missionary is a happy missionary. 

Today Elder Gallacher and I are going to Yokohama to explore the world of Ramen. There are two really famous Ramen Museums there as well as Landmark Tower. Way excited! Yokohama is a blast!

Hope you all have a great week!
Love you all!
-G