Transfer 6/16

Elder M. is staying in Tama with Elder O. for another 6 weeks.  Last week they set a date for a baptism for one of their Eikaiwa students who is "intent on understanding and knowing everything about the gospel". The boys also had the chance to go to the Tokyo Temple,  Asakusa, and Skytree with an investigator.  They were able to see a lot of very neat things while they were out and were able to share some important information about eternal families.  A third investigator has also set a baptism date for mid September so they are keeping busy, working hard and having fun!

Here are some of the pictures (there were many) that Elder M. sent home this week - Enjoy!

The same rice field he sent pictures of in June, now grown.

"Look Ma, no hands!"

Dragonfly

Building at Asakusa

Asakusa temple

Skytree tower from the ground

Looking down from the 1st deck of the tower

Looking down from the second deck of the tower

The highest point you can stand in the tower

View from the tower.  "So. Many. Buildings!"

Disney Tokyo

Funny Elders

Mt. Fuji

Mt. Fuji

Splits, Investigators, Food

Oh wow! This week has been a wild one.  To start things off it was Temple week for our missionary, so email was a day late.  It also happened to be the first week of school for the rest of us, so we are more than a little bit behind with the post for the week.  Sorry about that!


Weekly update:

"On Tuesday we went on splits, and I went with Elder H. again (like last transfer). Since I can't remember if I've mentioned him yet or not I'll just pretended i haven't. Elder H. is also on transfer 5, and he was my zone leader in the MTC. It was a really fun day with him, and we taught a lesson to Mr. Y.. In that lesson we committed him to be baptised on the 15th of next month. He feels like the end of the world is coming up soon, so he feels a little more committed to making the baptismal date happen.

On Thursday we spent most of the day purging the phone of all the old names and numbers that we have no idea who they are. We wrote them all down as Potential Investigators, and actually called one on Friday and asked if he'd like to meet with us on Saturday. We got to meet with him and some other Potential Investigators, along with some of the youth and played ping pong. Everyone had a lot of fun..

Sunday we had another lesson with Y., we've made a teaching schedule for him, since he's been taught everything we're just going to go down the baptismal interview questions with him, and then spend a few lessons helping him with the things he has problems with.

We also found a new investigator housing on Sunday. At first when the person opened the door I started with just simply explaining that we were missionaries, and that we were from a near by church. After that though I hardly remember what I said to him, just that I was able to talk about what we believe about God and that by coming to church we can receive answers to how to find personal happiness. He was interested in coming to church next week and learning about what church has to offer. I was so surprised at my Japanese, because I've never been able to just hold a conversation like that. I'm way excited see him next week at church, and that my Japanese is really coming along.

Yesterday (Monday) We went to our last district meeting this transfer, and then out to Indian style curry. It's pretty good, and the bread (called nan) was all you could eat. :) So we had a good time."

Photos for the week include:

A golden carp

A beautiful sunset

Hachioji district August 2012

 

All Mission Conference and District hike

Not only did we get an email from our Elder, but we also got an email from another missionary mom whose son had been on splits with ours.  She wanted to let us know what her son had said about Elder Mosdell being "a hard worker and a great guy to be with"  That's always nice to hear!  I also want to remind everyone that next week will be Temple week and the following week will be transfers- emails and posts for both weeks will probably be late!

In our email from Elder Mosdell this week we got this weekly update:

"I'm really excited for the changes that are happening in our mission right now. I LOVED the conference on Friday. Even though it was rather long (9am to 5pm), I felt like it was the most effective taikai (conference) I've been to.

August 2012 Mission conference photo from the mission blog
http://japantokyomission.blogspot.com/
Elder Mosdell is in the front center of the group

Sunday we had a talk with our Bishop about what exactly he wants to happen while we're in Tama, and I felt like it was extremely effective to have done that. He told us about the things he feels are prohibiting Tama ward from growing, and we agreed on what needs to change. From here out we're going to be working hand in hand with the Bishop here in Tama, just like it should be.

One sad thing that happened this last week was at the taikai we listened to the missionaries that were returning within the next 12 weeks... Elder W. (My trainer) is among the missionaries, and it was kind of sad for me to think that I'm not going to get to see him around the mission anymore. I LOVED his testimony though, it was super helpful to me (as has everything he's said) among my favorite lines was "God doesn't create junk." He talked about drawing confidence from the fact that we're sons and daughters of the Almighty God, and that we have the potential to become like him.

Today (Monday) We hiked Mt. Takao as a district... Elder O. and I had this idea that it would be a lot of fun if we biked to the base of the mountain to save on funds, and so that we can bike past Takao Church, thus being able to say that we've biked to every church in our District... Here's an estimate on the distances; From Tama Center to Takaosanguchi (the base of the mountain) by bike was about 17km, then a 4km hike up the mountain, followed by the return trip of 4km and 17km... Grand total is 34km roughly by bike, and something like 8-10km hike. We're WAY tired right now >.< but it was fun.  I've got a few photos I'll post today, but I've got a ton that I'll get from the other Elders that went with us, and I'll post them up next week."

He sent a lot of pictures this week!


"This is Takaosanguchi station... Those are our bikes... we rode them... Yeah..."

Elders in the district hiking Mt. Takao.  Yes, that is my barefoot son who they called "Hobbit" a lot that day.

Elders.  Again Jeff is barefoot. "I hiked the whole mountain that way."

Elder O., Jeff's companion

The life story of Budda (1)

The life story of Budda (2)

The life story of Budda (3)

The life story of Budda (4)

"Look how big this thing is! Whoa!"
"Pretty cool little guy, way fast too."



A beautiful panoramic of the view from Mt Takao "No clouds this time"

Mt. Fuji

Transportation, Food, Fun, and not so fun

Hi All! Here's your weekly update from the funny boy in Japan! :)

"This week we had a little bit of an interesting week. We thankfully got over being sick, but we also were running a little low on money. To try and save on some money we biked from Tama Center Station to Hachioji Station for district meeting. Wow that was a trip lol, it's about an hour bike ride, and there's some awful "fun" hills that make going both ways a bit challenging. I now can say I've biked to District Meeting in the dead of heat, up hill both ways.... Next up, I'll do the same in the snow this winter! (probably not!)

Wednesday we had a new PI come to Eikaiwa. He's really cool, and he likes the missionaries. We also went with him to the batting cages and had a lot of fun.

On Saturday there was a funeral at the church for an older member. It was a little weird to see a christian funeral, we were expecting it to be a Japanese style funeral.

Today we were going to go to Tama Zoo for P-day, but there was a pretty big rainstorm, so we canceled that activity. We cleaned the apartment and then got a random call from a member saying he wanted to take us to yakiniku. WOW THAT WAS GOOD! Wow!! It was way good. His wife is from Spain and she and the kids have been out of the country for about two weeks, so he was feeling a little lonely. We had a really good time, and he enjoyed it a lot.

Yaki Niku

Brother N.

Sadly... when we got back we had a not so fun experience... I followed Elder O. into the apartment. As we came in and started getting things ready to wrap up the day and prepare for splits tomorrow he turned around and started screaming. I turned around to find a cockroach (photo included) on a plate we'd been storing pancakes on while we made them so we could freeze them (we'd finished cooking just in time for us to get them in the freezer and then go to Yakiniku, but we'd left the plate out). He was HUGE! Thankfully I've had some training with killing them already (heard lots of stories, and killed a few on the back porch when I cleaned it off). I'm just GROSSED OUT RIGHT NOW... GROSS!!!! Gross gross gross!!! We've been trying SO hard to keep this apartment clean so we'll never have this happen. GROSS!!! I want to just throw up right now! GROSS!!!... well anyways... EW! I killed it... and we're currently setting up a ton (every single one we've got in this apartment) of cockroach traps. I don't know how well I'll sleep tonight now... GROSS!"

"With a US coin so you can better understand his size... you can see the crumbs of pancake he was nibbling on and took with him when he ran... GROSS!!!"

All I've got to say at this point is those things are nasty and I'm glad that blow torches are NOT standard issue missionary items.
*said while looking at the boy's father and rolling eyes.* 

(If you don't know that story you might want to ask Leighn sometime.)

And, just for fun, here are some other pictures from this week:

"This is a train as it was coming to us. I told Brooke I'd take some photos of a train for her. I'll get some of the inside some time. (I have to wait for an empty train)."

"Welcome to a standard Japanese door way (Genkan) during any party."