Sunday, December 30, 2012

Christmas

Well, we have gotten nearly a month behind on updating the blog.
In our defense, there has been more than December's usual amount of crazy stuff happening here at home.  Lets just say that we are down to three dogs (two more than we had in November), I am not working full time anymore, oh, and I finished school.

With all of that said, The boy is doing great, looking good, and seems happy.  He has been very busy and has not been so great at sending photographs this month, he has sent a short email to us every week.  I love this email thing, I would never hear from the kid if he had to put pen to paper for a letter home.  We were able to skype with him on Christmas Eve, he and some other Elders sang Christmas songs in Japanese.  :)

As of our last contact Jeff had not received our Christmas packages, but that was earlier this week.  I'm hoping that he has gotten them by now. 

We received an online Christmas wish from the Japan Tokyo Mission, I'm including the link here for your viewing pleasure
 --------->  Merry Christmas

Wednesday, December 5, 2012

Disorganization

Well the weekly email from Elder Mosdell was on time, but very short. We wanted to know how things were going in the new apartment and got this reply:

"The new apartment is doing great, a little dis-organized from how crazy things have been... and how sloppy we are :P
I'm glad you've been enjoying getting to tell everyone about me :P I feel a little lame for the lack of photos so far... I really don't think I"ve taken any since I transfered... Oops..."

So no photos for a couple of weeks now. I guess that's not bad considering what most missionaries send home, but we've become accustom to weekly or bi-weekly photos even if it's just a couple of them each time. We are grateful for what we have, especially the fact that he can email each week. If we had to wait for written letters we'd be lucky to get one a month and would probably end up with one every six months! We were also looking at transfer schedules for the next months and realized the next transfer is after Christmas. That means he'll have access to the military base (and the members there) during Christmas! So his only Thanksgiving and Christmas out of country he's in a place where there are lots of U.S. citizens and an English speaking ward. What a lucky, blessed kid! He's putting together a package to send home for Christmas and can use the PO on base to send it at reduced cost compared to sending it using Japan Post.

His weekly update on the work came in a second email.

"I am just amazed at how much faster the weeks fly by now than they did before. I feel like I have less and less time to do more and more things. I'm sorry that this letter is so late...
______ is doing great, she passed her interview and we're making daily contact with her to make sure she's all set for the baptism this coming Sunday. She'll be baptised Sunday afternoon, and she'll be confirmed next Sunday.
This week we weren't able to really do a lot of finding investigators, and we weren't able to teach very many lessons this week, I'm a little confused on how to really work in this area because it's very different from my last two areas. But we've been going through the area book and talking with missionaries that have served here before to get some good ideas of what works."
Sounds pretty typical for being transferred into a new area with a companion who is still new to the mission.

Monday, December 3, 2012

Holidays and a new area

We had a wonderful Thanksgiving and it sounds like the Elders did too.

"Thanksgiving was fun, I got to go onto the base and eat dinner with one of the ward families. We had prime rib roast, and it was WAY good. :) I haven't gotten the package yet, but I think it'll come on Tuesday."

Jody is participating in a "Christmas Around the World" at the elementary school she's working at. So in our email we asked what Christmas was like in Japan.

"Christmas in Japan consists of not much to be honest. Maybe I'll try to get more information this week, but all that I know is that it's not really celebrated here. They eat some kind of little cakes on Christmas eve, but other than that it's just a buying season. >.< I'll try to get all the info I can this week.

Sadly I'm not the District Leader anymore. They changed the districts around and made a third district in the zone so that they would be more manageable, sadly the way they had to rearrange them ended up putting the original two DLs into the same district. So they kept the more experienced one. *shrug* Oh well, maybe next time.

Weekly Update:

Well anyways, this week has been a lot of fun. I've enjoyed working in Fussa, the members are a lot of fun, and the base members are a lot of fun too. I'm enjoying working here, we're almost up to the Mission Standard for our area. I think it helps a lot to have two wards. :D
I think our focus this next week is going to be on teaching more lessons. We're going to start studying how we can get more lessons during our companionship study.
Sunday we had a lesson with an investigator named A. and she told us she wants to be baptized as soon as she can. We set the date with her for the 9th of December, and we'll probably set up an interview the week before. I'm so excited. :D
I'm super excited to be in Fussa with Elder P., we're getting ready to see a ton of miracles in this area. It's going to be a lot of fun to work for them!"

This post is a week late because we were waiting for photos that the boy never sent.  He's been a bit busy and hasn't taken any lately.  The brat.