It was a Halloween smash!
So we had a great Halloween Party this year in the Ise Branch, but I'll wait until Saturday’s entry to explain the details. I'll kick off the weekly wrap up with Pday. Monday ~ So we needed supplies for the upcoming Halloween Party and by virtue of being the Branch President, I knew we had money to spare so we went all out. Lots of candy, cool decorations and all the right stuff. Then at the register, I planned on paying with personal money and having the church reimburse me, I swiped the credit card and to my dismay it was denied. Scared I tried again, and was still denied but thanks to loving parents I had a backup and was all good to go. And we started the trek back to our apartment all loaded up with big bags of Halloween goodies. We probably looked pretty funny on our bikes. Anyways that was our spooky filled night. Tuesday ~ So we had service and after our service project I got a free haircut. It's way good but it's a place I could never afford right now ($40 per haircut). But free is good. After that we got changed into regular missionary clothes and visited lots of people and passed out lots of flyers for the Halloween Party. Not much else happened that night. Wednesday ~ So I have had a small problem with my toe recently, and so I finally went and bought hydrogen peroxide and some other stuff. So for now I'm good. And while we were doing that my package from my Mom came, so when we got home I spent the next 20 minutes finagling with the post office so I could get it that day. It worked and all of the wonderful goodies of American Halloween came flooding into our apartment. It was quite wonderful. From there we went to a lesson with a couple in our ward and like always they are way fun. After that we set up Eikaiwa and ran to help a less active with their Eikaiwa (English conversation class). From there we rushed to invite a few more people to the Halloween Party and then ran all the way back to try and be a bit early for our Eikaiwa, way crazy. Eikaiwa was obviously Halloween themed but recently Eikaiwa has gotten huge, which is a problem that I like to have. So we split into two classes. After words we played a fun word game and it was way awesome. After all of it we wrapped up and headed home. Thursday ~ We had meetings in Yokkaichi all day. It turned into a pretty long day, but it was all good because there were lots of good trainings, but nothing too crazy. After that we came home and caught a quick snack and then headed out to visit the Noro family. It was way nice and they agreed again to read the Book of Mormon, way good. From there we hurried home and barely made our curfew. Friday ~ We went to the church with Higashimoto to do a little bit of prep for the Halloween Party the next day and from there we did our own prep by buying stuff for the root beer and other drinks. Then we did a trial run of the root beer and it was awesome. Man, I love root beer! Then we made Oreo balls and other treats and then we decided to go and give out the rest of our Halloween flyers. All in all, it was a pretty busy night. Saturday ~ We started the morning preparations at the apartment by preparing stuff we didn't finish the night before. Then we carried most of it up the hill to be at the church to help decorate. After a while of doing that the members took a lunch break and so did we. We ran down the hill, ate some leftovers, and then brought more stuff to the church. When we finished the final preparations and it was almost time for the party to begin. Once we began it was craziness, kids everywhere. Free flowing candy, spooky dry ice root beer, lots of curry, and tons of little sweets. It was the whole nine yards. It was great! The kids loved it and it was way fun. Like every party though, when it ends there is a clean-up, which we also happened to be on. So I was the first one there, with my comp of course, and we were the last ones to leave. And that was our night. I'll send pictures next week once I get them off my camera. Sunday ~ It was a normal Sunday. We had good lessons took care of business and then with all the leftover food we had a luncheon. It was way good. After all was taken care of, me and my comp went out to visit some investigators and a less active. At the less actives house we helped them set up their Wi-Fi and computers and stuff, sounds like my own house, but it was all good. After that we returned to the church to finish some clean up and take home some stuff but that was pretty much it. Well life is always crazy over here. It keeps moving and sometimes I feel like it goes too fast. But that is how the life of a missionary is. Anyways write you all next week. Love, Elder Williams 愛している、 ウィリアムズ長老
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Still no idea what I should say here . . . So this week has been slow for some of the Missionary Work but that's how it goes, and we keep marching on. Anyways let's see if I remember half of the stuff that went on this week Monday ~ So we had P-day which entails shopping and cleaning and all that good stuff. Then we went to the church to do some planning and some prep work. So we made some calls and I set up some appointments and got things planned for the week. We also made flyers for our Halloween party, which we did throughout the week, because we gave out so many. Not much else happened that day. Tuesday ~ So Tuesday night we had quite a few appointments scheduled so we were running around teaching and helping people. We even got one investigator to commit to be baptized when she knows it's true. Way awesome. Wednesday ~ We had a member/LA (less active) lesson and we had a fun time. The couple we taught are always just so lively and funny. Sometimes it's hard to understand the husband because he speaks harder Japanese, yes that is possible to do. After that we prepped for English class and ran to another appointment. Along the way, there and back, we passed out as many Halloween Party flyers as possible. After meeting with the family for a bit, we then ran to the church for the English class which we ended up splitting in to two classes and it was way awesome. Thursday ~ So we met with one of our recent converts, Higashimoto. And we had a nice talk with him about his family and the priesthood and stuff like that. He is looking forward to getting the priesthood and is hoping his son and the son's family can be baptized in the near future. He is way awesome. After that we went to lunch and then we did planning until we went to the Noro Family’s house, a way awesome couple. We focused on the Book of Mormon and its power and then taught the lesson. They looked at us and said the equivalent of “if we ever are going to learn if the church is true then they would have to read it (the Book of Mormon”. And when I asked them what they wanted to do, they said read the Book of Mormon. So it was a really awesome lesson. And that was our entire night. Friday ~ We had DTM (District Training Meeting) in Tsu, so we headed out early in the morning. From there we had a koukan, companion exchange, and me and the district leader ran around visiting some less actives and making visits. It was kind of hard as I had some weird stomach bug or something so I didn't really feel well, but I made it through the day okay. Then at night we helped a less active with her English class and it was way fun. Other than that not much else wrapped up the evening. Saturday ~ So we ended the koukan (exchange) and Elder Lyman and I set off to tackle our day of appointments, but first was a quick lunch break. Then we headed out to our first appointment and there we were stood up. Kind of rough but oh well. We then decided to go and make more Halloween Party flyers, as we had again run out. And so as we were making copies at a local convenience store their copy machine just so happened to run out of toner and they couldn't fix it so that was that. So we took what we had made and cut them out. It was way funny but we hurried and cut out as many as we could. From there we had a lesson with Tetsuya, who is trying to quit smoking so he can be baptized. He is at the last leg of the journey, but sometimes that's the hardest part. So we are still working with him. Then we went to meet our other recent convert. Tou. He's way funny and he is just a great guy. We had a good talk and then we headed home. Sunday ~ It was church and then branch council, so lots of Sunday meetings and stuff like that. It took up a lot of our day. So by the time we got done with meetings and lunch, it was about 4:30 PM. From there we decided to do a bit of finding because we hadn't found all week. So we found. And not many people were willing to have us back, but we did find two really cool people. One who may come to church and one who said we can come back next week. It was a good fulfilling night. That's all from here in the land of the rising sun. See you all next week. Love, Elder Williams 愛している、 ウィリアムズ長老 some other preparations pertaining to our upcoming Halloween 👻 party 🎉. After that we ran to a Japanese class where they were trying to figure out Lyman's Japanese level so they really didn't teach me much, kind of boring.
Friday ~ We had DTM (District Training Meeting), but this time everyone came to Ise to receive the training. We had a little trouble at the end because the couple missionaries’, Elder and Sister Salmon, car battery died so we had to get it jumped. So we had a member come and help them out. Then Elder Lyman and I went to one of my favorite restaurants of Manpuku, which serves Karage-don, which is deep fried chicken then cooked in a sauce and then some eggs and onions are added into the mix. It's just way good, but hard to explain. From there I received some emails that were pertaining to my calling in the branch and they need some immediate attention. #branchpreslife. After that we made some Halloween party flyers to handout and then we went housing and handed out a ton of flyers, about 70-80 or so. Way good. Hopefully this party has a lot of people come. Once we ran out of flyers we had to make more so we ran out of time that night making lots of flyers. Saturday ~ So we started by getting some stuff prepped for the big devotional with Elder Bednar that would be happening the next day. I had to figure out how to log in to the broadcast and even figure it out where the broadcast was being sent, all crazy stuff. Then we tried visiting Tetsuya, an investigator, and he wasn't home or maybe not awake. Then we went to visit another investigator with a member and it was the same story, but this time we decided to go to dinner with the member and had a nice night. Sunday ~ So we had a visitor that came to our branch this week. So we picked him up at the station. The visitor happened to be Jeff from Takabata. Jeff was baptized back in May when I was in Takabata and he came down to visit me here. He also spoke in sacrament meeting and he gave one of the most beautiful talks I have ever heard. As always I had the privilege of translating for him. It was a way good meeting. Then after church Jeff went home and then we planned more of our Halloween party. After all was said and done we had time to go home and grab some food and then go back to church to set up for the devotional. It was a way beautiful devotional by Elder Bednar and all of the participants. The big thing that was really emphasized is that joy is one of the gifts of the spirit and one of the requirements of receiving a gift of the spirit is that it isn't used to bless your own personal life, but to bless others. So if we want to feel of the joy of the gospel we need to turn outwards and look to bless others with the joy of the gospel and then you will feel the full joy of the gospel. Anyways hope to see you all next week. Elder Williams ウィリアムズ長老 I've run out of ideas for subject lines . . .
So I guess I'm here again. Another week down and another week in the books. Time marches on even though sometimes I feel like I'm pleading for it to slow down and I still remember the times when I was in boring classes begging time to speed up. But no matter our situation time keeps going at a steady rate. So our job, especially as missionaries, is to make the most of what we are given. So I'll begin by recounting my week. Monday ~ So we had all of our stuff cleaned and bought and it was a good P-day. That night we headed out to visit some less active members that live pretty far away, so that was pretty much our entire night. But while we were out visiting people I caught a glimpse of one of my favorite stores, Gyomu Super. So we slipped in and bought some peanut butter which for some reason is super cheap there. So we had to rush home because it was getting late and we needed to be home. Tuesday ~ We had some new investigators that we had to visit so we visited all of them and we dropped some of them, because the wouldn't answer or told us not to come back. Those that we did meet with they were way cool. That finished up pretty quickly so we went to this apartment complex that I had seen that I wanted to visit. We housed the apartments and found lots of people who actually asked us to come back. Kind of out of the ordinary, but it was way awesome. We found some really solid people, including a girl that pretty much accepted the whole restoration and wants us to come teach her more about the gospel. So we had a way good finding night. Wednesday ~ So we had the morning line up of studies and that good stuff. Then we had a meeting with a couple in our branch and had a good night with them. It was way awesome. They are such a nice couple and we are hoping the husband comes back to activity soon. From there we prepped for Eikaiwa early and then headed out to meet with a family that we had met the day before. They were way nice and after talking with them. One of the kids asked us to come back the next day but we told him that we would be back next week. He was a way funny kid. Then we went and taught Eikaiwa. Thursday ~ So we did a big planning session for the area, including setting some new goals and then we had to do some other preparations pertaining to our upcoming Halloween 👻 party 🎉. After that we ran to a Japanese class where they were trying to figure out Lyman's Japanese level so they really didn't teach me much, kind of boring. Friday ~ We had DTM (District Training Meeting), but this time everyone came to Ise to receive the training. We had a little trouble at the end because the couple missionaries’, Elder and Sister Salmon, car battery died so we had to get it jumped. So we had a member come and help them out. Then Elder Lyman and I went to one of my favorite restaurants of Manpuku, which serves Karage-don, which is deep fried chicken then cooked in a sauce and then some eggs and onions are added into the mix. It's just way good, but hard to explain. From there I received some emails that were pertaining to my calling in the branch and they need some immediate attention. #branchpreslife. After that we made some Halloween party flyers to handout and then we went housing and handed out a ton of flyers, about 70-80 or so. Way good. Hopefully this party has a lot of people come. Once we ran out of flyers we had to make more so we ran out of time that night making lots of flyers. Saturday ~ So we started by getting some stuff prepped for the big devotional with Elder Bednar that would be happening the next day. I had to figure out how to log in to the broadcast and even figure it out where the broadcast was being sent, all crazy stuff. Then we tried visiting Tetsuya, an investigator, and he wasn't home or maybe not awake. Then we went to visit another investigator with a member and it was the same story, but this time we decided to go to dinner with the member and had a nice night. Sunday ~ So we had a visitor that came to our branch this week. So we picked him up at the station. The visitor happened to be Jeff from Takabata. Jeff was baptized back in May when I was in Takabata and he came down to visit me here. He also spoke in sacrament meeting and he gave one of the most beautiful talks I have ever heard. As always I had the privilege of translating for him. It was a way good meeting. Then after church Jeff went home and then we planned more of our Halloween party. After all was said and done we had time to go home and grab some food and then go back to church to set up for the devotional. It was a way beautiful devotional by Elder Bednar and all of the participants. The big thing that was really emphasized is that joy is one of the gifts of the spirit and one of the requirements of receiving a gift of the spirit is that it isn't used to bless your own personal life, but to bless others. So if we want to feel of the joy of the gospel we need to turn outwards and look to bless others with the joy of the gospel and then you will feel the full joy of the gospel. Anyways hope to see you all next week. Elder Williams ウィリアムズ長老 some other preparations pertaining to our upcoming Halloween 👻 party 🎉. After that we ran to a Japanese class where they were trying to figure out Lyman's Japanese level so they really didn't teach me much, kind of boring. Friday ~ We had DTM (District Training Meeting), but this time everyone came to Ise to receive the training. We had a little trouble at the end because the couple missionaries’, Elder and Sister Salmon, car battery died so we had to get it jumped. So we had a member come and help them out. Then Elder Lyman and I went to one of my favorite restaurants of Manpuku, which serves Karage-don, which is deep fried chicken then cooked in a sauce and then some eggs and onions are added into the mix. It's just way good, but hard to explain. From there I received some emails that were pertaining to my calling in the branch and they need some immediate attention. #branchpreslife. After that we made some Halloween party flyers to handout and then we went housing and handed out a ton of flyers, about 70-80 or so. Way good. Hopefully this party has a lot of people come. Once we ran out of flyers we had to make more so we ran out of time that night making lots of flyers. Saturday ~ So we started by getting some stuff prepped for the big devotional with Elder Bednar that would be happening the next day. I had to figure out how to log in to the broadcast and even figure it out where the broadcast was being sent, all crazy stuff. Then we tried visiting Tetsuya, an investigator, and he wasn't home or maybe not awake. Then we went to visit another investigator with a member and it was the same story, but this time we decided to go to dinner with the member and had a nice night. Sunday ~ So we had a visitor that came to our branch this week. So we picked him up at the station. The visitor happened to be Jeff from Takabata. Jeff was baptized back in May when I was in Takabata and he came down to visit me here. He also spoke in sacrament meeting and he gave one of the most beautiful talks I have ever heard. As always I had the privilege of translating for him. It was a way good meeting. Then after church Jeff went home and then we planned more of our Halloween party. After all was said and done we had time to go home and grab some food and then go back to church to set up for the devotional. It was a way beautiful devotional by Elder Bednar and all of the participants. The big thing that was really emphasized is that joy is one of the gifts of the spirit and one of the requirements of receiving a gift of the spirit is that it isn't used to bless your own personal life, but to bless others. So if we want to feel of the joy of the gospel we need to turn outwards and look to bless others with the joy of the gospel and then you will feel the full joy of the gospel. Anyways hope to see you all next week. Elder Williams ウィリアムズ長老 Conference - I loved it!
So I finally got to watch conference this week and it was way awesome. I loved the talks and I've got lots of good notes, but before getting into that I'll talk about my week. Monday ~ Elder Pope was transferring so we cleaned and played some ping pong and then it came time for us to head out. So Pope and I headed out to Tsu so we could stay the night up there with some other missionaries that way Elder Pope and Elder Walker would be able to head out together and me and Elder Takara could stay together and wait for our new companions. That night was way fun. We all chipped in and bought Matsusaka beef which is second only to Kobe beef, so it was expensive, but it was way good. Then we spent the night talking about just lots of random stuff. Tuesday ~ So we got up early and went to the beach and watched the sun rise. It was way beautiful. Then Elder Pope and Walker left and Elder Takara and I stayed home and got the Tsu apartment all cleaned up and ready to go. Then we headed out to the train station where I caught the train that my new companion, Elder Lyman was on. We then rode back to Ise together and planned the rest of the day and got ready to go. We got all of his stuff situated and then went shopping and lots of other great things. Then we spent the night finding and did pretty decent, but we had kind of got ourselves pretty far from home so we had to book it home. Wednesday ~ So Lyman got a bit of time to unpack and then we went off and talked to lots of college students. No takers, but it was really good. We then grabbed some corn dogs from 7-11 and then we ran to Eikaiwa to prepare. It went well and everyone liked meeting the new elder. It was a good night. Thursday ~ So we did a planning day and then we went and visited one of our investigators. It turned into a nice chat and then we had to head out to meet a member. Once we met up with the member we then went out to visit my favorite family, the Noro's. They are way fun to teach and we always have such a good time with them. We had a good lesson and they both seem to be progressing. Like usual we left late so we had to rush home. Friday ~ So we had to go to set up the church for the conference weekend which included getting a new computer from the stake and getting it all ready to go. We then went out to lunch and it was 久しぶり, hisashiburi look it up, indo curry. It was way good and then we went off to visit lots of people and while we were visiting people we ran in to Higashimoto who came to church with us and we had a lesson and played ping pong at the church till the night was done. Saturday ~ Was all General Conference all day long. Super awesome but no dendo. Sunday ~ Pretty similar to Saturday, but we did visit a local Matsuri (festival) as it was ending but nothing to crazy. It was way nice. No pictures though. Thank you guys so much for the prayers and thoughts. Hope all of you guys are doing well. Talk to you all next week. Love Elder Williams 愛しています、 ウィリアムズ長老 "I hope we don't get a call this transfer calls" - Every missionary ever six weeks
Hello everybody. As it's kind of obvious we had transfer calls this week and neither of us really wanted to leave but you know that's on Saturday. So you can skip down if you want to know what happened. But I'll start from the beginning. Monday ~ It's our day of rest. So we cleaned the apartment way good because it was due for a deep cleaning. It was good and we had a way nice looking apartment. Like pretty much anybody could walk in and be like, I can live here. After all the house work was done we went to meet with a member for family home evening. But it kind of just turned into us meeting and talking with them, as it is an older couple in the branch. Their kids are older and moved out, so it was just cool to talk to them for the night. But that literally took our whole night because they live kind of far away. So it was a bit of a bike ride home. Tuesday ~ So we had service like every Tuesday, and like always, it was good. Then after service we got a call from our Branch mission leader saying that he needed us to help him at the church with some stuff so we went over to the church and helped him. From there we went to visit a LA (less active) and a FI (former investigator). What we thought was going to be a fun and easy adventure turned out to have hills that were near vertical and surrounded by forest on either side. After feeling like we were lost, we finally found our way. The FI wasn't home and the LA had suffered a stroke so she told us that she probably wasn't going to ever be able to come back to church, sad, but understandable. Then we went to meet up with our mission leader so we could go and meet with the Noro family. We had a way good lesson and we even invited sister Noro to be baptized. She said she wants to know more before she makes a solid commitment, but said that if she believes that this is true that she could do it. Way good. Then we began our long drive home to end the day. Wednesday ~ So one of our investigators was moving and they gave us an address and we couldn't find it on the maps or on our iPads so we took a trip out to the general area hoping to find it. We did and then we returned to the church to do a member lesson with the relief society president and her less active husband. After the lesson they proudly announced that he will be returning to church within the coming month as it looks like his health has improved. It should be interesting to see how it goes. After that we had planning and Eikaiwa. Nothing to interesting, but that's how we capped off our night. Thursday ~ We had a koukan (exchange) and I got to hang out with Elder Walker. It was way good we taught Hayashi her after baptism lesson and she was angelic. She's so good. After we talked about prophets and General Conference we spent time discussing any of her questions from the scriptures. After that we decided to run home and make dinner. We made Mobudofu and fried rice. Sorry Dad, we ate it all. It was way good. Definitely a suggestion of mine if you know how to make both of the things I'm talking about. Then we went and did some contacting and wrapped our night a Japanese Class where they dissect our Japanese and make us feel like we don't know anything. But hey it's kind of helping, I think. Friday ~ So we had a DTM (District Training Meeting) and then after that we all went to lunch at one of my favorite restaurants, and it was way awesome. The owner knows and loves missionaries so while we are eating the waitress walks up with a big plate of food and sets it down for our group, and says what in English would be the equivalent of "On the House". I love this place! Not only is the food good the owner is way nice. We then did some contacting for the rest of the day and we ended up doing really well and found four new investigators. Way awesome. Saturday ~ We did some contacting in the early afternoon, with no success, and then we had a lesson with Tetsuya where we were trying to fix any and all misconceptions or things he's misunderstood. It was good and we kind of got it sorted out. Then we went to meet with the investigator, Yuuka, whose house we searched for, earlier in the week. We get there and she's way nice, but she had just moved so she had some stuff to take care of and so she asked us to come back next week. Yuuka is so nice. So we then went to meet with Tou to do his after baptism lessons. Transfer calls were going on during the lesson and we were supposed to be called first at about 8:30, but as time went on we thought we were safe and then at about 8:50 we get a call and we were a bit aggravated because neither of us wants to leave. But the end result is Elder Pope is leaving to Nakatsugawa and I will be getting a new Elder by the name of Elder Lynmen (I think that's how it's spelled). And that was our night. Sunday ~ President Ishii came down to visit and I conducted my first sacrament meeting. Yeah, first time like ever so I'm not even sure how to do it in English, but I did it in Japanese. Then we had church and Ishii Kaicho provided some training in the third hour. After church we cleaned the building and got everything ready for General Conference. After that we went home so Elder Pope could pack. That was it for us this week. Sorry no crazy P-day activities because it is raining right now and looks like it will do so for the next long while. But hey it's all good. Transfers happen tomorrow. Love Elder Williams 愛しています、 ウィリアムズ長老 |
MissionCalled to Serve in the Japan Nagoya Mission.. Archives
July 2017
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