Week 4 in Japan

Dear family,

Sounds like life at home for everyone has been interesting! From snow and cold to wind out the ying yang! I'm glad you all gave Spike a proper burial, but I'm sorry he died! You'll see him again Morgan! It is getting really, really cold here in Japan and there as well it seems! I have worn a sweater or something just about every day this week and I have been wearing shorts under my pants for 3 days... It's crazy cold here! Boy, that storm does sound nuts mom! Crazy wind, crazy power, and craziness. I hope everyone was able to stay all warm and safe!

This week has been full of small things but not so many big crazy experiences. One weird thing this week was I tried Takoyaki, which is basically an octopus ball. It is some kind of bread like batter with part of an octopus tentacle and a lot of weird filling inside. They are huge but you have to eat them in one bite. I have a hard enough time with that kind of octopus let alone everything else that was in my mouth at the time. I got through 3 of my 6 and called it. They were kind of good but a lot of bad. And one really funny/cool thing was that we went to get ramen at this place where it is 500 yen for your first bowl and then 50 yen every extra bowl of noodles you want. First Japanese ramen (completely 100% different than American ramen by the way) and I had 4 extras... I was so full I couldn't fully bend over it felt like! Oh also this week there was this festival called Icho Matsuri (matsuri is festival) and so there was a parade and tons of people dancing and singing and performing and stuff, that is where I ate the Takoyaki. It was crazy! Although everyone said that was a small festival so I have no idea what to expect for the next one! However we visited and tried to talk to a lot of people but only talked to a few, but they were good.

One spiritual good cool thing that happened this week was while looking for people to talk to at the matsuri, we were crossing a bridge and we saw a guy drinking his beer and looking down so we greeted him and he ignored us and we were about to leave, but then we asked how he was doing and he started talking to us. An hour ish later we had taught him the plan of salvation and made several invitations. However, as most Japanese people he has 2 jobs and is going to college so that was during his like 3 hours of free time for the whole week that we talked to him. I don't know what will happen but at very least for the next time he meets missionaries, he knows that he can talk to us and that we aren't scary or pushy. My companion seems to view me as an already trained elder and always says I'm the best companion he has had, so I dunno what to think about that, but it does mean I am learning a lot on my own so that's good!

There were a lot of meetings this week so we didn't do as much work as far as finding people but it was still good! While I was on splits with Elder Talentino, we found a huge Shinto place... It turns out to be where 2-4 emperors are buried, I don't know if I wrote about this before, but I will send pictures when we visit it next! Oh and this week we did finding on a hike up Mt. Takao! So I will put some pictures up of that! It has a Buddhist temple on it so we took some pictures there and I have one of Mt. Fuji! So I will include all that! I love you guys and hope you all have a great week!

Love,

Elder Gailey

P.S. Take good care of Ginger :)

P.S.S For one of the sisters birthday we are going to get all you can eat okonomiyaki! (I don't know how to describe it) love you guys!

Also, I forgot to mention the earthquake that I got to experience the other day! It was on the day of splits that I found the big tombs we were in companion study and chilling in the apartment and suddenly the building just felt like it jumped and leaned a good bit! Then it was just shaking for a while and we could really feel it as we were on the 8th floor! It was crazy! But it was no big deal people outside just kept walking or driving and inside companion study just continued it was crazy!

Also I was told that there may be a cheaper and possibly faster way to send me packages although I don't know. It is a company called "black cat" and it is what the mission uses for sending our luggage and what they use to send us packages once they get to the hombu. So I dunno but it's food for thought :)