Week 39- 6/27/16 Beginning of Transfer 6

Welcome everybody to by weekly email extravaganza. To be honest I'm

pretty tired right now so just bear with me. We went to seminary today

then right after played basketball.

This week was one of the busiest weeks I've had. We got transfer news

on Monday, and Tuesday was spent preparing and visiting members to say

bye. It was supposed to rain that day, but I dislike riding bikes in

the rain so I said a very heartfelt prayer and the rain stopped,

literally right as we walked out the door. Pretty awesome miracle.

Wednesday was transfers. Elder Kenley came in and he, Elder Gibson,

and I spent the day with each other. We finished the day up with

Eikaiwa. Thursday wa sweetly planning. Planning is so hard when you

get a new companion because you just talk about eve thing forever.

After planning we went out and did some finding and contacting. Friday

is when things started to get busy. We had district meeting and all

that good stuff. By the time we finished study it was already like

2:30 and we had to eat dinner at 4:30 so we could make it on time to

our tutoring classes. So we sped over to some members houses and

invited them to a 4th of July party we're planning. Then we sped home,

ate, went to teach eiken, made some new friends, and went home.

Saturday was even busier. We had absolutely no time for anything. We

started with the beach clean up then the bishops wife invited us over

for lunch. After that we had to speed down to the church and help set

up for the music festival they were having. The bishops family played

Summer of 69 and it was pretty good. After we super quickly tried to

visit a less active, almost got killed, went home, and finished our

day with the studies we pushed back.

That's pretty much it. I'm enjoying this transfer so far. I like my

companion and everybody in the district is really isshokenme when it

comes to the missionary side of things. I hope everybody had a good

week. Bye! I'm going to a concert soon so I'll tell you all about it

later!

Cool Mongolian guy who came to church

Week 38- 6/20/16 Matsuri clothes are kind of weird

Hello hello it's me. Before you drop this into your delete box I have

some news for all of you.

This week was probably one of the fastest weeks on my mission. We had

transfer calls today, but you'll have to wait until the end of my

email to find out. Lately there's been a lot of buzz around Urayasu

because they've been gearing up for a massive festival that only

happens once every four years. They've been setting up lanterns and

decorations for months. Finally they had the matsuri (festival) this

weekend.

To start off the email, we didn't really do much last p day. On

Tuesday we visited a ton of less active members, because our stake has

given each ward a challenge to visit all the less actives. We were

assigned the most to visit, in the farthest part of the area

(naturally). On Wednesday, we did the same thing. Except a member

volunteered to drive us around in a car. You don't really appreciate

having a car until you walk or bike everywhere, especially in tokyo's

90% humidity. All you car missionaries have a good life, no matter how

junky your car is.

We drove around with the member, Brother Sugimoto for a bit and after

he turns around to us with a devious smile on his face and asks

"アイスを食べましょうか" which just translates as "Shall we go eat ice cream?" He

drove us down to the local mall and bought us overpriced Japanese

baskin robbins. We had a blast and he was able to share his mission

stories with us.

Thursday was a normal Thursday of weekly planning. And Friday we

busied ourselves by checking out the festival, and going out to eat

near Disney land with one of the members named Nate. He's from America

and plays Aladdin, Prince Charming, and Prince Eric. He's a pretty

cool guy. Then on Saturday we walked around the festival during lunch.

We can't do missionary work since it's a really big religious

festival. They were carrying tiny Buddhist shrines around the town to

bigger ones. It was like playing pac-man as we were trying to avoid

the massive amounts of people and shrines moving around. Then we

traveled down to our investigators high school and spent a day at his

school festival, where each class hosted a game or activity. It was

pretty fun.

Sunday was interesting as well as we had a stake conference

broadcasted from Salt Lake. Elder Bednar was able to speak to us and

he gave an amazing talk. Everyone we encounter as problems with

members he talked about. He was really in tune with what this country

need and how to get the members to help us. His main topic was "The

lord will hasten His work, but are we prepared for the hastening?" We

need to make sure we are ready for the Lord to start making changes,

because they'll happen whether we want it or not.

Finally, the moment you've all been waiting for. I am officially

staying in Urayasu Area for another transfer, and my new companion is

Elder Kenley, an Elder was in the MTC with me. I'm so excited to

work another transfer in Urayasu. Thank you for reading! I'll be

sending pictures and videos.

Picture 1- Elder Wilkes' last Eikaiwa. I really look up to him

Picture 2- cleaning he apartment

Picture 3- Hitoshi and I

Week 37- 6/13/16 We Are Officially In Rainy Season

Helloooooo everybody! It's me again and who's ready for this weekly

email smackdown? I guess I'll go over the week.

We've been visiting a lot of less actives recently. The stake

president here gave all the wards a goal to visit all the less actives

in the ward, which meant the missionaries are pulling lot of the

weight. We visit all the people who are far. It takes us about an hour

and a half just to bike to the general area. Not to mention the

Japanese address and postal system is super confusing. It's going more

humid. The average humidity is around 80% which makes the weather feel

much worse. It's also rainy season. All those missionaries with cars

should be very grateful.

We taught the Law of Chastity to our main investigator Tomoki this

last week, and accepted it with no problems. I wasn't surprised

really. He's a pretty awesome guy. Really that's all that happened

this week. We spent a lot of time visiting members or trying to find

ways out of the rain. I had some of the best katsu I've ever had. Like

seriously. Only for eleven dollars too! We also had a lot of people

almost become investigators. In Japan, it's kind of hard to give away

a Book of Mormon because their culture is to deny three times, even if

they want it. But if they're not interested, you keep pushing and make

them mad. Such is life here. At least people are nice when they tell

you they don't have interest.

This is the start of week six so it means this transfer is almost

over. I'm really enjoying my stay down here in Urayasu. The humidity

is rough because we're on the ocean but it's one of the best areas

ever. The members are so nice.

That's pretty much it! See kimi-tachi next week!

Week 36- 6/6/16 New Apartment

Hey it's me. This email is going to be kind of short because I'm tired

and had a long day. I'll let you in on the biggest thing that happened

this week. We finally moved apartments. It seems to be my lot in life

to change apartments in every new area. If that's the case I'm fine

with it. This new apartment is pretty nice. Probably the best thing

about it is the fact that we have two working air conditioners now,

and there's no fixes in the shower.

I'd tell you about this week but to be honest it was spent mainly

preparing to move on Saturday. Today we took an hour train ride to a

mall called laketown, the biggest mall in Japan. Being in Tokyo zone

is easy because you have easy access by train to literally anywhere

(in the mission).

That's pretty much it for this week. Sorry about the shortness. I'll

attach pictures.