Japan week #69

Hey everyone! :D 

  SO this was a sweet week! We saw a couple cool miracles, and we've been having a TON of fun! :D Can't believe that it's already December! My how the time goes! 

   So do you guys remember last week, the guy that freaked out at us when we were starting our lesson with K san? And then he let us inside his apartment and we taught him a lesson? Well, we saw him again this week! And he is amazing! When we first met him, he was plastered out of his mind, but this time he was way cleaned up, looked really good, and was SUPER cool. Really thought about everything we told him, and it was a SUPER special lesson. at one point, he told us that he didn't think that real truth existed anymore, that it was all gone, and then kinda looked up at us with this look of hopelessness. And then, feeling the spirit like mad men, testified of the restoration of real truth. And that he can know it. I haven't ever had an experience quite like that before. SUPER cool. SO we're very excited to getting to continue working with him. :)

   We also were able to find another really humble guy in his thirties that wants to talk to us. He is struggling with some personal issues, and he told us that we came to him at just the right time, and that he feels like something like our message could really help him. His name is E San, and he's way cool. Seems way nice, and we're looking forward to meeting him again and start teaching him. 

 I really know that as we work hard, we are blessed. I've seen incredible miracles in finding and teaching in all of my areas, and I know that all we need to do is put our heart into this work, and that as we do that, it will all work for good. I love this. Looking forward to SLAYING what's left. :) Love you all, have a great week!

 Love, Mike 

Japan week #68

Hey everyone!
  This has been a super fun week! We have worked our butts off, and we actually saw some WAY cool miracles! :D
     First off though, last Pday we got to play with Brother Unami, an na that I worked with a lot in my last area! We basically spent the whole day with him. We went out to sushi for lunch, hung out at the mission office with some other missionaries, and then went and played darts and billiards at a place in Odori for a few hours, and then went out to ramen with him for dinner. Which was a BLAST! It was great getting to see him again. He and I are really close, and it was good for him to be able to see me again and spend some quality time together! :) Had a great time!
    And we also had zone conference this week, and I got to meet my GRANDSON! :D :D He's a STUD! And he's a rock solid missionary, he's going to be one heck of a grown up missionary when that time comes! His name is Elder Stevens, and I already love him. :) Wish I was his zl so we could hang out more!! Oh well.
     SO last week, we found a bunch of really good potential investigators, ad this week we were able to meet a TON of them. And we increased our teaching pool to probably about 7 people! :D we found a bunch of people that have a background in Christianity, which makes our job so much nicer! :) Love it! one person in particular said that she ALWAYS rejects religion people because she's satisfied with her church, but that for whatever reason when she talked to us, she felt like she should let us in, and wanted to talk to us. SO that is SUPER COOL! :D :D
    And today we're going with the district to an all you can eat MEAT buffet! They have that in Japan. ;) Be excited Dad!
 Love you all so much! Thanks for the support and love!
 Love, mike

Japan week #67

Hey everyone!

     This has been a stellar week! Elder Kojima and I have worked our butts off this week, and we have seen lots of cool miracles for it. We didn't have too much going on this week, so we spent a lot of time finding, and our efforts were rewarded! We have been able to find a lot of really cool people that want to talk to us. We also have found a few people that have a little bit of a christian background, and proselyting those people is so nice! They are way more interested and willing to listen than the average Japanese person, so that's been epic! We have about 20 appointments that we were able to make for next week, so that's super exciting! Can't wait to find some great people that'll start progressing! 

      We did have one REALLY cool miracle this week! We went to teach a  lesson to our only investigator, K San, and since she's a single woman we can't go inside her apartment alone, so we stood at her front door and start talking to her. After a few minutes her neighbor comes out of his apartment, and starts yelling at us! He's like, you guys are super loud, and I can't relax, and just going on and on and telling us to go home, and he wouldn't believe my comp is Japanese. He kept saying that his Japanese was weird, and that he was Korean. (Korea and japan kinda hate each other, not sure if you knew that, so being called Korean is a big deal) and it got to the point where it looked like he was gonna start throwing some punches. But then right before that, he just stopped out of nowhere, and looked like he was going to start crying. Said he was super lonely, and that he needed something in his life, and that he wanted to hear what we had to say. SO we get our investigator, go into this mans apartment, and taught a two hour lesson. Was super cool! :P Hopefully he progresses well! We're excited to see him again! 

    And we also got the first snows of the year this week!! And in Hokkaido japan, once it starts, it doesn't stop!! BRING IT ON! :D

 Love you all, have a great week!
 Love, Mike 

Pictures from August and September 2014

Mike's MTC District 

BBQ in the rain

Watching general conference

Leadership

Zone Training

Peanut Butter I sent from home

Broken bike

Japan week #66

Hey Everyone!

     So, I was wrong!! I am staying for another transfer with my comp, still being zone leaders! It was quite the surprise to be honest, but a very GOOD surprise. I really wanted to be Elder Kojima's comp for one more since we have so much fun, and are killing it out here! :) 

     I honestly don't have much to write about this week. With transfers and what not for our zone, we were pretty busy with just a lot of details. We still had  a great time though! It was Elder kojima's birthday on Saturday, and we had a GREAT time! We had our mission leaders meeting with pres, and then headed to the Sapporo to go buy a cake, and take some purikura pictures, and then dendoed, and then called it a day, and finished it by celebrating with cake, fire, and videos! ;) HAHA! 

   And then today we have a big baseball activity planned! We were planning on only having a few people from both zones in the city to come, like ten from each, but when we sent the word around, EVERYONE AND THEIR DOG wanted to come! So now we have 60 missionaries coming, and it's going to be SICK! We rented a huge baseball diamond by the mission office, and got all the equipment we needed from a bunch of members in the city, and it's going to be sick! !:D Quite the accidental joint zone activity we planned! :P haha! but it should be good! Thanks for everything fam! love ya!
 Love, MIke

Japan week #65

Hey everyone!!

 This has been an incredible week! We've been SO DANG BUSY! We got to meet some of our investigators, and we were able to teach a few lessons this week, so that was really nice. It's kind of hard not having anything to work with in an area, and on top of that you never have time to work because of all your other responsibilities, but it's ok. It's been way great. :) The bulk of our time this week was devoted to prepping for the Halloween party. Japanese people don't celelbrate Halloween really. They just do costume parties, and the members in Japan ALWAYS give the american missionaries all the responsibility for planning the party because we celebrate halloween, so that's always a pain, but way fun. This time though we were only in charge of the haunted house! ;) Haha! Elder Kojima and I turned the underground floor of the church into a SICK haunted house, spook alley thing, and it turned out great! We filmed videos for it, spent all week decorating, and had some of the ward members as actors for it, and it worked SO GOOD! :) We made it kind of the like an abandoned science facility. We made every individual room have it's own special theme under the science facility one, and we made them have to figure out how to get to the next room, and accomplish certain tasks / puzzles in every room too. We made manicans for corpses, and decorated every room like mad, and it was way too much fun! :) And of course elder Kojima and I acted in it. My room was the scariest by far. ;) Haha!! We had a video in it were elder Kojima got killed, and it was a laboroatory room. We had an operating table, and it was all covered with blood and other fun stuff, and then we made a manican that we hung from the ceiling. Not just hung, we HUNG it. Like with a noose. It was FREAKY! And we got a flickering light deal going, and it was SICK! We had every group walk through it with two really weak flashlights, and we got some GREAT scares! We had people talking all night about how it was the scariest haunted house they've ever done, and that this years party was by far the best the ward has done. ;) We rock! 

     And that was basically our week. This transfer is only 5 weeks long, so that means tomorrow is transfer calls. It is GOSH dang too fast. I can't believe it. I dont think elder kojima nd I are staying for another together. I don't know who's going to leave, but I don't think we're staying. :( Which sucks, because I REALLY wanna stay with him for one more. 

 Thanks for all your support! Have a great week!

 Love, Mike