Ibaraki week 13 & 14-Summer Festival

We got a call this week from our favorite member who is working in the office part of our church Kobayashi-shimai! She told us there was a guy who called the church and left a message saying that he wanted to learn about our church and the book of mormon. The guy's name was Yonezawa and she gave us his number. We gave him a call and set up an appointment to meet him the next day. He's a cool guy and we taught him about the restoration and we have another appointment tonight. Not really sure what made him want to hear more, and he didnt give a very good answer when we asked. maybe we'll find out someday.

We also had a lesson this week with Morimoto-san, or Mori-chan as he would have us call him. He's a very interesting guy. He says that his religion teaches him to read other religion's books and stuff so he vowed to read the book of mormon completely. ii n ja nai? We'll meet him again sometime this week again.

Then on Saturday, takatsuki and Ibaraki wards had their summer festival. it was wayy fun. we ran the booth with the rock sling and the life size goliath to throw stuff at along with the booth for selling these cracker things they put mayo on. but we sold a ton of them. if it had been real money, we would have made bank. but anyways, it was a blast. i love matsuri's.

Then after that, we had sports night. our good friend Ken came, but other than that everyone was members. but we played basketball for probably just an hour and a half. and let me say, that im in the best shape ive been in since i was like 10, but you apparently use different muscles when you play basketball than the ones i was used to using. because ive been way sore ever since. everything hurts. But it was good times. Thats about it. till next time!

love,

Elder Horton

  

the thirteenth week:

So we had transfers this week. My companion and I stayed, but we got a new roommate. I have no idea why, but we thought he was going to be brazilian. but hes from Maryland. Anyways, he is a pretty fun guy.

This week, we decided to visit this investigator who always comes to Eikaiwa named Hashimoto-san. She lives in a place called Yamatedai(mountain hand platform) and we looked at the GPS on our phone and it was about 6km away. didnt seem that bad so we headed out. and oh my goodness it was awful. we had to climb a real mountain! i didnt even know there were mountains in my area! i thought the whole thing was city! but we decided to climb the one mountain in our area and it was raining and there were a whole bunch of little bugs that would get stuck to your skin and just die on you so those were all over my arms and face and we had to climb the biggest mountain ive climbed on my mission. it took an hour and a half to get there, but we did and got to have a pretty good chat with Hashimoto-san about why shes not baptized. and the reason basically is that her husband wont let her because joining a christian church isnt a normal thing for a Japanese person to do. on the brightside, It was a lot faster to ride back.

Also, ever since last summer ive been wondering what the difference between 'semi' and 'higurashi' because both translate to cicada. But on the way up that mountain i heard some definite higurashi if you know what i mean.

So it was a good week. We're keeping busy. Hope everyone is fabulous in America!

Ibaraki week 11 and 12- District Leader

 

Fireworks in Ibaraki

 August 14th-

Yup so we got transfer calls this morning. Elder Barker and i will be working together for another transfer in Ibaraki. But Usui is getting transferred and replaced by an Elder Delmege who is Basilian. Usui is going to the new segregation zone that is all Japanese elders. Im gonna miss that guy. But he was district leader and since he's leaving, i got left with being district leader. So i guess i get to go on a whole bunch of companion exchanges this transfer.

This last week was good;

monday we went to a members house and ate some way good hayashi rice and curry that he had been making for 3 days and watched fireworks from his balcony. it was a splendid evening.

Tuesday, Shigeta and i had an exchange and it was waaaayyyyy hot. But we got to meet with Sugimoto shimai who is my favorite less active. she gave us stuff to make tacos and we talked about burn notice and house. she really likes american tv.

Wednesday we had Eikaiwa but it was pretty lame this week.

Thursday. So on thursday. we were supposed to have the lesson with Uekubo-san, but he had given us that Hashimoto-sans phone number if you remember. and just backtracking a little bit, i called Hashimoto-san back and i wont go into details but he is a way interesting guy and said he wanted to come to my house and called the church and talked with the sister working there by the name of kobayashi-shimai. Then we actually had to miss Uekubo's lesson because we had district meeting and we couldnt call him to reschedule because he gave us the wrong number. We figured he wouldnt show up anyways... but he did. and then he called us asking why we didnt show up and even though we explained the situation to him, he was super pissed. he was throwing tons of dirty japanese at me. ive never been called 'omae' so many times in my life. He demanded that i apologize to his face, but i was in a different city. Then he called the church and talked to Kobayashi-shimai. then she called me. and i talked to her, told her the situation, and told her that the number he had given me had been that hashimoto-san who had called her earlier. and she was able to see that the numbers were completely different. apparently she talked to uekubo-san because he called us back and apologized for the way he acted. it was pretty cool to see the guy humble himself like that. i gained some respect for him and thanks to kobayashi-shimai, i guess everything worked out. but man that whole ordeal was a pain in the neck.

sometimes, i feel like the english translations of the japanese word i want to use are so lame. like 'pain in the neck.' what is that?

Then we can pretty much skip to sunday. We had church and it was the Takakura family's last week, so there was a bit of a farewell for them at church. Then after church, we had a farewell party for Sonomi before she goes back to BYU on tuesday. a bunch of the youth were there and it was good times.

So now its like The Takakura's are leaving, Sonomi is leaving, Usui is leaving, the sister area is getting closed so their leaving. everyone is leaving it seems. a bit sabishii.

love,

Elder Horton

enjoy the pictures

August 7th - part of Marcus's letter to Mom....answering the question what have you learned....

I’ve learned a lot about patience and dilligence and developing Christ like attributes.

I’ve had companions who have pushed me, stretched me, and annoyed me to no end.

Recently being a trainer with new missionaries who can’t speak japanese, ive been forced to rely on my own abilities, my own determination, and on the lord.

Theres a lot of things i could say about the mission. most of them arent super flowery and sweet, but i will say that every area and every companion that ive had has taught me something i needed to learn. i can already see how the mission will change my life and i still have 9 months left.

August 7th

Hello Hello,

Pretty fun week this week. it went by fast. We had my japanese 1st birthday and ate some delicious yaki-niku and timtam slammed which is always awesome. Also had a lesson with Yasuda-san to which Hashimoto-san (who is not a member) jointed. She has been investigating the church for like 6 years and knows more than most members, but she still has a lot of questions. theyre all just really hard or unrelated. so those lessons are always a blast. And then we had a new girl come to Eikaiwa and she was way cool and way nice and said she'd want to hear our message. We'll see if we can meet her some time this week. Eikaiwa has been a way good tool for finding in Ibaraki. Then we had zone conference where president Zinke and the assistants came and talked for a very long time about a lot of stuff. afterwards, we had an exchange with the zone leaders, and Elder Draper and I went out. It was way nice to have a companion who could speak japanese. we taught a whole bunch of lessons and found some new investigators. One of whom, named Uekubo, it seems gave us a misleading phone number. because when he gave it, i gave the number one ring and hung up so it was in the phone. Then later that night, i get a call from the number i stored as Uekubo, but it was a man by the name of Hashimoto. We had a conversation like this

me: hello is this uekubo?

him: no this is hashimoto

me: oh really? sorry i guess i have the wrong number...

him: what do you want?

me: ???? i think i have the wrong number. I thought this was Uekubo

him: I dont know Uekubo. what do you want?

me: .......i thought this was uekubo. Im a missionary. my name is horton.

him: where are you from?

me: ....texas.

him: what do you want?

me: I cant really talk right now..(it was past 10:30)

him: OK call me back when you have time.

me: ?????? ok ???

Im still way confused about the whole thing.

Then on saturday, we had a shogi party for Takatsuki's recent convert. it was way fun, but Usui was the only person i managed to beat. there were a lot of the old-timers from church who were way good.

Then finally at church a guy from vietnam came and he didnt understand japanese so we couldnt really talk to him. but we did our best.

the end

love,

Elder Horton