WEEK 8

Ok.

so.

I guess ill start from when i left emails last week.

we went shopping and didnt buy enough food so we havent been eating much lately, but after that we headed over to himeji and met the elder who replaced elder jackson. elder burhoe or something. but hes way cool and a really good missionary. his japanese is really dang good for a missionary on his sixth transfer. finally i have someone i can set a goal to surpass and not feel like im going to easy on myself. but yeah we went to some art gallery thing and it cost like 800yen and wasnt even that great. there were like 3 pictures that i really liked. the rest of them were boring or of naked women. but white handbook says art museums are cool so who am i to argue. but i blew a bunch of money and so now we have none. so this week i think the plan is for them to come here and we're gonna go to the church and watch church dvds, write letters(not me i dont have any letters to write), and play ping pong(churches here have ping pong tables). so that should be a fun Pday. then after that i have a comp exchange with the Zone leaders. ill be dendoing with Oshiro長老　which is going to be way tight. He was the first person I dendo'd with when i first got to japan and was still in the mission home.

recently, we've been playing shogi (basically japanese chess but different) when we get the chance to. the first time i played was against elder escalante and i won pretty hard. then we played again another day and he was playing much harder and i was getting a little owned but then he let down his guard and i snuck in for the checkmate or whatever its called in japanese. haha he was way mad.

But yeah last week was good. we had a comp exchange with Himeji and Kobe長老 got to work in Kakogawa and we had a really good time despite not being able to speak english. we tryed visiting rosario but she was yelling in spanish at something so we got scared and decided to go try something else. then that night we played shogi and i thought for sure i was going to lose since kobe長老 is nihonjin and all, and i was off to a rough start but i was able to turn it around for the win. long story short, i really like shogi and im currently 3 and 0.

So last week was good. we worked hard and we found 5 new investigators. how many of them will progress, I dont know. but considering I only found 1 investigator in the 6 weeks with bennion, i think its a pretty good start. Things are still moving a little slow in terms of how many lessons we're teaching, but hopefully that will get turned around in the near future. I think I'll call that good for this week.

元気で

Love,

Elder Horton

ホートン長老

ps, shout out to abe who has been added to the list of recipiants. sorry you missed all the good ones. its down hill from here.

お前は僕の将棋技量について分からないよ。

kakogawa week 7

yeah yeah so last week was pretty good pretty good. elder bennion and I pretty much did nothing for the rest of the time he was here. which was lame. but we got transfer calls on tuesday and he was off to senboku so he had to pack and being the kind of wonderful person he is, it took him 2 days. But on Wednesday we went to meet with Marion, and Rosario, and Dennis in some park in east kakogawa to give marion a Liahona for her to learn about modern day prophets. so we did that. while they were talking about boring stuff in japanese that was too much effort to understand, i went off and ran around with Dennis and it was super fun. that kid is super genki. but i also built relationship with Rosario and Marion which was good since elder bennion was leaving and because i have a sneaking suspition Rosario hated me (her japanese is pretty bad so its harder than the average nihonjin to understand but on the phone im pretty sure i heard her say "Horton" "kirai" "korosu" in the same sentance. which translate to "Horton" "hate" "kill." 90% sure.) so yeah that was good times. then the next day was transfers! my new companion is an Elder Escalante. He's half mexican, quarter philipino, quarter british and hes from california. He is a way cool guy and im excited to be working with him. I like his style of dendo a lot. the first day working with him, we found 3 new potential investigators, 2 of them that actually had potential. then the next day we found a new investigator who asked us to proof read some english paper he had written. it wasnt super good by an english native's standards but for a nihonjin, it was pretty dang good. he wanted to buy us lunch but we got him to agree to go to church instead. he seems like a cool kid and i hope we get to teach him more soon.

Something else that helps escalante 長老　get along is that we actually have some stuff in common. and i can give you a hint, it isnt music or vidya games. he also plays a pretty mean game of chess. i actually thought i was going to lose for a good portion of the game, but of course i didnt actually. anyways, it should be a good transfer. i think we can do a lot for Kakogawa and the ward here. im looking forward to it. though one problem is that neither of us really cook so i actually had to cook a meal for the first time and it was a little rough. we'll probly eat a lot of ramen this transfer. which im fine with. ramen + egg + tabasco sause = crazy delicious. I also had Pocky for the first time which is super awesome and which completes my list of memorable food items i have seen from anime. woo!

but yeah i guess thats about it for this week. today we're going to try to head up to himeji to try and see this art exhibit one more time, since its usually closed on mondays. but other than that, i dont really know whats going to be happening this week.

oh also last night, an old man started speaking english to us, which happens pretty often for some reason. but he didnt know much more than "hello" "how are you" "where are you from?" the usual. but when we asked him what he was doing, he said it was embarrassing, but a rough translation would be "the way that girls move." so yeah he was a really creepy old man it turned out. Im not sure why escalante長老 gave him a flier with a map to the church haha but he wont come. not sure why i just told that story. i guess ill leave it at that.

love you all,

Elder Horton

愛しているよ、

ホートン長老 より

前の趣味について考えば考えるほどに痛い世。　　←-難しいのだ。

Week 6

OK SO. I havent gotten a new companion yet but we talked to president about the whole situation with our investigator and he said he was going to transfer Elder Bennion. so in all likely-hood, Ill have a new companion on thursday that ill get to tell about. hopefully hes super awesome and cool like me so he doesnt make me look bad. other business, ive forgotten to mention Katie's birthday for several emails now. so happy late birthday katie. Ill probly forget about Dad's. i always do.

but yeah so last week after emailing, I went and got my hair cut and boy was that super fun. The lady comes up and asks me what i want. so i tell her "mijikakute futsu ni shite kudasai." which might be a little bit of an awkward way to say it, but it should have gotten the meaning of "please make it normal and short." but she apparently cant do that so she hands me a magazine and im looking through and just laughing because its full of really crazy asian hair styles that my hair couldnt possibly do. but then she shows me one that looks reasonable and i tell her that one should be fine but id like it shorter than that. some other miscommunications occured and to make a long story short, my hair didnt get much shorter but is now slightly asian hair. and im going to have to get it cut again in like 2 weeks. woo!

After that, we tried to meet up with the Himeji elders to see if we could go to some art museum by the castle but it was closed so we just hung out. we might try to go again today. but idk. taking that many trains back and forth starts getting expensive.

then tuesday, we had Eikaiwa! (english conversation class for our slow readers). and we got another crazy person to come! while we were handing out our awesome tissues with fliers in them, he came up to us and asked for one. which is a sure sign of him being crazy. but yeah so we had a class with 3 crazy people! it was super fun. and on his information sheet we have them fill out, he said he wants to learn more about the "honly bible" so we might tell him we want to teach him more about the honley bible and make him into a crazy investigator! oh man eikaiwa is really funny when you try to get the whole class to do a tounge twister at once. they arent the most difficult, but i have to focus to do them right. our students just SLAUGHTER them, oh man oh man its hilarious.

but yeah then thursday, we had Zone conference which was super fun and educational. I got to hang out with Elder Wilcox and Gardner from the MTC and it was good to catch up with them. After Zone conference, we did another exchange. this time i was with Mcguire長老 in kakogawa. we worked really hard on friday and actually found a new investigator! which is really the first time thats happened all of this transfer so i was excited. we set up an appointment to meen on sunday at the church and got his phone number, but then he didnt actually show up. i was pretty bummed but i guess thats just life. we'll call him to see if he wants to meet again this week.

but McGuire長老 and i did bump into a less active member that we have been wanting to contact for a while but didnt know how. it turns out he had been in the hospital for like 2 months and now he didnt have a place to live and had been living in a park. we told him to talk to the bishop and gave him some food we had lying around. so we're heroes.

but thats where ill leave it at for my week. just got to say i hope Rosario姉妹 gets less crazy after Elder Bennion leaves. she is an odd one. she always calls me harry potter. and she said president was just like aladin. i have no idea why

but yeah

Elder Horton

ホートン長老

oh yeah where are my ancestors from? people always ask probly because of my red hair and im sick of not knowing what to tell them.

好き

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。

Kakogawa week 4

Yeah so another week down. The Zoo was lots of fun. It was elder bennion and me and elder Kobe and Elder Jackson there and we had good times. it was actually a pretty ghetto zoo. we were super close up to all the animals. i could have touched the polar bears if i wanted to. i think ill send some pictures of that.

Since Elder Bennion is district leader, we're going to be going on lots of exchanges with other companionships. we went on two this last week and we're going on two more this next week. This week I spent a day hanging out in Himeji again with Elder Kobe. For a nihonjin who is only on his 3rd transfer, he actually has pretty good english. but its nowhere near good enough to hold a conversation or even express too many thoughts. So i spent that whole time speaking only japanese with him. I think he speaks a little slower to make it easier for me but for the most part we were able to communicate well enough. even had some fun conversations. And with him on that exchange, we did service at this basilian resturant. and they hooked us up with some free basilian food for breakfast. it was super greasy and i almost threw up because they gave us so much but i managed. In America i would have thrown half my sandwich away but here, everyone always finishes all the food theyre given. so i just go with the crowd but it hurts sometimes. But that was the first time i had basilian food other than when pedros mom made random weird things. then on thursday after district meeting, i had sushi for the first time. it was weird but i didnt hate it. its something i could get used to. i imagine it wont be the last time i have it. then i went on an exchange with Elder neider who is one of our zone leaders and we did some good dendoing. we get stuck inside this crazy guys house for like 2 hours. he had tons of questions but wasnt interested at all. it was a not good time. Then saturday, our ward had an "outreach" activity. which was basically just a few games and a talent show. i didnt do anything for the talent show because i dont have any missionary-appropriate talents. But we did provide one of the games. which was basically just a scavenger hunt in english that might be too easy to give a 5-year-old american kid but they had a blast with it. so that was good. and we had our investigator, Marione, there so she got to get to know the ward members better. which was good. well ima wrap this up now.

till next week

Love,

Elder Horton

これは意味がない。

Week Three- in Himeji

I say Kakogawa week 3 but i really spent a good part of the week in Himeji. which was pretty legit. the elders there are cool guys even though talking to elder kobe is difficult since english is pretty むりmuri for him. I took some pictures of the castle from a distance but I'm going to the zoo there right after we're done emailing and shopping and apparently the zoo is right next to the castle so ill get some better ones today and send those next week or some time. Im going to try and send some other pictures though. three are the view from our balcony. then the other two are from when we went to go and try to dendo at this seaside park place but there was supposed to be a typhoon or something so nobody was there. nobody told us about the typhoon but the weather was nice enough to take some pictures.

So yeah last week. On monday, as we were emailing, Elder Bennion got dear John'd. so he was pretty depressed that day and we didnt get much dendoing done. i spent most of the day listening him talk about his feelings. it was really special. then the next day for english class, nobody showed up again besides a different crazy lady this time. though the other one showed up again after we finished. so basically only crazy ladies come to our eikaiwa. woo! then wednesday through friday i was in Himeji. which was crazy hot. really really hot. i sweat through my planner. which is probly a solid 60 pages. But we did get to meet with this awesome brother who played professional soccer from nigeria. his name is Justice. so yeah we call him justice-kyoudai. but in english it would be Brother Justice. Sick right? well his name is actually really ironic because he spent 7 years in jail for a crime he didnt commit. basically they knew a black person did it, and Jusitice-kyoudai is black so he got charged with it. there arent many black people in japan. But yeah Justice-kyoudai is one of the coolest people ive ever met. The whole time in prison he read the scriptures, especially stuff about forgiveness and the stuff about when joseph smith was in jail and god talks about that. D&C 122 or something. but yeah he has a really cool nigerian accent that was really hard to understand even though we were both speaking english. but yeah hes just about the nicest guy ive met. really glad i had a chance to do so. other than that we didnt do anything epecially awesome in himeji other than walking around the giant shotengai (kind of outdoor shopping malls), though when we were housing over there they got a new investigator who talked to us for 2 solid hours before we were about to give her our message and get out of there. she was nice but talked a TON. oh yeah and for a bike in Himeji, they borrowed a mamochatti(sp?) which is a super japanese bike that lots of people here like for some reason. old grandmas especially. so i was cruisin with my mamochatti and was super legit. i miss my mamochatti-chan. But yeah thats all i can think of for now i guess. not much happened this week since we werent in kakogawa. ill write next week a bit about the zoo and all my adventures there maybe. hope everyone is still genki in the states

love

elder horton

ホートン長老

僕は男らしすぎる。

Second Week

Lets see, what happened last week... Well i was able to get my electionic dictionary for a bargain. it was marked down from 13000 to 7900 yen. I got a canon WORDTANK c36. I didnt know much about it but with a name like that, how could have have refused? but im still in need of a name for my wordtank. and my bike for that matter. elder bennion's bike is shadowfaux so i have to get one cooler than that which a thinker. but yeah so i expect everyone to send in suggestions. my bike is some sort of olive green(or brown if youre preston) and my wordtank is silver.

then on tuesday we had our eikaiwa (english conversation class) but nobody except araki kyoudai, his fanny pack, and his wife showed up. atleast until the end when michiko showed up when we had 10 minutes left. she is completely out of her mind though so she definitely doesnt count. i dont need to speak japanese to know she is crazy. but yeah we're going to have to work on getting more people to eikaiwa. from what i hear there are areas where they get lik 20-30 people every week. so i guess kakogawa just kind of struggles there. hopefully ill eventually get to work somewhere with a decent program.

we met with tanaka-san on wednesday. i dont really know what went on or what we talked about but i had to sit on the floor for like an hour and a half and my legs really hurt. hopefully i can start picking up more of what is being said when people are rambling for extended periods of time. because it happens a lot when youre with araki-kyoudai. lets see. thursday we had district meeting in himeji and i got to ride the train. it was sweet. i ate indian food for the first time it was weird. i even got to see himeji castle from a distance which is being renovated right now and Elder Kobe said its going to take 50 years if i understood his japanese right. but its still an incredible sight. And actually, Elder Bennion has some sort of leader training so he is going to be gone for three days for that. (our zone leaders decided Elder wilcox and i couldnt have handled dendoing by ourselves for three days since we're both beans but i got to go out with him for an hour on friday and i think we could have handled it.) im going to be spending three days in a threesome with the elders in himeji. maybe ill get to see the castle better. guess ill have that to write about next week.

We also got to meet with Marione-chan this week. she still doesnt understand a lot of stuff, but shes keeping her commitments and trying to understand so im happy. also she wants to learn english so elder bennion and i have been teaching her english while she teaches me japanese and elder bennion wants to learn spanish for some reason so she is teaching him that. though i wish she would come to eikaiwa

So yeah i feel like im starting to get into the swing of things. its hard work and usually not a lot of fun. and im still working hard to learn the language, but i think im getting there.

hope everyone's genki in the states.

Love,

Elder Horton

ホートン長老より

僕はカルピスが大好きだ。　なぜアメリカでカルピスがないか全然分からないよ。