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