Sashiburi desu ne!? Sorry this is so long...2 weeks is a killer!

Sashiburi desu ne!? (untranslatable...thats for you pap's!...haha) Well it's been like 2 weeks since I last sent an email, and the reason is because we are just so exited about everything that's happening here that we kinda forgot to email last week...my bad. But it's been so great here in Tsuruoka. I love it! My hands are not really loving it, but the rest of me is! It's starting to get cold and the fluffy gloves I bought for 100 yen are too small...(I think they are girl size...haha) But at any rate. So last week we had Zone Taikai (conference) and it was awesome! So the goal in our mission is to get 180 baptisms by the end of the year, and we pretty much need 20 baptisms this month and 30 next month and we got it! This mission is growing like crazy! 2 years ago the year count for baptisms was like 3 for the whole mission, then last year they got on the ball and tryed to get 90 baptisms, and they made it, so this year it's 180, double, and we are on our way there! So starting on Thursday.

Thursday the 11th's miracle was that we got a good lesson with this girl named Jo Ilong...her american name is Sodium...but she is hilarious. From China and is way good at singing! But we got a good lesson in with her about Baptism and about her concerns with it. She is so scared of responsibility and she has a hard time accepting that you don't have to go through EVERY expirience in order to have a good life...for example...she likes drinking...just started to drink, and is telling us that she has to go through that expirience in order to have a good time....I'm starting to get a little bit sick of people saying that...it almost sounds like they are telling us that because we are mormon's  we don't have any expirience. I'm sick of it! People just don't get it! But I love her to death, and I hope the best for her always...we are still working on here.

Friday's miracle was we taught 5 lessons on the street today which was way cool. We teach lessons on the street in order to strengthen the people and maybe get them to be a Potential or to just lighten their heart about who we are. It's actually helping the people a ton, we've found.

Saturday. just another regular day, but we did a ton of street lessons and got some PI's again so that was a blessing!

Sunday, Miracle was the Standard of Excellence again! We found another 3 investigators, and it was crazy! SofE consists of 3 new investigators and 20 lessons.

Monday, We met with another Chinese girl that we've been wanting to teach and we set a baptism date with her. She is crazy! She comes into church wanting to be a good person and pretty much wants to join the church...it's crazy! She is actually some sort of a rare breed in China...haha, she is like half Korean Chinese Some other race...I guess she is a minority in China...but she is ridiculous...so prepared!

Tuesday, We found another family PI! I love family PI's and teaching families! It's amazing! Here in Tsuruoka we get tons of family PI's recently. But we found another one so hopefully we can pick them up and teach them!

Wednesday, we found another way good family PI and Kim said she wanted to come to Yamagata with us. Yamagata is 2 hours away and we had Stake Taikai on Sunday but she said she wanted to come, so that was great! I also ate at this really good all-you-can-eat yakiniku place called Kintaro Sushi...and they had LAMB!!! It was da best! I ate so much lamb...it was crazy! We also found some really funny Phillipine's...haha Chinese people are ridiculous and Phillipines are hilarious! I love how Gaijin (foriegner) this place is! it's so great!

Thursday, k, so one of the family PI's that we met a while back we went back and picked them up...it was the greatest feeling I've ever felt in my life! So we showed up just to say hi and see how they were doing, and we were talking a bit, and then they invited us to eat dinner with them, so we said sure, and then at the end of dinner we did a lesson about God and Familes and then invited them to pray as a family, and the spirit was cho crazy! I was blown off my seat about how much spirit was there! It was so thick you could've probably cut it with a knife! I love this family though! Mom, 15 year old girl, 12 year old boy, and 5 year old little boy, and they are so awesome! I was so excited to hear that they prayed together as a family. And the mom told us that she felt something that she's never felt before and that praying was way awesome for her!! I want to see this family get sealed so bad!

Ohh and then earlier in the day we set a baptism date with a 30 year old investigator, so hopefully that one will go through.

Friday, so yeah at Mcdonalds they have this really cool thing called "shaka-shaka chicken"...yeah well you put the cheese powder in the bag with the chicken and shake it, and my chicken and I got in a little joust...it exploded all over the place and it was pretty much the funniest thing ever! I'm sure people thought we were crazy...not that they don't think that already! But the miracle today was that we set up an appointment with this guy that wants to have an eternal marriage...so hopefully we can meet with him

Sat. We taught Kim another lesson today about what church was all about. We accedentally showed her the intro to our church video that pretty much covers EVERY doctrine of the church and it was kinda scary...we watched it in Chinese at first so I had no idea what was going on...So now Kim knows like EVERY point of doctrine in our church and she has only met with us twice...haha. We have also been teaching a guy from Uganda and Ghana and they are pretty Catholic people, but we are learning a ton about how to teach those type of people! They are pretty awesome though!

Sun. We went to Yamagata for Stake Taikai and Kim came with us. We pretty much had to translate the whole thing for her and she seemed way tired after the meeting, but hopefully she's ok. 4 hours in the car and 2 hours at church...I but I bet she was cho tired! But we had a good disscussion in the car about God's existance and such...good times. Sunday, we also met an Athiest from Colorado...and now we can say we talked, testified, and prayed with an Athiest. She was way funny though...had tons of jokes about Mormons (especially missionarys) and about Jehovahs Witness's, but we had a good talk and she was glad we didn't try to shove religion down her throat...cause we really didn't...we were way nice. She said she had a good time talking to us and would've invited us back, except for she hates missionaries, so she said we couldn't...but she was way funny!

Mon. We talked to a guy at his house and we talked to him about how we are all part of the same human family so then we asked him if we could call him brother Sugawara, and he took it pretty well...at the end of the contact we accedentally said Mr. Sugawara, and he corrected us..hahaha...he was like "Wait wait...Brother Sugawara.." haha, he was funny. Maybe we can teach him sometime! Hopefully!

But this month has been great! We got 3 weeks of Standard of Excellence this month which is way good! Me, Hiltbrand choro, and the Holy Ghost are a pretty good team! We are doing great and living off of American food...haha with japanese ingredients.

For my family: Yes, I know someone named Clint. Did he send a letter or something?? It's crazy how much the family is changing in like 6 months! Wow!!! I'm kinda not gunna lie...I can't really believe it! Sounds like Thanksgiving is going to be a blast! Send some pictures my way sometime...preferably in the mail...cause these computers are way slow! You attach maybe like 1 or 2 pictures, but send a bunch in the mail for me would'ja!? I need more kazoku (fam) pics!

Rain rain go away...actually, do whatever you want!

So since coming to Tsuruoka I've been so happy...like ridiculously happy...almost on a high. Then to make it better, I got 3 letters today...like right before coming to this Gaijin Community Center...and they really really made my day! 3 of my best friends wrote me about how life is going back home and one of them FINALLY wrote me back! It's really warming to the heart to hear how good life is back home! Well lets see...first off, Thank Renee for saying hi! Tell her I say hi back and then tell her that she's awesome, and that she needs to "nihongo o manabanakereba narimasen". Then...it's too bad I missed the Rodgers...I miss them all! And finally, about the hamsters...we have a Recent Convert here that has hampsters and we always joke around about them, so when I read that Kami's hamsters are having babys...I busted up laughing...My comp says that you need to start getting them out, or else....get a snake! Or else they will keep multiplying...hahaha.

 

Anyways.....so yeah, life here is great! Tsuruoka is da best! So I'll try to start with last week. So I've been writing down "miracles of the day" in my journal and I think it's working better! So week of my transfer I just got a little bit settled in I quitly observed my amazing comp and how he conducted things...ohh yeah, I was called as co-senior comp, but yeah, I watched him a bit and tryed to remember as many people as I possibly could...cause Hiltbrand choro knows pretty much EVERYONE in the city...it's kinda ridiculous...On the Sunday after transfers I introduced myself and then after church we had a lesson with this really cool Chinese girl...Jo ilong...way awesome! That lesson went crazy good! Then on P-day we emailed and then afterwards went and looked at the 3D tv's and I gotta say...WOW! So cool! Do they have 3d tv's on display back in Utah? Cause they are way cool! Then we spent some time at the dollar store...which btw, you can buy pretty much anything at. And the Melon pan here in Tsuruoka is ridiculously good! Especialy the catchy theme music to Melon pan...so yeah, we have been teaching a guy from Uganda, Jamaica, China, and we always see people (friends) from Vietnam and Indonesia...so it's crazy gaijin here, but thats just because there is a university here. So...Wed.

 

We met a girl on the street from China named Kim and she is so cool! We were going to meet with her that week to try to teach her a lesson, but it fell through, but she is way cool and I hope we get to teach her. She canceled because it's been raining crazy hard here and it's pretty cold when you don't have gloves on, riding in the rain...it's actually pretty close to Tsunami's here every once-in-a-while, but it's still so much fun! Me and Hiltbrand choro have a good time in the rain...it's kinda weird, but we are the happiest when it's raining for some odd reason...

 

Thursdays miracle was that there was random guys, at 2 instances, that pretty much came up to us and randomly gave us their numbers so that was kinda weird...one of them just quickly said he has been to utah, but then ran away...so it was kinda a miracle.

 

Friday...miracle was with Godfrey...the man from Uganda...he is pretty Catholic, and has been reading so much anti-mormon stuff online, and had concerns about poligamy and militia and president running, and we totally took a contentious situation and brought the spirit in, and taught one of the best lessons EVER! It went way smooth! I was amazed! and We couldn't get a date out of him, but he said that if he sincerely found out that our message is true that he would be baptized...so who knows what will happen, but I thought it was a way good lesson!

 

Saturdays miracle...oh yes...so we were on the other side of this one street and we see 2 people cleaning their driveway with toothbrushes, so we decided to say hi! It was great...it was a mom and her daughter and we talked to them a little bit about where we are from and stuff, and then while hiltbrand choro was talking to them about Eternal families...I talked to the girl, Nene, about sports and stuff...she said she liked karate and was a 2nd degree black belt, so that was cool. then the mom really seemed like she had intrest in the message and all the sudden it started raining and when we were about to leave they let us take an extra umbrella and they gave us some Kaki and some Negi...so all day I had a big plant of negi in my backpack...haha, people looked at me funny.

 

Sunday. So I didn't think we were going to get the standard. We were only 1 new investigator off, and it was coming around 8:00pm, so I thought we were done, but I prayed and prayed all day to get it and finally at the last minute we picked up a family PI and made them an investigator (Q)! So we totally got the standard and I was super excited! I wanted to get it to raise Hiltbrand choro's faith. Cause he has lost faith in the area, and when we came and got the standard I hoped that raised his faith that there are people here! So then out of the blue about 9:30, some person that we had taught before called us and wanted to meet with us, so we actually ended up with more than the standard which was pretty cool. That was the miracle that day.

 

Yesterday, we had 3 hours of dendo and we got 4 PI's so that was a pretty awesome miracle! And since it was P-day we chilled a bit and talked about intrests and we wanted to make some cookies or something for the family that gave us Negi and Kaki and the umbrella...which I accedentaly destroyed...haha oops...but we were too lazy and didn't get to making the cookies, but we did buy chocolate chips! So next week we can make them! We've been slowly getting all the ingredients week by week and now we have all of them!

 

Anyways, hope all is well! Japan is great in terms of food and stuff, but sometimes peoples excuses just kill me! Well thank you, thank you for all the prayers and thoughts! It's really paying off! Hope everyone is happy, cause I AM! And Happy Birthday Cody! I sent you something yesterday, so hopefully you get it before December...haha...let me know! Thanks a million everyone! ^^v

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