February 24, 2014

Last week we worked really hard but it was a lot of fun.  We have been meeting a lot of people on the street and in houses.  Unfortunately we were not able to meet with our investigators last week and didn't actually have a lot of dendou time.  But when we did we worked hard.  I have recently come to a new phase of wanting to work really hard and get stuff done.  We are going to just steam roll through people until we find those who are prepared to become investigators.  It means talking to a lot of people, but it has really just become fun.  When I started my mission it wasn't fun at all, for lots of reasons (not the least of which was the language), but I have come to really love teaching and find lots of opportunities just to teach simple messages.  We are opening their hearts!

Gustafson Kaicho (Iain's mission president) visited us last Friday when we planned for the week.  It was a great learning experience and I am excited to apply some of the things we learned.  I want to start meeting with more members and "borrowing faith" as Kaicho said.  We ask them to pray for us to find people in the area and then we house and when we are done we tell them some people we found to pray for.  I am excited to try it out. 

Apparently there is a lot of stuff that Kaicho has had past missionaries do that he wants us to do too, but we are young missionaries and don't know what it is, so next month he is having a conference to train us on how to do things.  I think it will be fun. 

I think the EFY will be great for Wyatt.  I loved it and it helped me understand the gospel more.  Plus they are focusing EFY on preparing youth for missions which I think is great.  I don't think I understood the gospel like I should have before my mission.  I guess that's true for most people thought.  Teaching as a missionary is all about mastering the basics but as a youth we move past the basics fast and so you come out and you have to figure how to teach on your own.  Teaching is way fun once you get the hang of it though.  Hopefully Wyat can learn that kind of stuff, 'cause it is way helpful. 

Just make sure you feed the missionaries a lot when you have them over.  And if it is unique and tasty, that is good too. Missioaries usually like to serve the members too.  If they seem like good missionaries, don't hesitate to make an appointment. 

Love you, hope you guys are well.  Thanks for all of your emails, I love reading about your lives (Wyatt could write a little more I think). 

Iain

February 17, 2014

Being a missionary has totally changed my perspective of missionaries.  It is way fun, but while at our zone p-day today I realized how much I like just the regular mission schedule and doing real hard dendou work.  It makes you feel good, even if it is rather tedious at times (like when you house 50 doors and no one wants to listen).  But I have learned to love it so much.  It`s just a missionary thing too.  After my two years ends I can`t stop people and just preach anymore.  The changes.  This has just sunk in so much more recently.  Missionaries use the atonement so much each day.  I have at least.  It has been so important for me so that I can keep the Spirit with me at all times.  Without the Spirit this work has no hope for success and I need it so much to know the things I need/should do.  I have learned to love the Savoir so much personally.  And as I have read Jesus the Christ I have learned so much about his life.  It is way cool.  I understand so much more now.  I love it.  It has given me so much more of a desire to share that I didm`t realize could happen.

  

We gathered this weekend for zone p-day in Fukuoka.  It was fun, we played sports and checked out castle ruins.  Yesterday was Stake Conference so we came for that with a member and then stayed all day doing streeting (approaching people on the street and sharing a message) and other dendou.  It was fun but tiring.  We are emailing here in Fukuoka and then going home and finishing shopping and stuff.  Fun times but I want to go back to the normal schedule really bad now.  Transfers throw everything off.  

Tenney choro went to a place called Kure, which is in the Hiroshima zone.  He is there with Parker choro my best friend from Amami.  So now my two best friends in the mission are in Hiroshima without me.  Darn!  Sounds like so much fun though.  

I feel like it`s been forever since being at BYU and miss it at times, but I also feel like my life is change, the constant change of missionaries and areas and stuff.  A missionaries life is change.  It`s fun but stressful sometimes.  But I think this transfer will be fun.  We're starting off this transfer with some investigators now, still working hard.  Our new investigators are young and we might be able to have a couple baptismal dates by the end of next transfer.  We are excited for the success we have found recently.  It comes of course after weeks of hard work.  

Love you so much.  I can`t think of anything else for you to send, but I feel like I have forgotten something due to the recent stress and lots of stuff to do and no time and stuff, so wait for me to think another week please.  I love you, be safe. 

Iain

Lee 長老 

February 10, 2014

So first off, nothing is changing.  Fender Choro and I are still companions and still working in IIzuka.  But Tenney Choro is leaving so a little sad.  I really like the members here.  There are about 22 who come to church each week and they are all really nice.  We have had the opportunity to meet with about half but some of them live rather far away and the others have been unavailable which is disappointing.  We also have three deaf members in our ward which makes things interesting.  My friend Tenney choro has been here for sixish months now so he is pretty good at the sign language, but since he's leaving now I really have to learn some fast.  It actually isn't that hard and you learn some Japanese at the same time, so it works out well.  We have a class every other week to learn some.  It's fun.  We are actually doing service for one of the deaf members today.  Will be fun. 

This week we have been way excited.  We got a new investigator and are super excited to actually have someone to teach.  But still a lot of housing. 

My apartment building has probably about 63 different apartments.  We have seven floors and I think 7 apartments to a floor, so, yeah.  It's cool.  We live about five minute walk from the church, or two minutes by bike, if that.  It's way close, like Amami. 

Unfortunately we have to go way far to get groceries.  There isn't anything all that close by, so we ride for like fifteen-twenty minutes.  But whatever.  It's a pain bringing the groceries home though. 

Every apartment has a washer, but we don't have a dryer so we have to hang dry stuff.  It works out ok I guess. 

The nihonjin in our apartment does a lot of the cooking because he is really good.  But we eat all sorts of different stuff.  I still probably like okonomiyaki (the pancake things) the best.  I love everything though.  We just eat out rarely, but recently we went out to ramen a couple times and I've gone to sushi twice now.  Way fun, way good. 

We have had terrible weather the past week.  When I last emailed it was warm and now it is not.

The only other things I was thinking of for a package was my voice recorder and the other sd card.  Also if you want to put music on the sd card that fine too.  But don't worry about it too much.  I loved the music.  Don't have time, but don't send a package until I've gotten a chance to email again (ie. next week). 

Have to go.  Love you.  Stay well. 

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