February 2, 2014

Somehow this transfer has been really short.  I feel like I can't already have been here five weeks, but at the same time we haven't seen much of a change in Iizuka.  We haven't found any investigators or really changed any less-actives, but somehow it has been really fun.  I have learned a ton, about people about teaching, about myself.  But I have also realized that being diligent is a personal choice.  I realized that I really need to be dilligent of my own accord and not rely on the fire of others.  By being senior comp I realized the amount of affect I can have on our companionship.  So I have realized I really need to motivate myself or else nothing gets done.  Which is really hard because I am really lazy.  But as I realized yesterday I am probably the hardest working lazy person ever, so if I can just give myself a motivation I will be happy in the work. 

But it sounds like LA is really fun.  I don't understand any of the photos at all, you will have to explain them.  But they are all really cool.  Have fun with Kristin, say hi for me. I got your package on Friday.  I loved it, thanks.  But unfortunately I am out of peanut butter again.  So I have assembled the perfect package list that you can send anytime you feel like I need a package. 

• one cheeze-it bag
• three of those awesome peanut butter jars
• a bag of Homemade cookies
• one box of graham crackers

Keep sane, don't stress, love ya,

Iain

January 26, 2014

I loved the Bday presents. They're way fun.  I am so excited to have a small set of scriptures to meet with members and stuff like that.  They were way cooler than I thought they would be.  The cover is awesome.  I recently got a small Japanese triple comb. from honbu (Fukuoka) and I have been marking that up, so now I will have a marked up in both languages.  Used actually honbu Sunday when I was told during our meeting with the Branch Pres. that I was expected to give a talk today (yesterday).  Obviously I was scrambling to prepare something during Priesthood and Sunday School.  But in the end I didn't give anything I had prepared to.  I just talked about faith and miracles.  I hope it went well, but I honestly have no idea.  My comp said it was good, but no one else commented, so I am kind of doubting him right now.  Was way funny opening up my presents.  I opened up the Batman stuff first and as I kept going I kept thinking, "Wyatt.. Wyatt... Wyatt... this is obviously Wyatt's doing".  I actually got the package on Thursday and opened it, but obviously waited until Sat to open my presents. 

So after an interesting B-day weekend I am finally back to the usually missionary life.  Actually nothing changed after my b-day, so I am still continuing my mission life.  But I love it.  So last week we spent a lot of time trying to see Potential Investigators who we had found previously.  However many of them were either not home or busy when we tried to contact them, so we still don't have any investigators.  Moral of the story is, we are still spending a lot of time housing.  We have some plans to meet with members and less-actives so we will keep working on that and inspiring the members that Iizuka is not a dead area (although it's really hard sometimes).  The ward hasn't experienced a baptism in a year and a half or so and the most recent convert is less-active right now, so essentially if we can't change something soon, Iizuka is just going to shrink (all the members are already old right now).  Keep working though. 

Still haven't found a good curry shop, but we've gone out for sushi a couple times (something we never did on Amami).  Zone conference is next transfer, but we do get to see an Elder from the 70's come speak to our zone sometime next month.  Other than that, nothing particularly exciting. 

I love you all and hope you have a good week too.  Take care. 

RHM, Bromine, Iain, Elder Lee Choro

January 19, 2014

I have found out quickly that Izuka is definitely harder than Amami was.  People here are not as kind and we have found many fewer people that will listen.  That being said, it has been proved to me once again this week that Heavenly Father does not forget when you are spending a lot of time in His service.  When you are diligent and use your time wisely, even when it seems a waste of time, He will bless you.  We found a man this week named kawabata san.  He had met with missionaries about ten years ago but for some reason stopped.  We haven"t figured out why yet, but he said he was even coming to church.  For some reason he didn't want to receive baptism though.  It seems like a faith problem.  He also is a big smoker and loves coffee (no surprise because he is Japanese).  But he said he wanted to grow his faith and when we brought up Alma chapter 32 (the faith is a seed chapter) he knew about it already (he's read the book of Mormon twice already).  We talked a little about miracles and he said he's seen three noticeable miracles in his life.  First, when he was interested in Christianity, the missionaries found him (like twenty years ago), second when he had interest again, new missionaries found him (twelve years ago).  Recently he got invited to a Christmas pageant by a friend and afterward decided he wanted to read the Book of Mormon again.  Then we showed up.  That is the third miracle.  I don't know what his problems are yet, but with Heavenly Father's help we can find them and help him gain that light he is looking for.  I am so happy my companion and I were dilligent enough to keep looking until we found him. 

 

Essentially Iizuka is a place where the only thing you can do is house.  We spend almost all of our time going door-to-door.  So even when we got bikes, we weren't that much more effective.  But we decided that we should get the members involved more, so we are going to go around to each member and do a roleplay with them.  I think a lot of members don't know how to react if they are asked about the gospel by a friend, so we want to help them know what to do.  Hopefully by doing this we will find more people to teach.  We also have gone and found all of the less-actives that we can meet that are close by, so we will be working with them now.  But the big thing will still be housing.  But I know we can find people.  Heavenly Father didn't send four people here to do nothing.  He sent us to work. 

 

 

Love you all.  Have a good week. 

 

Iain

Elder Lee Choro

yori

January 12, 2014

Can you send me the lyrics to the scottish song we always sang.  This is random but I was just thinking about it.  Something like, "just a wee doch in dorris, just a wee doch thats all, just a wee dok in dorris, a fore ye gang a war"  or something like that.  I kind of forgot. 

So I bought a coat (really cool looking and pretty warm too) and some more socks because mine are not al that warm and some stuff called Heat Tech which is really just long underwear but it works really well.  But it's all good.  Way warm.  But yeah it is really cold here.  Apparently it got below 0 celsius which is like between 5 and 15 F or something.  I don't remember.  But the humidity makes it feel way colder.  If I can keep my feet warm though, I'm fine.  Also I wear my beanie all the time cause you lose so much heat through your head.  Yeah.  But I will try and send you some photos soon.  The jacket I got was about $150 which I wasn't happy about, but it was half off and really nice, so I decided $150 was worth it.  I"ll probably wear it after my mission too. 

So it is way cool to work in a different area.  The members are way nice here and it is fun to hang out with my friend from the MTC.  The only problem is this is a rather dead area.  Not a lot of teaching going on here.  Tenney choro has been here for his whole mission so far and hasn't seen any progress.  Last transfer they talked to a thousand people and they still don't have any investigators.  We have been really busy doing housing since we got here, but it hasn't improved much.  Unfortunately people here aren't willing to listen to our message.  Apparently this area is known throughout Kyushu for being rude.  There are a couple colleges here, one the Kyushu ITC, big deal.  But unfortuanely most college students don't have time or interest.  One thing I have thought about doing is playing soccer with them and trying to build better relationships that way, then mayber we could teach someday, but it is really cold and we would need to find some students that like soccer and would want to play and have time to play.  But we'll see what happens. 

Also I highly doubt we will get iPads here.  Maybe someday, but not anytime soon.  Otherwise the mission president would have announced it.  We still go to the church to email, but there is only one computer which means between the four of us we spend like four hours (obviously we split it up so we don't all wait at the church, but it still takes forever). 

Also if you haven"t sent it yet, a thumb drive would be preferable.  Thank you.  Love you much. 

Sorry I don"t have more time. 

Iain

January 5, 2014

Surprise, I am not on an island anymore!  Well that's not true actually, all of Japan is an island.  But I am not on Amami anymore.  So last week's transfer call came in way late (we got them while eating dinner at 8:45pm) and we found out that I was getting transferred to iizuka (a still small area but bigger than Naze was, so more people to contact).  I was way sad to leave Naze, as we had found a really good investigator and I just love the people there, but I am excited to get to work with my new companion, Fender Choro.  He has not been in the mission as long as me which means I have a lot of new respensibilties.  I speak more Japanese and have mre experience and have had more companions than him, but I still haven't had that much.  But it will work out.  I think this transfer will be very fun.  It is funny because when I went to Amami I made Amami into a four man (meaning four missionaries in the ward and in the apartment) and now I got trasferred to iizuka which Fender choro and I also made into a four man.  Essentially Fender and I have never seen this area before (he just came from Nagasaki) so we are completely new (they call this whitewashing).  But it is ok because Tenney Choro and Mabuchi choro are staying here with us (they were here last transfer).  So we will just have to go out with them a few times to find where people are, but that will be fun.  I am very excited.  We will do a lot of finding as this area does not have many investigators.  I also plan on doing a lot of less-active work as soon as I get my bike (it might come tomorrow).  But we are having lots of fun and I am learning lots of new stuff. 

 

Don't have much more, but I will send pictures when I get a chance.  Love you, stay good. 

 

Iain

Lee Choro yori

December 31, 2013

For P-Day today we went to a park on top of a huge hill.  Took us like half an hour to get up to it, but it was totally worth it.  

For New Year's one of our investigators gave us Rum&Raisin Pokey (if you don`t know what Pokey is you need to look it up right now, no no more reading, look it up.   No I`m serious look it up.  They are delicious Pretzel sticks covered in chocolate, very japanesey).  It was way funny.  We wern`t sure weather we should eat it, but it said it didn`t have alcohol and kids eat it, so we tried some.  It was interesting. 

If you could send me some music, that would be great.  From other missionaries I have heard some great stuff, but if you could send me Alex Boye and Vocal Point I would be happy (also if you find any cool symphonic hymns).  But don`t worry too much about it if it`s hard.  I hear enough music from the others that I wouldn`t die.  We can only listen to hymns and church specific music, so I can`t use any of my jazz cd`s (which I should have known, but...).  

So for Christmas we didn`t end up going to the beach because of the weather, which stayed terrible and rainy and cold and windy, lots of wind, until yesterday.  It actually got really nice yesterday.  That`s why we went to the park today.  Nice and sunny and pretty warm.  We wore shorts.  But we had a fun time.  We stayed at the church and played pingpong for a few hours.  

Sounds like you guys are doing well.  Glad you had a good time at the movies.  Hope your New Year is as good as Christmas.  Have fun, send some pictures.  Love you lots.  

Iain

December 24, 2013

Christmas!!!  We had our Christmas party last Saturday which went well.  We really only had one family come with a couple eikaiwa students and some members.  Small, but we sang some songs and did some fun activities.  

Our investigator has been doing really well, we recently taught the Gospel of Jesus Christ (lesson 3) and are very excited for her progress.  

Very busy for Christmas.  Hope you`re all well.  

Merry Christmas,

Elder Lee

We had a GREAT 45 minute conversation with Iain via Skype on Christmas Eve.  He looked great and sounded even better.