Week 78- 3/27/2017 A Caged Bird

Oh boy I I hope y'all are ready for my week because I don't think I've been think physically/emotionally drained in a while. The funny part is we didn't even do anything. We were inside for most of the week, hence the email title.

So let's start with Monday. Elder Sharon started having bad pain Sunday night so we stayed inside and did nothing on Monday. I took a mean 2 hour nap. I recommend for sure. 

Tuesday was Hospital day with Brother Inaba. He was kind enough to drive us down. Funny story, he was the seminary coordinator while I was in Misawa so I actually met him. I have all these videos of 5 years ago me now. Also all of you who were in the class for the New Testament. But we went to the hospital and found out that Elder Sharon's kidney stone is a centimeter in diameter and not moving. He spent three hours in pain Sunday night just to have it right outside his kidney. We then called the doctor and he said he will more than likely need to go home so we set things up for that.

Wednesday was spent inside or teaching English. Thursday was also spent inside and missed out on Zone Conference. We're heading down to Tokyo today to attend though. President then came over and talked about the going home process. Elder Sharon was supposed to leave on Monday but then Friday happened.

The doctors called again. They sent his info to Salt Lake and they said surgery is one of the worst ideas you can choose and they want him to pass it naturally. Well this thing hasn't moved in a week. They said if starts to hurt than get it blasted with lictoscopy. I think that's a bad idea and we fume for the rest of the day. They pretty much told him to push through everything and suffer. 

Saturday was Saturday and Sunday was great because we rode around in a car all day. But we found out more information. If Elder Sharon does the treatment that was recommended by salt lake, he will be spending close to 1000 dollars even with insurance out of pocket straight up. He may also be hospitalized. So we are going to the hospital today to see what they want to do with him, and we will continue to talk to the doctors. It's all boiled down to whether Elder Sharon wants to stay or not.

Sorry this is pretty much just an email about Elder Sharon but I didn't do much this week. Our bishop travels to America often so he brought us back some cereal and goldfish crackers. My favorite foods! Anyways I still managed to get some pictures of me hijacking a train so please enjoy those! 

Week 77 3/20/17 Japanese Hospitals Are The Bane of American Missionaries

Hello everybody it is I once again. You may be wondering about my

email title and I just want to tell you that I am okay. My companion

however, is not. I will explain later on in this email, but first I'll

cover my week.

You've already seen some of the pictures but I went to Nikko on

Monday, which is a world heritage site. The actual place was built in

the Edo period of Japan (Edo is the old name for Tokyo when Kyoto was

the countries capital). We had a great time and even though I've seen

plenty of shrines in my life, I was thoroughly impressed by this one.

They had a dealing that roared. I guess you had to be there. No

pictures allowed though because it is used for actual worship.

On Tuesday we taught a lot of English and visited a good amount of

members. Really it was a pretty normal day, but this is when it gets

not normal. During Wednesday morning study, my companion started to

get really nauseous. He ended up throwing up and we stayed inside all

day. I sat in my desk chair for 15 hours straight because I didn't

want to get too close to a sick person. However, he was totally fine

the next day. We topped off Thursday by going up to Koga for zone

leader splits. I spent the day with Elder Peterson and it was pretty

awesome. We biked around 20-30 kilometers that day. We also found a

bunch of new investigators and had a wonderful time enjoying the

warmth of spring.

However, things got worse from there. My companion got sick again, but

this time it included a good amount of blood. Anytime he went to the

bathroom it was just blood so you can imagine my worry. So to cope I

told him to wait the rest of the night and went back to sleep.

SATURDAY MORNING. Still blood. We go back to Oyama from our exchange.

There was a huge factory fire so there was ash falling everywhere.

Wish I took a picture but I was biking sorry. We then go to the

"hospital" (Japan doesn't have hospitals. Just a ton of small

clinics.) and we waited for an hour to be told he has a kidney stone

with no tests or scans. We were skeptical because he wasn't

experiencing any pain. That night we got a ride up to Kiryu (an old

area of mine) for a priesthood meeting.

SUNDAY. STILL WORRIED. A member in the ward just got back from Fukuoka

for cancer in his kidneys. He had the same symptoms as elder Sharon so

everybody was getting a little worried. On the bike home, Elder Sharon

started to hurt and now we are dealing with a kidney stone. Not

cancer. That brings me to the adventure I'm in now.

I don't think I have very many pictures from this week so I'll post

them if I have some. Thanks for tuning in!

Week 76- 3/13/17 Fast Week

Hey family how was your week? Well I'm about to tell you about mine.

It was a fast one.

Monday was spent hiking a mountain with a less active. I told you of

that but now I have pictures to send. Tuesday was temple p-day.

On Wednesday I was sick. Also did eikaiwa.

Thursday was weekly planning and zone meeting so not much happened there.

On Friday we served our friend Rob and cleared rocks from his yard so

we can put in grass. It's so nice just to put on normal clothes and do

some service. We then ended the day with choir night which is always

an adventure. I sang country road with several older Japanese men.

Saturday was spent doing some planning and we did a kubari-kai at our

station. We handed out tons of fliers and several people have called

with interest in our English program so we're quite excited. When I

was a bean al we did was pass out fliers so it seems all that practice

came in handy. I'm very good at handing things out.

Sunday was Sunday. Today we went to a world national heritage site.

It's called Nikko and it has a ton of shrines. It's the place where

the "here no evil, speak no evil, see no evil" monkeys originated so

we took pictures. While there we bumped into so many foreigners and

members of the church from America and we even had a group of 15

college students take us around and explain things to us for free. So

now we're all good friends. We ended the day with eating some good

Philippine food with our neighbors.

Sorry about the short email but not much happened for half of it.

Luckily I have pictures for you!

hiking

I got a surprise package from my favorite members in

Urayasu. I was very touched

the monkeys

The group at Nikko

Nikko

Nikko

Nikko

Week 75- 3/6/17 All Is The Same

Hello once again everybody! Who's ready for another update on my week?

In all honesty nothing crazy actually ever happens here just a normal

life. I'm not one to complain though. When interesting things happen

here or in somebody else's area in the district it usually just makes

me busy.

We all know the news of last Monday, I'm still in Oyama. Tuesday was a

pretty normal day. All the members were way surprised that Elder

Sharon is staying. We spent our day lining up opportunities at civic

centers and getting free advertisement for our Eikaiwa. We also had a

big party for all the transferring missionaries at the Adachi's house.

On Wednesday, while making sure everybody got to oyama safely, we made

advertisements materials for Dorian English challenge at Tochigi

station. We also taught Eikaiwa and I received a not entirely accurate

drawing of myself. I will attach a picture. Thursday was weekly

planning and stuff and Friday was District meeting and the actual

English challenge. We basically have a pre-made English test and try

to get kids to do it. Depending on their score, we can recommend

that they take a certain level course, and then offer them free

English tutoring. It's actually quite fun.

On Saturday we visited a youth named Takuto and had a good time. We

also met with our ward mission leader and talked about the status on

the ward and how to improve things. Then they took us out for dinner.

I honestly wanted Indian curry but we had noodles instead. Maybe next

time.

Sunday was Sunday and on Monday we went hiking with a less active. I

took lots of pictures but they're all on my camera. If you want to see

them, talk to me after my mission.

That's about it for this week. I'm pretty tired and I have a hard time

remembering what the heck we do but we've been busy. Talk to y'all

next week!

Oh and a story I forgot from last week. We were at a members house and

we were eating Nabe. Nabe is just a bunch of vegetables and meat

thrown into a pot with flavored broth. However, the special thing

about this Nabe was that the meat was chicken meatballs and shark.

I've never eaten shark before so I was pretty excited. It tasted like

slightly more fishy chicken and was very soft.

 Me(?)

English Challenge with a kid who got 100%

Week 74- 2/27/17 I'm So Lost On What Week It Is

HELLO EVERYBODY HOW WAS YOUR WEEK MINE WAS GOOD. Now that we got that out of the way, we got transfer calls. Nothing really cool happened so

I'll tell you now. I'm staying as DL, Elder Sharon is still my

companion after 4 transfers in this area, and we are relatively

surprised.

I'll give y'all the run down of this week. Not much stuff happened but

we were still busy.

Monday was p day

Tuesday we went and talked to a service place and now eyre going to

advertise our English class for free. I am a professional businessman.

We also ate burgers with Yoshiki because he's going to college in

Hawaii.

Wednesday was a good day I think. We taught English at night. We had a

lunch appointment with a member in the ward and they made a ton of

food. I successfully dripped on myself. White shirts are the worst.

Thursday was an exchange. Elder Ricks from Utsunomiya came up and I

told him how to be a good missionary and we had lots of fun. We also

ate Indian curry for lunch AND dinner and that was a very big mistake.

Tasted pretty good though. It's also been getting hotter and hotter. I

have a couple of pictures from that split of me in interesting places.

Friday was District meeting and I once a again planned a good meeting.

We also had District lunch and ate large Brazilian hamburgers this

week. We also did that on Tuesday. Then we served our friend Rob and

sang stuff.

Saturday was fun. We had a cheesecake party and nobody came! Jokes on

them we didn't give them cheesecake. I also now know how to make

cheese cake!

Sunday was when we passed out the cheesecake. We also had church.

That's about it. This email isn't terribly detailed but I'm not at

home currently so I can't look at my planners and journal. Here are

some pictures!

Me in a cage

Eikaiwa

Burgers with Yoshiki before he leaves for Hawaii.