April videos

The orange tie <3

The red couch!

First cookie in 7 months!

Cheese!

Japan week #42

Hey everyone!! :)   

  SO this week has been a very fun one. :) We have been making some good head way in finding new investigators. Our strongest person we've found is one Mikka San. She is a single mother of 5 boys, which in Japan is CRAZY. She's very humble, and is in some pretty humble circumstances, and we're VERY excited to start working with her. :) 

  We've also had some fun adventures, and we've started this thing where we take lots of posed pictures with all sorts of varying themes. One theme this week was Pirates. ;) We've had some VERY fun times. :P Really this week has been a very very fun one to end on. We technically still have this week, but we have to go to Sapporo for a conference with Elder D. Todd Christofferson this week, so that takes out basically this hole week, and then it's transfer week. I can't believe how fast it has gone by. 

   I thought I had much more to write about, but Idon't really ahve too much. :P I have been feeeling really good about the work here in Otofuke the past few weeks. We had a rough start to this transfer with our previous investigators, but we've really been able to get it back up and running here, and it's been amazing. I'm looking forward to hearing some great things from Elder Horne about the progress of the people out here. Otofuke has been such a blessing for me. :) 

 Thanks for all you're love and support, I love you all so much and cannot wait to see you all again. :)

 Love, Mike

Pictures March/April

The Red couch!  That they carried 2 miles home.

First cookie in 7 months!

Little Tender Mercies

New Easter tie

Japan week #41

Hey everyone! 

  I'm glad that you liked all the pictures and what not. I've been taking a crap ton MORE since I started my new sd card, so by all means, be excited. ;) I have a couple questions though first. Oh, before that, it's spelled Wakkanai, the place way up north. SO! How is Dad going to drive in Japan? Doesn't he need a license or something? And won't the being on the other side of the road be flipping weird? 

   So this week has been a blast. :) Nothing really crazy happened. It's just been a solid week of realizing the Lord's hand in my life. I've received a lot of strength, comfort, and happiness this week, and it's been very encouraging and uplifting. Mostly this week has been a lot of thinking.

     WIth this transfer reaching it's end, I've been thinking a lot about my time here. And I've changed a TON! I've become a much more confident missionary, and I've really grown to love this area and the people in it. Compared to Muroran, Otofuke is really a boring place on the outside. But I really am going to miss this area! I've got the whole thing memorized by this point, and I love it. Although I am excited to leave and have a new batch of adventures! :) 

  So, I do actually have a really sad thing to write. So, Elder Lee went trainer at the same time I did, in Muroran. And he was having a great time with his bean, and they've seen lots of miracles. But I just got an email today from Elder Lee that his comp has to go home for a little while. I have no idea why, it could be a whole host of reasons, and those really aren't super important, I'm just CRUSHED for Elder Lee, and I know how much you guys love him, so if you could, please include him in your prayers. He needs them right now. Thank you! 

  Aside from that, don't really have anything to write about! OH! We had black people from Mozambique at church yesterday!! :D It's my second time seeing black people in Japan! It was amazing! BUT the catch was, they ONLY speak Portugese... >.> So I can't even talk to the flipping COOL PEOPLE. Gosh dang it. One could do a VERY SMALL amount of english, so we communicated as much as possible. One of the RMs in the ward can speak portugese, and our DL here is brazilian, so they translated the whole time. :) 

  Thanks for all your prayers and support! LOVE YOU ALL!

    Love, Mike

Japan week #40

Hey!! :) This has been a wonderful week! 

     First off, getting to talk to everyone was SUCH a blast! I wish we could talk longer, and maybe skype, but ya know, rules are rules. We are blessed for obedience, even if we don't necessarily understand. BUUUUUT, there's always hope for year two! ;) Perhaps Nakatsuka Kaicho when he brings the technology will allow that. But, who knows. :P 

  So this week we had a couple of really fun experiences. We went to visit one of our inactive members, Sato Hisako shimai, and when we got there she came to the door and was kinda freaking out a bit, and was all ruffled up, and told us to walk around to other side of the house and come see what happened. So we walk around, and we saw that her pump for her fish tank had decided to blow up and was showering water everywhere. She has this HUGE pump that's WAY fancy, and when she was cleaning it she broke a piece of it, and it was gushing water everywhere. So we helped her get it under control and cleaned up, and it was way fun. :) We arrived at  just the right time to help her clean and what not, was way fun. :) 

  We also had an adventure. Kinda reminded me of being in Muroran again. We were housing one day, and then decided that we wanted to head out and go house all the farmers, and see what the heck was out there. So we biked west away from the big neighborhoods, and we found a ton of BEAUTIFUL areas and fields, and some of the coolest farms, and got to talk to some really cool people. :) I haven't had an adventure since my transfer with Elder Lee, so that was a BLAST! 

   And aside from that, our week was normal. This transfer is going by fast, as expected. Sometimes days are long, but weeks and months and transfers are FASTER than you could ever imagine. By the end of this transfer I'll be a year into this thing... O.O Imma cry so hard. 

     Thanks so much for all you guys do. :) It was so great to talk to all of you, and I can't wait to hear from you all again!

 Love, Mike

    P.S. OH! By the way, for pday today...we're going to an onsen. WITH A POOL OF WINE! O.O It's supposed to be good for your skin. ;) I'll report next week. ;) LOVE YOU! 

Japan week #39

Hello everyone! 

  This has been a rather uneventful week to be honest. :P No real super cool stories, no really crazy things went down, it was just a solid week of work. 

  I did get to go on splits this week, but not regular splits. The zone leaders are in the obihiro area, and they had to go to a big meeting with president evans that he does every transfer, and this time my distict leader got invited to go as well, so they had to go to Sapporo for two days. And during that time we had his comp come to otofuke and work with us, and it was a BLAST! Tri companionships are just a party all day, never a quiet moment, which I love. We went and visited a few people, did some finding, and then had a great lesson with a man that Elder Horne and I found last transfer. We were kinda unsure of his interest in the gospel, and whether or not he would find any interest in it, but this time with the three of us there, he showed a lot of interest, and his wife too, and we had a very good lesson about the plan of salvation, and specifically about God. That's one thing you have to focus on a lot with japanese people, God. They don't really believe anything here, and even if they do believe in a God, it's a very very different concept, and while we were talking to him about it he said that if a God like that existed that'd be the best. So we're very excited to see how it goes with him and hopefully his family in the following weeks. :) As we were getting ready to leave, he asked us if we'd like to go out to dinner sometime with him and his family, so we set up a dinner appointment with them! :D The best part is that this man, Takashima San, is a rich orthopedic surgeon. ;) Ironic, right? That's the doctor I've been thinking a lot about becoming, so we're very excited to go out with them next week! And since Elder Brackner was there, our dl's comp, those two got in on the dinner appointment as well! So that'll be a blast. :)

   We also had a ward yakiniku barbeque on Saturday. Yakiniku is basically just fried meat, and that's it. You just get some DELICIOUS meat of various types and spicings and what not, and you throw it on a grill, and then eat it. Perfect meal. Meat. Love it. :) We had a lot of fun out there eating and playing games and throwing balls with the members and what not. It was great. :D

   I've really been thinking a lot this week too. Otofuke has been a great area and an incredible hard area for me. And I've been trying to make sure that I'm learning everything from it that I can. It has been hard for me, especially recently, but I've really learned to become less selfish from my time here. I have realized that I wanted to see things my way in my time, or I was thinking that success was only seeing baptisms, or being upset if people didn't progress as fast as I wanted them to or what not. I've really come to learn that ALL of this is in the Lord's timetable. And even though I will never understand why some things are they way they are, I know that the Lord is in control and that whatever comes, comes. And that's how it is supposed to be. Thanks for all of your love and prayers and support. I love you all and can't wait to hear from you all soon! :) 

   Love, Mike