Michael's Good Experience: Maybe I should have stuck with basketball...‏

Dear Family,

Well this week had lots of up and downs! Overall it was good as I think probably every week will be on my mission if I look at it the right way, but still it was good. The first thing to say probably is that Azuma no longer has a baptismal date (explain later) and Yokoyama San has a kind of baptismal date, we're not sure if he can make it or not. But anyways, this week we had some lessons set up that didn't go through, but the biggest focus people, Azuma and Yokoyama were able to meet. Other than that we built up our p.i. pool pretty well and did a lot of fun good finding.

So Yokoyamas lesson was on Tuesday night and we met him with a member about his same age named Brother Shiori. They got along really well, and it turns out that they actually are going into similar majors and will soon be going to the same college along with a lot of other members so maybe they can help keep his interest and his testimony up. We taught him about service, commandments and salvation on Tuesday and he liked it, it seemed! So now hopefully he's not too busy this week so we can meet him again. Right now he's just so busy it's hard to teach him and hard for him to keep commitments so hopefully soon he gets less busy!

Azuma Sans lesson was interesting. We started off by going through the story of Nephi building the boat and his brothers complaining and likened it to life how somethings the Lord asks us to do are hard and people will complain and criticize but if we keep going the Lord will help us out. He really liked it and the member there Kurita Kyoudai was very helpful and Azuma trusts him a lot so he really shared his concerns. Then we discussed why he texted us that week saying he talked to his wife and he can't receive baptism. Turns out his wife just didn't want to talk about it, and that the only reason he was going to get baptized was because he thought that if he didn't then we would stop talking to him and wouldn't help him with English anymore. So we cleared up his misconceptions and gave him a bunch of scenarios to get down to his hearts desire, and he said he might want to be baptized, but not yet. So we gave him some things to ponder, like how being baptized would help his family and him individually, and we'll see how it goes. But for now he doesn't have a date anymore.

Other than that we are finding a lot, and seeing all kinds of miracles in a strange little place called Hanno. The bishop wants a new branch there so he asked us to go dendo up there. So we have been and we have taught surprisingly many street lessons or house lessons up there. Out of about every 5 lessons we get a new legit potential investigator so we have a couple up there, one of them almost came to church yesterday but missed his train or something and couldn't come. But he (Yoshitaka San) wants to meet up this week. So I'll update you there! There's been lots of other miracles for example we were doing a Kubari (passing out flyers for eikaiwa) and we weren't having much success and we felt like we should head home early to beat the rain. So we headed to our bikes and said hello (in English) and he was like "oh hey!" And we talked to him about his stay in America and then asked if we could share a message about Christ since he had been to church before, and he accepted and we taught him the whole restoration right there and we were able to get his number and will be teaching him this week some time! Awesome stuff! Talking to everyone is how we find miracles! So yeah it was a good week! Today we're going to a big park in the main city to hang out with the Hibarigaoka district, so that will be fun. Oh another fun thing is on Saturday we went to that park and played some basketball, we met a cool Filipino guy who was really good and we got a big game going with him and some of his friends and we were able to get his information and he's down to hear the lessons! So that was cool and on top of that I was actually able to play basketball for the first time ever! I was actually making quite a few shots. Definitely don't know how to defend in basketball though.

Sounds like the house is in an interesting look right now, send some pictures if you can! How's Meagan's house? Kaiden is going to be the next Clint Dempsey! That was a way cool play to watch! Woah... A North Lake Tapps ward... Weird! It's kind of a bummer I won't have Bishop Johnson when I come back though! Maybe I'll have to have you guys set something up. Although having my dentist as a bishop will be interesting! He'll be impressed! I brush a lot now and my teeth would barely take any cleaning at the dentist compared to usual! Look at that! In other news I just remembered I got pulled over on my bike this week... That's a thing in Japan apparently... Elder Moa and I were riding side by side for like 3 seconds as we switched places so he could lead us home and we got pulled over for it. Just a warning but it was a potential 200 dollar fine, so we were blessed not to pay that! But that's a thing apparently. Hope you all have a great week this week and that no one gets pulled over on a bike! Love you guys!

Love,

Elder Gailey

P.S. Mom I had a thought, winter is going to be coming up soon, do you think in a package sometime before November when it gets real cold you could send me a hoodie, a nice warm one, I'll buy a good overcoat for dendo here, but their hoodies aren't the best. Also if it's not too expensive or hard to send, could you send me an American flag, like full sized like the ones the runners in the Olympics wave around if they win? And also if you can it would be awesome to have a 12th man flag... (The light blue one with the 12) but they are all just random thoughts now needs except the hoodie. So anyways, thanks mom and dad and everyone!

Hump Day! One more year to do great things!