Transfer Week Again!

Dear Family,

This week was a pretty good week. It was the last week of the transfer and Elder Bunker and I got a lot of real good work done! So we have a lot of good potential investigators to work with or try to work with this upcoming transfer. Today is Pday this week because we had a special 2 mission conference with M Russell Ballard in the north mission's mission home. So we were there most of yesterday. And we got transfer emails yesterday, I'm here again! Another transfer in Takao! My new companion will be Elder Young, I don't know much about him but it should be good! Elder Bunker is transferring to Sagamihara and he seems really depressed about it but not much I can do there. So yeah anyways it was way cool!

This week we found all kinds of people from streeting and housing and stuff but there weren't any really like crazy big miracle stories. Just little bits of guidance to help us find people that were more prepared than others. But we did a way cool thing this week and went to the farthest city in our area, Otsuki. It is half way between the main proselyting area of Kofu and Takao, so there is hardly ever any work done there. But we had the idea to try and get an Otsuki branch started up. So as a district we went up there to do an Otsuki "blitz" and it was really cool. We got up there a little past noon and left around dark, but we saw a lot of crazy cool things there! There are shrines all over the place in Otsuki but no one really on the roads, so we did mostly housing. But in 9 houses 7 came to the door to answer and 4 were interested and we had 20 minute ish conversations about the church and stuff and it was way good! I think Otsuki is ready to have missionaries there so we all told president Wada that in our weekly email. It was way cool!

The other cool thing this week was the conference yesterday. M Russell Ballard came, which was way cool because I really like his talks and the way he speaks. I have listened to his talks a lot on my mission for example while cooking and stuff so it was pretty cool to hear. He had some of his traveling group speak as well although I can't remember their names so it's good I wrote them down. The talks all centered around how we can better teach and retain investigators through our teaching the first lesson and its parts very simply. So it was a nice focus because of how many new potential investigators we have. Then at the end he had all 400 ish missionaries from Tokyo north and south shake his hand which was way cool, he's a way nice guy so it was really cool.

One funny thing from the week was that so far I have been here 3 transfers in Takao and stayed in 2 apartments and this upcoming transfer will be my 4th in Takao and my 3rd apartment! Haha they are moving the elders into the sisters apartment and the sisters into our apartment. We pretty strange!! Sounds like life has been pretty interesting at home, thank you for putting my name on grandpas card! Hope Morgan gets feeling better. It's weird having a quarter of my mission already done! It's intense. But it's fun! Hope everyone has a great week!

Love

Elder Gailey

His new shoes  :-)

Elder Bunker likes them too!

His District

His favorite bench.

Otsuki Ramen 

He finally found his favorite car!

Last Week Before Transfers and Almost 6 months out!

Dear Family,

This week was a really good week, we had all kinds of good stuff. We had FHE on Monday and splits on Thursday and Friday and a talent show event on Saturday that was about it as far as special things. We did a lot of housings his week because we wanted to get better at it and as a district we had decided to go crazy on housing for the talent show to try and get as many people there as possible. At first the housing was a little tedious but by last night me and Elder Bunker have decided that we really like housing. We saw quite a few miracles and things while doing it as well. We have found 6 or 7 good potential investigators from it this week and we found yet another less active! Whether those 6 or 7 this week will turn into investigators or not I'm not sure but we'll try as hard as we can. We have 2nd meetings with most of them already set up so that will be fun this week. The other potential investigators from past weeks are not yet investigators but we haven't forgotten about them we are just trying to get them to come to activities and they have been busy recently most of them. We were able to meet with Uki San this week though, he came to the talent show, which was an improvement. There were a lot of good performances and a lot of missionaries and investigators from other areas too. Splits were way fun, I learned a lot from Elder Hansen (one of my zone leaders) he's a really good missionary.

The sickness from last week is FINALLY GONE!! It was way sucky while I had it but now it's all good. My nose just runs out of habit and cold air now so it's much nicer. Although it is starting to warm up quite a bit, I have needed coats and stuff much less often. We have to wait til May though until we are allowed to wear short sleeve shirts which is a little obnoxious but it can't be helped. This upcoming week me and Elder Bunker are trying as hard as possible, more than we thought we ever could, to make this week the most productive week in every way that we have had our whole mission. So it's lots of fun and we are really working hard!

It's been very weird and interesting this week at some of the houses... I have had the door opened by more Japanese guys in pajamas than I wish to count this week. One guy had a full pajama suit thing and another was in like full Under Armor only and another was in like a bathrobe. I guess it's not a weird thing to just answer the door in your pjs in Japan! Most of them were way nice though, one of them told us to visit again, so hopefully he will be dressed next time. But that's about it for my week I think! It is Elder Simons birthday today so we are going to Hachioji to go eat Yakiniku which Google can probably explain better than I can. And if I can find one I am going to maybe buy a speaker or something so that if I can ever get music on my iPad in other areas I can play it or maybe if they have CD players in other areas I'll use that I dunno! It will be a fun day though. Sounds like life at home was pretty fun! The Treadclimber sounds exciting, I sold one of those at Sports authority I think, I don't remember too well. Just don't die on it! I'm glad mom and dad were able to go to the temple, make that 38 months! Have a great week everyone! And if I forgot anything let me know! Love you guys!

Love,

Elder Gailey

 

Per Google - Yakiniku (焼き肉 or 焼肉), meaning "grilled meat", is a Japanese term which, in its broadest sense, refers to grilled meat dishes.  Today, it commonly refers to a Japanese style of cooking bite-sized meat (usually beef and offal) and vegetables on gridirons or griddles over flame of wood charcoals carbonized by dry distillation (sumibi, 炭火) or gas/electric grill.

 

No idea why they have a fish head on a stick by the front door.  Asked a Japanese Sister missionary and she had no idea either.

This week, boy oh boy!

Dear Family and Friends,

This week was a pretty good week! We saw quite a few miracles and did a lot of good work despite the fact I got another cold! This one was bad enough for a day or two that I stayed in bed all Thursday because I was that bad and I slept all day. So that was no fun but Elder Bunker was able to call all the potential investigators in our area book while I was asleep which was pretty good and we may have some good things from it. On Friday we had a Family History Blitz. We got 2 zones together and we went to one place (Shinyurigaoka) and did housing and streeting and kubari (handing out flyers as people pass) with a focus on family history. It was a lot of fun and I think there were tons of good things that came out if it!

The first big miracle we saw this week was the night before I started getting pretty sick. We were walking in the neighborhoods that are on the way to Mt Takao. First we went down a street with a shrine that gave us the "bad feelings” that our family knows so well so we turned around and left the road without knocking on any doors there or anything, but we turned town the next street because I realized I had never been down it. So we passed the good old insane asylum and kept walking until we saw a building where the top floor was "John's English Class" and the bottom floor was what we though was John’s house. So we knocked on it because we thought why not knock on it especially if he speaks English. And instead of John it was a lady and we talked to her for a second and come to find out she spoke perfect English and has been to the temple in salt lake and talked with missionaries there! So we are referring her to the sisters because we're not allowed to teach women. But it was way cool and way random!

Last night right by that house we had another miracle. We were housing over there trying to locate the mysterious "John" fellow. And we think we found him, a Nepalese man answered his door when we rand and started yelling at us in English about it being mean to knock door to door in a neighborhood. So we invited him to church and everything and he was still mad and wouldn't come so we moved on. We decided since it was late and we needed to get back that we would knock on 2 more doors. First door, nothing. Second door, a man opens the door very timidly and we talk to him and invite him to church and the lessons and it turns out he is a less active member. So we are going back on Tuesday probably to see him again. We decided that maybe we're having troubles with our investigators right now because our companionship is supposed to bring those sheep who were lost on the way home back to the Shepard. Maybe we need to get the ward taking care of those we have before we can get more. It's exciting work for sure!

At that blitz we saw crazy miracles and I was able to use my 5 generation fan chart 2 times and I really saw the spirit of Elijah working like crazy for one of the first times. The 2 times I pulled up my fan chart the whole conversation changed. One man was originally completely without interest and at the end of the conversation he was willing to read all about it and call us if he was interested. And another one we called out to a guy across the street and he rode his bike across the street to us and we got a picture and he is coming to Ekaiwa and wants to come to church! And another couple wants to have the missionaries over for dinner after we talked to them about the Book of Mormon and family history and everything. It was crazy! At blitz's we go on 3 splits for an hour and so each one of those stories was with a different companion (in order of stories and time: Elder Nebeker, Elder Bennion, and Elder Crandall) it was a crazy experience and really got me fired up to use family history in my Dendo!

So it's been a good week we are working with our less actives and Mark and Uki San on getting a testimony of the Book of Mormon, because if you have that you have it all. It's way fun and we're working as hard as we can! My Japanese is still improving and I have been complimented on it quite a few times this week but I am trying to just study even harder because of that. Nakajima Kyoudai is still coming to church but we haven't been able to meet with him. The bishop told us to drop him unless he comes to us asking to be baptized because that was his 6th dropped baptismal service ish. We don't want to drop him but we are going to focus on other things and work with him when we can. God never gives up on us so we won't give up on him. I am loving being out here and as hard as some days are others are the best ever.

I'm glad to hear how things are going at home. Morgan, get feeling better! It sounds like life is pretty busy for mom and dad and that Meagan is working a lot and Emilee is getting more settled in. Thank you for always keeping me updated on life back home! Hopefully I'm keeping you updated well enough on stuff here. I can't think of anything huge that I need so thank you for always asking, mom! I love all you guys and hope you can find some opportunities to talk about church with some friends this week! Keep it up!

Oh and HAPPY BIRTHDAY MEAGAN! Not every day that a birthday is on my pday! Love you!

Love,

Elder Gailey

 

GO HAWKS! It's Super Bowl sun... Pday!‏

Dear Family,

It has been a long week. I should probably start off with the bigger news, bad news first as usual. When prepping for the baptism our ward mission leader called brother Nakajima to make sure he would come early for pictures and stuff. In the call Nakajima said that his mom was sick so he couldn't come and do his baptism. We're not even really sure his mom is sick but regardless he did not get baptized. At first I was really bothered by the whole thing. This week I set up the whole thing, I made all the calls and did all those things, so it was a huge bummer that I just had to watch all of the plans and stuff fall apart. And I was way excited to see a guy who I had been working with since my first week in Takao finally be ready and take that next step towards his father in heaven. So yes, needless to say I was quite bummed out for a bit, but I slowly accepted that it is his choice to get baptized or not and I would much rather he want to when he does get baptized. Also as a result of having the baptism canceled, a couple people came and we gave them some of the things we made for the baptism (cookies and cake). While we were doing that I got to meet one of our neighboring area's investigators. His name is Ishikawa and he is way strong and is crazy excited for his baptismal date for next week. He is already loving the gospel so much he shares it and he's not even baptized yet, so it was way cool to talk to him about his conversion and all t

So that was all Saturday, but I spent the week doing as Dad always tells me to do, looking for new investigators and what not! We haven't found any but we got quite a few new good potential investigators so cross your fingers! I was making calls basically all day every day all week. We did start a new activity to invite our investigators to this week. Family Home Evening! We for sure had our less active member Sanno coming and it turned out that he was the only one that actually came so he got a great lesson on prayer taught by Elder Busteed and Elder Simons. We had the game, so we decided to play headbands, thank you for buying that Disney version mom because I wouldn't have had that idea without that game! And it was way fun and Sanno had a blast I think. We also had a Skype lesson this week with Mark the guy from the Philippines. It was way weird because it was Skype and he never turned on a camera so we stared at his profile picture thing which was a fat American hamburger... Quite the experience. So we taught him more about prayer and asked him to read the Book of Mormon again which he agreed to do. Uki we met this week too, and he had stopped praying and reading so now we have to catch everything back up to where we were before New Years, a little tedious but still good. We also had Nakajima's baptismal interview this week which he passed but as I said above it didn't end up happening, so I will send a couple Nakajima pictures in the picture emails today so you will know more of who I'm teaching.

Another cool thing from the week is that I got to go to Kofu for splits! I didn't take many pictures of Kofu but it is interesting to now be able to say I've been there and dendo'd there. After Zone meeting we went out to Kofu and I spent the night there and woke up bright and early to come back to Takao for the baptism that didn't happen so unfortunately I didn't get a ton of time over there but it was still good I think. It snowed pretty good Thursday night and into Friday so Takao and Kofu were pretty well covered in snow, it was way cool because it's been quite a while since I have seen that much snow everywhere, but it definitely made walking hard in a few places. In weekly planning I talked a lot about how we as a companionship can get more SOS invitations and good solid pi's and new investigators because I'm tired of trying to just do all those things myself when my companion doesn't talk to people. He doesn't like it so usually the whole conversation is just me and if I don't know something it's a bit frustrating because there isn't any backup or anything. It's a bit awkward for the person I'm talking to also because he just stares at them un-interested looking so it makes talking to people hard. But I talked to him about it quite a bit and these last few days have been better, I'm still doing a large portion but it is better and we have gotten a couple pretty good potential investigators. So I'm way excited about that!

We finally don't have a pday where we have to go to a past area of Elder Bunker's for whatever reason so it should be a good one, plenty of time for things today I think. I'm glad you got the letter! It's hard to find time to actually write letters but I think I'm getting better at working the hour before bedtime on things like that so it's getting easier and better I think. Sounds like everything with Trevor went pretty well! I'm glad that it is all good, the power or prayer and fasting at its best I think. Hopefully we can figure out what is going on with Morgan, but until then, Morgan, がんばてください！I have translated that before but there are really no 100% accurate translations for that phrase so just know it means something to the effect of keep going! I am crazy excited to see how the Super Bowl turns out, if they win you guys have to get me a shirt and some other random stuff! I hope this week goes really well for everyone and that you all can have some cool experiences this week! I can't really think of anything else right now... I'm not sick anymore my cough is only caused by really cold air but that probably happens to anyone and I will send pictures of the snow. I love you guys!

Love,

Elder Gailey

P.s. GO HAWKS!