Week 9 - Almost Christmas!

Dear Family,

This week has surely been an interesting week. We are in the new apartment so over 2 days we had to move alllll of our stuff over which was tough because of the roads and the way that they work coming from our old apartment, the sidewalks and asphalt isn't well maintained so it was sure a bumpy ride. When we got there, there was literally nothing there, no food (not even rice), no toilet paper, no soap, basically it was like no one had been living there before us but it was way dirty like there had been. So we had to clean and spend a ton of money setting it up. Only 1 more pday so money wise I will be just fine until next month completely because I have been able to budget and watch it very well so far. Hopefully I can continue to do so!

Sounds like at home the prep for Christmas has been pretty good! I'm glad you always listen to those feelings, it's a good example for me to follow while I'm out here and for the rest of my life. No worries about the Nintendo, obviously be careful, but if it was a problem I could buy a new one here for about $5 so it's not too big a deal. Sounds like the drive to Utah was a party as well! I'm glad all of you are safe, maybe looking back now it was kind of fun right? I'm actually writing this letter on a train on the way to the Temple, so at the end of this or maybe in another one I will continue to write about that part. But my 25 days of Christmas have still been going well, I hope you've enjoyed the pictures, and that way I will never forget what they were because I always have 2 pictures of each. Most of the pictures I think we're by a river, it's at a like 12 foot deep hole though, the river averages like 1 foot deep then in that hole it just goes crazy. So we took a bunch of pictures because it looked cool.

Boy this transfer will be interesting. I like making a plan and following it as it was planned unless significant things change it. Obviously there are lots of times when we change it because of a prompting or something but the change usually doesn't effect our overall days plan. However this transfer I will have to get used to a lot of having our plan completely changed and not written down and stuff which especially after camp is tough for me and I don't see it as very efficient. But it seems with Elder Bunker he likes planning something and then not following the plan at all, which works well for him but it's tough for me so it will definitely be interesting how that works out. He also does everything the opposite of me usually, like taking different entrances into buildings and doing things in strange orders so I guess I'm supposed to learn how to be much more flexible in the way I do things. It's a little crazy and I go to bed very tired but it's good. Also this transfer is the poster transfer for lack of communication. With Elder Crain leaving he still hadn't received a lot of travel information when he left Takao for the mission home, and just about every day after that there was an event or something that either he neglected to tell us or the district or even the zone leaders so there was lots of mad scrambling and stuff. And there were things we had to move around and make a million calls about and such with all the meetings we have around Christmas. We have temple trip, Christmas conference, an FHE we didn't find out about until Sunday, and a million different things. Hopefully after Christmas it will all settle down and all will be well in Elder Gailey's brain again. 

Our investigators are doing well and luckily were willing to move around the lessons when we needed to. Also our new ward mission leader, Brother Kato, is great he's doing a lot of work and helping us get members in lessons and all kinds of good stuff. Uki san is doing well, we are finding new things he doesn't remember that we need to review but he is definitely doing better every day. Kuramochi has still been MIA but we still are hopeful. Mark we are trying to meet with on Christmas and teach another lesson and be his friend. Nakajima Kyoudai as well is moving forward I think although he still doesn't really crazy want to be baptized so that is a work in progress. We haven't had a crazy lot of time for anything this week so that all really sums it up, but Elder Crain is back home and a 2 man feels a little strange but it will be good. We also had our ward Christmas party this week where we gave a presentation on who missionaries are and what the true meaning of Christmas is, it went well, although it wasn't super exciting. Afterwards we were able to go caroling with the ward at an old folks home in a nearby town which was fun the people there really liked it. The room really smelled like old person and some of them I swear we're inches from death but they all smiled and laughed and sang when they could and it was loads of fun!

One of the funny cool and spiritual things this week was on Friday I think it was I went on splits because Elder Bunker as our new DL had a training to go to. I was put with another Elder from Kofu, Elder Takahashi, who is a nihonjin. So the entire day from 7:30 to 6:30 was in Japanese, all my studies all my conversations all of everything. It was way good in the couple days following a bunch of ward members commented on how much better my Japanese was, and while understanding them is still hard it is coming slowly. My goal is by the end of this transfer to be able to hold my own in any conversation anywhere at anytime with anyone in Japanese. The speaking part is close and hearing is coming, so if I work even harder, I'm sure it will come. 

That about covers it for the week I think, so I wish everyone a very Merry Christmas and I hope you enjoy the day and remember why we celebrate it as always! I look forward to Skyping you all and I will talk to you then! Love you!

Love,

Elder Gailey