Tuesday, July 17, 2012

Video's and Things

I have been kind of lazy posting videos and pictures so I'm making up for it now!  Here are some neat videos of the country and some of the elders in Sam's district.

Bike Ride in the Mountains #1
Bike Ride in the Mountains #2
Bike Ride in the Mountains #3
Sushi Restaurant #1
Sushi Restaurant #2
Elder Playing the Piano

Day trip to the Mountain #1
Day trip to the Mountain #2
Day trip to the Mountain #3
Day trip to the Mountain #4
Day trip to the Mountain #5
Day trip to the Mountain #6
Day trip to the Mountain #7



Mitton going home, Floods, Helping Hands, and a 7-Day Junkai!!!

SO yeah guess what?
Turns out that this week turned out to be even more crazy than the
last two haha. Ill start with Tuesday.
We all gathered in Kitakyushu for district meeting where Elder Mitton
had told us that he had finally gotten the news that he would end up
be returning to America. The Hospitals here in Nihon were going to
take him and check him in for a week but the american doctors who have
been working with the nihon doctors told them no way. So the next
altenative was for him to go home.
We had a normal district meeting and then we went and did some stuff
with Elder Mitton in Kokura. He wanted to get some clothes and some
different stuff before he headed home.
So afterwards Villalobos 長老 and I headed with Mitton and Barrus back to Nakatsu.

Wednesday
Packing day. Mitton had a ton of stuff to pack and we helped him
throughout the day. Eventually the Yahata 長老たち came and they helped us
with that Eikaiwa that night. Elder Mitton was supposed to travel
alone to Fukuoka and Villalobos and Morris 長老 were going to go back to
Kitakyushu. So they all went to the train station and Unice Barrus and
I stay in Nakatsu........FOR THE NEXT 7 DAYS!!!!!

WE HAD A WEEK-LONG JUNKAI!!

Seriously right now Im writting my email and I havent seen my actual
bed in a week.

Nothing really happened throughout the week we spent a lot of time
cleaning up the apartment due to the huge rain storms and floods (ill
talk about that later haha). But all in all I guess it was an ok
junkai.

So.. its been raining a lil bit. And by a little I mean water is
coming down mountains into rivers and destroying peoples homes.. Its
pretty crazy. Its not actually in my area its in Nakatsu which is in
Oita-ken so im way far from it in Kitakyushu.
Me, Unice, Barrus, Villalobos, Morris, Kopenen, and Kurose 長老 were all
part of a ``Mormon Helping Hands `` activity. We split into two
groups. One went to the river to move debress and to help people and
there homes, while the other helped a member who lived by the river to
get the water in out of his home. I have some pictures but the
computer that I am using doesnt let me send pictures. I basically
spent 8 hours under a house with a bunch of Japanese men shoveling
buckets of water and trying to syphin water out of peoples homes. It
was nutz.
If you get the chance you should google these floods. its pretty
intense. I think that 14 people have died due to floods on the roads
and people being swept into the river. Its very sad.
But dont worry im no where near it, anymore.

BUT man.

Crazy stuff back home too!!

Mom?!?! Why`d that kid do that?!?! Did you drop him afterwards?? haha
Im sorry he hurt you. Do you think that it has done anything to you?
Like are you going to go to the hospital again?

Jamie.
Dude... that blows. 小がないけれども。。。。。I thought it was funny what you said
at the end though. About how you lost all fear of girls on the misson
haha. Man you playa. I can just tell from your emails and from talking
to you on the phone that youre way more mature.Its cool man. Im happy
for you. Go find a lady friend. 彼女を見つけなさい!!!But your`e not allowed to
get married until Im home so... 結婚がだめでしょう!I think it will be way good
for you to date tons of people!! いろいろな女性たちをダトしなさい!!!!But whatever you
do just have fun!! 楽しんでください!!
Dang Forrest is home huh??
How was his homecoming man?
I saw the pic of you Jacob and Forrest.
You all are mecha (めちゃ freaking) old.
Do you guys just speak in Spanish with one another? I bet its a riot
to hear you 3 together.
Man.....everyone is just so old I wanna see em haha.

Sophie still sounds like a punk haha.

Mom, Mitton`s mom asked me to say thank you for calling. Mitton called
his parents last week and his mom said she was very grateful. I really
miss Mitton. Hes such a sick kid. He has so much dendo fire. He sent
Barrus 長老 an email about being back home in america and said he was
walking on the street and felt uncomfortable asking people for
directions so he found the only Japanese person he could and asked him
haha. I love Mitton. He is supposed to come back after he recovers
from surgery so maybe we can be in the same district again =)

Well, Transfer 2 is ending tomorrow. And I have learned a lot this
transfer. We were at Nakatsu`s church this last week and we were
talking about ``Ture Conversion``. That just knowing of something and
being totally committed to that. I have been thinking about that a
ton. And I have never seen any other great examples since I have been
here. For example Elder Mitton. The guy never thinks about himself.
The entire time through all of the doctor visits and through all of
the tests he was always saying that he wished he could just stop his
dendo clock right now so he wasnt wasting his mission time, so when he
returned he would have more dendo time. I was thinking ``Dude!! You
might have cancer!! Thats mecha serious!!`` But the whole time all he
could only think about was dendo. Even when he was sick he was like
man.. I wanna go talk to people. I love that. And then also yesterday
with the Helping Hands activity. These members who were helping one
another and doing all they could for some one else was amazing. There
were people from the Fukuoka stake who had come and had no idea who
Kai kyodai was. They just knew he needed help. So they came 2 hours
from Fukuoka in order to save his house. Thats amazing. Japanese
people will never stop amazing me. When they believe in something the
will hold to it and do everything that they possibly can to fulfill
it. Members are such a great 証 of that. They just are fully convered
to the gospel, in a part of the world that is just vile and evil.
There are so many awful things that happen here, but these people
overcome. Because they have the gospel.
I love those people.

I hope you all have a cool week. It just started pouring rain and I
dont have my raincoat so that sucks haha. しょうがない。

Jamie, Meri, Sophie, Forrest, Dad, Mom, Grace!!!

Aishiteiruyo!!!
愛しているよ!!

Tuesday, June 26, 2012

Hello from the other side!
The world hasnt ended yet just to let you know so dont stress.
Man....
This transfer is finally starting to pick up.
Its been going WAY slow but its finally beginning to speed up!
And im way grateful.
Theres nothing more depressing than when things are going way slow and
youre not seeing success, but things are getting way better!!

This week we had two junkai`s (trades), one with mitton 長老 in Nakatsu
(Inaka-ville)(deserted-ville) and another with Yamada 長老 in Fukuoka
city (which is crazy!!!!!!!!!!!!!! its such a busy place)

Mitton 長老 and i had junkai back on tuesday after district meeting.
Villalobos 長老 and Barrus 長老 came with us to Nakatsu but we split after
we arrived. Mitton 長老 and i were able to teach 5 lessons and find them
an new investigator. Oh yeah, and this was all during a thunder storm
haha Rainy season has BEGUN. We stopped a bunch of people on the
streets and they stopped and talked with us even though we were in the
middle of a storm haha. Rain here is not like rain back home.
Everytime it rains its like being hit with a pillow of water in the
face every 5 seconds. Which is way mendokusai (annoying) when youre
trying to teach haha.

This week we went to the honbu (mission office) because it was stake conference.
Kitakyushu is part of the Fukuoka stake so we traveled to honbu in
Fukuoka. It was way fun. We had the oppurtunity to go through the
temple on Saturday and it was amazing. The templein Japan is an
entirely different experience. Thats all i can say.
After that we went under the temple to the mission home and visited
the honbu elders, Oba 長老 and Yamanashi 長老 and also the APs Ahn 長老 and
Clements 長老. Everyone is way stressed because they have been trying to
prepare for the new mission president to come in. Its all bittersweet
having a new mission president arrive, its exciting but kinda scary.
While i was at the honbu I had to take an oral exam to check up on my
training which I had started in the MTC. It was the exact same kind of
test that i took when i left the mtc but some things had been changed.
and i crushed it haha I FELT SO GOOD. In the mtc, when i did that test
i couldnt speak at all (we had mics and had to answer questions in
JApanese) but this time i answered everyone and ran out of time on
some because i didnt have enough time to answer cuz i was saying so
much haha. IT WAS GREAT!! There was also a grammar test that we were
required to take and i got 25/25. WHOOT WHOOT. I love ぶんぽう! (grammar).
For the test we were supposed to recite a memorized scripture and
totally did it, i couldnt when i was in the mtc, but it was so easy
this time
Moses 1:39 みよ、人の伏し不滅と永遠の命をもたらすことこれが私の輪図であり、私の影響である。
Miyo, hito no fushifumetsu to eien no inochi wo motarasu koto, kore ga
watashi no wazu de ari, watashi no eikyou de aru.
I love how it sounds in Japanese.
After I took that test Sister Margetts walked into the honbu because
she thogught no one was there (because saturday is the honbu elders
pday) but she was like whoa hey chourous haha so we talked to her for
about an hour haha it was so spontaneous and fun.
Shortly after that Elder Berg and Elder Yamada came and we began JUNKAI!!
Me and Yamada 長老 killed it.
We had so much fun.
Hes such a great ZL
I always love Junkai`ing with him because we always have so much fun.
He only knows a little Japanese so we spoke Nihongo the whole time.
We were able to visit 2 members families and teach 3 lessons on the
streets. we would have goten more but we had to run some errands for
the APs.
I took some way fun pics of Yamada 長老 and I so ill send them probably
in about a week.
(something funny about Yamada 長老 is that he loves using the english he
knows and he always says these to things ``honto ni?!`` which means
really haha and he`ll say it whenever I say something funny or he`ll
try to say ``really`` but says ``OH REARY?!?!`` haha I love him so
much. we were talking about next transfer and he was asking me if i
was worried about getting a nihonjin companion and i said if theyre
genki (happy) than itll be good. and he said well sadly nihonjin arent
very genki haha then i said youre genki!! and then he said this next
bit word for word in a way deep voice ``IM NOT GENKI..`` hahahaha it
was so great! I want you guys to meet him after my mission.)
Sunday was way cool. It was a stake conference but the meeting was
broadcasted from Church headquarters to all of Japan. The speakers
were Sister Wixom, Chei 長老 of the 70, Oaks 長老 and Uchtdorf 長老. IT WAS
SUCHA COOL MEETING!! WAY GOOD!! oh yeah and I forgot the best part
AOSHIMA-SAN came!! He came all the way from his home in Usa to Fukuoka
for the conference. They had the main room in nihongo for the
japanese, a room upstairs for english, and a room for chinese
speakers!! So he got to listen in his native language! We taught a
lesson with him afterwards and he loved everything. we tried to commit
him to baptism again. but he says he cant yet. he was raised a
communist and they always taught him that there was no such thing as a
god. and its very hard for him to change those beliefs that he has. He
says he wants to, hes trying to, but its taking time. He says he wants
to be baptized but he must know if god lives.
So we will help him know.

Thats basically my whole week. Today were doing some shopping and im
gonna buy some japanese clothing haha today i have junkai with the
yahata chouroutachi so that will be fun.

I love you all!
Hope things are going way good!

Jamie! you gotta get some hobbies man haha go do some fun stuff!
Kevin already has a girlfriend? dang that was quick. When does forrest
get home?? Man time is flying. Ill write you a handwritten letter
today cuz im cool like that.

uuuuuuuummmmmmmmmmm....... I dont need really anything right now.

I could use some Locals flip flops but i dont need them anytime soon.
Just send them maybe like in a couple of monthes.

I love you Shelby, Jamie, Mom, Dad, MERI GRACE SOPHIE DOG!!! I hope
that you all are doing good!!

LLLAAATTTEEESSS.


IM BEING RUDE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
失礼します!!

OOOOOOHHHHHH REARY?!?!?!

Sunday, June 3, 2012


Hello みなーさん!!
I hope everyone is doing well..
SO this week has been pretty cool. I was able to do some bean dendo with Barrus 長老 from my douki. Its always super scary because weve only been here a month and we can hardly speak any 日本語. But when we dendo`d I was able to get to know a guy, talk about my family and what Im doing in 日本, and after about 30 min I gave him a B of M! IT was super tight!! I was so stoked!! I always feel so pumped when I am actually able to carry on a conversation in 日本語.

This week we were able to meet with AOSHIMA-SAN!!!! This guy in kin-jin (lit:Golden person, like golden investigator, doesnt really translate haha). He was a self referral who has come to the last 4 Eikaiwas and has now come to church twice! This last week we met with him before Eikaiwa on Thursday and we taught him a lesson. At the end of it we asked him if he would like to baptized. And he was like that sounds amazing but I have only been to church once, I cant commit to something so sacred if I dont know everything about it. And we were like wwwhhhhooooaaa he really understnad the importance of this. It was so cool! Even on sunday when he came to church during our Gospel Principles class we were talking about Baptism and the teacher, (Kaneko Kyodai, our Dendoshunin, or Ward Mission Leader) asked the class what was the significance of the submersion of water. It got really quiet and then Aoshima raised his hand and said ``I dont know exactly, but I think I read about this in the Book Of Mormon. Doesnt it mean like the washing away of your old life and starting a new one?``.....I was like ``DANG SON!!!! MY BOYS GOT MAD SKILLS!!!!`` I think hes such a cool guy chugokugojin our always kin-jin (Chinese people are always golden)

SO yeah that my week haha. Nothing really else happened
.
Last Monday was ZONE PDAY so we went to a beach in FUKUOKA and played volleyball with the rest of our zone.

Wednesday I had Junkai with the Yahata 長老たち, so I went with Swasey 長老to Yahata. Ill put a pic in here. Hes a Halfsy, hes peds in 英語and 日本語.

But yeah taht my week. Now were going to go mountain biking in a Bamboo forrest with one of our Eikaiwa students named MIKI. Shes like 82 years old and works out like 3 hours a day from 8-11PM. SHES CRAZY. Shes always saying `yeah I am very old so I cant be very active I only ski about 50 days out of the year now. ``LADY YOU CRAZY!!!``

ANother quick story. No one in the ward can remember my name. Its too amaerican so everyweek at church they walk up and stare at my tag and say. ``mmaaaaaa.........koneru````. haha its pretty funny. To help people remember my name, when I say it I just say ma...koneru and then roll my hands together because the word koneru means to knead haha so when I do that people are like ``ooooohhhhh wakarimashita!```` (I get it)

Well yosh... Take pics when Jamie get home. Let me know If hes gotten fat.
I love you all!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
LATES!!!!!!!!!!!
Aishiteiruyo!!!!



またね!!!

Wednesday, May 30, 2012

Sunday, May 27, 2012

おーは世ございます!!! GOOD MORNING!!!!!

Im really sorry to hear about Grandpa Thad. I Didn`t read moms letter first I read dads. So when I was reading it, it said `I want to share some stuff about grandpas funeral and I was like HOLY COW!! No one told me he had passed away! But I read some more and then I understood. Im really going to miss grandpa. He was amazing. I knew the story that you told me dad, mom shared that with me about a year ago, he was just amazing. Tell Grandama Babara I love her. This week went by just as fast as the other ones!! Its so crazy! Monday - After Pday we were able to go out to dinner with a member of the ward named Kimura Kyodai. He took us to a sushi joint and made us eat SO MUCH!! I shared a little message with him and then we asked what we should do when it comes to getting the ward united. And he just said to visit everyone and get people excited about dendo! So thats what were gonna do! Tuesday - We had district meeting and then afterwards we had a lesson with Nakamura at the church. Ooshima kyodai cae to the church unexpectantly and helped us teach the lesson! It was so great (Theres a pic of him in here with us his wife daughter and friend, hes the one sitting down). 
we tried to visit a family in our ward called the Sakuragis. They have a bakery in Shii city so we tried to ride our bikes there and find it but we couldnt find it forever, it kinda sucked. And then after we found it it was closed for the night... Which sucked.
Funny Story = So in Japan when little kids cross the street they look both ways and put there hand in the air as high as they can and cross the street. So the night we were returning home from Shii, we had to cross this street as the cross walk symbol turned on we began to cross and a car ran the light right in front of us. SO Villalobos put his hand in the air as he began to cross and everyone in the other cars waiting for us began to laugh. As we were crossing an old lady was crossing from the other side and she just said ``NE?!`` which means basically in japanese ``I KNOW RIGHT?!?!`` hahahaha. Wednesday - We returned to Shii city and were able to meet the Sakuragis at there bakery, we bought a ton of stuff and they were very grateful. We taught 3 lessons and were able to meet a lady in the ward named Okahara shimai who is a Philipinjin (philipeno). We asked her if she could help us with a talent show were trying to do for the ward and she gladly said she would. Funny Story = Whenever we see kids between 8-16 years old they always try to speak as much English as they can to us, espicially when theyre in large groups. So as we were heading home we meet like 7 15 year olds guys and they were all trying to speak english. So we gave them some eikaiwa chidashi (English Class Flyers) and we talked with them in English, and they were like `WAKARANAI!!!` `I DONT UNDERSTAND!!`. So we were like buh bye see you... and then Villalobos Choro yells ``MY MOM HAS A HUGE REFRIDGERATOR!!!`` And they were like MY MOM HAS A HUGE REFRIDGERATOR back. hahaha Villalobos then explained that they have no idea what were saying so no matter what we say theyll try to repeat it and think that it means like a way that American people say goodbye. So if anyone goes to Japan and a kid walks by and says ``my mom has a huge refridgerator`` that was our bad,. Thursday - We helped teach English to like 100 kindergarten kids with Okahara Shimai. THEY WERE ALL CRAZY!! We played the English version of ``Jon ken po!!`` or ``Rock paper Scissors`` it was really fun. Later that night at Eikaiwa to new students came who were actually both Chinese. The husbnad speaks fluent chinese and Japanese but his wife only knows Chinese so were trying to help her out. His daughter recieved a chidashi from missionaries about 8 monthes ago and he kept it because he wanted to come but he had been too busy. But then he came hahaha. They are called the Oushimas. Friday - JUNKAI W/ YAMADA CHORO!! MY ZL!! What a crazy experience. I junkai`d (Splits) with elder yamada this friday and it was amazing. He speaks only a little english so we talked in Japanese all day and I loved it. We had suchs a great time we visited 1 member and taught 8 lessons on the street. We taught a lesson to one guy from like 810-920 on a street curb. He knew both english and Japanese so Yamada and I taught him in both. SUCH A CRAZY NIGHT!! IT WAS SO MUCH FUN! Theres a pic of him in here as well the one holding my photo album. Saturday - Villalobos and Edwards Choro returned from Fukuoka and Villalobos and I went and taught Eikaiwa. The Oushimas returned!!!! It was legit!! Afterwards we went with some Eikaiwa students to go sight seeing and we tried to teach them some stuff but they just werent ready to hear it. Sunday Tashiro Choro of the 70 came and visted the ward!!! He was so cool. He was one of the best speakers Ive ever heard and he was super loving. He knows the kitakyushu ward very well so there was one part of the meeting where someone stood up to leave and he stopped and said, in nihongo ``Sister Imi do you have to go?`` and she was like yeah sorry I have work and he said ``thats ok but I want a hug first`` So he runs off the stand hugs her runs back up and continues haha it was so great. Afterwards the Ooshima invited us to there home where we were able to teach a friend of there`s a lesson. WAY WAY WAY FUN TIME. They have a daughter named Erin who is sophies age and she is just like Sophie but the Japanese version haha.]
Well thats it for me. I got letters from Abi Busath and Mike Young this Week. ANOTHER CRAZY STORY - Shelby, if you read this, youll have to let Samantha Bunderson know that Im will Villalobos. She wrote him a letter and was like ``if you meet a Sam McConnell I was his girlfriends roomate`` and he was like ``HOLY CRAP DUDE SMALL WORLD!!`` Befre he started reading the letter Iwas like ``Im pretty sure the name sam bunderson sounds familiar...` and he was like ``you probably dont know her......wait your name is in here`` hahaha I love you all!!! MOM DAD SHELBY JAMIE MERI GRACE SOPHIE DOG!!! Youre all wonderful. Have fun sleeping!! my day
just started haha. みなー産におやすみなさい!!らい主またね!! Goodnight!! Ill see ya next week!