Week 5 in AKO

Keepin this short because we've got stuff to do today. On tuesday, we had a girl in our branch who just turned 8 get baptized. her name is Saito Moe. hehe. yeah it was fun Kodama and I were the witnesses and i got to hang out with the Himeji elders. And later that night, We went and played some basketballs. which i havent played seriously since elementary school with taylor doutre. so i was a bit rusty haha. i was getting better towards the end though.
Then for thanksgiving on Thursday we did nothing! except thursday night, the whole district went and had a sleep over at himeji's apartment and i destroyed Hale at Shogi. then the next morning before district meeting, we had our own little turkey bowl for like two hours just the six of us. and it was actually really fun. i got pretty into it though and ive been sore since then. but it was a blast. Then during district meeting, we all shared our thanksgiving turkeys which we had been making all month with a little thing we're grateful on each of the feathers. Then after, we all went to our favorite Brazilian resturant and ate greasey brazilian food till we could eat no more. and thats how we celebrated thanksgiving. it was pretty good all in all.
Then we had some pretty regular days up until today. Today we're going to hang out in Himeji with everyone and after, i have my companion exchange with Escalante in Kakogawa! its going to be just like old times. im reallllly excited. so i may or may not have something to say about that next week. oh yeah and we got a new cell phone this morning. its the biggest cell phone i have ever seen. no exaggeration. besides maybe the really old ones from the early 90's. but its about that big. this thing is a tank.
well thats about all for this week i think. sorry my emails are so boring as of late.

love,
Elder Horton
ホートン長老

Ako week 4

Not much happened this week that I can talk about in this email so its going to be a shorter one. Because I'm staying positive, right?
So we'll skip Monday last week and go onto Tuesday. Tuesday, I got to do our service at the old folks home place where I can't understand what anyone says but I can play Shogi, so i do that. I didn't play against the really good old guy though, just a regular old guy so our game was taking a really long time because we were pretty evenly matched. They actually had to eat lunch before we could finish but i think i was going to win. but I'm not sure if I'm supposed to let them win or whatever. I wasn't going to let him even if we were though hehe. Then that night we talked to this guy Escalante found while he was on an exchange here named Takeshi. when he showed up at the church, I was way surprised because he was like a way cool guy. but because of the way Escalante found him, we weren't really meeting to teach him a lesson but really just to talk. So we talked a bit, and we eventually started talking about the church and the Book of Mormon and whatnot, and he was cool with all of it, but he didn't really see why it was relevant to him. If I were a better missionary, he would have become a really solid investigator, but I wasn't good enough. So I'm just going to have to get better I guess. Can't really do much else when you're in my position.
Yeah so then we'll skip Wednesday(Eikaiwa was about the same as last week) and Thursday. Friday, we had district meeting! which was fun as usual. The other Elders in my district are all really cool. Akina teaches me all sorts of things that I shouldn't know in Japanese haha. but you never know when you're going to need to know some of those things right?
Then we skip the rest of friday and definitely saturday and move on to sunday. Sunday, we had the primary program in church where all the kids sang their songs and did their little presentation thing which was awesome. One thing to be said about the Ako branch is that they have some funny little kids. They're always wanting to play and they have no idea that I cant understand their little-kid-talk but it sounds super adorable so who cares.
And that was my week in Email form. We also spent a ton of time looking for new people and didn't find anyone.
coolcool hope everything is awesome in the states.
Love you all,
Elder Horton
ホートン長老

忍耐。忍耐。

pictures are from a couple P-days ago when we went and all took pictures on the roof of Himeji's church. I'm by far the best ninja.
oh this is the kanji for ninja btw: 忍者。I was so stoked when i first found that out.

AKO WEEK 3 - 6 month hump

yeah this week was pretty legit. after email last week, we headed over to Himeji for everyone in the district to hang out a bit before starting the week long companion exchange thing with Hale. Then that night, I got to hang out in Kakogawa with Escalante just like old times. haha yeah last transfer was fun. then the next day he and Kodama headed off to Okayama for their leadership training. So Hale and my adventure had begun. It didnt turn out to be a very exciting adventure but we had some good times. But yeah like i said last week, Hale and I came to Japan at the same time, so neither of our japanese is super good. but like i had anticipated, my japanese was better than his, though his is pretty good.
But yeah so tuesday, we headed out walking around the Eki (trainstation) at Kakogawa and talk to some people, and we talked to a guy about Eternal Families and he became a new investigator. After talking to him, I was pretty happy just due to the fact that we had just had a conversation with a guy in japanese. it was pretty legit. then throughout the day and into the exchange, we actually were able to have quite a few fun chats with various people. Then Tuesday night, we taught Kakogawa's eikaiwa (english class) and i was way excited to see all my old students again and actually had some really cool conversations about where everyone's favorite place in the world was. and those conversations were actually in English. Hale was teaching the kids class which i was jealous of at first, but in the end i was glad i taught the grown ups. Yeah it was a way fun Eikaiwa and afterwards, we asked Yumiko and Kaz (a couple of our eikaiwa students i had found like 4 weeks ago) if they wanted to talk more about our church and Yumiko really did, but Kaz basically told us no for her. So the Kakogawa elders will have to get that one figured out somehow.
Then Wednesday, we took the train back to Ako so we could teach Eikaiwa there. I was a little worried since nobody came last week, but a guy called us and asked us about it before it had started and said he'd come. So his name is Daiki and he and our other student, Kyougoku showed up a half hour late. but it was actually a pretty fun. Then we were supposed to have a lesson with the investigator we had found but he wasnt home. So we walked around the College until some old guy came and kicked us out. i tried to play the "I dont speak Japanese" card, but he didnt believe me. usually people dont believe me when i tell them i can speak japanese. but i guess thats just the life of a gaijin in japan. So then we headed back to Kakogawa for the night and found another investigator at the Eki.
Then Friday, We thought we'd go around and visit some people that hadnt been to church in 10 or 20 years and share a message or whatnot with them. none of them were home but i wrote notes(which took forever because kanji is hard) for all of them and left them in their mailboxes. Then there was one house marked on our map which hale decided we were going to visit. So the guy at this house comes to the door, and I think he's just a less active member, so im talking to him like that. I share our message and talk to him about prayer and whatnot as if he were a member. then Hale invites him to church and he said it sounded interesting so he'd go. i was a little confused by the end of the meeting, but Hale is all like "cool a new investigator!" and then it all made sense. haha but he was way cool, and from what i hear, he came to church yesterday and they taught him a lesson. so that was pretty cool.
Then Saturday, we headed back to Ako, planned, had our ping pong activitiy. and Sunday was also pretty normal. Except some guy is having me proof-read this book about samurai he tried to translate. and it was pretty as expected, the english is awful. So I dont know what ill tell him. i still dont even really know who the guy is though so idk..
But yeah this week was way fun, and it gave me a huge boost of confidence in terms of my Japanese speaking ability. because I was basically able to do everything we needed to that week without too much problem. I think having a Japanese companion has been helping me speak a lot.
Well thats about it. sorry this email is so long. next week will be short, im guessing. also a shout out to Alec!
love you everyone,

Elder Horton
ホートン長老

pictures:
1 some shrine thing we found in Ako
2 the super manly salt sculpture we watched them carve the last couple of weeks
3 i had to take a picture of that

AKO WEEK 2

Yeah so not much at all to report this week. things that happened this week include but are not limited to: Basketball, Eikaiwa, district meeting, and WakuWaku Land. Basketball was pretty fun but nothing happened there that needs to be reported in this email...hehe. yeah i couldnt play because i left my shoes in Kakogawa. Then for Eikaiwa, i was pretty excited to get to know my new english students in Ako, but nobody came. so that was a bummer. then District meeting was way nice. I got a chance to speak english and talk to Escalante about how things are going. I enjoyed that very much. then last but not least, WakuWaku Land. Its this amusement park-like place on the coast here in Ako where there were a whole bunch of families and whatnot playing and having a good time. Kodama has been here for three transfers already but he doesnt seem to know much about how he wants to dendo in Ako so we were kind of scouting the place out. We'll probably head back over sometime when we get some good ideas. Its definitely a place that would have been much more fun if you werent a missionary when you went. I wanted to ride the ferris wheel. but yeah it was cool. Other than that we did find one new investigator while housing at the college. teaching him is going to be interesting.
But yeah this next week actually is going to be a crazy one. The mission has this 3 day leadership training thing going on and hes not a leader or anything but Kodama is going to it. i think its just because hes in transfer 13 so he's pretty old. but anyways that means that from our district, Escalante and Kodama are going to be going. which means Hale and I are going to be companions while they're at the training. then right after the training, we have our regular exchange. so Im going to be Hale's companion starting after P-day today all the way until saturday. which is interesting because both of us are in transfer 3. and my japanese is much better from what I here. So I'm going to be carrying the companionship in terms of japanese. which is a little scary. especially since we do have Kakogawa's and Ako's eikaiwa to teach and the investigator that we found in Ako' lesson. But I'm excited to be doing it. and really excited to get to dendo in Kakogawa again. Since we'll be there for most the exchange. So yeah thats whats happening next week. Maybe ill have more to say next time i email. love you all,

Elder Horton
ホートン長老


WakuWaku Land

Okasawa Zone Conference