Hello from Hachioji!

Dear Family,

This past week has been pretty good! Obviously I got my transfer call on Monday so right now I'm writing home from the Hachioji ward building! And this week has been pretty good. Because I was transferring I went on Monday with my companion to Mt. Takao to buy some souvenirs at the bottom and then just packed and also packed on Tuesday for a bit. But I didn't want to use Sagawa (the company that missionaries use to send their bags from one apartment to another) because it was so close so I just worked it out with some of the missionaries in my district to get everything and my bike over there at the same time. So I left Takao at 11 and was all done moving at 12. Pretty easy right? I was able to say goodbye to most of the people in the Takao ward on Tuesday and Wednesday so it was a pretty good send off. Although on Tuesday, going to a lunch appointment my companion did have us ride our bikes 45 minutes past the place in the rain because he didn't really know where it was, so that was a bit frustrating but it worked out.

So now I'm in my new area! My companion is Elder Palmer Turley and he is on transfer 12 and has been here for quite a while in Hachioji and really knows and likes it. He's from Missouri but his family now lives in Utah somewhere. He's a really nice but pretty quiet guy. I don't mind though, it's going to be a good transfer, I think we work pretty well together so far. We have a few investigators but still need to do a lot of finding, so we are working as hard as we can. We have found some cool people already though mostly girls while housing so we have referred them to the sisters already since we can't work with girls at all. One day this week Elder Turley said he had really been feeling like we should visit a specific apartment building near the church. So we went there and it is a lock out so we couldn't go inside, but right outside we met and talked to a guy who told us that if God really existed that he would be way happy. So we taught him how to pray and he headed back up on his way to north Tokyo and I hope he prayed! And that same night on the second to last door we knocked we found a lady about 27 ish who told us that she believes in God completely but that because there is so much confusion and fighting between religions she can't figure out which one is right. So we told her how to pray and that God can help her with that just like Joseph Smith and she said to please have the sisters come over soon, so this week they will be visiting!

Then other than that we had GENERAL CONFERENCE, which is one thing I have come to love on my mission, I watch and read talks all the time and I really really enjoy it. So this time for conference we went to the stake center and because our investigators couldn't come, we went into the English speaking room with the other missionaries and watched all 3 Saturday sessions with an hour break between each one. And the same for the 2 sessions on Sunday. So that was way cool. Conference this year was really good! It seems like a lot of the apostles and the prophet are getting really old, President Packer is way tough to understand now, and you almost need a script to know what he's saying sometimes. I really liked the talk about choosing to believe, I think it could really apply to a lot of investigators here. So that was great!

Thanks for all the music mom! I think that will be good for now! And my goodness the experience at that food place sounds intense! Glad everyone is ok! And no I never got the baseball video, unfortunately. But I'm glad everyone is doing pretty good! I'm not sure if I will get to work with those 2 guys from splits but maybe! We'll see! I'm trying to get better and better everyday and have been really trying to listen for and follow the spirit better and we have been having some good results. I love you guys and hope you are having a great week! Keep it up and stay frosty! (That's a good thing, and my new catch phrase)

Love,

Elder Gailey

Elder Turley is on the far left, Elder Coggins is in between him and me, and Elder Hansen is on the right!

P.S. -  So my zone leader just found out that I am an Eagle Scout. And he said that starting pretty soon they are doing a scout English class run by missionary Eagle Scouts. Sooooo what he said is that they want us Eagle Scouts to ask our parents for our sash, shirt and neckerchief. Soooo in the next week or two could you send me those? Thanks Mom!