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.

Still inTsuyama

So I have a new companion right now! And who could it be other than my good friend from the MTC, Elder Warner! We were in the same district in the MTC so its just like old times. He went to the Tokyo mission though so we never would have thought we could work with each other but then there was this big earthquake and stuff and to make a long story short, he's hanging out with me in Tsuyama. So we were getting ready for this already shorted transfer due to the week long delay, but then last night, we got a call from the Zone leaders who informed us that the Tokyo missionaries are going back at some point before the transfer ends. So apparently my time with Elder Warner will be cut a bit short, and i dont know what will happen with Tsuyama when he leaves but for the time being, im excited to be working with him.

Elder Warner and I were able to have some pretty good lessons this week after sending Elder Nuttall off. One with this High schooler we found a few weeks ago by the name of Maeda. He's 16 and is interested in Christianity but he lives with his grandparents who are very strong Bhuddists who would throw a Book of Mormon or any pamplets they found away. So he didn't take a book of mormon. And basically he says that he wants to convert to christianity when he is an adult but until then, its impossible. a bit of a bummer.

Then we had a lesson with Sakamoto-san. We decided to review lesson 1 because we don't think he understood it at all. Normally during the lessons, he just sits there and listens and doesnt get involved at all, but this time we would ask questions to see if he understood at all and he didnt like that. He got angry and ended the lesson. Basically, he doesnt have any real intention on changing anything about his life despite how unhappy he is with it. Its sad but thats the case with a lot of the people you talk to. So at first that was a bit of a bummer but really, we were wasting time with him anyways.

Then Yesterday we had church and I gave my third talk of my time in Tsuyama. this one about the importance of preparation. I shared the story of the ten virgins and then busted out Alma 41:5-8 where it talks about the endless night of darkness and choosing good in this life and whatnot and tied it all in. I thought it went pretty well. And our branch was unusually genki. Then we had a lesson with Kajioka, another investigator from a while back. He's heard all the lessons but has struggles with faith, so we read Alma 32 with him. He's a really deep thinker and fun investigator to teach so I think he'll like that chapter as he studies it in more detail.

So Sunday was a good day. Its because i was wearing my lucky tie.

But yeah this week should be cool. we have an exchange with the traveling Assistants to the president so we should be able to learn a lot.

So thats life at the moment. hope everyone's doing alright in the States!

Love,

Elder Horton

 

Tsuyama week 13-last week in Tsuyama

View from my apartment

From the sounds of it we will be getting calls about transfers tomorrow morning. So hopefully something cool will be going down. we'll see.

Last week was pretty cool. we finally got to finish conference, which was legit. There were some way good talks that you all heard like a month ago.

And we had a lesson with Jotani-san who has been an investigator for some-odd 2 years or so. He was actually found by my sensei at the MTC, Bishoff-sensei. but anyways, he has been an investigator for a really long time now, but for the most part he hasnt been able to grasp much about the importance of our message or anything like that. But During our lesson, we talked a lot about the after life and about how it relates to us and our ancestors and what kinds of things we do for our ancestors. He, being a bhuddist and a Japanese man, was able to relate to that pretty well. He wanted to meet with us again the next day and seemed pretty anxious to read whatever we assigned him. So we assigned Alma 34 (because its awesome and my companion thought it talked more about the spirit world than it did) and we ended up teaching him about the Atonement the next day. I think he is finally starting to understand! its nice to have a progressing investigator.

I'm sure we did some other things throughout the week but i changed my planner out and i dont remember what they were. Probably lots of knocking on doors in addition to the things we do on a weekly basis.

Hope everyone is doing well. I heard from emails that easter is this next weekend. i had no idea. also when's mother's day?

love,

Elder Horton

Pictures

I got a new camera in the package from home, so i had to take some pictures to try it out. nothing fancy just stuff near our apartment

panoramic(looklolilol)

Tsuyama week 12

Last week for our Family home evening with the lonely single adults of Tsuyama branch, I taught them all that stick game i learned from Katie like 10 years ago that i'm super ridiculously good at. it looks like this:
l
l l
l l l
l l l l
l l l l l
kind of.
When i was planning it out in my head, i was like, "Ok, ill go easy on them and let them win a few times." but that didnt work out at all. I ended up just DESTROYING everyone over and over and i couldnt stop! haha but they played against eachother and i think they all had fun. i even taught them a secret or two and now they're pretty good. but yeah it was fun.
we had interviews with president, which went well i suppose. There are pictures on the mission blog from that. we got easter cookies which were wayy delicious. set up an appointment with a previous investigator, Yamamoto Yumie, who seems way nice from the phone call i had with her. we should be meeting this thursday. and we had a lesson with Sakamoto-san who talked to us about faith and turned out to be pretty good. he still isnt progressing very quickly, but he'll get there eventually.
we also had a lesson with Jotani-san which our ward mission leader attended. we started out with a pretty simple review of lesson 1, the restoration, but half way through, our mission leader, took over the whole thing and taught Jotani lesson 1, 2 and parts of lesson 3 all in about 20 minutes. So that was a bit of a mess. He doesnt think we have any idea how to teach which is pretty obvious by the the fact that he is always trying to give us training. its quite frustrating. So this next week, We'll be cleaning up that mess with Jotani-san. Saturday, we were supposed to watch General conference at the church in english in a separate room from everyone. thats what our branch prez told us anyways. but we get there and theres only one TV and they were watching it in Japanese. We didnt want to watch in Japanese partly because its much cooler to hear their real voices and partly because its really hard to be understanding japanese like that for 6 hours. So we decided to go out and Dendo that day and we still have to watch all the saturday stuff from Conference at some point this week. We went to Okayama on sunday so we hear the sunday sessions. Really liked Richard G Scott's talk.
As for transfers, its looking like they've been cancelled for this week because of earthquake related difficulties. we might be having them next week or we might not be having them at all. if we dont have them, ill be with elder nuttall for a third transfer. Please pray that we have them!
We also got the chance this week to go see the Sakura trees with Jotani-san and i took a picture or two, so I'll send those.
hope everyone is genki!
love,
Elder Horton

Cookies from Sister McIntyre at Interviews

Tsuyama 11

There are no pictures because Marc's camera is broken and He is waiting to get one in the mail!

This week. Last sunday, a bird pooped on my bike seat. and on monday we played monopoly at our single adults family home evening. the monopoly set at the church is anime themed so its extra exciting. plus i get to learn the japanese words for property and monopoly etc. Tuesday I had another companion exchange with Elder Lee which was fun and i learned a lot. He's a really good missionary and i always pick up some good tricks from working with him. Then Wednesday we did our reading activity and we read that book about that lazy mouse named fredrick who was a poet and he didnt even know it. I forget the title. Thursday, we got haircuts at the hair salon located directly under our apartment. The guy who does them is a previous investigator and is really freaking cool. afterwards we read Ether 12:27 together and i told him he should read Alma 34 because its awesome. Plus I got probably the best haircut I've ever gotten (no offense mom) for a fraction of the price he usually takes! I was happy. Friday, we had a really good district meeting and practiced teaching. Saturday we had a lesson with Sakamoto-san and we taught him the word of wisdom and read out of Mosiah 4. He wouldnt commit to keeping the word of wisdom probably because he doesn't have a real testimony in God so we'll keep working on that. Then this sunday, I fasted a little bit too hard and lost the ability to do just about anything so after church, i was recovering in the apartment. I went to Okayama 3 times this last week, which takes about 3 hours there and back so I actually spent a lot of time on trains. Which is fine because who doesnt like trains? And the rest of our time was pretty much spent knocking on doors. So we're keeping busy.
Soon the Sakura should be blooming. they're apparently a little slow this year, But the Japanese really love their Sakura trees. Everyone just gets a little happier this time of year. I'm excited to see them.
Yay!
Love,
Elder Horton