Last Email...I am coming home

Yup yup we just got transfer calls this morning and I'm going home. Thursday is transfer day where i head to the mission home and do interviews with president and chill and stuff. then Friday I think i take a bullet train to the airport in Tokyo.

We had to spend some time getting my bags all put together and send them off. We did a bunch of other stuff, I just can't seem to recall any of it. Oh, I gave a talk in Sacrament meeting yesterday. it was legit and stuff. And the ramen museum was cool, pictures will happen later. nd today we're heading to Nanba which is like the Akihabara of Osaka if anyone knows what that means. It should be good times. 

So its my last week emailing. I'm looking forward to seeing the people who can make it out to the airport there and talking to everyone else on phones and on the internet. My mission has been one crazy roller coaster. All sorts of ups and downs and twists and turns, and its the longest roller coaster you'll ever ride. But I'm way glad I did it. I've learned a ton and grown up a lot (but not that much), and I'm excited to see what comes next. I loved my mission but it comes to an end. Its time to move on and I'm ready. 

Peace,

Elder Horton

Hanayashiki- second to last

me and a rainbow!

random missionaries and Maiko

Kyoto

Bailey長老 checking out this raccoon thing

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

  

 

 

 

 

 

 

Man all these emails I've been getting have really not been helping me stay focused, I tell you.  But it's cool. While focusing is getting harder and the fact that I have to send off my bags to the airport this week doesn't help, we were still able to teach some good lessons this week. I was especially excited for Hayashi-san. He comes early to eikaiwa and teaches me math (kind of) and then we teach him about the gospel. He's way cool and hopefully he'll be able to come to church this next week. And we still dont know about what's going on with Kariya-shimai and whether or not she will be getting surgery sometime soon.

We went to Kyoto last P-day and saw the sakura and ran into a bunch of my favorite missionaries including Shigeta長老　and Delmege and Cloward長老 etc etc. it was especially fun to catch up on stuff with shigeta長老 We had a lot of good times being roommates in Ibaraki. I have some pictures and i guess I'll post some. 

Today we're off to the ramen museum and to get me a nice, expensive hair cut. 

Next week is the last week for emails so if there's anything you need to tell me, make it happen. 

Love,

Elder Horton

Hanayashiki 3

This week was pretty crazy busy with this and that and not much time to work. we had some sort of meeting or interview or general conference on pretty much every day of the week resulting in more knowledge of doctrine and stuff but not a whole lot of time for other stuff. But we should have more time this week. And umm conference was really good. I really liked Holland長老's talk. Today we're off to Kyoto to see the sakura blossoms so not a whole lot of time. We should have more time this next week so maybe i'll have more to talk about. OH yeah! We almost died. there was this freak storm that just came out of nowhere and there was all sorts of wind and rain and stuff and we were walking around some neighborhood and there was a strong wind that was apparently very strong because it ripped some heavy stone tiles off of the roof of a nearby apartment and almost dropped them on our heads. We just head a heavy crash behind us and started running away like little girls. good times. we were definitely protected on that one. anyways i gotta get going. maybe ill post pictures from kyoto next week or maybe ill just make you all wait till i get back.

love,

Elder Horton

Hanayashiki 4

So last week was nice. one P-day, I said we were going out to downtown Osaka and it was good times good times. we went to THE pokemon center(pictures attached). and the sky tower and this and that shopping places. But anyways the dendo for the week was also pretty good. we had a couple lessons with Kariya-shimai and she is doing really well. She is going in for surgery some time this month and after going to the doctor this week they'll know more about the situation and whether or not she can get baptized in april or if its going to have to be later in the summer. either way, she's getting baptized for sure. We had some other lessons and stuff but the definite highlight of my week was my companion exchange in Ibaraki. It was way legit to get to go back and see my old area and my old apartment and even some of the members there. And let me just say, that looking at the area book for Ibaraki, I tore that place up. That is my area book. my name and my work is all over that thing. Not boasting or anything, but it is pretty cool to know that missionaries down the line will look in that book and be like "dang, this Elder Horton was a beast." We'll be heading back over there for General Conference on Saturday so hopefully I'll be able to meet some more of the members then. Lots of stuff going on. I got my packet with all the information for going home finally. but despite that, we're still working. Love you all,

Elder Horton

 Oh yeah, and today, we went to costco. It was awesome and american(mostly).

Hanayashiki 5

Sounds like my flight plans got all planned out and stuff. Plane leaves Japan April 27th at 4:00PM and I arrive in Denver, CO April 27th at 4:08PM. An 8 minute flight! I'm excited to see everyone. But more excited to eat a delicious Chipotle burrito on April 27th at around 4:30PM! 

This week was pretty good. Taught some lessons, waved people down on the street, knocked on doors. the usual. The elder's quorum had a BBQ activity this last saturday and we had a bunch of our Eikaiwa ( English Class) students come out to it. One of them, Hayashi-san came with his mother. He hasn't been able to come to church much up till now but supposedly his work is going to change and he'll be able to come starting in April. But some of our members, the Tachi couple, were really good about reaching out to Hayashi-san and his mom. His mom had a whole bunch of questions about church and stuff and Tachi-kyodai ( a returned missionary)  was teaching her for like a half an hour. He did a really good job too. Its kind of nice being in a ward with returned missionaries. We also had a less active come who is in need of friends.  But yeah the food was really good. I love me some Yaki-niku. We are going to be heading out to Umeda today which is like the most concentrated part of Osaka, there should be cool stuff  happen so I need to end now. Also we didn’t get to go to the ramen museum last week but now we know where it is and we're going later in the transfer. Hope everyone is genki!

Love,

Elder Horton

Hanayashiki 6

His sense of Humor is Back!   Marcus told me his new companion reminds him of Brandon...

It doesn't mean I'm trunky, but I'm counting the weeks backwards from 6. So yeah I'm in Hanayashiki. the missionary i replaced is my good friend Elder Ewer. we were in the same district all the way back when i was in Ibaraki and he was here for the whole 7 transfers since. What he said is that he was 'one with the apartment' and so when he left, all hell broke loose. Seriously this apartment is a mess. I'm not much of a clean freak or anything but there's stuff everywhere. It doesn't help that there's this crazy lady, Shimizu-san who always gives the missionaries tons of random stuff. As it would turn out, Ewer and I actually found Shimizu-san on our companion exchange so long ago. I remember her but i thought she would go away after giving us those flowers. but it turns out shes been wreaking havoc the whole time i was in Niihama. All that aside, things are good. Bailey長老 is a good missionary and he's cool. I'm glad i get to work with a companion that can speak Japanese and hold his own part of the work. We met with some of our investigators this week and had two of them come to church. one is Araki-san who has a lot of questions and a smoking problem but he shows some promise maybe. The other was Kariya-san who is a member's mother and since she is quite old has a hard time understanding things some times. but she said she wanted to get baptized in our lesson with her so how about that. The ward here is big, and while its nice in some ways, in more ways it makes me miss Niihama. Someday ill head back and visit that place when i got a whole bunch of extra money lying around. We're trying to use P-days effectively since there's cool stuff to see and I've wasted the majority of my P-days up to this point. So hopefully we'll get out to kyoto and downtown osaka at some point this transfer. Today, we're going to a ramen museum. if we can find it.  

love you all,

Last week in Niihama

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Inbox

Yup, we just got transfer calls and I'm heading off to Hanayashiki for my last transfer. Its kind of silly to leave for just my last transfer, but there needed to be some sort of change so this is probably for the best. My last companion is going to be Elder Bailey. He's my kohai from the MTC so i know him a bit. It should be good times. Hanayashiki is in the same district as Ibaraki so ive been there once before on a companion exchange and its a really nice area. big ward and lots of people. also i might get the chance to go on a companion exchange back to Ibaraki if luck is on my side. that would be way fun. So all of that is good, but I'm a bit bummed about leaving Niihama. I'm gonna miss this branch. It doesn't really help too much that the missionary who is replacing me doesn't have the best japanese from what I've heard so I dont really feel like ill be leaving the area to the most capable hands. but i suppose it cant be helped. 
This last week was pretty good though for what its worth. Found a lot of people with good potential and set up a system where we can meet Mizuki-chan on a weekly basis. Hopefully the elders here will be able to follow through on it all.... i can hope. 
I'll let everyone know about how Hanayashiki is. Hey maybe this means ill get to go to Kyoto to see the sakura!

Love,
Elder Horton

only 6 more of these emails. but whos counting?

niihama - the last 3 weeks

Snowy days in Niihama

Well this week was improvement from last week for sure. We had a family home evening with the Igari's and Mizuki-chan and one other young woman in the branch, Itsuki-chan. We had stew and root beer and chips and salsa. then we played a get-to-know-you game and shared a message about the book of mormon. Mizuki-chan committed to read a little every day so she is now ever so slowly progressing. unfortunately its testing season here and the students are all really busy so she couldnt come to church or game night. but we did have that lady we found like two weeks ago, Yamanaka-san at church. she is way nice and seems to have interest in the Book of Mormon and God aso we made an appointment to share more with her tomorrow. Also Game Night special was awesome. only one non-member showed up but there were lots of members and everyone seemed to really enjoy themselves and liked the message we shared at the end. Oh, and it snowed for reals during game night. by for reals, i mean it snowed about 3 centimeters, but i was still like christmas.

Oh yeah. So a while back i think i might have said something about it, but Cloward長老　and I found this one lady in this shop and she had this weird pendant thing that she uses to talk to her spirit. I dont know, its a bit weird. But we visited her again and she may be some kind of investigator now. we introduced the Book of Mormon and asked her if she would like to read it. So she says 聞いてもいいですか？ and she the proceeds to wave her pendant around and apparently her spirit told her to read it because she accepted our commitment.

anyways probably some other stuff happened, but nothing in particular comes to mind.

So have a good week, everybody.

Love,

Elder Horton

 

Getting warmer in Niihama

Pretty good week this week. pretty good pretty good. We had some good
teaching opportunities with Kana-san and Yamanaka-san and the Pendulum
lady. They were all good lessons and I really was feeling like I was
teaching at the top of my game. Really the best I've ever taught. Even
so, none of them are exactly filling the font up themselves. but not
all sheep are golden. We just may have to work through a problem or
two with them. I had a companion exchange with Elder Hatch this week
which was a welcome day of having a companion who can speak english
etc. then we had Zone conference. and seeing as how it was my last
zone conference, I bore my testimony as a returning missionary. a bit
early but the deed is done. It feels a bit weird. So things are good
besides a few companionship issues at the moment. speaking of which,
he's waiting for me to be done so i'll wrap this up.

Love,
Elder Horton

 

another week, another email in niihama

 

So I don't wanna go into details, but those companionship problems i mentioned last week got a bit bad last week. And in the end, we moved our companion exchange from later in the week to that night. kind of an emergency companion exchange. I was pretty frustrated with the whole thing just because i've never had problems like this with a companion even in the slightest until now. and here i am in my last transfers and i have to worry about something so silly. but after talking a lot with elder nicholes, i started realizing some of the places the problems occurred and what i can do to avoid them. between that and having time to cool down, things are much better now. Though i've been happier. We have transfer calls next week and if it were any other mission president, i'd say there would for sure be a transfer but with president zinke, theres a good chance he'll keep us together till the end just to "teach us a lesson" or something. I guess ill know about all that next week and theres a chance you all might hear a rant about it. that or some other exciting news. one or the other. Maybe I wouldn't care as much but its been interferring with our work. this week we didnt get a whole lot done. partly because of the exchange and everything, partly because we were talking about this or that problem, partly because my companion has headaches everyday after lunch, and partly because when we do work, or heart isnt in it 100%.

Thats not to say we made no progress at all. just not really any progress  worth mentioning i think.

Sorry that this is such a lame email. if it helps, my exchange with elder nicholes was a lot of fun!

love,

Elder Horton