Michael's Good Experience: Again to Costco!

Dear Family,

Hey everyone! Sorry this is coming in the middle of the night, it's looking like most of my email times are going to be different this transfer, some early and some late I've basically had the same email times my whole mission until this transfer, because usually everyone wants to email first, but this time it's 3 on one for doing it late, but it's alright I suppose. Anyways, this week was good! We had a bunch of meetings and stuff, and a couple member visits, and a bunch of finding time, so it was good overall.

So right now our investigator pool consists of 4 people, Nakamoto, Hung, Kurata, and Masahiro Sato. Nakamoto is our most promising investigator, Hung is really busy so hasn't met with us since last transfer, and Kurata is on some heavy meds that make it hard to meet with him. And Masahiro Sato, is Sister Sato's husband, and he's not a member so we teach him whenever Sister Sato invites us over, which is pretty often. So this week I met Hung San for the first time at eikaiwa (English class). He is the most enthusiastic, happy guy that I've ever seen, or at least it seems that way on the outside, he's pretty crazy! He said from now he's going to be less busy so he'll meet with us more, so hopefully that starts to work out!

Nakamoto came early to eikaiwa on Wednesday so that we were able to meet him for a lesson again at about 6:15. We also had a Senior Couple, the Suzuki's who have been on their mission just a short time, to be there as well. Nakamoto San really likes them it seems so it was nice to have them there. Anyways, he came with a bunch of questions prepared, and we only got to address a couple of them but it really helped us to figure out where he is at. His questions were mostly about prayer, because he has been praying, but feels he hasn't really received any answers yet. He was asking if members always get the answer yes to the questions they ask, or the favors they ask for and things in their prayers. So we talked a lot about how we can't just say "alright I want to know whether I should this or that, which one should I do?" We have to first go and study, come to a conclusion based upon all the information that we have and then go to Heavenly Father to find out whether what we have chosen, or decided upon is right. It's really been a great thing to be able to teach for me. It's really taught me a lot about prayer through lessons like that. But anyways, it went really well, and I think soon we'll be able to move into other things and potentially even help him get to baptism soon with the base that he has now. So I'm excited for what's to come.

Other than that, I met Kurata this week, because he came to church! Woo! We had 2 of our investigators at church this week! He was a way nice guy, didn't really understand anything because of his medicine and stuff, but it was good to meet him and see him there. Nakamoto came too so that was really good. Also a less active that we have met a couple times was there too! Yuki Matsuoka is his name. He was baptized this year I think, but had a lot of problems in his life that shook his faith a little bit and ended up going less active. But now he has decided that he needs to get back to church and do all the stuff he knows he should, so he is going to be meeting with us just about once a week, maybe 2 times, but at least once. So you'll probably hear more about him then.

We visited a bunch of families and had some dinner at members houses as well. It's funny, we don't really get invited to the Japanese members houses, but the American members have us over all the time. So last night the Sorensen family had us over for one of their children's birthday party, so we got to eat some cake and got to visit a lot with the 3 kids, and their parents. It was a lot of fun. Other than that well we did finding in all our spare time! I had a district leader training at the mission home, and I had district meeting on Friday, both went well, and didn't really have any hiccups. Which is nice. It's nowhere near as stressful as some of my past companions made it look, maybe Camp Helaman helped? Probably. And today we went to Costco, that's why email time and stuff got so thrown off today, but hey $209 later we have a well stocked house for the next few weeks! It just took forever and our backpacks were ridiculously heavy! But luckily we were able to go to the station really close to our house so we didn't have to ride bikes or anything. So yeah! It's been good so far. We're hoping this week that we can find a lot of new people, so maybe next week I'll have lots more to write about. My and my companion are having fun! He seems to be more chill than that last few I've had. So we've been working hard and getting along pretty well. He's not too trunky, he still has one more transfer after this one so if he is going to get trunky I assume it will be next transfer. But yeah! This area has tons of stuff in it, from china town to some great ocean views, with some great parks, I dunno, it's basically got everything! So coming up you'll probably see lots of cool pictures! Maybe some videos too! Anyways, I love you all! Can't wait to watch conference at the Sorensen family’s house this Saturday so I can know what all of you are talking about! But anyways, remember to pray before decisions, we're not the finalizers, Heavenly Father is!

Love,

Elder Gailey

P.S. You asked what I want for my birthday mom, to be honest at the moment I'm not sure, I still haven't gotten the chance to get my katana for my birthday from last year! Haha definitely some lucky charms if you can! If you want to save room you could put them in a ziplock bag too. Sister Cunningham gave me some 2 transfers ago and they were great! I honestly can't think of much... I'll probably end up spending a lot of money before then in Chinatown so I dunno! Anything is good! Oh! If you could send me a nice flash drive, at least a couple gig, that would be very helpful! And yes I did get the package from Sister Cunningham! She even threw in a bunch of extra things, like m&ms and peanut butter cups and what not! Thanks mom and Sister Cunningham! Love you!

Gateway to China Town