Another area bites the dust!

Dear Family,

Well today was an awesome Pday! We went up to a place called wampaku land (wampaku means naughty... As in when kids are being naughty and have to go to time out. It's like that, kind of) basically it's just a huge park with large versions of the regular things you would have at an elementary school park. Climbing nets and stuff. It was pretty fun! Also we took some pictures of Odawara castle so it was a success in my books. Pretty tired and dirty now though. Anyways, this week was good, we got a lot done and had a good time! Woo!


So I can't think of just one specific miracle to share for the week so I'll share one experience I had. First, I will be transferring, I'll be district leader in a place called Kamiooka. Literally in kanji the name means "up big hill" and has the largest hills in the mission. Yamate my previous area is right next to Kamiooka, and has the steepest hills but Kamiooka has the largest. It's ridiculous. But I'm excited! My new companion will be Elder Hall, I don't know anything about him because he is transfer 2 and I will be finishing up his training. Also I'll be the district leader over there again. One really cool thing though, I'll be in an apartment with Elder Dunn, and Elder Hilton. I was with Elder Dunn in Hachioji where we messed around a lot in the apartment, and Elder Hilton was the one who wants me to play ultimate frisbee. So it'll be a fun apartment for sure! Ok, now on to the cool experience:


I got to the church on Sunday after trying to pick up a new investigator at the station who didn't come and told the branch president I am transferring. He was pretty bummed but already was planning on having dinner with us that night so it wasn't too big of a deal, and church went on just like usual. But in sacrament I got the cool opportunity to really serve the members of the branch more than any other Sunday. As it was my last Sunday they had me bare my testimony, and they were short on priesthood holders so I got to bless the sacrament for the first time in Japanese. It was a really cool time, the words came naturally and I really felt the meaning of it all as I said them. So it was great to be able to help everyone be able to partake of the sacrament. Then the primary pianist was gone so I stepped in and played the piano for the primary, and they all did great, they sang their hearts out and it was cool to watch from the piano. So I spent my last Sunday here as one of my busiest Sundays. So it was great. Cool to see the tender mercies of the Lord, he really is in the little things.


Other than that for the week we found a lot of new people and did our best to talk with everyone, we've gotten really good at stopping people and relating the gospel to their situations and it’s been really well received lately. As always there are those who are ready and those who are not, and it seemed this week like we met more that were not. But it's ok!

Oh hey! On Monday I got a chance to walk in Jesus's shoes for a bit, it was really intense actually. I was handing out fliers at the Eki when 3 gaijin (foreigners) came up to me and asked if I was Mormon, just imagine 3 Pharisees coming up to Jesus to ask him some ridiculous questions just to see if they could get him to stumble. Well they did their best but I got to experience what it's like to have the spirit back you up and they never could cross my words or really argue back, they didn't believe or agree but they had no power. And 2 of them took the Book of Mormon! So I hope all goes well with them. Long story short, the Lord does not leave us stranded. He will always, always back us up if we're doing what is right and we're helping others. It was a great time.


Also I'm just fine from the earthquake, didn't even feel it, but those people down there are in quite the pickle so if everyone could pray for them that'd be great. Also with regards to school, those classes, Japanese, weight training, probably a Book of Mormon and either doctrine and covenants or new testament class, biology, and some really easy math class to get me back in, like algebra level probably... I can't remember anything.... I think that will be good! Anyways, I hope everyone had a wonderful week! I also hope that everyone will be able to find lots of fun things to do this week! Love you all!


Elder Gailey


P.S. I'm thinking of sending a package home with my sweaters and stuff that are still good. Probably this week, so should I send it by plane? I'll probably put some random other things I've bought recently in it too. Let me know! Thanks!

Some kind of fish? 

Aoki, Konno, Elder Jennings, and Elder Gailey

Elder Gailey's Random photos

Yo! Japanese General conference!

Dear Family,

Well hey there hi there ho there! How's everyone doing back home? Our week over here was pretty good, we talked to a lot of people got a new baptismal date investigator for next month, and I got to go to MLC. Mom had asked if temple Pday is coming up soon but actually it was last week but we're just so far out that it's difficult to go sometimes, and we had a bunch of lessons pop up again. But next transfer I should be able to make it. Let's hope! Anyways this weekend was conference and this next weekend is transfer emails! So Bam! It's already here. It felt like yesterday that Elder Aoki got here and we taught Takeuchi Kyoudai for the first time together. Well as of next week I'll be transfer 14 of 16. I'm basically there. But not quite so I've still got all kinds of good people to meet and all kinds of funny stories to make!

So I mentioned a second ago I got to go to MLC. MLC stands for Mission Leadership Council, and generally is just zone leaders, sister training leaders, assistants, and president Wada. However once in a while people get invited to go, usually if president is considering them for a zone leader, assistant or sister training leader position. So the odds of me transferring just shot up from 50% to probably 98%. Hopefully if I do transfer it will be my last one. I would like to finish my last 3 transfers in the same place. One strange thing that happened at MLC however is that president asked me and another Elder to come sit at the front with him sister Wada and the assistants, there were probably 10 non-leaders invited but only us two were asked to come to the front. It's for lack of a better word "fushigi" 不思議 which basically in this case means curious. The same curious that Alice in wonderland always uses. Yes, curiouser and curiouser, as I know most of the girls just said in their head, that curiouser. We'll see what happens on Saturday, whatever happens I just hope I have enough time to write in my journal. It's hard enough as a regular missionary, but I still haven't missed a day since August 20th, 2014.

So we had a lesson (on splits because I was at MLC) with our investigator Hiro. This is Hiro number three. We have the member, the one who moved to Kyoto, and the new investigator. So on Tuesday we taught him most of the restoration and invited him to be baptized, but not with a date. So while on splits Elder Aoki asked him to be baptized and he said he would on August 26th. So we have another buddy with a baptismal date now, it's not looking like anyone will be baptized this month but next month there will be! The branch is really appreciative of us, and one member, Watanabe Kyoudai has told me thank you so many times for working hard enough to as a district have a baptism every month, he also is convinced I'm going to be transferring to help some other area make it that far too. So kind of a bummer there, but still good thing.


Also here is a miracle from the week, me and Elder Aoki on one of the days this week, were running out of places to dendo. Because of the cherry blossom trees blooming 99% of Odawara is tourists, so it's hard to find people to teach because they all leave basically the next day. So we decided to go to the beach (not many tourists go to Odawaras beaches, they go to some nicer ones. So we went there skipped a few rocks while deciding where to go next and then I noticed a gaijin, a man from America, turns out to be Minnesota, and I talked with him. His name was nick. He was just sitting down watching the waves and I had the thought, no one just sits down and watches the waves like that if they don't have something on their mind. So I talked to him, he's only here for a bit but has been seriously thinking about his life and stuff. Eventually i taught him just like I teach Japanese people on the street (this is the first time I realized I can teach in English the exact same way I do in Japanese and it's not weird) and I ended up sharing a camp Helaman story with him and a story of how I came to know the Book of Mormon was true. And after bearing my testimony he looked at me and said, "you know, I'm a pretty strong atheist, but if there's people like you out here then their might just be something to your religion." And after talking a bit more I gave a gaijin with some interest a Book of Mormon for the first time on my mission, in English. It was a pretty cool moment, and he committed to reading it and if he sees the missionaries in Minnesota to talk with them about how it goes. Cool little miracle right? The spirits promptings are fushigi (curious) things! We just gotta follow them!


Anyways, I'm doing my best not to get trunky, me and Elder Aoki are playing ping pong every morning and I'm pretty good now, and the transfer is going well. I hope you all had a great time at General conference, I watched it in Japanese for the first time, it's hard to hear in one language and write in another, so next year I'll have better notes. The talks and music were all amazing. I can't wait to study them even more. Have a great week everyone! I love you!


Love,
Elder Gailey


P.S. That's awesome that you got to take some pictures and go out with the missionaries dad! I'm way glad! It's probably way nostalgic for you right? Maybe I dunno, but that sounds fun!


P.P.S. No worries mom just let me know if you have any ideas, also when do class sign ups start? I was thinking about maybe taking weight training as well, help me get back a little you know? Lol love you!

Pday

Sakura (Japanese Cherry Blossoms)

Sakura and the Odawara Castle

Old Photo of Elder Gailey in Hakone

Sakura in Odawara!

Dear Family,


Hello hello! How was everyone's week this week?? We had a pretty good week here, starting off with splits with the zone leaders. Since we have general conference this Saturday I'm assuming you all have already watched it so are there any killer talks I should be looking out for? I heard that there was another one of those dissenting vote things. I don't really understand why people do those, it doesn't change anything. Anyways, this week was really good, lots of rain but still good.

I went on splits with an Elder that I came to Japan with named Elder Dana, he's my zone leader right now. It was the first time I've dendo'd with him so it was kind of cool to see how far we are from where we were when we first got here. We can both speak Japanese and stuff like that so it was a good experience. We were dendoing in his area and it went really well, passed out 3 book of Mormons on the split which was nice, and got them a couple new investigators so it felt successful. Dunno how they are doing now but hopefully still learning! We met with brother Kato this week quite a few times, he's doing really good and starting to really grasp things since his baptism and confirmation. So I have much less worry of him going inactive ever. He's also being fellowshipped by some of the SA members in the branch, they are all going to a devotional together next week so that will be cool. Brother Takeuchi will be there too and is giving the opening prayer so it's a cool thing to see. Now we just have to work with the people we have and get someone a baptismal date for April so that we can keep the every month streak going. So far since December there has been one baptism a month.

Right now we have quite a few investigators and potential investigators but it's a bit of a struggle meeting with them right now, yesterday at church literally no one came for the first time in my time here. But there was a man that the zone leaders met on the way to district meeting that looks like he might have enough interest to be baptized this month. So cross your fingers!


Also this week the Sakura trees (Japanese cherry blossom) finally bloomed in Odawara, or at least started to. Odawara is pretty late to the Sakura party, but Odawara castle is beautiful with all of those trees. In the next couple of days, when we finally have a clear not rainy day I'm going to take some pictures that you could potentially print out for home! Back in Yamate there was a member (Sister Sorenson) that had a picture from Odawara castle, that I'm trying to recreate. She had it printed on canvas and it was awesome and she even took it with her phone. So hopefully there will be at least one worthwhile picture this week! I've already taken some but they are just our old kinda crappy iPad camera quality so I'll be bringing my camera soon. If we come back next year we should come around the first week of April because that is the night of Sakura season, and dad would have an awesome time taking pictures and I bet mom would love to see all the different colors and gardens and things with Sakura. So that's my suggestion.


It's kind of crazy but this month I hit my 4 month left mark. And next month I call home again! Sounds kinda crazy being so close to the end and the time is basically flying by. I can hardly compared how fast it's going. But I'm working hard, learning lots, and my testimony grows stronger every day. Today we're going to Hachioji, so I get to see Misu kyoudai for the first time in a year and Poff is going to be chilling with us too. So it's gonna be good! Anyways I love all you guys, keep workin hard and I'll see you soon!

Love,
Elder Gailey

P.S. Sounds like dad had quite the week at meetings and airports! In Japan there is a saying called 「お疲れ様」"otsukaresama" in English it literally means the honorific tired man, but that's not a super good translation, basically it means "you did it! Good job!" By saying you worked hard and that's why you're tired. That is what I want to say after your flights, so dad, お疲れ様です!! Also Mom, お疲れ様です!! I'm glad your home safe! Love you all!

Japanese Cherry Blossoms!

Baptism and Easter! Find hope in the resurrection!

Dear Family,

 

 HAPPY EASTER!!!! 

Guess what!! KATO SAN IS NOW KATO KYOUDAI!! Baptism went great and he's a full fledged member now! :)  It was a really good week made a couple people new investigators and Kato got Baptized. So it was great. I'm still tired as nothing else all the time, basically when we're in the apartment all I wanna do is sleep but I can sleep in August. We didn't have too much as far as big meetings and such but we did have a blitz here and we had Kato's baptism. The rest of the time was teaching, calling and finding.

 

First I'll start with the more detailed report of the baptism. First, that day was intense I was so dang nervous, I probably practiced the words 100 times and was thinking about it all day. No one would listen to us when we were dendoing so it was a struggle at first but then we went to the church and Kato showed up 30 minutes easily. So we checked his white pants, a tiny bit large but they stayed up just fine, so we got him switched into a suit and he looked way good! I was impressed. Then Takeuchi showed up and we took the strangest route to the Atsugi church I've ever seen, it was super congested, and took forever. But it worked out well because other than us everyone else was running late so we all showed up at the same time pretty much. Once arriving and having talked about any concerns in the car we switched clothes into white ones, took some pictures and then went up to the chapel. I got to sit up front with Kato both of us dressed in white, it felt pretty cool. Side note: I got my Easter package on Thursday with a nice bright white shirt in it just in time, so I used that and my white tie and pants for the baptism and it all looked really good. Thanks mom! So we sang some songs (I was pianist) and a recent convert gave his introduction followed by another recent convert (Takeuchi kyoudai) giving a talk exactly 3 months from his own baptism about baptism. Then when it came to the ordinance I ran him through the ordinance one last time and we got in the water. It was cool water but not terrible. Then I said the words and put him into the water but because he was nervous he forgot to bend his knees and kicked a little, so we had to do it 2 times. But the second time went flawless. I have him a hug after and then we changed and went up to finish the service. He forgot his paper that he wrote his testimony on, but he gave an amazing testimony, short but great and he even remembered to close in the name of Jesus Christ. The members showered him with presents and he had the biggest smile on. You could feel the spirit so strong the whole time, it was wonderful. I started his first lesson and got to baptize him, what an awesome blessing!! So yeah! That's the baptism it was an awesome testimony builder for me!

 

Other than that this week we had blitz and I was paired with a beanchan (Greenie) so that was kind of weird he didn't really speak Japanese so it was lots of fun! He was always looking at things like Odawara castle saying "look at that!! That's awesome!!" Good time. Also we had a crazy guy come to game night, he was super drunk so that's a fun video to watch.

 

Well this week was Easter everyone!! What did you do for Easter? We lived a pretty normal day but I gave a talk in sacrament. This time I decided that it was a good time to try something new for a talk, I was slated to be the last speaker... We all know that that means if the first speakers don't take much time then the last speaker has to fill the rest. So rather than right a ridiculous long talk I decided to write a talk in a different way. That way is to study every day about the subject "rejoice in the resurrection of Jesus Christ" and write down a lot of scriptures and quotes. Then when the talk time comes I have a list of things I can talk about and the rest is through the spirit and from what I studied. Well my time on Easter to speak about the resurrection right after Kato's baptism and confirmation came and I spoke, used 4 scriptures and a quote from general conference from my list and then up came the note from the branch president saying "I can wrap up anytime" and I looked at the clock, I had spoken for 15 minutes and could have continued for 40 if I needed to. It was a really cool experience. I was able to share about resurrection and how awesome of a blessing it is, because of that, even though towards the end of their lives their bodies were less than perfect, I can go golfing with grandpa Gailey and go to the barber (if something like that is necessary I dunno lol) with grandpa weaver again. It was an awesome time and I really felt closer to the savior as I shared that this Easter. I look forward to being with you all this next Easter and I'll be working hard as I can until then. I love you!!

 

Love,

Elder Gailey

 

P.S. I tried some new food this week raw, whole, squid. It was pretty gross but hey I ate it!

Baptism of Kato San

Elder Gailey got his Easter box

Squid Sushi

 

Student Drawing

Email from Sister Talia Law:

Hello! This is Sister Law! I am a sister in Elder Gaileys district! I stole these photos after sacrament! I thought you would appreciate them. Your boy is a good Elder. And this just warmed my heart! He is a daddy in training! Thank you for sending your son to change the lives of many!

Teaching Kato Kyoudai (Brother) how to a tie a tie