WEEK 8

Ok.

so.

I guess ill start from when i left emails last week.

we went shopping and didnt buy enough food so we havent been eating much lately, but after that we headed over to himeji and met the elder who replaced elder jackson. elder burhoe or something. but hes way cool and a really good missionary. his japanese is really dang good for a missionary on his sixth transfer. finally i have someone i can set a goal to surpass and not feel like im going to easy on myself. but yeah we went to some art gallery thing and it cost like 800yen and wasnt even that great. there were like 3 pictures that i really liked. the rest of them were boring or of naked women. but white handbook says art museums are cool so who am i to argue. but i blew a bunch of money and so now we have none. so this week i think the plan is for them to come here and we're gonna go to the church and watch church dvds, write letters(not me i dont have any letters to write), and play ping pong(churches here have ping pong tables). so that should be a fun Pday. then after that i have a comp exchange with the Zone leaders. ill be dendoing with Oshiro長老　which is going to be way tight. He was the first person I dendo'd with when i first got to japan and was still in the mission home.

recently, we've been playing shogi (basically japanese chess but different) when we get the chance to. the first time i played was against elder escalante and i won pretty hard. then we played again another day and he was playing much harder and i was getting a little owned but then he let down his guard and i snuck in for the checkmate or whatever its called in japanese. haha he was way mad.

But yeah last week was good. we had a comp exchange with Himeji and Kobe長老 got to work in Kakogawa and we had a really good time despite not being able to speak english. we tryed visiting rosario but she was yelling in spanish at something so we got scared and decided to go try something else. then that night we played shogi and i thought for sure i was going to lose since kobe長老 is nihonjin and all, and i was off to a rough start but i was able to turn it around for the win. long story short, i really like shogi and im currently 3 and 0.

So last week was good. we worked hard and we found 5 new investigators. how many of them will progress, I dont know. but considering I only found 1 investigator in the 6 weeks with bennion, i think its a pretty good start. Things are still moving a little slow in terms of how many lessons we're teaching, but hopefully that will get turned around in the near future. I think I'll call that good for this week.

元気で

Love,

Elder Horton

ホートン長老

ps, shout out to abe who has been added to the list of recipiants. sorry you missed all the good ones. its down hill from here.

お前は僕の将棋技量について分からないよ。

kakogawa week 7

yeah yeah so last week was pretty good pretty good. elder bennion and I pretty much did nothing for the rest of the time he was here. which was lame. but we got transfer calls on tuesday and he was off to senboku so he had to pack and being the kind of wonderful person he is, it took him 2 days. But on Wednesday we went to meet with Marion, and Rosario, and Dennis in some park in east kakogawa to give marion a Liahona for her to learn about modern day prophets. so we did that. while they were talking about boring stuff in japanese that was too much effort to understand, i went off and ran around with Dennis and it was super fun. that kid is super genki. but i also built relationship with Rosario and Marion which was good since elder bennion was leaving and because i have a sneaking suspition Rosario hated me (her japanese is pretty bad so its harder than the average nihonjin to understand but on the phone im pretty sure i heard her say "Horton" "kirai" "korosu" in the same sentance. which translate to "Horton" "hate" "kill." 90% sure.) so yeah that was good times. then the next day was transfers! my new companion is an Elder Escalante. He's half mexican, quarter philipino, quarter british and hes from california. He is a way cool guy and im excited to be working with him. I like his style of dendo a lot. the first day working with him, we found 3 new potential investigators, 2 of them that actually had potential. then the next day we found a new investigator who asked us to proof read some english paper he had written. it wasnt super good by an english native's standards but for a nihonjin, it was pretty dang good. he wanted to buy us lunch but we got him to agree to go to church instead. he seems like a cool kid and i hope we get to teach him more soon.

Something else that helps escalante 長老　get along is that we actually have some stuff in common. and i can give you a hint, it isnt music or vidya games. he also plays a pretty mean game of chess. i actually thought i was going to lose for a good portion of the game, but of course i didnt actually. anyways, it should be a good transfer. i think we can do a lot for Kakogawa and the ward here. im looking forward to it. though one problem is that neither of us really cook so i actually had to cook a meal for the first time and it was a little rough. we'll probly eat a lot of ramen this transfer. which im fine with. ramen + egg + tabasco sause = crazy delicious. I also had Pocky for the first time which is super awesome and which completes my list of memorable food items i have seen from anime. woo!

but yeah i guess thats about it for this week. today we're going to try to head up to himeji to try and see this art exhibit one more time, since its usually closed on mondays. but other than that, i dont really know whats going to be happening this week.

oh also last night, an old man started speaking english to us, which happens pretty often for some reason. but he didnt know much more than "hello" "how are you" "where are you from?" the usual. but when we asked him what he was doing, he said it was embarrassing, but a rough translation would be "the way that girls move." so yeah he was a really creepy old man it turned out. Im not sure why escalante長老 gave him a flier with a map to the church haha but he wont come. not sure why i just told that story. i guess ill leave it at that.

love you all,

Elder Horton

愛しているよ、

ホートン長老 より

前の趣味について考えば考えるほどに痛い世。　　←-難しいのだ。

Week 6

OK SO. I havent gotten a new companion yet but we talked to president about the whole situation with our investigator and he said he was going to transfer Elder Bennion. so in all likely-hood, Ill have a new companion on thursday that ill get to tell about. hopefully hes super awesome and cool like me so he doesnt make me look bad. other business, ive forgotten to mention Katie's birthday for several emails now. so happy late birthday katie. Ill probly forget about Dad's. i always do.

but yeah so last week after emailing, I went and got my hair cut and boy was that super fun. The lady comes up and asks me what i want. so i tell her "mijikakute futsu ni shite kudasai." which might be a little bit of an awkward way to say it, but it should have gotten the meaning of "please make it normal and short." but she apparently cant do that so she hands me a magazine and im looking through and just laughing because its full of really crazy asian hair styles that my hair couldnt possibly do. but then she shows me one that looks reasonable and i tell her that one should be fine but id like it shorter than that. some other miscommunications occured and to make a long story short, my hair didnt get much shorter but is now slightly asian hair. and im going to have to get it cut again in like 2 weeks. woo!

After that, we tried to meet up with the Himeji elders to see if we could go to some art museum by the castle but it was closed so we just hung out. we might try to go again today. but idk. taking that many trains back and forth starts getting expensive.

then tuesday, we had Eikaiwa! (english conversation class for our slow readers). and we got another crazy person to come! while we were handing out our awesome tissues with fliers in them, he came up to us and asked for one. which is a sure sign of him being crazy. but yeah so we had a class with 3 crazy people! it was super fun. and on his information sheet we have them fill out, he said he wants to learn more about the "honly bible" so we might tell him we want to teach him more about the honley bible and make him into a crazy investigator! oh man eikaiwa is really funny when you try to get the whole class to do a tounge twister at once. they arent the most difficult, but i have to focus to do them right. our students just SLAUGHTER them, oh man oh man its hilarious.

but yeah then thursday, we had Zone conference which was super fun and educational. I got to hang out with Elder Wilcox and Gardner from the MTC and it was good to catch up with them. After Zone conference, we did another exchange. this time i was with Mcguire長老 in kakogawa. we worked really hard on friday and actually found a new investigator! which is really the first time thats happened all of this transfer so i was excited. we set up an appointment to meen on sunday at the church and got his phone number, but then he didnt actually show up. i was pretty bummed but i guess thats just life. we'll call him to see if he wants to meet again this week.

but McGuire長老 and i did bump into a less active member that we have been wanting to contact for a while but didnt know how. it turns out he had been in the hospital for like 2 months and now he didnt have a place to live and had been living in a park. we told him to talk to the bishop and gave him some food we had lying around. so we're heroes.

but thats where ill leave it at for my week. just got to say i hope Rosario姉妹 gets less crazy after Elder Bennion leaves. she is an odd one. she always calls me harry potter. and she said president was just like aladin. i have no idea why

but yeah

Elder Horton

ホートン長老

oh yeah where are my ancestors from? people always ask probly because of my red hair and im sick of not knowing what to tell them.

好き

Kakogawa Week 5

OK so. i had a question. where is Emillio (william morris or something) seriving right now? is it salt lake city spanish speaking south or north or am i wrong? just wondering.

but yeah this week was pretty good. We had two more exchanges the first was me with Jackson長老 in kakogawa. we didnt get much done but we did go around and collect a bunch of tissues people hand out with fliers in them as we dendo'd around the eki (train station). then yesterday, bennion長老 and i changed those fliers with our eikaiwa (english conversation class) fliers and handed them back out. we only had like 40 but if it will get people to eikaiwa, sounds good to me. We're going to be making changes to our eikaiwa because right now it isnt effective at all.

oh yeah then on wednesday we had some stupid nonsense happen. we taught a lesson to our one progressing investigator, Marion, and taught her some commandments and it was a good lesson. but then after, we went upstairs and somehow offended her mom, Rosario姉妹. then Rosario starts going off about how Elder Bennion should say hi to Ashley, who is some gaijin girl from BYU. apparently rosario wants Bennion to marry her daughter and somehow got the idea that he liked this ashley girl and was mad about it. but really he is still just bitter about is ex in the states. believe me i know. But Rosario said they werent coming back next week and it was almost really bad. but we talked to her about our purpose as missionaries and we think she might understand but the situation is still really iffy. but really all of this just raises elder bennions chances of being transferred next week. if he does, ill miss his excessive use of words like "essentially" and "potentially." (he averaged saying essentially 10.4 times a day over the last 10 days that i heard). So we'll see how that situation plays out. unless i get transferred then we wont.

then thursday I had another exchange with Kodama長老 in Ako. He is a nihonjin. and he isnt as good at simplifying his japanese as Kobe長老 so it was a difficult 24 hours. but i learned a lot and my japanese got better. Also we had dinner at this chinese resturant with some potential investigators. they were old people. and theyre speach was nothing but kansaiben (the dialect of some people in this part of japan that they dont teach you in the MTC). they were SUPER hard to understand. and a lot of the time when people are talking at me and i dont understand i can just nod my head and smile and fake understanding. but they were asking questions that required me to respond. by far the most my japanese has been tried since i got here. but they were super nice people so it was still a good time. then the next day i almost stepped on a snake and died.

Then Friday when we were both back in Kakogawa, we visited some members, the Haruyama household. they are fantastic members and already are doing their own personal missionary work. which is nice to hear as a full time missionary. then after our lesson, the dad was asking me where im from. so naturally i tell him im from texas. and then hes asking me what city, so i tell him austin. what part of austin? cedar park. then next thing i know hes showing me our old house on google maps. ah it was awesome. the street picture was even from when we were still living there. my car was parked in the drive way and everything. it made me really happy to see. also it is crazy to see how different neighborhoods are between texas and japan. our house is a mansion to them. and everything is just soo spaced out. but it was great.

but yeah thats about it. Im finding random things to keep things from getting too repeatitive. like my game of chess against myself, which is technically against the rules but since im only making one move a day, zone leaders said it was probly ok. but it is a REALLY intense game of chess. when you have a day to think about each move, you make good moves. I also learned how to play shogi. i think i like chess more but shogi would be more fun if i were better at it. oh and also my belt has gone skinnier by like 2 notches since i got here. in fact, im on the last notch. but i think i still weigh like 170 lbs. unless i converted from kilos to lbs wrong. so i guess im getting more dense. i guess. This is a long email.

love

Elder Horton

ホートン長老

なぜか分からないけど、「ホ＾トンは可哀相な」といつも聞きます。