We may not break bread together, but we cut uni together. Bye bye President Wada.

Dear Family,


Hello there! I hope everything is going nice and smoothly over there in America. Boy it’s crazy to think that like Mom said: as of Friday you can say that I’ll be home next month! Its slipping by really really fast. It also certainly feels like I’m as old as I am tired now. This last week was pretty darn long though. We were busy as all get out. We were so busy we didn’t even have time to eat yesterday so we had to skip our lunch. It’s been a good week though.


One awesome thing that happened this week is our new investigator Kaito Ren was able to come to church yesterday. Granted he was only able to stay for Sacrament meeting but it was awesome to see someone new come to church for the first time all transfer. The area needed some love and now that it is getting it, the work is moving forward. Hopefully he will be able to come next week as well like he told us yesterday.


So here’s a miracle this week. I mentioned before that I’m tired like crazy right? Well one day Elder Dunn and i were feeling especially tired and we were just leaving a contact where we found a potential investigator right outside his house. We didn’t have anything else planned but needed to get back to the apartment to eat dinner before English class started at 7:00. We stopped and thought about it whether we would take the train home or walk and i decided that we should walk. It just felt a little better (and uses less money, but that’s besides the point). So we took the next left and tried to talk to a couple of people that walked past us and one of them says in English: natural? natural? which we assumed meant he was asking Elder Dunn if his blond hair was natural or not but it turns out he was asking if we believed his Mohawk style hair was natural or not. So at a time when we didn't put as much effort as we could have but were still trying our best God put a super nice man in our path that asked us about his hair and then was willing to talk us for an hour and a half and get a church tour before heading home. God is good, and he definitely knows us perfectly. I've seen it so many times, its true!


Also to address the title of this email: uni means sea urchin in Japanese. So President Wada was running an activity for investigators in our zone on Friday right after we finished out split with the assistants, and he invited Elder Dunn and I to go eat sushi with him and Sister Wada because me and president are good friends, and have a special sushi club together. Cool right? yep! So we went out to eat with him and Sister Wada and ate our favorite Uni sushi and had a great time right before the activity. Then after the activity I had to get my new temple recommend so he gave me an interview and at the end told me he loves me and shared the subject line with me. It’s a direct quote from the president himself. Also as of tomorrow President Wada is no longer my mission president. I will have a new president (President Warnick). He was a Japanese teacher at BYU and he seems really nice so I’ll tell you all about him next week in the email.


So this week has been a lot of fun we have been in a lot of meetings and there are just more to come. But despite the busyness and the sometimes obnoxious things we have to do its lots of fun to be a Zone Leader. We're getting lots of work done and have lots of people beginning their path and I’m sure you'll hear about some in the next few weeks so I'll be looking forward to writing those emails. I will see you guys in less than 2 months! How crazy! I hope everything goes well for you in the meantime and I will be working as hard as I can until that point. I love you!


Elder Gailey


P.S. Meagan I finally got Kaiden his kendama and another Japanese toy that will be cool for Ollie. So I’ll show those to you when I get back. I have more than one kendama so hopefully one of them at least is good. I'll have you choose when I get there.

Eating Uni with President Wada

 

Elder Gailey's Zone Blitz

Elder Gailey and Elder Dunn eating ramen

Japanese Subs

Mt Fuji in the background

 Elder Gailey playing a video game

 Elder Gailey's random photos

Elder Gailey says this is the party train!

Elder Gailey's and Elder Dunn's weekly conference call reminder video

Sparkle Dreams

Bloopers for the Conference Call video

 

We may not break bread together, but we cut uni together. Bye bye President Wada.

Dear Family,


Hello there! I hope everything is going nice and smoothly over there in America. Boy it’s crazy to think that like Mom said: as of Friday you can say that I’ll be home next month! Its slipping by really really fast. It also certainly feels like I’m as old as I am tired now. This last week was pretty darn long though. We were busy as all get out. We were so busy we didn’t even have time to eat yesterday so we had to skip our lunch. It’s been a good week though.


One awesome thing that happened this week is our new investigator Kaito Ren was able to come to church yesterday. Granted he was only able to stay for Sacrament meeting but it was awesome to see someone new come to church for the first time all transfer. The area needed some love and now that it is getting it, the work is moving forward. Hopefully he will be able to come next week as well like he told us yesterday.


So here’s a miracle this week. I mentioned before that I’m tired like crazy right? Well one day Elder Dunn and i were feeling especially tired and we were just leaving a contact where we found a potential investigator right outside his house. We didn’t have anything else planned but needed to get back to the apartment to eat dinner before English class started at 7:00. We stopped and thought about it whether we would take the train home or walk and i decided that we should walk. It just felt a little better (and uses less money, but that’s besides the point). So we took the next left and tried to talk to a couple of people that walked past us and one of them says in English: natural? natural? which we assumed meant he was asking Elder Dunn if his blond hair was natural or not but it turns out he was asking if we believed his Mohawk style hair was natural or not. So at a time when we didn't put as much effort as we could have but were still trying our best God put a super nice man in our path that asked us about his hair and then was willing to talk us for an hour and a half and get a church tour before heading home. God is good, and he definitely knows us perfectly. I've seen it so many times, its true!


Also to address the title of this email: uni means sea urchin in Japanese. So President Wada was running an activity for investigators in our zone on Friday right after we finished out split with the assistants, and he invited Elder Dunn and I to go eat sushi with him and Sister Wada because me and president are good friends, and have a special sushi club together. Cool right? yep! So we went out to eat with him and Sister Wada and ate our favorite Uni sushi and had a great time right before the activity. Then after the activity I had to get my new temple recommend so he gave me an interview and at the end told me he loves me and shared the subject line with me. It’s a direct quote from the president himself. Also as of tomorrow President Wada is no longer my mission president. I will have a new president (President Warnick). He was a Japanese teacher at BYU and he seems really nice so I’ll tell you all about him next week in the email.


So this week has been a lot of fun we have been in a lot of meetings and there are just more to come. But despite the busyness and the sometimes obnoxious things we have to do its lots of fun to be a Zone Leader. We're getting lots of work done and have lots of people beginning their path and I’m sure you'll hear about some in the next few weeks so I'll be looking forward to writing those emails. I will see you guys in less than 2 months! How crazy! I hope everything goes well for you in the meantime and I will be working as hard as I can until that point. I love you!


Elder Gailey


P.S. Meagan I finally got Kaiden his kendama and another Japanese toy that will be cool for Ollie. So I’ll show those to you when I get back. I have more than one kendama so hopefully one of them at least is good. I'll have you choose when I get there.

Eating Uni with President Wada

 

Elder Gailey's Zone Blitz

Elder Gailey and Elder Dunn eating ramen

Japanese Subs

Mt Fuji in the background

 

Elder Gailey playing a video game

 

Elder Gailey's random photos

Elder Gailey says this is the party train!

Elder Gailey's and Elder Dunn's weekly conference call reminder video

Sparkle Dreams

Bloopers for the Conference Call video

 

#pumpupthejam

Dear Family,


HAPPY FATHERS DAY DAD! I hope you enjoyed your katanas and your Father's Day. I have a cool stand for them in my suitcase that I will bring home for you in a couple months. Well I officially have 2 months left... Actually 2 days less than that. So it's getting more and more real. It's weird while you're out because you tend to forget your life before the mission and cease to be able to accurately imagine the life after. It's almost like the plan of salvation with pre mortal, mortal, and next lives. Crazy stuff for sure. But then while I'm in my dendo mortal life I am having a good time. We're working as hard as we can, and we are running from the stress as well as best as we can. While we didn't have too many legitimate serious investigator lessons this week we still had a really good week. And yes Elder Dunn and I are still having a party being companions and missionaries!


We FINALLY met with Kyle the Canadian just yesterday. I don't know if you remember that guy, but hey we finally got to meet him but it still didn't go quite as we had expected. We thought that we were going to be going to eat ramen with him but nope he showed up and said he had work soon so we would just have to stop at a 7/11 and get some food and talk for a few minutes and he would have to go back to work. So we met and talked with him. It went pretty well, and was kind of entertaining. He only shares little tiny bits of information so we have to slowly try our best to piece them together the figure out what he needs. It's pretty fun to be honest. Also dad asked about the guy from the Bahamas, well he is now in Cameroon so we sent him the closest church to his houses' address. And asked him to go. Maybe we'll be able to get in touch with the missionaries over there and get him learning. That would be cool.


As far as new investigators go we have a couple. One is Kawada San. We last taught him 2 weeks ago and it went alright but basically we felt like we were selling him the gospel. But this time when we came in he had read all of 1 Nephi. All 60 something pages of it. Granted he only really got the historical record bit out of it but we definitely saw at least a little change in him because he was no longer super opposed to baptism or anything but rather only opposed to giving up alcohol, coffee, and tea. So we need to work on that wall a little bit. We also taught a guy named Ren Kaito who is doing great. He's really busy so it's hard to meet but he's doing really good, he likes the church.


So even though we have lots of responsibilities as zone leaders and are generally exhausted and crazy busy, we are still able to get out and dendo be it on splits or normally. And we still are teaching our investigators and should probably have some baptismal dates coming up soon. We are hoping and praying!! Hey dad, you could take them to the Golf Course! That would be good pictures, or Bishop Johnson's house. Either one would probably be cool! :) or you could take them up to the carbon glacier where we used to go and do it on the rocks in the middle of the river! Just some ideas.


Well I love you guys! I'm excited to see you all 2 months from now! But up until then keep working hard, working smart, and working inspired on everything you do! Love you!


Elder Gailey


P.s. Mom I found out from Elder Dunn that when I return I will have to go to the doctor regardless. The mission home tells everyone to go and we have to get a Tb test or something like that so just thought you would like to know! Love you!

Zone Conference

Elder Gailey and Elder Dunn at the Tokyo Temple

Elder Spackman's past 9 companions

Elder Gailey knocking at the door in the rock

Elder Gailey touching a Lion

Elder Gailey and Elder Dunn meeting with Naoki Kun

 

Elder Gailey's Random Indian Thing

Random License Plates

Elder Gailey and Elder Dunn in a Nismo Nissan Fair Lady Z

This week's Conference Call Video

Garrett Inspired Lemonade

Japanese Kendo

Funny Japanese Commercial

 

I'm so old!

At church this week Elder Dunn and I were sitting in young mens talking with the leaders as the 2 young men that were there this last week were fighting in the corner and they started trying to schedule an activity with us and the young men for August 20th and for the first time I had to pipe up and say that I will have returned already by that day... its crazy! Who knew I would ever make it this far? It doesn't feel like I should be this far, but i am which is kinda freaky.

Anyways this week was really good. Elder Dunn and I have been working really hard and doing our best to work as inspired as possible. It was really cool to look back on the week because there were so many miracles and so many times that we felt like we were in the exact right place at the exact right time. Dad had asked if any of those people we met last week became new investigators, and the answer is yes, a couple did, and we also had a couple more on top of that. We actually led the mission this week in new investigators. Even though we didn't have a whole ton of time we were able to get lots of work done.

That guy from Canada has been talking to us a little bit over SMS and we finally got another appointment scheduled with him for this Friday. I'll be with another elder on splits but it will still be lots of fun I think. And the guy from the Bahamas was unfortunately unable to come to church this week. He called us on Wednesday or somewhere around there saying he was going to. Then we called him on Saturday night and he said he was still good but that he was going to go to the English ward down in Yokosuka, however when we followed up with the Yokosuka elders they let us know that he wasn't feeling well and wasn't able to attend. But that's what he gets for going clubbing all Saturday night and getting super drunk. I don't know why people do that, it doesn't even sound fun poisoning your body to go party. Weird.

So last Monday night we went on the first split of the transfer. I was with an elder named Elder Molen. He's from Utah if I am remembering correctly and we were really excited to dendo together so the first kid who we saw we tried really hard to talk to him and he ended up becoming a new investigator. His name is Shin. He's from China and he is so prepared! We met him on Wednesday and gave him a church tour for about 40 minutes then he headed home but he prayed said he felt the spirit and at one point told us that after his first time at church that he thinks he'll be able to decide whether he wants to be a member or not. He is full of faith and he light of Christ. It was incredible to find and teach him this last week and he can potentially be baptized in about 3 weeks so hopefully that will happen!

So here is a crazy miracle we saw this week. We had Stake Priesthood Meeting this last Tuesday where basically we do all the coordination with the stake for our investigators and zones. That basically went right up to our curfew, 9:00 ish so we were definitely going to be late coming home because we still had at least a 30 minute train ride and a decent walk to get home. So in the station we were about to get on the train but felt like we should wait a few minutes for the next one and got on the later one. Upon entering the train we were super tired so we just leaned up against the door and kind of just started discussing what happened at SPM and stuff when we notice a guy looking at our name tags funny. So we casually say hello to him and he immediately asks us where we are from. Then one thing lead to another and he was asking about Christianity. Then we set up a time to meet him and gave him a Book of Mormon to study in the mean time. It was way cool and we felt really guided. Then we met him last night and did part of a church tour part of the restoration with him and he just soaked it all up so he is going to try to come to church this week or maybe next week and hopefully within the transfer get baptized! Its crazy we have lots of plans!

Also here is a funny story. So after Eikaiwa we were talking with an investigator and he was kind of avoiding our lesson appointments so we asked when he could meet and he said for his daily run on Saturday. He said it not expecting to gaijin from America to accept that but we said "Ok see you at 3!" and blew his mind. However here is when it gets funny or sad I'm not sure but we got to the run and about 3 miles into the 13.4 that we had planned I realized I forgot my inhaler... well at about the 7th mile I hadn't yet had an attack but it was pretty dang hard to breathe so I accidentally by forgetting my inhaler proved his stereotype about Americans true! Ridiculous! It actually ended up helping us build a better relationship with him though so we are really glad we went out on a whim and showed him how determined we are so it was great!

So that was my week in a nutshell! I hope you all had a good week as well, it sound a bit like mom and dad are feeling sick but i hope you get feeling better you're in my prayers! Everyone make sure you have a great week this week, go out and do something adventurous and let me know about it next week! I love you all and wish you the best!

Elder Gailey

Coming Home from Stake Priesthood Meeting

Elder Gailey and his Cup of Noodles

Cup of Noodles Museum

More at the Cup of Noodles Museum

Elder Gailey says:

This week's commercial for our miracle conference call (Sparkle Dreams)

#snailracing

Dear Family,


Hello hello hello! Who knew you could be so busy that you can't plan lessons within the week because it's already full? It's a crazy life so far being a zone leader, we did most of it to ourselves by packing in a full transfer of events, but it's fun! Because it's busy this transfer will be really really fast I think. It feels pretty much like next week will be the next transfer and the week after that is the last day. So it's intense, but I like it, it will be fun for sure.

So this week me and Elder Hall finished up our companionship. It was kinda sad not being his companion anymore but it will be good for him I think. This week though we did lots of less active contacting. We have a huge list of less active people that the ward doesn't know if they even live there anymore, so they asked us to go visit them all find out if they live there or not and to try our best to start working with them.  So we did that a lot and unfortunately no results other than just checking if they still lived there or not came from it. But on the bright side we found lots of cool people and got some new pi's in the process. So we finished up real strong and then Thursday came, so now I'm Elder Dunn's companion! It's kind of the same type of feeling as when I became Poff's companion. It's a party while we dendo now so it's lots of fun. Elder Dunn and I get along really well and are really working well together. In the first 2 days we did about 10 hours of planning, literally getting every single event planned on a baseline level. So now from here we will be doing lots more detailed planning for events as we get closer to them.


So finally to answer the big question, yes I am still teaching lessons! Woo! We generally don't have much time for lessons, and planning one that week is really difficult but if we plan pretty far in advance we can meet with investigators pretty well. So on our first day we actually got a chance to go teach a referral from the sisters. There were some mistakes on the address that we got but we got it figured out and what we expected to be a short doorstep lesson turned into a sit down 1 hour long lesson. So we're doing our best to use our time wisely and have been fining plenty of time to teach people, especially on the streets. We've been finding pi's like crazy and have taught more than 10 solid street lessons in our very limited time since becoming companions. And it's just been a good transfer so far.


Here's a crazy miracle for you though! So this last Saturday we were on our way to meet an investigator at the station but we had never met him before so we were calling him like crazy and looking for anyone talking on the phone. Despite calling him a bunch of times he never showed up or even answered his phone. So then we figured we would go to our backup plan and right when we turned around we ran into a member so we talked to her for a few minutes and continued on towards the backup plan when we hear someone behind us shout hey elders! So we turn around and there's this random guy in a beanie waving at us so we went and talked with him, and it turns out he was a former investigator back in Canada about 10 years ago and it's been a long time since he saw missionaries. So we talked with this guy for probably 45 minutes inside the station and he shares with us his life and how much better it was when he went to church and investigated compared to now but then kept just saying no when we would offer that happiness to him again. Long story short he got a little offended by something a missionary said and then has never investigators again but he gave us his phone number and said he'd be willing to meet again this time. So we were way happy about that and while walking away to once again go towards our backup plan we met a random guy that stopped us and said he wants to go to church. He's from the Bahamas and named Valentine! Way sick right? So we've been seeing all kinds of miracles and having all kinds of interesting experiences, so stay tuned for another week of good reports! I'll have to show you this transfer's journals at some point because there is too much to write in an email! It's going to be fun!

Also thanks for the update on classes and housing, it's definitely a relaxing feeling knowing that I have a nice place to live! Thanks! I'm excited to go there soon! Hopefully everyone at home is doing well and remembering to pray! I say it every week but it's important! We've been praying for interesting experiences and we're having them, so I know it works! Anyways everyone have a great week! Love you!
Elder Gailey

Elder Gailey's Cinnamon Rolls

The missionaries with Frank

Elder Gailey and Elder Dunn - Random Photos

The Snail Olympics

We learned... I'm easily scared by loud noises at night...

This is what we do I our free time so we don't stress out too bad...