Merry Christmas from Japan! 27 Dec 2011

Ok, so this one is the real Christmas update … MERRY CHRISTMAS EVERYBODY!

So because this is the Christmas update, let's start with Wednesday!  Ok, so living outside of your area is really bothersome, and half the time we don't even make it back home until after 9:00pm, so on Tuesday we had some things come up and by the time we got all our planning done it was 9:50 or so and we still hadn't eaten anything yet.  As hungry as I was, I've learned my lesson a time or two to not eat just before you go to bed, but apparently Okada 長老 hasn't...... He made some spaghetti Tarako (tarako is fish paste and seaweed, pretty good, but not at 10:00 at night) and didn't even start eating until 10:15 or so.  I was beat and just went to sleep, but Okada finished eating first and then went to sleep.  I don't know if it was the fish paste at 10:00 the night before or what, but the next morning for Okada was spent mostly in the bathroom.  Most of the rest of that day was spent studying, fixing the area book, writing letters, or just trying to find something productive to do while Okada tried to sleep it off.  We ended up not being able to go to Eikaiwa that day (Always interesting trying to do an English Conversation class without an English speaker..... )  and had to leave it up to the Sister Missionaries.  But hey, I got to learn a whole lot more Japanese medical terminology than I would have otherwise.

Thursday rolls around and Okada still isn't much feeling up to working, at least going out and doing stuff, which I guess was fine because that's our planning day.  We spent most of the day planning for the next week, and were able to get finished in time to help with the decorations for the Branch Christmas party on Friday.  A bit before that we got to go sing some Carols to one of our investigators which was way cool.  She has some problems with depression so whenever we get to see a smile on her face, well, it just makes it all worth it!  Okada 長老 ended up going to set up decorations in a flu mask (they really like to wear those here in Japan)  which just instilled a ton of confidence in the Members.  But we ended up getting most all of the church decorated which was really pretty.  We had garland and lights and gold and silver beads and it looked really Christmas-y.  A whole ton of the members came out to help, but really only 1 primary kid, so I got to hang out with him and he became my helper for the night.Decorating is a lot easier with someone handing you all the stuff!! 

Friday was the Christmas Party.  So, Okada 長老 was a bit sick right? And somehow the word got around that it was Noro Virus (that spreads super easy and is really not a fun little virus) so we had to go get a virus check to prove to everybody that he did not in fact have Noro.  This proved to be quite a bit more difficult than we had previously thought.  The 23rd is the Emperor's birthday so it's a national Holiday in Japan.  So naturally all of the hospitals and clinics were closed.  We spent a good couple of hours searching for somewhere that could do the checkup.  Luckily we heard from our Zone Leaders that the bishop in their ward was a doctor, so we gave him a call to see if there might be some way we could maybe visit the hospital where he works and maybe, if at all possible meet with a gastroenterologist(内科　naika [I like the Japanese word here better!].  When we called, we asked him what kind of medicine he practiced and wouldn't you know it, gastroenterology!  We got to talk to him over the phone and got it all cleared up so that we could go to the Christmas Party that night.

The Christmas party was awesome!  There were a ton of people there, and probably one of the most exciting things was that about half weren't even members!  We got to talk to a bunch of people, sing Christmas songs, have a bunch of delicious food and feel the spirit together as we all read Luke 2 together!  Christmas really is a special time of the year where we get to feel the love that just illuminates from Jesus Christ.  We feel it through our ties to our family, our relationships with our friends, from activities and events that focus us toward him.  There really is no other time like Christmas where it's just so easy to feel the spirit (even here in Japan where Christmas is just a time to spend with your boyfriend or girlfriend... New Years is the main Family holiday here in Japan).

Speaking of New Years.... It should be  something special here in Japan, it's really the biggest holiday of the year.  The most interesting thing though, is probably going to be trying to get any sort of missionary work done.  People come in from all over to spend time with their family, so about half of the people in Hiroshima right now don't actually live in Hiroshima, and the other half that's usually here are all out to visit their own family.  It's looking like we'll be lucky if we even have 20 people at Church on Sunday, everyone else is going out of town! 

But in the meantime it's been really successful lately here as far as finding people goes.  Before this week we haven't been having much success in at least finding anyone to talk to, much less teach, but so far this week we've got a new investigator and 2 strong potential investigators with families.  I don't think I've ever taught a family here in Japan, but if I could, man, that would just be amazing.  This message really is focused on the Family, and I've seen too many people go inactive here because of family pressure.... If only we can help them all realize the blessings that are waiting in store for the Family, that would just be the best. (And it wouldn't hurt to have at least someone in the young men’s program.....) And on Sunday we had two people kind of randomly show up for church!  I don't think I've ever seen that happen before but, man, Yasufuruichi is hitting its stride!

Well, sadly we didn't get to have the White Christmas I had hoped for (none of it actually stuck here but a bit north got it really bad!) but it was all good.  Packages from the Family, a sweet shirt, letters from my cousins!  Fun stuff for the holidays!  But just because Christmas is over that doesn't mean you can stop being thankful for something every day.  Here's my list for this week

December 21  Electronic Dictionaries that help translate when your companion doesn't really have to patience to explain it

December 22 Seeing Smiles on peoples' faces

December 23 Christmas Parties and member's friends who come to them!

December 24 Caroling and the Tanaka Special (potatoes, chicken, bell peppers, cheese, mayo, broccoli and a bunch of deliciousness!)  (We went caroling with this family all over their neighborhood!)

December 25 CHRISTMAS and international phone calls!!

December 26 College students with free time to talk!

December 27 Basketball with some cool kids!

December 28 District meetings that use Sudoku as an object lesson and a Branch President who randomly shows up at the restaurant all of the missionaries are eating at!

あけましておめでとう

HAPPY　NEW　YEAR

エベレット長老

Elder Everett

 PS: Just so you know, by the time you are finally celebrating New Years, I might be eating my third meal in 2012!

Merry Christmas to All!

MERRY CHRISTMAS!!  (I'm not sure how many times I can say it and it'll still be good …  Meh, every day is Christmas right?)

So, last week was a fun little time. We got our transfer announcement calls on Wednesday morning.  Transfer call day is a fun little day where the morning is filled with more phone calls on the mission phone bill than any other day.  Everyone calls everyone in their district to see where they are going, who's coming in, and everyone just wants to know what the heck is going on.  At this time it is very useful to have the District leader as your companion because, well, we actually have permission to make all the phone calls.  :D  So as far as our district goes, only one person transferred, and wouldn't you know it ... it wasn't me!  So now I'm here in Yasufuruichi until at least February 1!  And I'm even still with Okada長老 which is way fun!

So usually transfer day is just filled with packing and writing notes on the business cards that we all hand out; but when both stay, it just becomes another day of Dendo..... shoot, we didn't really know what to do with ourselves that day. We had lunch with this guy named Papa (well, really his name is Inoue but he insists that we call him Papa) which was delicious!  He's a way nice guy, but we just need to get him to start listening to our message, then it'll be the perfect situation! Eikaiwa was interesting, we had just a couple of people show up, I think only one of two of them realized it was transfer day, so it kind of just went over like nothing.  But, all 4 missionaries in Yasufuruichi stayed and things are starting to heat up here!

Now I say heat up, at least everyone's actions and activities are, but holy cow the weather is changing.  I thought this was supposed to be the warmest mission in Japan, but oh man, every night I’m in a hoodie and flannel!  Luckily we finally got a heater so the mornings aren't so bad but, man, bikes and cold? They are not the best of buddies.  However on Friday IT SNOWED!  I was so happy, I don't even care if it didn't stick; we got to Dendo in the snow!  I think Okada was just annoyed by it but, I rather enjoyed it. We'll just see what happens when we are going to have to start biking in it.  But it'll be warm!  This past Sunday all of the missionaries received hand-knit scarfs from the members and I have become a big fan of them!  Now if only missionaries could wear more hats, then I'd be good.  All I have right now is a Santa hat (surprisingly warmer than I thought it would be) but, something tells me that that isn't quite dendo appropriate.....

 Come Thursday and we get a phone call from the Sister missionaries asking for some Jell-O.  Okada and I were both like, "jello? why did you call us for jello?" Well, apparently Sister Miyagawa got a pretty bad case of the Nodo Virus (not a fun time for the stomach) and wanted something soft to eat.  By the time we met with them later that day with Jello, saltine crackers, ginger ale, and apple juice in hand it wasn't looking pretty.  Okada and I ended up giving her a priesthood blessing there, which is a way exciting thing to do in not your native language.  But it's all good now.  The Sisters were out of commission for a couple of days, but as of today they are all good! 

Friday (IN THE SNOW) we visited one of our less active part member families and got to talk to the son for a little bit.  He's our age and one of his hobbies is bowling!  Shoot, we just seem to be gathering a ton of people who are fans of bowling.  Smells like a bowling activity to me!  Next week’s district meeting got moved to Wednesday so we get to join Utsunomiya in his bowling league!

Saturday we were helping one of our members move when on the street we got stopped by this Woman.  She came up to us and was like "whoa, long time no see!"  (both Okada and I had no idea who she was) "Yeah, you guys came to my house right?" oh......we did...... I don't think Okada has a sense of faking it until you make it... she was convinced that I remembered her, but oh man, that was a bit embarrassing.  Hopefully she'll come to the Christmas party regardless of our mistake.... oops!

Sunday I had a very sweet opportunity.  One of our members called us asking if I could help her translate a letter for the Make a Wish Foundation of Japan.  I've never really had an experience translating for something like that, and it was way sweet to see how we get to help this kid make his wish come true!  Even if translating was kind of hectic!

Here we go for the thankful list for the week!

December 14: Not having to Move again

December 15: The Power of the Priesthood

December 16: SNOW

December 17: Meeting people randomly in the streets and have a good ability to fake it (it's not lying right?)

December 18: Being able to speak two languages

December 19: Nabe (a delicious soup from Japan) 

December 20: District Meetings and LETTERS (Thank you to all who’ve written me, I think I've sent most of the letters out.... I think.)

Merry Christmas to all!

Elder Everett

エベレット長老

It's CHRISTMAS! 13 Dec 2011

Hey there everybody!  So Okada and I are still in full force with our everyday Christmas thing going on.  I'm a fan of it, but it might be dying... so full force, maybe not so, but it's going!

Tuesday we had an appointment with one of the guys we found on a recent junkai (exchange) which was awesome.  We were talking to him for a little bit, getting to know him and asked him what some of his hobbies were and wouldn't you know it, his number one favorite thing to do is bowling!  Shoot, after that the conversation took a bowling route for like 15 minutes.  It was good though, we had a bunch that we could share and talk about (and I learned a bunch of Japanese bowling words, to boot).  He's actually a pretty good investigator; he has some really good questions that led to some great conversations.  Now we just need to get more people like that, that we can actually teach, that would just be awesome!

Later that day while we were doing some housing around a college we ran into this Chinese student that was super sweet.  She didn't seem really excited about the gospel aspect as far as the English class we offered, but was more than willing to refer her friends to us.  That's about the best response (well, probably the 2nd, but eh).  

I'm not sure what it is but Okada has been on a baking kick lately... we've made a bunch of cookies and pound cakes to give out to everybody.  I'm fine with it, baking's a way good way to do missionary work; I highly endorse it for everybody.  The cookies have been given out with an invitation to the branch Christmas party!  So far Okada and I have made it to maybe a quarter of our Less Actives here, granted a quarter is like 15 or 20 families  so, it’s a good number!

Thursday was a semi-weekly ping pong night which, sadly nobody came to again.... maybe next time people will come.  Maybe.  Friday we hit up the north a bit ( "north" more like a 40 minute bike ride up north, our actual north you have to take a train or a car or there is no way you're getting there)  and talked to a bunch of less active members that apparently haven't had any sort of contact in years from the church.  A bunch of them have just completely forgotten what it means to even be a part of the church.  It's really sad to see them just have no real direction in their lives and nothing that works as a focus for them.  The church gives us direction in our lives and really is there to help us make the decisions that we need to make in every day life.  We may not see it, but we are affected by what we have learned in every decision that we make.  And that's not a light, over-arching statement, it's really, actually true.

Our other activity as of late has been organizing our Area map and marking where everybody lives.  Have I told you have Hiroshima is a maze?  Well, finding houses is almost impossible if you have no prior vision beforehand.  So our goal has been to mark on our map where everyone lives and really getting it ready for everyone that may come after us.  It seems like a bunch of my mission lately has been directed to making it easier for the people that come after.  Maybe it's a good thing, we'll see.....

Oh, Saturday we finally got our Air conditioner!  (Well, it cools and heats, but in Japan the actual thing is called an aircon.... I'm a fan of not having 40 degree mornings anymore.  Sunday we had what could have been my last Sunday here in Yasufuruichi!  Tomorrow is transfer call day and I won't know until then if I'm staying or not.  This past transfer has been a flash, it feels like it just started and it's already over.  If I thought the MTC was a crazy time vortex, this field stuff is crazy!

Monday we had a zone p-day over at the Hiroshima Peace Park and Atomic bomb museum.  That's probably about the saddest museum I think I've ever been too, but it was way fascinating!  One of these days I'll send some pictures over if I can find a place that'll let me.  

Today for our last district meeting I somehow got the assignment to teach it!  We talked about Christ-like attributes and it was good ... I think.  We'll see how good it is if people actually keep the commitments I gave them: find what attribute you are lacking, study it, write your own personal definition for that attribute, and then do all you can to help develop it in your own life and in all that you do.  Those little attributes are so important and if you can master living by those, you’re set, man.

Hey, sorry this e-mail is a bit random and all out of sorts, I'm losing my grip on English and I couldn't tell you if any of this is grammatically correct or not.... oops. (note from Ben’s mom: I edit his emails to make the reading of them much easier!)

The EVERYDAY IS CHRISTMAS list for the week:

December 6th: Investigators who rather enjoy bowling

December 7th: The smell of pound cake coming from the oven

December 8th: listening to Christmas music as you study about the life of the Savior

December 9th: GLOVES

December 10th: AIRCONS!

December 11th: Church meetings that can make people cry and videos with the same power

December 12th: Peace

December 13th: PMG telling me how to conduct a district meeting.

Hey, have fun over there in, well, wherever you are!

MERRY CHRISTMAS!

クリスマスおべでとう！！

エベレット長老

Ｅｌｄｅｒ　Ｅｖｅｒｅｔｔ

Elder Benjamin Charles Everett

Japan Fukuoka Mission

9-16 Hirao-Josuimachi

Chuo-ku

Fukuoka-shi, Fukuoka

810-0229

Japan

Holy Cow, it's December! 5 Dec 2011

Happy December everyone!  Are the Christmas decorations coming up, are there toys in every store, a tree in the grand hotel, one in the park as well, (you know, the sturdy kind that doesn't mind the snow)?  Hiroshima is getting all ready for Christmas!  All around the Train station (eki 駅) we have a ton of Christmas lights and a cool little waterfall effect down the side of the Sheraton!  It's nice to have lights from something other than the Pachinko parlors. 

So, I think my theme for this week's e-mail is Miracles Happen, once in a while.... and it turns out that it's usually on Junkais (companionship exchanges).

So Tuesday we had missionaries from Hamada come over to work in Yasufuruichi.  (Normally for a Junkai you split up and have 2 work in each area but Hamada is about 2.5 hours away by bus so we kinda had to improvise)  I stayed with Bagley 長老　(from Utah) and Okada 長老 stayed with Thayne 長老 (He says he's from America but lived in Japan for 17 years and speaks Japanese better than most Japanese; English.... it's coming)  Elder Bagley and I had a list of Less active members that we wanted to visit that day.  The plan was to go to their house and see if we could meet them then try to contact the rest of the block, or at least most of the neighborhood.  So, in true Yasufuruichi fashion every Less Active member we went to visit either wasn't there or claimed that they had never even heard of the church.  So that was interesting, but in the act of finding them (Hiroshima is essentially a maze of streets (all of which have no names) and you have to kind of guess if you are in the right area)  we ended up teaching 2 other lessons and finding a new investigator.  That hasn't happened here this entire transfer.  We go 3.5 weeks without really being able to find anybody, and then on this one day the first house we went to we taught a lesson, the second one found a new investigator, and really, just set up Yasufuruichi to really start rolling! 

That was Tuesday; Wednesday became P-day because Monday we had Zone Conference.  It kind of just became Letter writing and eating (maybe some grocery shopping thrown in there too).  Which, I'm pretty fine with that type of day (maybe minus the letter writing, that's still probably my worst skill).  Later we had Eikaiwa which was a little bit smaller that day, but had several return students that I was pleasantly surprised to see there!  We now have at least one family coming regularly that aren't even members at all!  Speaking of Eikaiwa, this week we may have found at least 3 more Eikaiwa students (but I'll explain those later!)

Thursday was our planning day (as per every week) which kind of got pushed back due to some other various necessitated apartment woes that came up: namely the need for an Aircon (air conditioners in Japan do heating and cooling all together).  Mainly because it's cold here!  I've recently come to very much appreciate vests (even if they do seem a little silly "I'm cold, but only my torso")  and gloves and nice big ol' jackets!  To purchase an Aircon we received about $1000 or 10000円 which, may have been a little risky to give to two 20-year-olds in the middle of Japan... :)  Whatever, I'd much rather have warm nights and mornings than whatever else we could conceivably get.  That night we went out with the Branch President to visit less active members again, and again nobody was home.  So we just left some message cards from the previous conference and an invitation to our Branch Christmas party (which I really hope I get to go to... it's the week after transfers come so I still have no idea whether I'll actually be here or not to celebrate it with this awesome branch) We did get to meet with one of our part-member families and invited their son to the Basketball activity we had this past Saturday (!!!) I very much endorse basketball activity missionary work!

 

Friday came around and we spent the morning making cookies with the Sister missionaries in our ward for all of the members and less active members.  Surprisingly, the Sisters didn't have any cookie recipes so it kind of fell on the Elders to provide the recipe.  Essentially we made sugar cookies, but they kind of turned out more like vanilla wafers (no problem there).  That afternoon we had a junkai with Takasu.  This one we actually got to do the 'normal' way.  I ended up staying here with Mitton 長老 and Okada went to Takasu's area with Newman 長老.  That night we had one meeting with a less active at McDonalds (that was about the only place we could meet her) which is a rather weird setting for a lesson.  She seemed to enjoy it though (and she said she'd come to the Christmas Party!)

Then on Saturday we had our basketball activity! It's a good thing we had Mitton 長老 there because he is about 6'4" and that's quite the advantage in Japan.  We had 2 people come from the branch, 2 non-members come from families in the ward, and we met like 15 other new people at the gym!  When we got there, there were two Japanese kids playing Basketball, just practicing with one another.  Mitton and I go to get changed and come back and the two kids are talking in English to each other.  Over on the other side were a group of 5 or so Chinese men, and they were also all speaking English to each other (every once in a while, mainly Chinese)  I was not expecting to be in a room full of English speakers for the Basketball activity!  We ended up playing with all of them full court.  The two kids go to an American school here in Hiroshima and prefer English to Japanese, and the Chinese guys all live around here and are on local basketball circuit as a team.  So we had a blast playing with all of them, just chatting like normal and getting them all way interested in coming to Eikaiwa! 

One of the kids, Shin, is essentially a native speaker and lives very close to the church!  He said that he's look at coming to Eikaiwa whenever he can and that he would definitely give us a call whenever he wanted to learn some Basketball or just hang out with the Gaijijns (foreigners).  He's probably about one of the coolest kids I've met here, and his friend was awesome too.  Shoot, if we can set up a good relationship with those two, maybe get their families in, this would be one awesome contact!  I'm a fan of Basketball Dendo (mission work).

Well, time is kind of expiring, so I'll close with my list of things I'm grateful for so far this Month:

December 1: Having people to plan for finally in our Planning Session

December 2: The opportunity to make Cookies and listen to Christmas Music

December 3: Basketball!

December 4: Japanese/English Dictionaries that let me know what's happening in Sunday School

December 5: E-mails!

I hope your lists are growing and that you all can see just a little bit more how good life really is!

20 Days til Christmas … do you know where you family is?

Elder Everett

エベレット長老

28 Nov 2011 - Happy Thanksgiving or Merry Christmas!

Who can believe that November is already over!  How did this one happen?  Time is going by way too fast. (To all of you whom I've written letters to but haven't sent yet... sorry.  I think I have some letters now that have been sitting unsent for 3 months now...... the weird thing is that if feels like I wrote them yesterday.....ごめん) 

 

So, this was a week, man what a week!  So the big activity that we had planned for Wednesday was a stake-wide day of service for everyone in Hiroshima and the surrounding area.  Here in Yasufuruichi we got together at 10 in the morning to pick up trash around the church building and the surrounding parks and train station.  We had a really good turnout with somewhere around 15 people attending (that's a good number from our little branch) and had a great time cleaning up the area.  It looks way nice now and we were able to start several conversations getting asked why in the world we were picking up trash on a holiday.  (November 23 is a Holiday in Japan, not really sure what for, though, but people had the day off)  We ended up picking up 3 rather large trash bags full of various trash and other items which surprised most everybody because Japan is a pretty clean place, but the Branch President, Brother Schrubb and I found a little ditch off the beaten path that was just full of trash!  I'm pretty sure we won the trashy contest.

 

After the service activity everyone had Hot Cocoa and snacks before we all left.  We had another special fireside later that day at 4 that the missionaries were told that we couldn't arrive before 4 on the dot.  We've been expecting this fireside for a couple of weeks now and were told to invite several missionaries around our area and to come hungry and no earlier than 4.  Well, that gave us about 3 hours to do missionary work in between, so off we went.  We managed to finally meet one of our less active members that we haven't been able to meet with in several weeks.  She's a recent convert but is struggling with coming to church.  But the amazing thing is that as she had been studying recently (she just graduated from a computer school)  she's found peace and better study skills from reading the Book of Mormon.  So that gave us hope, now if we can just get her to pray and come to church, then she'll really be set for whatever comes her way! 

 

After that we were walking around a different part of town and decided to randomly visit one of the Sister's investigators.  (Ever since the sister missionaries came here we split up the investigators so that they have all of the women and we have all of the men, we previously only had women investigators so that kinda of left us with nothing.......oops)  She had been one that Beckstrand 長老 and I had been working with and had just started coming to church.  When we visited her I immediately realized why we were led to visit her at that time.  Her hands were shaking and she could hardly open the door, she apparently hadn't been sleeping for the past couple of days and was just feeling like everything around her was sinking and that she couldn't do anything.  She had no idea what was wrong with her but was visibly relieved to see the missionaries at her doorstep.  We taught her about the power of the priesthood and priesthood blessings and we ended up giving her a blessing right there on her doorstep.  I don't know if I've ever been so scared to pray in my life.  She was in a time of need and had full faith that whatever I would bless her with would happen.  I don't think anything can make a prayer better than when you’re scared out of your wits.  Well, scared isn't the right word... it's more of a full desire and hope that you won't mess up, because it's someone's life and well-being in the balance, and you’re the only one that can ease their burden.  I don't recall ever praying as earnestly as I did at that time, and the look of gratitude and peace that came over her, even now I can recall the moment clearly. The priesthood is real my friends.  There's no doubt about it, just let it into your life, you're the only that can control that.

 

Those two visits ended up taking a lot more time than we thought and it was about 3:00 by the time we were done, and we still had to make it back to the train station to show the other Missionaries the way to the church.  We were about a 40 minute walk from the church, so we booked it over there.  By the time all of the missionaries arrived (we had 10 missionaries and a recent convert from another ward) and we were all still confused about the mystery fireside.  We brought them all up to the church building (it's really just the second floor of an apartment building so people who don't know where it is never can find it) and walked in to a church that was just completely dark with the curtains closed.  That was a little weird.  I walked in leading the other missionaries and peeked around the curtain. (apparently I was supposed to just turn on the lights but, I didn't know that.... oops) I was quickly informed to open the curtain all the way and revealed to all the waiting, anxious missionaries that surprise from the Yasufuruichi Members. 

 

There was a long table in the middle of the room decorated with everything Autumn you could find in Japan, a table full of food from a full turkey, stuffing, gravy, mashed potatoes, corn, yams, Bean Salad, breads (oh man, I love Japanese bread) and everything you think of when you think Thanksgiving dinner.  These Japanese members had created a real American Thanksgiving feast for the missionaries!  Before that day I had been wondering what in the world Okada and I were going to do for Thanksgiving because we had no plan, and hardly any food.  I'm not going to lie, when I saw the table, the food, and everyone in the ward lined up to wish us a happy thanksgiving.... I cried a bit.  Their love, their appreciation, it filled the room and everyone, everyone was visibly touched.  The members served us as we ate and had made individual name plates for each of us.  We went around the room and everyone shared something that they were grateful for, and the prevalent theme, beyond friends and family, were feelings of gratitude and thanks for the work of the missionaries.  It just kind of hit me again like a sack full of bricks.  I'm a missionary.  We give love and service all the time without expecting anything in return, but when it does, when that love comes back, when all your hard work and sacrifice come to something.....the feeling is indescribable.  Joy is the closest I can come.

 

I LOVE BEING ON A MISSION! I love serving the people, I love everything they do, I love the language, the culture, the work, the ups, the downs, the time to improve, the growth in other people, the blessings of the Lord poured out over everybody.  It's the best.  To anyone that's toying around with going on a mission, wondering if it's the right road for you, just do it.  That's all I can say, just do it.  Shoot, it's going to be hard, but is anything thing in life really worth it if it didn't take at least a little effort to get there? And how much more sweet the joy the harder the work is!  Every day Thanksgiving! (at least until the 1st, then it kind of turns to Christmas)

 

That didn't even end the day!  We still had eikaiwa (English class) after that and our small little class of 5 people from a couple of weeks ago has grown to 28 people, and is roaring beyond what any of us could have imagined!  That was just one day, and man, what a day it was! 

 

Friday we had thanksgiving dinner again (all the food provided by the parents!!)  When making the dinner I turned on our only Christmas CD in the apartment (a collection from the London Symphony Orchestra) and was kinda of in my own little world for the next little while.  Who knew that I would enjoy making a green bean casserole so much?  Okada and I have been having a thanksgiving mood just about every day which has been so easy now.  Sunday was the Primary presentation in Yasufuruichi; which was awesome with the 3 primary kids and 3 sunbeams and nursery kids doing their program at church.  Man, kids are the best.  Then that night we met with the Mission President for interviews before the Zone Conference that was on Monday (which was amazing).  It's crazy, days will go by where it feel like nothing is happening, but looking back and seeing all the blessings over flow, it lets you know that those hard days really aren't so hard, after all.  There is always something that you can find to be grateful for.  So that'll be my challenge to each of you for this Christmas season:  Find something that you are grateful for each and every day.  It doesn't matter if it's finding a penny, you favorite movie, family, books, comfort, anything that you can think of, write it down and see what happens these 25 days of Christmas!

 

I love you all (sorry for the super long e-mail this time) and good luck!

Elder Everett

エベレット長老