Michael's Good Experience: Huge email for a long week!‏

Dear Family,

Well email is coming in quite a bit later than usual, sorry! I've become travel leader (well at least I think so) of most of our temple trips so I'm the one who looks up the trains and times and train lines and all that good stuff to get us places and it's not as convenient as when I was in Takao so it's a significantly harder thing to write emails on the train, not to mention I'm smashed up against people and this sentence has become an incredible run on sentence because I am forgetting how to talk, write, type, and everything, oh and my grammar too is basically dead. Whew, now that we've all made it through that sentence we can breathe and I can tell you about my week. It's been good, definitely had its ups and downs and it's frustrations (how exciting right?) but it was a pretty good day to start this week.

So last week we went bowling for p-day! That was incredibly fun, we played 3 games and I finally by the end mastered my new bowling style, it's way fun and looks pretty cool, so hopefully I can get even better. We also found out around that time that we would be moving apartments so a lot of the week was spent in prep for that end. But the day after we went on splits and taught Takano San again! That was way fun, thanks to Brother Suzuki we were able to get through most of if not all the restoration, the only problem is he wasn't really understanding it super well. I will write more on that when we get to his second lesson this week. We taught Yokoyama the next day, right before eikaiwa, and unfortunately our member couldn't come. So we started off asking him how he's doing and he said he wanted to talk to us about something. Then he proceeded to be very vague and very beat around the bush about everything and basically was saying he doesn't want to be baptized because he doesn't know it's the true church and he wants to study other religions (Buddhist, Muslim, Protestant, and us) so that he knows more about thought processes and what is best for him. So we talked and reasoned and stuff and by the end we had whittled it down to what the real problem was. He hasn't touched his Book of Mormon in a while even though he said he has, and nor has he prayed in a long while outside of our meetings. So we talked more and he said he still wants to meet with us, but now we're going to focus more on getting him a testimony of it all, especially because the missionaries that taught him before never taught him about the spirit so he was always expecting God to talk to him or appear to receive an answer to prayer so that's a problem that we want to correct. But basically we plan to keep meeting with him and get him to little parts of a big testimony then show him he really has a big testimony and we'll see how it goes. So that was that, then we taught eikaiwa.

Then the next day, splits again with Elder Hilton! We were good buddies back in the Machida zone so I had a good time on that split. So we went out to visit a less active that lives about 20 minutes from the nearest train station. On the way there it took us almost 2 hours and we taught 8 lessons from Kotesashi city til Iruma city where he lives. Mostly little first missionary contact lessons about prayer and stuff, some of them became potential investigators, some not, but it was cool! Then we stopped by to visit the less active, brother Eduardo! He's about 20 years old and hasn't been to church in a long time because he works on Sunday to help his family have the money to live nicely. But we visited with not super high expectations and him and his mom surprised the heck out of us, they read and pray and do everything we're supposed to do every single day without fail, they just don't come to church because they are busy or something! It was way crazy! So we taught them a little lesson and set up a time to go dendo with him this week! It was way cool! And was a great day for sure. Other than that the next day we taught an eikaiwa student that we're friends with a small lesson and it was really good. I'll write more about him after next lesson. But that brings us to the second lesson with Takano.

It was the first time that my companion had ever met him, but we went in there with the goal of reviewing the restoration to see if he got it, so we got there early to plan and shortly after starting, Brother Suzuki got there... An hour and 20 minutes early, so we planned together. That's when we learned some new stuff he had told Suzuki as we left, basically just that he isn't quite understanding. So then he arrived and we started the lesson and wanted to focus on prophets, so we talked about that and after an hour ish of just talking about that it was finally starting to make sense why it's important to have them. So it looks like it will be a long teaching process, but that he can do it. Then on Sunday Brother Suzuki came up to me and told me that I need to use more personal experiences and tell him that "I believe .... Because .... So you should too!" Because apparently he wants to become like me and he recognizes something he wants in life through talking to me, so much like in Hachioji for this guy I guess it's important that I show him how the gospel helps him through me, it's going to be interesting, but with transfer calls coming up this Saturday we'll see how it goes... Hopefully well!

Other than that we went to a members house (they are from Peru) and we had some authentic Peruvian food and spicy sauce (wasn't as spicy as they made it sound, they made it sound like I would die but Bella's is more spicy) but it was great and we had a great time being with them and teaching them about tithing. There are so many members with crazy tithing stories, we gotta pay our tithing everybody! It's true!

In other news I mentioned moving... It didn't happen. We packed in all our free time and then on the day of moving we got a call saying the land lord denied us to move in so we had everything together and then got told no. So that was annoying and made us all mad that the mission office elders didn't check before they told us to pack, then my companion wanted to move over because 2 can stay there, and it is way nice, but in all the hubbub he refused to look at anyone other than himself and was causing a ton of problems for everyone and was being way salty because of how selfish he was getting, so I called the mission office and ended all the problems by talking through all possibilities and stuff and finding out all the reasons and deciding on one solution that was agreeable to everyone (except my companion who was angry because he didn't get what he wanted) so it went way well. But my companion threw a fit all day long so he wouldn't get up on time, decided he didn't care about investigators because he didn't get what he want and made me go on splits to teach them and then flipped out like a high school girl that night, it was all rather funny, and he basically decided that he's better than anyone in the apartment and doesn't care to change. But after he said it finally he stopped being grumpy and stuff and it's going well today. Pretty funny to watch a 24 year old New Zealander throw a little girl fit about everything, and teaching those 2 people went great yesterday on splits! So that was cool! One of them we taught the plan of salvation lesson on the guys doorstep and while teaching taught the gospel of Jesus Christ and a lot of the restoration and the guy soaked it in, he's way busy but he should be an investigator next month! Then we taught Dr. Azuma and I told him that as a priesthood holder and as a representative of Jesus Christ if he will learn and do the things we ask he will see a change and his desires for happiness in his family will happen, so that was a pretty intense spiritual time for me, hopefully I said everything right, but he has agreed to meet for lessons more!

So long email short, that was my week! And I saw Sister Cunningham today! It was way crazy to see her in the endowment session and to talk to her afterwards! Crazy little things the lord surprises us with right! It sounds like everyone has been doing good back home! Meagans got a dog, Morgan is playing games all day and driving, Emilee has a job, dad got the garage fixed even though it took forever, and mom is back teaching seminary! Whew! Lots of stuff going on but I'm glad everyone's doing great! Byu is doing great too! Awesome! Only one more full week then transfer calls! I hope I stay but I wouldn't mind a new companion. We'll see what the lord has in store for me next! I hope you all have a great week, remember patience and charity in all things, and remember that God is a God of miracles so we best follow the commandments especially tithing, cuz it helps! I love all you guys and can't wait to hear more and see more pictures and stuff from home! Can't wait for those flags mom you're the best! I love you!

Love,

Elder Gailey

P.S. Typhoons are no trouble ;) just wet!

Lots of Photos and Videos this week - get ready!

Guess who Elder Gailey ran into at the temple - Kim Cunningham!!

(They were in the same session and everything!)