Tsuyama 10

This week from monday to wednesday morning, i had a companion exchange with Elder Pipkin in Okayama. It was super fun. Elder Pipkin is a gentleman and a scholar and working with him was a pleasure. He's one of the missionaries who got evacuated to our mission from Tokyo so it was pretty interesting to see the differences in style of our Dendo, but I learned a lot. It would be sweet if i got the chance to work with him in the future but that kind of depends on when all the Tokyo missionaries are heading back. Wednesday, Elder Nuttall was sick so we weren't able to get much done, though we did get to go do our reading activity at the library. I read Grandma baba's busy night and Madaline. it was good times. Thursday we had a pretty good member lesson with the Hisamune family. then the rest of the week we had some ups and downs. Friday night, we had our appointment with the investigator we found last week, Hiromi, who listened to the plan of salvation, but afterwards told us about how our devotion to our religion inspired her to be a better bhuddist and now she doesn't want to meet with us. so that was a bummer. Saturday, we went out and tried to visit a bunch of people and most everyone wasnt home. We did get to talk to an investigator, Kasumi who we had an appointment with like 2 weeks ago but we weren't able to make it to because of some miscommunication. We tried to call and cancel but they didnt pick up. Anyways, Kasumi was actually pretty upset at us. she said her and two of her friends had been waiting to hear our message with questions about the Book of Mormon. Thats some pretty hard news for a missionary to hear. So we tried to set up another appointment, but she said she was busy. We arent giving up, but I was quite unhappy about the whole thing. But we did have a good lesson with a past investigator, Kajioka, who was way cool. we're going to see if we cant get him back on his way. He said he'd come to church on the 3rd of April. And yesterday, we were able to get one of our less actives, Kawai Hiromi-shimai to church. we were stoked about that. she came with her boyfriend and he kind of seems like a tool, but we were happy to see her there. Then lastly we had a good member lesson with the Hattori family. their 26 year old son is the second councilor in the branch presidency and he hasnt been to church in 5 or 6 weeks. So we're a little worried about that.

So thats whats going on in Tsuyama, in case you were wondering.

Love,

Elder Horton

Tsuyama week 9

Kind of embarassing but i just this week realized that the Kanji in for the 'Tsu' in 'Tsuyama' and 'Tsunami' are the same. huh.

So Yeah there has been a bit more aftershock from the earthquake and whatnot. During the earthquake, there was a nuclear plant near Sendai that was damaged and is right now leaking radiation. Basically, because the reactor is unstable, the people up top were like "Get out of there, she's gonna blow!" and closed the Sendai and Tokyo missions. To my readers (aka mom and dad) it might not seem like a big deal, but it kind of is to a missionary in japan. The Kobe mission took in 45 missionaries from the Tokyo mission. In order to make room for them, all missionaries that were scheduled to go home in the next 3 months were sent home on friday and areas all over the mission opened up and got extra missionaries packed in. Since my area is pretty in the middle of nowhere, i was relatively uneffected. So things were a little chaotic, but now things are back to normal. Assuming the reactor doesnt explode, the Tokyo missionaries will probly be heading back soon enough. and if it does explode, my guess is that ill be finishing my mission in the states. So pray or cross your fingers whatever your fancy may be that it doesnt explode.

Our work was pretty good this week. We taught Lesson 2 to Sakamoto-san and commited him to baptism pretty hard but he wont set a date. so for now we're going to work on strengthening his faith and understanding. He'll get baptized some day, it just might long after ive left Tsuyama unfortunately. We found some pretty interesting investigators who we'll be meeting next week and a really nice girl named Hiromi who we taught lesson 1 to on friday night. she is bhuddist like most people in japan and doesnt have much intention to change right now, but she's interested in our message and if she'll read the book of mormon and pray, then we could be in business. It was a good week and i dont really have time. I'm heading over to Okayama for a couple days for a companion exchange. I'll be working with an Elder Pipkin who is a missionary who just got here from Tokyo. so maybe ill get to see some new styles of dendo. im excited.

Cool well i think thats all!

love you, everyone!

Elder Horton

Tsuyama week 7&8

Week 8-

Yeah so I got emails from just about everyone expecting to hear something cool because of the earthquake. I'm really sorry to disappoint, but I actually didn't feel anything from where I'm at. The quake was actually very far away and Tsuyama is too far from the coast to be anywhere near danger of Tsunami. But i really appreciate everyone's concern. You all know more about the quake than I do, but from what I have heard by way of mouth, it was pretty freaking bad. So keep the people of the Sendai area in your thoughts and prayers and stuff. thanks.

So really this week was pretty normal for me. We had some lessons with some of our investigators and less actives. which all went really well. We talked to Hiromi-chan who is a less active who served a mission in the temple square mission, so she speaks english and teaches a childrens english class. We asked if we could do anything to help her and she said it'd be cool if we'd come visit her class. so we did. it was way fun and afterwards, we talked to two of the kid's moms who both said they wanted to try and come to church sometime. We also visited one of our PI's, Yamamoto Kemi-san who said that she had been reading the book of mormon we had given her and that it was easy to understand. which is unheard of coming from a Japanese person. It usually takes a very very long time before people can understand the scriptures very well here. Probably because she has a Catholic background. which is also rare, but we set up an appointment with her and probably her friend, Oyagi Kasumi-san as well for tomorrow. should be good.

This coming week, Elder Nuttall is going out for some training so its going to be me and my junior from the MTC, Elder Randall, tearing it up. Its gonna be legit and stuff.

So life goes on as usual for us in Tsuyama. sorry for another boring email.

Love,

Elder Horton

Week 7

Yeah so last monday, we went to Okayama to hang out as a district and see Okayama castle. it was pretty cool i got to wear a totally manly kimono. That was good times. we thought it would be the last time we could do it because we figured half the district would tranfer that week but as it would turn out, nobody did with the exception of Sister Etchu. So I'm still with Elder Nuttall in Tsuyama. First time I'll be staying with a companion for more than one transfer. Then after getting transfer calls, I started feeling really sick so I was like "I hope i dont get sick, better drink some orange juice." so i drink half a carton of OJ and soon im throwing up everything in my stomache and in a whole lot of pain. It got pretty bad, so we had to cancel Eikaiwa and our Ward mission leader came over and took us to the hospital. Somehow they found out i drank orange juice and they were all freaking out. Its aparently a very bad idea. i hear the nurses talking, all like "Didnt his parents ever teach him anything?" etc etc. So i learned my lesson. dont drink orange juice when your stomache doesnt feel good. They pumped me full of a couple good meals worth of vitamins and minerals and stuff through and IV and gave me some pills. After that, the rest of the week was spent recovering in the apartment unfortunately. We started feeling better and got out a little bit yesterday and the day before but we didnt accomplish much. I think we'll be fine from here on out though. So yeah kind of a bummer. But i figuered i have to go to the hospital atleast once on my mission. that and i had to wear a kimono atleast once. got two things off my list this week!

love,

Elder Horton

PS. If you want better pictures, give me money to buy a better camera. in the mean time, blame mom.

never mind its out of batteries or something. pictures will have to wait till next week.

Nevermind, im stupid, here are the pictures.

1. Okayama Castle

2. my ohime wave

3. kimono was hot