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。