Good Afternoon,
What's up? It has been another great week here on the island nation of Japan. It was an interesting week. I was in Numazu all week. I am sure all of you know exactly where that is. It is actually pretty close to Tokyo. I got on a train to Tokyo while I was there but I got off before I made it to Tokyo. While I was in Numazu it rained on us. The smart misssionary that I am and the eagle scout that I am thought that I would not need a rain jacket or rain suit of anykind. On Thursday I am pretty sure a typhoon hit us. I am not sure because I haven't watched the weather for a while but it was. It like dumped buckets of rain on me. I did have an unbrella but it is hard to use when the rain is coming side ways. It was fun. We made the safe walk to english class and taught . Our shoes were all wet so we all took are shoes off and were wearing socks. Some of the students thought they weren't supposed to wear shoes in the church. In Japan some buildings you have to take your shoes off first before you enter. It was fun.
Another funny thing about Japan is that sometimes when you go into to people's houses they make you put on slippers. They never have my size in fact the largest they ever have is like a size 9. It is pretty funny. So I wear these slippers but my heal is sticking out of the end. Then if you use the bathroom in their home you have to put on the bathroom slippers. It is very interesting. I don't know why but that is just the way it is.
It is starting to get pretty cool outside. I can ride my bike for like a whole 5 minutes before I start to sweat, just kidding but seriously the weather is getting way nicer.
So on Saturday we went to chill at the mall. Why one might ask, well it is a great opportunity to find people. It is easier to talk to people and become friends if we know what they like. But yesterday we went to the food court where a lot of people are, and we played jenga. Yes it is a pretty good attention getter. We talked to a few people. We tried to get a girl to play but her boyfriend wouldn't let her. I can't inmagine why, but we become friends with people and then share the gospel and then baptize them. It sounds like a good plan ot me.
We do a lot of finding here because we have very few investigators. This area was opened up pretty recently so there aren't too many investigators. We do a lot of finding, and knoking on doors all day can get boring so we have fun and it works pretty well. We have one really good investigator who said she wanted to be baptized. Of corse, my companion and I were thrilled but she wants to learn more so that is good. She loves the plan of salvation and thinks it is the coolest thing ever. Probably because it is like the coolest thing ever. Like we can live forever with are families. If that isn't cool enough we also get to live with God and Jesus Christ. So it is the coolest thing ever.
Keep having fun.
Love
Elder Nelson
富士山 (Mt. Fuji) September 20, 2010
Good Evening everybody,
How is life going, probably pretty good. Japan is still great.
Fuji is awesome. First of all I am 10 minutes away from the beach by bike. It is pretty nice. You can do so much at the beach like, bbq, watch people swim, watch people surf and fun stuff like that lol, but seriously the beach is awesome. I have only been once and I just looked at it and kept riding my bike. Fuji is way nice though. It is much cooler than Inuyama. Inuyama was incredibly hot but Fuji is much nicer. It is also September so it has started cooling down anyway, but still. Mount Fuji is huge. I have never seen anything like it. The problem is I can't see it most of the time. It is always covered by clouds. It is kind of wierd. It is this massive thing and I can't see it most of the time. I think the clouds are attracted to it. I have seen the whole thing once and it is truly massive. I think we are going to go hike it one pday. That will be fun.
The apartment is way nice. It is a yonnin which means it can fit 4 missionaries. At the moment there are only 2 missionaries: my companion, Elder Wilson, and me. So it is huge. Inuyama's was pretty small but this apartment is huge. That is also another bonus about Fuji. So pretty much I love Fuji, not just because of the mountains, the beach, and the apartment, but there are also great people here too.
My new Companion is Elder Wilson. He is from Oregon. He is 20 years old and he is on his 13th transfer. This is his 4th transfer in Fuji. When he returns from his mission he wants to be a navy seal so that's pretty cool. He has slowly started to train for it. We have gone running a few times in the morning. I am not the biggest fan but it is good for me and I could use a little exercise.
So today is Tuesday which is not pday so this makes it a little awkward. lol. Ya yesterday Elder Wilson and I had to travel to Shizuoka to meet the other elders. They were actually having a ward activity there and they played softball. Yesterday was a holiday called honor the old people. Im not sure the real name but that is what they do. Softball was fun. So there are 10 missionaries there and we played against the ward. So we are young, fit, in our 20s, playing softball against these members who are in there 30s and 40s and have kids and everything. I pitch the first inning and I am throwing nice underhand pitches. I thought that's what we were supposed to do. They get like 4 runs but whatever. Then it is our turn to bat and they made us submit a line up. Which is weird but thats how serious this was. Then this member gets up and is throwing like the world softball champion. I am pretty sure his pitches were going 60 miles per hour. We had trouble hitting him. He didn't go easy on the elders who had never played baseball before (or softball). Some of us were pretty good but we couldn't get enough runs to beat them. I started pitching harder but I can't throw that hard under hand. It was like the most seroius game of softball I have ever played. We had umps and everything. It was rough. They were so happy to beat us.The final score was 7 to 6, but man was it tough.
So there are 12 missionaries in our zone and none of them are sisters. It is the second smallest zone next to the Nagano Zone. My last zone was the biggest but now it's smaller. They are both cool. One of my zone leaders is Elder Larson. He went to Cimarron high school and graduated in 08. He is pretty cool.
Ya back to my story. After playing hardcore softball, Elder Wilson had to go to Nagoya. There is a week long training there for all the leaders. He is a district leader therefore he has to go. So I dropped him off there and then I returned to a new area. It is Numazu. I will be here until Friday and Saturday with Elder Carr and Elder Otahara. They have been out 6 and 5 transfers respectivly. It tool a while to get back because it is further away then Fuji. Numazu is way close to Tokyo. Numazu is cool but we don't have three bikes so we are going to do South America missionary work (lol) and walk everywhere. It shouold work out well.
So last Tuesday I came to Fuji. It took quite a while. It was about an hour ride to Nagoya from Inuyama where I met Elder Wilson. We got on a train and four hours later and 50 dollars later we were in Fuji. It was a long day. Everything went well.Both Fuji and Numazu are closer to Tokyo than Nagoya. I think it is about 20 dollars and an hour and a half train ride to Tokyo.
We have one really good investigator here. She is so nice. I have only met here once though. She was supposed to come to church but cancelled because her son got sick. Hopefully she will be able to come this next week even though we won't have too much time to visit her.
Well everything is going well. Have a great week back in the USA.
Love
Elder Nelson
How is life going, probably pretty good. Japan is still great.
Fuji is awesome. First of all I am 10 minutes away from the beach by bike. It is pretty nice. You can do so much at the beach like, bbq, watch people swim, watch people surf and fun stuff like that lol, but seriously the beach is awesome. I have only been once and I just looked at it and kept riding my bike. Fuji is way nice though. It is much cooler than Inuyama. Inuyama was incredibly hot but Fuji is much nicer. It is also September so it has started cooling down anyway, but still. Mount Fuji is huge. I have never seen anything like it. The problem is I can't see it most of the time. It is always covered by clouds. It is kind of wierd. It is this massive thing and I can't see it most of the time. I think the clouds are attracted to it. I have seen the whole thing once and it is truly massive. I think we are going to go hike it one pday. That will be fun.
The apartment is way nice. It is a yonnin which means it can fit 4 missionaries. At the moment there are only 2 missionaries: my companion, Elder Wilson, and me. So it is huge. Inuyama's was pretty small but this apartment is huge. That is also another bonus about Fuji. So pretty much I love Fuji, not just because of the mountains, the beach, and the apartment, but there are also great people here too.
My new Companion is Elder Wilson. He is from Oregon. He is 20 years old and he is on his 13th transfer. This is his 4th transfer in Fuji. When he returns from his mission he wants to be a navy seal so that's pretty cool. He has slowly started to train for it. We have gone running a few times in the morning. I am not the biggest fan but it is good for me and I could use a little exercise.
So today is Tuesday which is not pday so this makes it a little awkward. lol. Ya yesterday Elder Wilson and I had to travel to Shizuoka to meet the other elders. They were actually having a ward activity there and they played softball. Yesterday was a holiday called honor the old people. Im not sure the real name but that is what they do. Softball was fun. So there are 10 missionaries there and we played against the ward. So we are young, fit, in our 20s, playing softball against these members who are in there 30s and 40s and have kids and everything. I pitch the first inning and I am throwing nice underhand pitches. I thought that's what we were supposed to do. They get like 4 runs but whatever. Then it is our turn to bat and they made us submit a line up. Which is weird but thats how serious this was. Then this member gets up and is throwing like the world softball champion. I am pretty sure his pitches were going 60 miles per hour. We had trouble hitting him. He didn't go easy on the elders who had never played baseball before (or softball). Some of us were pretty good but we couldn't get enough runs to beat them. I started pitching harder but I can't throw that hard under hand. It was like the most seroius game of softball I have ever played. We had umps and everything. It was rough. They were so happy to beat us.The final score was 7 to 6, but man was it tough.
So there are 12 missionaries in our zone and none of them are sisters. It is the second smallest zone next to the Nagano Zone. My last zone was the biggest but now it's smaller. They are both cool. One of my zone leaders is Elder Larson. He went to Cimarron high school and graduated in 08. He is pretty cool.
Ya back to my story. After playing hardcore softball, Elder Wilson had to go to Nagoya. There is a week long training there for all the leaders. He is a district leader therefore he has to go. So I dropped him off there and then I returned to a new area. It is Numazu. I will be here until Friday and Saturday with Elder Carr and Elder Otahara. They have been out 6 and 5 transfers respectivly. It tool a while to get back because it is further away then Fuji. Numazu is way close to Tokyo. Numazu is cool but we don't have three bikes so we are going to do South America missionary work (lol) and walk everywhere. It shouold work out well.
So last Tuesday I came to Fuji. It took quite a while. It was about an hour ride to Nagoya from Inuyama where I met Elder Wilson. We got on a train and four hours later and 50 dollars later we were in Fuji. It was a long day. Everything went well.Both Fuji and Numazu are closer to Tokyo than Nagoya. I think it is about 20 dollars and an hour and a half train ride to Tokyo.
We have one really good investigator here. She is so nice. I have only met here once though. She was supposed to come to church but cancelled because her son got sick. Hopefully she will be able to come this next week even though we won't have too much time to visit her.
Well everything is going well. Have a great week back in the USA.
Love
Elder Nelson
転勤します (The transfer) September 12, 2010
What is up everybody?
It was a great last week in Inuyama. I was able to go see Inuyama castle. It was incredible. It is up on the mountain that overlooks the river. If anyone is ever in the Nagoya, Japan area I would highly suggest checking it out. It was so cool. We got to go into the castle and climb to the highest watch tower. It was way cool and a way good place for a castle. I think it is a pretty good defense place. The Inuyama castle is the oldest castle in Japan so that's really cool too. As we were climbing up the stairs there were creeks everywhere. It was kind of scary. It was really cool though.
So this last Saturday I made pancakes for the ward. They had an activity so I made pancakes for them. It was awesome because everyone loves pancakes. The hard thing was that all I had was a frying pan so I only could cook one at a time. It took a while but it was fun. We actually got 3 investigators to come. That was really cool. The sad thing is that investigators will go to that thing with no problem but then not come to church. Why can they come to a 4 hour activity on Saturday but not 3 hours of church on Sunday, I will never know. Yesterday was good. We went to the bishop's house. It was really good. We had this wierd egg thing with like mushrooms and raddish and eggplant. It was pretty good. He also gave us kimchi because he knows I like it. It was way fun. We also visited a less active member. They were Brazillian. It was fun talking with them in Simple Japanese with some Portuguese thrown around. Ya but they gave us these chips and man they tasted like seaweed. I can see why they gave them to us. Of course I ate the whole bag but man they were weird. I might as well have been eating seaweed.
So transfer calls were this morning and let me tell you they just make you nervous. Then they called at like 9:50. They are like Elder Fedrickson you are...not transferring. He is actually becoming a trainer. He is way nervous. Its pretty funny. I am transferring. I am going to a place that I think everyone wants to go. I am excited to be going there. When the assisstant called me he told me I was going to the mountains. So yes I am going to Fuji!!!!! Yes that is the biggest mountain in Japan, so I am very excited to go there. I packed this morning and all my stuff is headed there including my bike so I have no bike today or tomorrow. So we all meet at the Nagoya train station tomorrow and I will be on my way to Fuji. I Hear it rains alot there too so that will be fun.
It is going to be sad leaving this area. I have made a lot of friends. the ward is very nice but I am excited to move on. Everyone has been nice to me as I have struggled with the language. It is still pretty rough. I can understand decent but sometimes I can't say anything that I want to. It is very frustrating but also it is very humbling.
Have a great week. Keep up the hard work
Love Elder Nelson
It was a great last week in Inuyama. I was able to go see Inuyama castle. It was incredible. It is up on the mountain that overlooks the river. If anyone is ever in the Nagoya, Japan area I would highly suggest checking it out. It was so cool. We got to go into the castle and climb to the highest watch tower. It was way cool and a way good place for a castle. I think it is a pretty good defense place. The Inuyama castle is the oldest castle in Japan so that's really cool too. As we were climbing up the stairs there were creeks everywhere. It was kind of scary. It was really cool though.
So this last Saturday I made pancakes for the ward. They had an activity so I made pancakes for them. It was awesome because everyone loves pancakes. The hard thing was that all I had was a frying pan so I only could cook one at a time. It took a while but it was fun. We actually got 3 investigators to come. That was really cool. The sad thing is that investigators will go to that thing with no problem but then not come to church. Why can they come to a 4 hour activity on Saturday but not 3 hours of church on Sunday, I will never know. Yesterday was good. We went to the bishop's house. It was really good. We had this wierd egg thing with like mushrooms and raddish and eggplant. It was pretty good. He also gave us kimchi because he knows I like it. It was way fun. We also visited a less active member. They were Brazillian. It was fun talking with them in Simple Japanese with some Portuguese thrown around. Ya but they gave us these chips and man they tasted like seaweed. I can see why they gave them to us. Of course I ate the whole bag but man they were weird. I might as well have been eating seaweed.
So transfer calls were this morning and let me tell you they just make you nervous. Then they called at like 9:50. They are like Elder Fedrickson you are...not transferring. He is actually becoming a trainer. He is way nervous. Its pretty funny. I am transferring. I am going to a place that I think everyone wants to go. I am excited to be going there. When the assisstant called me he told me I was going to the mountains. So yes I am going to Fuji!!!!! Yes that is the biggest mountain in Japan, so I am very excited to go there. I packed this morning and all my stuff is headed there including my bike so I have no bike today or tomorrow. So we all meet at the Nagoya train station tomorrow and I will be on my way to Fuji. I Hear it rains alot there too so that will be fun.
It is going to be sad leaving this area. I have made a lot of friends. the ward is very nice but I am excited to move on. Everyone has been nice to me as I have struggled with the language. It is still pretty rough. I can understand decent but sometimes I can't say anything that I want to. It is very frustrating but also it is very humbling.
Have a great week. Keep up the hard work
Love Elder Nelson
意志あるところに道は開ける "Where there is will open the way" (September 5, 2010)
Whats up
It has been another wonderful week here in Japan. I think it was one of the hottest. but thats ok. I was hoping it would start to cool down soon but whatever.
So we went on companion exchanges this week. It was pretty fun. I went to Gifu. The elder I was with is a great example for me. He is from Utah but he went trainer on transfer 3. He is now on transfer 4 and doing well. He is also pretty good at Japanese and that is why he went tranier...probably. It was fun. Gifu is like a major city compared to Inuyama. Inuyama is kind of a city but kind of not. Its difficult to explain.
We found this cool Brazilian guy the other day. He was wearing a back brace so we asked him why and he said he got hit by a car. Then he's like I have like nothing to do. So my companion and I gave him something to do. He is going to read the Book of Mormon. He was actualy very excited. He tried to pay us for it but we insisted that he could have it for free. Finally I told him we can't read pourtuguese so please take. He told us he would read it all. That was really cool. We are excited to meet with him.
So we have an english sunday school class that we attend everyweek. It is very fun. Lately a lot of spanish people come so we have a english/spanish sunday school class. It is very fun. I am always learning alot. it is very interesting. There are more people in that class than the japanese class.
Ya so whenever we ride the train we try to talk to people as we ride. we have met alot of different people, sometimes they are not in our area but we can give them as referals to other missionaries. I recently talked with a guy who had previously met with other missionaries. I thought that was funny. He was from Brazil, but now living in Japan. He didn't live in our area but we still got his information and gave it to other missionaries. That was pretty cool.
Trains are actually crazy here in Japan. Like whenever we come home from Nagoya the trains are packed. Everyone tries to get on and you are all up against each other. It is very uncomfortable. One might ask why don't you wait for the next train. The problem is the next train is just as full. It is very sad. It is a very unique experience. It is very hard to talk to people when you are on very packed trains but we try.
We are going to try to go to Inuyama castle today. I have lived here for four months but I haven't gone yet. It looks way cool from far away.
So have a great week. It seems like everyone had fun starting school.
Love
Elder Nelson
It has been another wonderful week here in Japan. I think it was one of the hottest. but thats ok. I was hoping it would start to cool down soon but whatever.
So we went on companion exchanges this week. It was pretty fun. I went to Gifu. The elder I was with is a great example for me. He is from Utah but he went trainer on transfer 3. He is now on transfer 4 and doing well. He is also pretty good at Japanese and that is why he went tranier...probably. It was fun. Gifu is like a major city compared to Inuyama. Inuyama is kind of a city but kind of not. Its difficult to explain.
We found this cool Brazilian guy the other day. He was wearing a back brace so we asked him why and he said he got hit by a car. Then he's like I have like nothing to do. So my companion and I gave him something to do. He is going to read the Book of Mormon. He was actualy very excited. He tried to pay us for it but we insisted that he could have it for free. Finally I told him we can't read pourtuguese so please take. He told us he would read it all. That was really cool. We are excited to meet with him.
So we have an english sunday school class that we attend everyweek. It is very fun. Lately a lot of spanish people come so we have a english/spanish sunday school class. It is very fun. I am always learning alot. it is very interesting. There are more people in that class than the japanese class.
Ya so whenever we ride the train we try to talk to people as we ride. we have met alot of different people, sometimes they are not in our area but we can give them as referals to other missionaries. I recently talked with a guy who had previously met with other missionaries. I thought that was funny. He was from Brazil, but now living in Japan. He didn't live in our area but we still got his information and gave it to other missionaries. That was pretty cool.
Trains are actually crazy here in Japan. Like whenever we come home from Nagoya the trains are packed. Everyone tries to get on and you are all up against each other. It is very uncomfortable. One might ask why don't you wait for the next train. The problem is the next train is just as full. It is very sad. It is a very unique experience. It is very hard to talk to people when you are on very packed trains but we try.
We are going to try to go to Inuyama castle today. I have lived here for four months but I haven't gone yet. It looks way cool from far away.
So have a great week. It seems like everyone had fun starting school.
Love
Elder Nelson
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