Week 65- 12/26/16 Merry Christmas

Hey well if it isn't your favorite Christmas present. I'm thankful for

the opportunity to be an entire day ahead of most of you so I can

grace your inboxes with my email just in time for this special day.

You wanna know what we did this week? Well it was pretty much the same

as last week. It is STILL raining. Like we're almost done with

December and it's still going. The nagaoka snow legend is full of

bologna I've decided. We did have some luck with meeting a few

investigators, and talking to some interesting people.

We had the opportunity to meet one of our potential investigators at

an illumination festival. He's from India and invited us with his

friends. We ended up crashing a birthday party of like 20 Indians (2

were Nepalese secretly) and they all apparently don't like us do to

some stuff with their religion and Mormonism a few years back. That

was way awkward but now I know like 20 Indians. Our potential

investigator was really cool though.

This week while on splits with Elder Broberg our district leader, it

was 60 degrees outside. We went and did a little housing. We ended

bumping into this old couple towards the end of our time (as it

usually happens) and they invited us in. The husband opened the door

and and was like "woah the Mormon missionaries" and told his wife to

start cooking food. We sat in their house for a bit and talked

religion. The husband was like "yeah I've pretty much decided there's

nothing after this" but the wife seemed to have interest. They

wouldn't accept our Book of Mormon but they did invite us back

"whenever we want."

We also had Christmas this week. The members got us presents. Pretty

much food and candy which I'm thankful for. Then Elder McIlrath and I

had a nerf gun war before bed (thanks mom). You'd think for an army

national guardsman he would have been better. That's pretty much our

week. Oh I also Skyped my family. Only have one more of those left.

It's supposed to snow a ton this week. We'll see though. Hope

everybody has a good week!

Presents

Week 64- 12/19/16 It Snowed! And Now It's Gone

Hello everybody! Yes according to my email title it did snow. Pretty

hard for about 2-3 days actually. We had to walk everywhere. But now

he temperature is back up tot he 50s for some reason so I'm still

doubtful of the claims about how this place is crazy in the winter. I

guess we'll see huh?

This week we pretty much just walked everywhere. I've got a good

picture of the snow just starting. We had pretty much nothing going on

for as us as well so there was plenty of time to walk. Unfortunately

it takes us a good amount of time to get ANYWHERE on foot so that's

where our week went. You'd think it would be fine because we can just

talk to people on the street but once there's actually precipitation

the Japanese people scatter and nobody goes outside. They don't even

come answer their doors here.

We did have a super cool and rad time this weekend though. The 16th

was Elder McIlraths birthday so we celebrated, then the 17th was a

huge Christmas party that president Nagano supervised. He came down

and everything. It was the culmination of all our guitar classes so

far. We rocked the house and had a good time. Lots of people showed

up. Then on the 18th it was my birthday so we had a little party after

church and ate the left over sandwiches from the Christmas party. The

branch president gave me an assignment to speak in sacrament meeting

because it was birthday so I did pretty good on that.

This email is honestly pretty hard to write. We really didn't do much

this week except for the Christmas part at the end of the week. Also

thank you all for the bridal wishes! I'm a day ahead so they're all

late but I still feel your love. Hope everybody has a great week this

week! Here are pictures!

What we woke up to

There's actually a mountain behind me. The snow was that thick

We decided to make a Christmas card. Merry Christmas!

Week 63- 12/12/16 Just Trying to Figure Out How to Keep My Feet Continuously Warm

Hey everybody! How has your week been? Well I'll tell you about mine. 

This week was one where I didn't take my rain suit off for practically the whole week except for Saturday. It's really trying to snow here. It actually happened on Saturday though and I'm stoked. We were slipping down sliding everywhere on the way home from our ping pong night which nobody came to. 

This week was pretty much a scramble of trying to contact our investigators. All of them have stopped talking to us. Even Nitta, and he's supposed to have a baptism. He read the Word of Wisdom pamphlet and that's the last we've heard from him. He won't talk it out or anything. Looks like he's a cancel. It wouldn't be too bad if we could still meet our other progressing investigator but he's not talk in either. So this week was just a lot of walking around in the cold and rain telling people about our Christmas party. I'm actually pretty excited for the party because president is coming and he singing a bunch of talented missionaries with him. 

So yeah our investigators don't like us anymore. But we'll find more I guess. Since winter is coming and it started snowing nobody is talking to us or even outside anymore. We're pretty much out of ideas so we're going to start taking the train out to visit less actives who haven't been visited in forever because the train is reimbursable in Niigata zone in the winter. Warm toes here we come!

Other than that this was a way challenging first week of transfer ten. But hey it snowed. It's supposed to start raining again though. It was fun while it lasted. We've also been trying to kick the branch into action with missionary work. They just kind of complain and shoot us down every time but what they don't realize is in 10 years if nothing happens Nagaoka branch won't even exist anymore. Everybody reading this better be helping your missionaries. I'm not just talking bout feeding them. SHARE THE GOSPEL. Be the light of the world! That's pretty much our big focus. 

Other than that this week wasn't very eventful. It's what happens when your entire area decides to take a belly flop. We had zone meeting! Played some wicked frisbee in the freezing cold. Speaking of cold I have a cold. We've been dealing with that as well. Have a good week everybody and enjoy my pictures! 

Zone Meeting

Oguro wanted a picture

the band

We found these sick shirts from the 70s for 2 bucks. Mine has elephants and giraffes on it

Mega Gundam Elder

Week 62- 12/5/16 When Will Winter Come?

Well hello again family, it's another episode of "Where the heck is Elder Moore?" Transfer nine is done and I'm now officially a transfer ten missionary. DOUBLE DIGITS. Anyways let's get started.

Last Monday was way cold. It still hasn't snowed here yet. Everybody else got snow except us. I'm starting to think this whole "nagaoka gets a lot of snow" stuff is just a bunch of lies because it's only been freezing rain. We got hail twice though. Anyways, we went about our normal day and went bowling with our investigator Miyajima. I was doing way good until I broke my finger nail. I was bowling nines or strikes until the 5th frame of the second game. We then went out to eat ramen and then he ran away because he's an enigma. We then raced home, grabbed our stuff, packed our bikes, and got on a train to Joetsu for splits. 

Tuesday was splits in Joetsu. I went with Elder Broberg. I've known him for my entire mission so that was fun. He was my zone leader when I was a bean in Okegawa. We biked around in the wind a cold and rain all day because really nothing happens in Joetsu. But we did find a new investigator by using the new Christmas video, which I suggest y'all check out. We also ate at a huge buffet with a racist Japanese less-active who thinks he's American. He kept ranting about how Japans economy is bad and they need to invest in gold. I ate several plates of pancakes.

Wednesday was more splits except this time with the zone leaders in our own area. I went with Elder Burch, who I replaced in Abiko. Then I followed him to Niigata zone 4 weeks later. We reminisced and walked around a lot. We had a way good lesson with Takeshi and taught him the Plan of Salvation. He wants to be baptized but his parents won't let him. Darn.

Thursday was a day of more spooky clouds and service. We made Christmas decorations for old people at an old folks home. I made a new friend. The old lady I was helping called me a "good boy" and kept saying that my skin looked so soft. That's one happens when you're exposed to constant moisture. We also met our Investigator Nitta who is getting baptized on the 17th. Everything is going well so far.

Friday was a pretty much spent doing weekly planning and guitar night. I got kicked out of the band. Feels way bad. But I won a spot back because there's just not enough bass in the song and the guy who's playing the bass line can't play guitar, so I got put on bass line which is okay I guess. Just curious why I got kicked you know? Maybe I'll start my own rival band. 

Saturday was way weird and I don't remember it much. We planned this huge activity with the members to advertise for the Christmas party we have but only like two showed up. I know they don't have anything to do because they're all old and retired and bedsides the missionaries the youngest person in the branch is like 48 or something. But hey we slammed it. Sunday was Sunday.

Now about transfer news. I'm officially not going anywhere and finishing elder Mcilraths training. This is like the first time since transfer 5 nothing has happened to me during transfers. I was way nervous. Anyways I hope everybody is good and I'll let you know how next week goes. It's supposed to snow tomorrow so we'll see. It'll probably just be more rain. Enjoy the pictures!

Thanksgiving at Mcdonalds

"God sees the heart"

"Those who believe in me have eternal life"

"Believe in the true God"

"Repent of your sins"

Week 61- 11/28/16 When It Snowed Everywhere except Niigata

Hey everybody. Another week has flown by here in my own piece of

Winter Wonderland. You may have heard it snowed in Tokyo. Well it did

pretty much everywhere except here, the place that in famous (or

infamous) for its snow. I'm actually way confused when it's supposed

to start and Elder McIlrath and I are waiting in nervous anticipation.

This week started off way good. We had so many lessons planned and we

were way excited but by the time Thursday rolled around we only had

like 3 lessons. Literally 3/4 of our investigators canceled on us last

minute. At times like that the only thing you can do is suck it up,

put on your coat, and start hitting the streets. We put a huge focus

on the Book of Mormon this week, and we're able to hand out 5 in one

day,  and 3 in the next. That's pretty good for Niigata!

At the end of Thursday we took the train to Niigata for Zone

Conference the next day. Since it was thanksgiving we wanted to eat at

KFC because that's the closest it gets here to real turkey. We want in

and it's like 10 dollars for a 2 piece set and 20 dollars for a 9

piece so we were just like "ヤバッ、マックに行こう。" and went to mcdonalds. The

teriyaki burger is top notch.

We had Zone conference on Friday. It was way good. One of our focuses

was just "the gospel." What is it, why we have it, how can I teach it

better, how am I a successful missionary? It was really refreshing

because it was just a large testimony meeting. Saturday was new

missionary training. Then we took the train home and did ping pong

night. Then Sunday was Sunday.

I have good news. We set a baptismal date with our investigator Nitta

for December 10! He's a way good guy and we're all super excited.

Anyways I hope y'all had a good week. Thank you parents for sending me

pictures! I enjoyed them. Now here's my pictures.

custom truck we found

Niigata zone conference

decorated for Christmas (thanks mom!)