Michael's Good Experience: Hello Everyone!

Dear 家族,

お元気ですか？今日日本語でこの手紙を書きませんけれどもびくりするように日本語で書きます。今週はよかったですよ！色々と経験してたくさん人々と話しましたから嬉しいです。日本語ですみません。

(Dear family , How are you? I'll write in Japanese to surprise you though not writing this letter in the Japanese today. It was good this week! I'm glad because I talked with people a lot by various and experience. I'm sorry in Japanese.)

Well everyone, I hope you enjoyed seeing a little bit of the stuff that I write and read and speak every day! It’s pretty intense and lately I've been more and more grateful for the opportunity we have to be here as missionaries learning Japanese and teaching the Japanese people. It's great!

So this week was a pretty good week, Elder Spackman and I are doing pretty well in our finding and in the other things we are doing. I've been trying to stay more on top of everything as a district leader and as just a missionary in general lately. I don't know how mom does it! She loves schedule and stuff but I feel like when I am making my schedules and to do lists there is never enough time or space to write/do things! It's way intense! I think I'll use a planner during college though. So anyways this last week had good parts and bad parts. The bad part is regardless of what method I tried we were unable to get in touch with any investigators, especially Aoki. I've called and emailed and done everything I can to contact him but he hasn't answered, so that means one of two things either he's avoiding us, or his phone is broken/he is working overtime. I'm still praying way hard for him to come back and meet with us. But in light of not being able to meet with Aoki very much we have been turning to finding as much as possible. I have found that on my mission my effectiveness as I share the gospel has gone up and down kind of like a wave a lot. For example, as my Japanese gets better I forget to testify as much so my finding isn't as good, or as I get better at building relationships of trust on the street I forget to get right into teaching. But I think now I'm starting to level off for the end of my mission and I hope I can remember the fundamentals of missionary work. So this week we have been turning back to the fundamentals and we have been finding a lot of people. So this last week things other than finding were a district leader training, eikaiwa, district meeting, and stake conference.

The training was good, I learned a lot, basically all the things that I could be doing to magnify my calling more, like following up better and stuff like that. Then at eikaiwa I got a good ol' piece of humble pie because Elder Lobaccaro and I taught the bible class. The bible class is where we read the verse in English then translate it into Japanese the best we can and it helps the students with comprehension of the English bible. Translating from the Old Testament is SO flipping hard. I can translate people's talks and stuff but the Old Testament is a whole different ball game. District meeting was good, it was long because of some zone items we have to do now but it was good. Stake conference though was really cool. I enjoyed it when we sang hymns because they put up the kanji words to the songs on the projector and I was able to read the kanji and sing to the songs. So the language is going smoother now. It only took practically 3/4 of my mission but hey I feel decent with Japanese now. So anyways those were the regular events.

We found some solid new potential investigators this week as well. One was a guy named Sasanuma who we met out near the church on a way rainy day (it's rained a lot this transfer) and we were able to teach him a little bit about the importance of prayer and get set to teach him more about it this week. He actually said that after he talked to us he had interest but before he had none. So it was cool! We also met a cool Christian guy and he said we can come back and he will listen after he has read the restoration pamphlet. We also met some cool kids that we are trying to find on Facebook now. Overall not a bad week! Today for the better part of the afternoon we were in a place called Enoshima, I've been there once before with Misu Kyoudai when we went to the aquarium there, and today I got to do the doctor fish thing again! It was way good! I really enjoy it, it's just lots of fun! So that was the week!

I hope I answered everyone's questions! And thank you for all the pictures videos and updates! It was a good day! Also that chocolate milk.... Send it to me! ;) but really it made me want to eat some really good chocolate pudding. Maybe one of those chocolate vanilla swirls... Anyways it's crazy that in only 6 weeks I'll be talking to you guys on FaceTime for the second to last time! Then the next time after that it will be super close so we'll basically be planning returning at that point. Crazy! It's also crazy that Christmas is coming so soon! If you get a chance send me some Christmas music! I'll have more info on what's allowed later so if you want to wait that's probably ok too but still, the more Christmas music, the better! I'm glad Oliver is doing well. I can't wait to meet the little tyke.

Anyways! I hope you guys have a great week! I love you!

Love,

Elder Gailey

P.S. Mom, I think I'm actually doing pretty good on clothing so far! My shirts are all good, pants are good, suits and socks are good, shoes are still doing alright, garments too. As far as I can tell right now I'm doing alright on clothes! :)

Elder Gailey and Colonel Sanders as Santa at Kentucky Fried Chicken