Transferred to Ibaraki

Transfer from Kakagowa to Tsuyama

So we got transfer calls on Tuesday and I was actually way surprised to find out that I was transferring. They whitewashed Tsuyama with two other missionaries. one new one and another who is on his last transfer. He is a Nihonjin by the name of Nishio and he is actually from Tsuyama. Tsuyama used to be part of the hiroshima mission and Nishio was in the Kobe mission but then Tsuyama got made part of the Kobe mission and his family moved out of Tsuyama but he got called to serve there. That would be crazy to serve in your hometown. But anyways, I'm in Ibaraki now. Its a City in Osaka so its pretty urban here. A very different place from Tsuyama. people dont even say hello back to you.  But I already got to meet a lot of the members in our ward and there are around 80 active ones which is good for our mission. The members seem like they're all way cool and they love the missionaries, so we're going to do a lot of work with the members i think. Which brings me to my companion. His name is Elder Hale (different from the one i was in the MTC with) and he is on his second transfer. I'm like his follow-up trainer or something. but yeah he doesnt speak or understand much Japanese, but he's doing his best and so we're doing pretty awesome. We had a lesson with a Hondayama-san who hasnt heard much but he is way cool. We taught him about the plan of salvation and he says he wants to get baptized and go to the celestial kingdom so we're going to teach him how. I'm way excited. We also housed into this lady who has this really weird religion where they kind of believe everything, including the bible. So i asked her if she needed to be baptized and she said she didnt know. so we shared about the book of mormon and about baptism and set a date to meet her and her friends tomorrow, but im actually not going to be there because i have some leadership training thing i have to go to. So my companion and another really you missionary by the name of Shigeta,who is nihonjin,are going to have to teach them. they should be fine.

We actually have 4 people in our apartment. me and elder hale and 2 other japanese elders. but its way fun. every day is a party.

I probly have more i could say but i dont really remember. I also had pictures to send but i left my camera in Okayama. hopefully ill get that back sometime.

So thats about it. Hope everything is awesome back home.

Love,

Elder Horton

Tsuyama week 18

I hear that Grandpa Horton turned 80. It is cool and everything but really its only 4 times as old as me. When i was 10, he was 70 which is 7 times older. That was impressive. Haha Love you, Grandpa. 

 

This past week on Thursday, Elder Warner and I hit our 1-year mark so in order to celebrate, we just partied all week. By partied, i mean that we went and knocked on doors and stuff and actually were on trains all day on Thursday because we had a Zone Conference in Okayama. But all the same, it was good times. And we kind of got calls from all our investigators telling us that they cant meet with us for a while. I guess its a busy time of year or something. Really every time of year is busy for people in Japan. This next week is going to be a very busy one for us as well though. Elder Warner got his transfer call this morning and he is going back to Tokyo on thursday. The assistants wouldnt tell us what my transfer is going to be so i have to wait till tomorrow. but chances are that ill be getting a new companion and staying in Tsuyama unless something crazy happens. So I guess im excited to hear who my new companion is going to be. We're also going to be working very hard to get people to our Branch conference that we're having on the 29th. We're inviting everyone we see and getting members to invite our investigators. We're also calling all sorts of old members from the list we have. Some of them are quite rude to say the least. Like this character yesterday who pretended like he couldn't understand my japanese though we both knew he could. But I also did talk to one nice person. Maybe they'll come. Well i dont really remember where i was going with that, but I guess we're keeping busy.

Next week should have some new stuff in store so I'm excited.

 

Love,

Elder Horton

Tsuyama week 16 &17

I don't have my Missionary Daily Planner on me so I have no Idea what happened the last two week, but I'll try to remember if there is anything worth mentioning.

We found this girl housing named Sachi-san who is stuck at home with a baby and doesnt have anything better to do but to listen to our message, so we've been teaching her a bit as of late. She read from the beginning of the Book of Mormon and didnt really understand anything other than theres a guy named Nephi who has two stupid brothers. But really thats more than a lot of people understand so she's showing some sort of potential.

It rained like CRAZY for like 3 days straight over here. the river near our apartment was like overflowing and stuff. During the rainy days, I threw on my big blue rain suit and we knocked on people's doors. We knocked on one man by the name of Shiraishi-san's door and he immediately told us to come in. so we're like, "But sir, we're all wet." but he doesnt care, so we step into his genkon but he tells us to take off our shoes and step in. Again we try to object with no success. then he tells us to sit down on these really nice leather couches. So we say "Sir, we're going to ruin these couches." But he doesnt care. Eventually we convinced him to get some towels, but we were still pouring water on his floor and stuff. He had seen us riding around on our bikes and wanted to know what we were doing. So we told him about our message and committed him to baptism and stuff. He was googling our church on his laptop the whole time, so in addition to teaching him about the book of mormon, prayer, and baptism, we also taught him about the word of wisdom and plural marriage. He had to go to Okayama and had to cancel our next appointment with him, but We'll set something up with him in the near future hopefully. He's a very interesting guy. Back when i was a junior, i would have zoned out and not understood most of what that conversation was about, but when your senior companion, you have to focus and it takes a lot more effort and ive been really tired recently.

Yeah there might have been some other things like exchanges with the zone leaders or stuff like that, but its not too important. We have some other investigators we're working with and we're also working a lot with the Branch to get things moving. So yeah I guess things are good.

I also hit my 1-year mark on the 19th this week. pretty crazy stuff i do say.

love,

Elder Horton

Tsuyama week 15!

 

So yeah it was a pretty busy week. We got a call last sunday from the traveling assistants telling us theyd be coming to Tsuyama to work with us for a day and wanted us to get appointments set up. So we spent a lot of our time calling people and visiting people trying to get an appointment set up for this thursday but we weren't able to make anything happen until at the last minute, we set up an appointment with Jotani-san. one of the Assistants, Elder Starks and I taught him the doctrine of christ and committed him to baptism and he bimyou ni (theres a good word for google translator) accepted for the date of May 22nd. We had a lot of fun with the Assistants and were able to learn a whole lot. the next day, we went out with Jotani and saw a waterfall and got a whole bunch of mochi (rice thats been hit with a hammer a whole bunch). We got a call later from Jotani that he talked to his family about joining the church and he thinks the timing isnt right. not 100% sure what that means, but it looks like we might have to overcome some problems before getting him there. But he'll get there. We also were finally able to meet with the Branch president and talk about the work in the branch which I hadnt been able to do despite being here for 15 weeks now. We had a way good lesson with his family and ate some delicious taco rice which is the closest thing to mexican food they have in Japan. Coincidently, when you say taco in japan, it means octopus to them. but tacos is tacos. the other week i had pizza with taco on it. Then Sunday, we had a really good lesson with Kajioka-san about faith and about the spirit. He thinks with his head a lot so its really fun teaching him. he's committed to reading the book of mormon daily and praying so i think its making some progress. So things are going pretty well in Tsuyama for the moment. We also got transfer calls for Elder Warner this past friday. He isnt going back to Tokyo till the end of the transfer. which means at the end of may, he'll go back and ill stay in Tsuyama for a 4th transfer. So ill be here for the rainy season in June and July. Elder Starks did say that he was going to recommend they make me trainer, so maybe something fun will happen. who knows.

I'm not sure if ill be emailing next week or not since its mothers day and ill be talking to the family on the phone. wait and find out.

loves yall

Elder Horton

 

pictures!

 

waterfall.