SPEAK LOUDER I CANT HEAR!

Dear Family,

Well I started out this email with a strange subject indeed... really quick to explain the subject line; Elder Hall and Elder Shepard (the other elders in our apartment) met a woman on the way home from a training that they had at the mission home while they were riding the train. She was very strange and tried to touch them a lot, like their cheeks and chest. And very lucky for my companion she said multiple times that she likes American men with blonde hair and blue eyes. lol So everyone knew she was a little weird but we figured that we would all hand her off to the sisters and then she would improve as she learned about the church... We were so wrong. In order to hand her off they invited her to church... we were also wrong there in thinking that she would be just fine at church. So we have a very timid member that was giving a talk in sacrament meeting today. She was the first speaker and when she got up the first thing that she said was "I am very nervous... but I’ll do my best on this talk" and then about 2 minutes into her talk that woman freaked out. She started yelling SPEAK LOUDER I CANT HEAR!!! THIS IS JAPAN SPEAK JAPANESE!!!! (the speaker had said assignment in a Japanese accent because that’s something everyone does in the church) Then one of the bishopric came down and told her to leave and as she was leaving she lost it, she yelled horrible things as she was leaving and the sisters and a stake guy made her leave but not before she said the most foul things they had ever heard. So this week on Sunday was intense!!

It was kind of lucky that our investigator Sato San wasn’t there until the end of Sacrament meeting because if he was he would not have tolerated that much disrespect inside of a church and it could have been bad. Yeah so it was crazy!

Alright now for another round of crazy stories Sato San is a crazy story from this week. So we had a lesson set with him on Tuesday but he didn’t come which is very unlike him. If he makes a time to meet he will meet at that time, he keeps his promises very well. But he didn’t come. So on Wednesday he came into our English class and something wasn’t right. so we just went along with it and then eventually I was cleaning the back of the white board and he walks up and says "geiri I have something to tell you... I can’t go to church any more..." and I was thinking it was because he was struggling with the word of wisdom but he said that his boss got transferred and they were asking him to be the boss and they said that the potential of him getting Sundays off was slim to none. So he was really distraught and we talked to him for a while. I shared scriptures and experiences with him and did my best but it just wasn’t helping so we were standing out in the hallway after everyone had already left the church continuing our talk when the bishopric came down from their meeting. As soon as they came down Sato immediately started telling bishop the problem and apologizing to him for it all. Then because it was really close to our curfew... to be honest it was past our curfew already but we pulled the higher law card there, bishop said that we should go home and that he would go have a talk with Sato in his office. On Sunday we finally got some more details on how that talk went and it went from 9:30 pm to 12:30 am. Our bishop is literally one of the most dedicated bishops I have ever seen. You can tell he really knows how to magnify his calling and it has helped us out so many times. For 3 hours he unfolded the scriptures to our investigator after the previous week helping us commit him to follow the word of wisdom. So to make long story short Sato then came to our ping pong night (I brought my paddle this time) where at the end he asked me when I go home and then said "well, I’ll have a surprise for you before you leave. I'll receive it on the 30th!" It took me a second to realize what he was saying but he told me that he will get baptized! (we had to change it to the 6th for the sake of adequate preparation but still!) Then he looked at me and said, when you leave you won’t be saying bye to Mr. Sato, you will say goodbye to Brother Sato! How cool is that!? So now we are working hard with him to overcome a tobacco addiction and get him ready for baptism but he is going to be able to make it and he will be baptized on the 6th of August!!! So yeah! I’m really excited!! In Kamiooka in the next 3 Saturdays we will be having 4 baptisms. That is unheard of! And the sister's investigator decided to get baptized the same day as Sato so we will have the first double baptism I have ever heard of on my mission! Exciting things are happening here!

Other than that we have obviously had lots of meetings and done lots of other things to find new investigators but that's the main parts right there! Mom asked why we were wearing watermelon helmets... well we had a watermelon... that’s the best way I can describe it! Hey now that Morgan has Asthma too we can puff our inhalers together! ...too druggie sounding? oops! I've been doing some testing while running and exercising to see if my struggling to breathe is actually asthma, and my deduction is that for the longest time I have just thought that I was out of shape, but what it really is, is asthma. If I take a puff of inhaler I can run with no problems until partway through the run when I have to puff it again but it helps so much it’s ridiculous! So that is a thing. Also Pokemon Go came out in Japan this last Friday. Now finding got a lot easier, but also a lot harder. I want to play it really bad but everyone here just looks like zombies walking forward blindly staring at their phones... it’s good though I think, I've seen a ton of nerds out of their houses so I approve. Also thanks for getting me a ROC pass mom!! I was hoping I could get one! Everything else sounds great! I'll be headed to Kamakura today to go souvenir shopping so wish me luck and I'll talk to you all next week! I love you! The lord certainly has his own ways that are much different than I could have ever imagined but he always does what needs done we just need to be in a position where He can move us around. Let’s be tools in the lords hand! Love you!

Elder Gailey

At the Nissan Museum

 Zone Conference

 Making new commercial 

 Dinner with Investigator

 Heart Attacking the Bishop

 Dinner with some members

 

 New Commercials

#singinintherain

Dear Family,

Hello there! How are you all doing this week? First things first, I am really jealous that dad got to eat a Grandma Gailey grilled cheese sandwich. Now that I've got that out i can continue. This week has been HOT. It has been 100% humidity probably 4 times in the last week or week and a half. Lucky me for returning home right AFTER the hottest times of the year. Sometimes walking in that weather and doing missionary work is really really long and tiring. But hey, blessings right?

Speaking of how hot it is i have a funny story to tell al of you. So it was a Thursday. Not a super special Thursday, just transfer day so Elder Hall went to the mission home and picked up his new missionary companion, a bean chan( a bean chan is a greenie, its just the Japanese version) and we went Elder Hilton off to do his final hours as a missionary at the mission home. Then we had to go to a baptismal Interview down in Yokosuka area for an American Investigator named Peter. Elder Dunn was the one doing the interview and did a really good job however I just had to sit outside bored for 3 hours. Anways back to the funny stories. We got on the train and it takes about 20 minutes to return to Kamiooka and we had to go to the church for a game night activity one of our investigators (Sato) was going to. Well about 4 minutes into our 15 minute walk... The sky started to fall. The sky literally started to fall. It rained so hard that before we could even get to cover we were soaked, and we decided that since we were already so soaked we might as well keep walking. So as we laughed and walked we continued to try and dendo people in the pouring rain as they were huddling under their umbrellas and we got the funniest looks. One kid just was so surprised that we were soaked and walking without umbrellas that he literally just stood there with his mouth open for a bit before answering. It was a great day. We also have pictures to prove it. That's what you get when you pray for interesting experiences I guess! 

Other than that this week we found 1 new investigator! I think I already told you but on the way to a lesson once we met a man named Yamanaka who speaks fluent English and used to give biotechnology lectures at the University of Utah. Anyways we met him this week and gave him a church tour and simple overview of the restoration. As he is a scientist though he was saying things like i believe in science not god.. but we were able to handle that decently well by pointing out how much faith and belief there is in science. Then just yesterday he came to church! We had 3 investigators there this week which definitely felt nice! Between the last 2 weeks there have been about 9 people that came from the district investigator pools.

Other than that we had a day where we spent all day outside our area going to district meetings. That was a long day but we rolled out our new zone theme: Baptology M. IV - Commitment. I'll attach it again this time because we're pretty proud of this one too. And seeing the success from last transfers really gave us a lot of motivation to make a really good one. Definitely a blessing.

Here is a miracle for all of you, Sato san is now following the word of wisdom! So yesterday we were talking with Sato after church and seeing how everything has been going lately, just having a really casual conversation but Elder Dunn eventually had to leave to help the sisters with their Russian investigator because she doesn’t speak English or Japanese so you have to have multiple people talking through google translate to keep the conversation going. Anyways so while they were doing all of this Sato started to ask me what they were teaching. He could tell it was something important and he wanted to learn it to. So i got a chance to teach him a little more about baptism and word of wisdom because they were teaching that to Daria the Russian. And even crazier the bishop walked by in the middle of all of this and I was able to snag him and ask him what he does to follow the word of wisdom in a society and culture where they don’t even attempt to follow it. In shortened form what the bishop then told him was that if you decide in your heart, then promise yourself and god, you can do it. So Sato then turned to me and said well... I'll do it. So this week he's planning on selling/donating his coffee machine and going all in. We are so excited for him and teaching him! Its been a great week and the miracles I’ve seen I'll never be able to forget. I’ve heard it a lot that after your mission you really don’t remember any rejection or any of the rough bad things, but what you remember are those priceless moments and the miracles and I really believe that is true now.

I know that the church is true and that God is always busy, he's always doing things for us it’s just whether we take the time to notice. I love you all and I hope you had a great week! See you soon!

Elder Gailey

P.S. Oh hey!  I forgot to tell you but this last week one of my former investigators in Odawara (Hiro Okada) just got baptized this last week! WOO!

The Aquarium

 

 

Transfer 16... 最後...

Dear Family,

Well hello everyone. Is it weird that 5 Sundays from now I'll be standing up in the North Tapps Ward giving my homecoming talk? It sure is for me. I just had to plan out my last 5 pdays. Then every day is pday. Mom sent me my travel plans today... I have a full day on Friday. There is just so much returning home stuff now it’s crazy! It never felt like I'd make it here. I feel like I've literally spent no time here in Japan and now I'm already getting ready to peace out and head home. Crazy Stuff. I'm still having a good time though, lots of lessons, lots of dendo, and lots of cool experiences.

Random funny story, so Sister Brady (the one who broke her elbow) headed home after our Mission Leadership Council Meeting with President Warnick, so her companion Sister Bybee doesn't have a companion. Generally she is just going with the Sisters in the nearby areas but she ran into a real difficult situation when all the sisters in the mission basically had lessons at the same time, so guess who became her companion! Elder Dunn and I did! Now I can say that I've been companions with a Sister. lol

A huge miracle happened this week though, the sisters had a baptism and I was able to have my recent convert (Kato Kyoudai) come up and go to it with us. He's been a member for a couple months now and he's still going strong, and it was great to see the ways that the gospel has helped him out, he really has changed so much and I love him so much more every time i see him. He even brought me some more pottery! So I'll have a lot of random pottery when i get home...

Also another huge miracle was that the 5 missionaries in Kamiooka had 8 people total in church this last Sunday! We had 2, the Kamiooka sister had 3 and the other elders had 3. It was awesome! You could tell the ward was surprised and couldn’t figure out what to do with themselves. It was an awesome way to send Elder Hilton out as he leaves this Thursday and it was just cool to watch from our perspective as well.

As far as our investigators go we still have contact with just about everyone but July is just a busy busy time it seems. We have had at least 3 investigators tell us that they want to meet and want to continue learning but they can’t meet until august. Some of them have tests, some of them have to learn English for work, and others are just crammed with school and work. So we haven’t really been able to meet them too much, however one investigator that we found 2 weeks ago (Sato san) has been doing really well. We met him 4 times between Wednesday and Sunday. He really loves being around us and is slowly accepting and applying the gospel in his life. He's a little weird but he's fun. Keeps our life interesting. This last week we had a lesson in the park in the blazing sun and heat. So partway through the lesson he told us that since we are squinting so bad we should wear his hat and sunglasses. So we taught a lesson in a fedora and a pair of enormous sunglasses which gave him a good laugh and also helped us become better friends. During that lesson we invited him to be baptized on July 30th but he was saying how it might be a little fast and he wants a few days to think about it, so you'll find out next week what’s going to happen there! I think he will get baptized on that day.

Also we had transfer calls on Saturday and I’ll be finishing up here in Kamiooka with Elder Dunn as my companion. Woo! Finishing as a Zone Leader will be way intense! However, as busy as I am, it sounds like everyone had a great time up camping and really got to relax. I was reading my email about the trip from mom yesterday and Sato kept commenting on the pictures that everyone is sleeping! its true, Everyone got to take a lot of nice naps! I'm bummed that I don’t get to go up there and go camping but I'm excited for next year! Way to go mom on the .44 magnum! さすが！ Strangely enough I gave a fly fishing analogy at Mission Leadership Council this past Thursday probably as dad was fishing! That Brown looks delicious! Too bad about the shoes though! Also, that picture of grandma was great, she looks so comfy! I miss the hammock so i might just have to abscond with that when i visit grandma sometime....

Well I hope that everyone has a great day today and a great week! I'll probably be going to a place called Kamakura next week so if you want any souvenirs that would be the time for me to buy them, that and the Narita airport. So let me know!! I love all of you and I know that the lord is watching over us and protecting us and guiding us always!

Elder Gailey

 

Making Watermelon Helmets!

Elder Gailey, Kato Kyoudai, and Elder Hilton

Funny Faces

Elder Gailey fixed the couch

 

Elder Gailey's Zone with President and Sister Warnick

Outside the Temple

Elder Gailey's New Conference Call Video

 

Video shown in the above Conference Call Video

The other new commercial

 

Thats a 3.5 on the white shirt button up. ITS A NEW STATE RECORD!!

Dear Family,

Well hey this week was pretty good. After I signed off last week we went up into the main part of Tokyo to see a concert put on by the BYU Hawaii choir with our investigator from Africa named Ammar. So that was a lot of fun. Other than that this week we have been super super busy. Lots of random things popped up suddenly and we only had about 8 hours this week to really dendo. So being a zone leader is difficult but hey its fun and I enjoy it. Also this Saturday is transfer call day so I'll be finding out if I will be here to finish or not. I feel like I will but you never know with a new mission president and all. Speaking of new president, President Warnick is an awesome guy, I really like him so far as my mission president and he's been doing really well. It’s weird because President Wada is very American but still has some Japanese things left in him, but President Warnick is all American and it’s very refreshing.

So here's how our crazy week went. We started off with some splits with some struggling elders in our zone, and it probably doesn’t sound a whole lot like me to do so but I got all sorts of up in one elders face. I didn’t do it in a rude way or anything because I obviously have to show forth an increase of love just like that scripture in D&C says, but he is the most lazy anti-dendo missionary I’ve ever met. He refuses to share the gospel on the street and will purposely sabotage contacts of his companion and me. And you know I’m not going to let that continue, so I had to grill him and show him that we're not going to tolerate that garbage in our zone. It didn’t change a whole lot but it helped a little bit so hopefully we can get him taken care of by the end so he doesn’t keep destroying investigators and missionaries. So that was the first exciting part of my week. Then on Wednesday after English Class we went home and did our daily planning. Once we finished, I was in the process of changing clothes when we got a call from the sisters with one of them yelling for us to take the call seriously and that Sister Brady had crashed on her bike and we needed to be there right now, so I threw my shirt on, we grabbed our running shoes and we sprinted out the door to go meet the sisters. When we got there Sister Brady was in the ambulance, and we had a whole bunch of miracles because I had my ipad, my ID, and the churches address we were able to get everything taken care of with the police and the ambulance and they got her to the hospital about 30 minutes after we got there. Since then they found out she broke her arm and got a bad concussion so she will be heading home this week. But basically from Wednesday until now there were lots of trips to bring them things because they can’t leave their apartment and things like that. So it’s been a Crazy week.

However another miracle from the week is that we met a guy on splits named Sato who we met again on Thursday and he came to church yesterday! I haven’t had someone progress that quickly in my whole time in Kamiooka so it was really nice to see.

Also a funny story. We had a YSA crepe night planned for Friday with a current headcount of 35 people. So on Thursday we all got together and had a crepe making party and we made somewhere around 140 crepes. We were making crepes for literally 3 hours for this event. Then when the actual event came there were only about 18 people who actually came.... So we now have a stack of probably 60 crepes in our freezer... anyone up for a crepe party?? lol

So yeah that was pretty much my week! I hope you all get a kick out of the fact that I will be eating crepes for every meal for the next forever! Oh also, speaking of breakfast food like crepes. Can I have a waffle iron in college mom? I would love to do that. I am also really glad that you were able to make it to Utah on time and with enough time to fix the truck! Who knew cars could get clogged arteries. ba dum tsss. Today we are having a huge zone barbecue for the 4th of July but I’m super excited for American holidays so lets have some good ones this year! I love all of you! I hope you have the best week and I’ll see you next month! Woo!

Elder Gailey

P.S. I think I want to work at a car dealership during college. I think I could sell a car pretty well after my mission. What do you think?