April 27, 2010

Dear Family,

I’m at some place in the mall and they said we can only have 30 minutes. I tried reading some of your emails but I won’t have enough time. Also, Elder Insch’s computer isn’t working, so I’m just going to send a couple of things real quick and see if I can print off your letters and read them during the week. Sorry, I’m not too happy about this either. Who knows what will happen.

Yes, if you could send my instructions on how to call on Mother’s Day that would be nice. Your trip mom sounded really hard but I’m glad it was a good experience. That’s the only letter I got to read. So this high school girl actually stared at me for at least 20 yards the other day. It’s like being a rock star here if you have blue eyes and are tall. Maybe it was just my good looks. Who knows? Actually I know it’s not the latter. I had a zit on my head the size of Mt. Fuji. (terrible jokes. I’m not going to have any friends when I get back am I?)

I actually don’t have a whole lot to write about this week. Some of our investigators are pooping out on us and kind of told us they don’t to meet with us on weekdays anymore. It’s frustrating but we gave a flier to a girl at a convenient store the other day because she spoke a little bit of English to me and so I asked her if she liked English and she said yes and was super excited. Sunday night she called and asked if it was okay that she was Buddhist. Elder Insch said it was okay and she said she was excited. Later in the conversation she said that her parents were just Buddhist and that she was actually interested in our message. It was very cool.

Sunday we were essentially kidnapped by a member who said that we were going to go visit a friend of his but instead we were taken to the other side of the city and handed a bunch of Joseph Smith fliers in Portuguese and then told to start knocking doors. It ended up being only foreigners there mostly. So we contacted in English. A Muslim man started yelling at me in English and telling me why I was wrong. When we were moving to a different stairwell, he was waiting outside. I told him that we believed a lot of the same things and had the same standards and that I could give him a book and he could ask God for himself. He said he might look it up online someday and then kept arguing. His friend on the other hand got up in Elder Insch face at this point and so I bore my testimony and then left (they had to go pray).

The previous day we met with a Muslim man and his catholic wife. She is Brazilian and wants to learn out our church. She is high up in their church because she translates. So I can communicate with her in Japanese and then the husband speaks English. It’s super hard to understand but it’s alright. We talked with him for about 2.5 hours at a ward activity, about life and other things. He is going to make us curry on golden week. He says he respects all religions and we agreed on a lot. He was great. I loved talking to him. He is from Pakistan and speaks 5 languages. I’m excited to meet with them again. I think they are coming to English class tomorrow.

A big scary Russian man yelled at me and I almost soiled myself while we were housing. Then we convinced a man to read the Book of Mormon because it was about Native Americans. Those were our successes this week. I’m actually really excited. I’m going to let elder Insch jump on this computer real quick. Sorry it’s so short. Katie I loved your testimony in your letter to me. All of it was so great. I love you so much and miss you a lot. Your letters make me so happy. I’m excited to be able to talk to you soon. I’m finally feeling like a real missionary when we ride our bikes for 5 hours a day in the pouring rain in dangerous conditions. By the way, I bought my dictionary today and I got a smoking awesome deal on it. I’m going to go now. I’ll try to print off my letters and let elder Insch write. Love you all bye.

April 20, 2010

Dear Family,

First, a real quick response to some of your emails. That’s great about Blake’s call. It’s super exciting. Tell him not to worry about Spanish. They give him enough time in the MTC. Also English class is all right. It’s hard enough that most people in America can’t understand me. I tried talking like dad does. I was enunciating really well but then I realized I was speaking super fast and I asked if I was speaking too fast and the member of the bishopric that understands English perfectly was nodding his head. It’s super awkward and I would never go if I was a regular person in Japan because I don’t think they learn a whole lot. Maybe they just love our spiritual messages at the end.

So to complete the story to my advice of having to swallow food you don’t like... It’s actually embarrassing because it was a really fancy dessert at a French restaurant that was essentially all cream, which I’m not a fan of. So that’s me complaining about food that’s too good for me. I’m continuing to eat really well. We made tacos again today and it was delicious. Brother Arisawa still takes care of us more than we deserve. He does everything for us. He is the most charitable person I think I’ve ever met in my life. I haven’t bought the electronic dictionary yet by the way. Thanks for the updates on tennis. You sound like you are doing well for a sophomore Jacob. I’m proud of you. I’ve knocked on maybe 10 doors. At this rate I might break 100 by the end of my mission. I would like to do it more.

So this week was very difficult and it was hard to focus but that’s all right. Things are hard but I just trust that I’m in the right place at the right time. I am not learning a whole lot of Japanese so I take advantage of every opportunity I get to speak with someone that speaks Japanese. I still feel like a lot of our time is wasted. We did give Flavione a Book of Mormon yesterday though. She is someone that works at Brother Arisawa’s company. We were just in the car with her and Arisawa and Renato (another investigator that has been one forever but no one has ever tried to get him to keep a commitment). He is a co-owner in the company and is super rich. It was funny because Flavione and Renato were in the big van with us and they on the ground trying to tickle and poke each other. This country is so weird. Someone said, you are acting like children, and right as it was said Arisawa asked if anyone wanted ice cream. They both cheered and the four of us got out of the car and Arisawa handed us a senyen and we went and got ice cream. Well maybe you had to be there.

So Sunday was incredibly long. We started our meetings at 8:30. Then we had regular church. Then right after that we sat in on a visiting teaching lesson because they needed a translator between Portuguese and Japanese. Then we were late for Ward Council. Elder Insch spoke for 2 minutes and then we sat there for 2 and a half hours! It was crazy. Bishopric members would take turns taking naps so one of them could always be talking. I didn’t even get to sit next to my companion. The lady next to me was asleep for the first hour and then moved and it scared the heck out of me. It was the bishop’s wife. The guy across from me had a medical mask on. He had to be at least 120 years old. I thought he was dead. The 1st councilor kept stopping the meeting so they could yell Daijobu desu Ka at him which means “are you okay?” He was muttering something and then we would continue on. He looked like Darth Vader in return of the Jedi after Luke takes the mask off. When we had the closing prayer (most longed for prayer of my life) he actually sounded like Darth Vader. He kept on hacking stuff up. I didn’t catch one word of Japanese because it was so similar to a car engine trying to turn over.

So I finally turned to reading the schedule I was given. The first thing I noticed was that they spelled PMG lesson wrong. They wanted a Preach My Gospel lesson from us but turns out they replaced gospel with something that started with an S. So it was a PMS lesson. I giggled a little. I envied everyone in the room that had a cell phone because after my first two naps I wasn’t tired any more and had nothing to do but study a vocab card in my planner. Most everyone else was on a cell phone. At one point there was about a 10 second silence where I really wanted someone to speak because my stomach was building up and right in the middle of the silence it growled. The guy next to me laughed and so did Elder Insch. I’m pretty sure everyone heard. I kept saying to myself that I was going to be angry when I found out they were arguing over Man vs. Wild and Survivorman. Turns out they were just complaining about different things, mainly members. So we finally got out of the meeting close for 4:00 pm and then didn’t eat until about 5:00. So it was quite the Sunday. Instead of going and teaching and trying to do something good with my time we played Uno at a recent convert’s house until 9:00. Life in Takaoka. I might miss it someday.

Things are really going well though so don’t worry. I enjoy my time here and just want to use my time a little bit better. I’m trying to right down the stuff I do each week that everyone might care about but I’m having a hard time thinking of things. The Japanese language is going better. I’m trying to study a lot harder and praying a lot more for opportunities to talk. I have one request. Since most semesters are changing I don’t know how to write to Brittany Irion, Alec, Amanda Hales, or Aly and I need Jordan’s mission home address. Thank you very much. If you can think of anyone else at college or someone that receives this email that I didn’t list then have them send me their latest address as well. I have Shelby’s home address from her DearElders.

I love everyone and I am doing well and trying to work hard. I hope everyone has a great week. I will to attach a couple of pictures real quick. Oh yeah that reminds me, this week I had to go on exchanges with a missionary that came to Japan at the exact same time as me. We had to spend over 24 hours together and I was in charge. We almost died a couple of times and got lost several times. The people at Arisawa’s company asked if I was sick. Then they asked what you say in English when someone has blue under their eyes. They thought I was going to die. It probably did take several years off my life. I stayed alive though right. So maybe I can speak a little Japanese.

Love you all

Elder Tyler Hooton

April 20, 2010 Pictures

April 13, 2010

Dear Family,

I thought I had from qualified sources the knowledge that I could email friends. I had a feeling I should probably double check. We got a text from the AP’s today that said I can only email family. I feel absolutely terrible especially after my friends told me how excited they were to email me. Sorry everyone. I only have a half an hour to write today.

We are going to go to karaoke (against my will I might had). I don’t think it’s a good use of our time but that’s all right. Dad your email was very helpful and inspiring. I loved everyone’s emails. I am actually yet to read Jason’s. I only have 12 minutes left to write. Luckily I don’t have a lot to write. As you can tell my English is getting terrible and unfortunately my Japanese and Portuguese are quite stagnant.

I did get a bike this week and I went and bought it yesterday because it finally arrived. I did get to listen to conference in English. We had to travel far though and we actually missed most of the first day. Tip of the week: If food is gross, chew it in your cheeks and slide it down the back of your throat without letting it touch your tongue. Don’t let anyone see though.

It was fun trying to explain to an investigator a surgery that a member was having. The investigator was also breast feeding right there too. All the kids here and Brazilians like to tell me that I have a big nose. I have acquired the skill of walking through ancient Japanese antique shops with a backpack on. It was nice to see that many Americans on the conference video. Hollow Spaghetti is the worst idea in the world because you can’t slurp it up because you just suck air. We couldn’t leave an investigator’s house the other night because our ride was doing a 3D pig puzzle. It was fun when sister Travaller called and wanted to talk to me and we were almost an hour past curfew. Sorry that was so choppy. I really don’t have a lot of time.

This week was really difficult. I’m just trying to get by and figure out the languages and how to get work done. I’m also trying to figure out how we can make curfew more often so that we aren’t held hostage by members on the outskirts of the city. I’m doing well though. I’ve started to miss home and all my friends this week. It’s tough some days. I wish I could have more success too.

Please send me letters and I will try to respond as soon as possible. I got one letter from Mom and Katie. Katie it was wonderful. I love you so much. I’m trying to find stuff to send to you. I think I will be able to manage next P-day’s time a little bit better so I can write a better email and handwrite more. I’m trying to clean our apartment right now.

I love you all and please distribute this letter to my friends. I love them as well. Shelby your letter made me very happy and I’m excited for you.

Love you all

Elder Tyler Hooton

April 6, 2010

Dear Family,

Communicating never looked so fun. People are laughing at me all the time and slapping me on the shoulder. I think Portuguese and Japanese are just funnier languages than English. Or at least that’s what I tell myself every night. Things are going well though.

Now to answer some of your questions before I move on to what I had to say. First I didn’t get to see general conference. America is that only place in the world that gets to see it that week. It’s now being sent out to all the countries on DVD and I have to travel to Kanazawa on Sunday to see it.

My buss ride to Takaoka was like 4 hours and I was with 3 other elders including my new companion. They always bring trainers into the mission home to take us out. It weird just being with one other missionary now but it’s all good. So we are the only ones in our city and we live alone. The next closest ones are an hour away by train. My mission president will be replaced in June. He is super cool and way relaxed. The new one we hear is super strict. It’s going to be a rough transition.

Oh boy do I have stuff to tell you about the food. So we’ve eaten at the Brazilian restaurant 4 times. We ate at an Italian buffet. We also ate at a super classy French restaurant. It was about 20 dollars a plate. We eat out all the time. Members also gave us three grocery bags full of food on Sunday. To do some cleaning today I cleaned out the freezer and threw out tons of meats. I don’t know what brother Lyon was talking about. All I eat here is meat. It’s ridiculous. Also, I did order a bike this week. The only one that would fit my 192cm frame was $500. Sorry. It’s more expensive than we had thought.

Once again can you make sure my email is distributed? Also, can I get the email addresses of the people that you send it out to? It is okay for me to email them. Also, could print this out (because I don’t: have the capability right now) and maybe send it to Kaden and Jordan? I’m sorry...I’m so needy. No hurry on it. I just want to maintain communication with them.

Foods that I have tried here:

• Pig parts bean soup from Brazil
• Crazy expensive hamburger (without a bun) from France
• Mellon Fanta
• Lots of gross rice stuff
• Japanese Pizza. Mushrooms and rice everywhere. GAAA
• Mellon ice cream

Interesting observations:

• People here love America more than we do. (I love America)
• Grandpas here wear sick headphones...it’s awesome
• Medicine here is strongly influenced by Doctor Mario and has two distinct colors on each side of the capsule
• Cars over 5 feet long seems to have back-up beeps that are only on big trucks in the US
• They like to jam chocolate in the must unwarranted places. LIKE MY BREAD.
• Drinking fountains here suck. You know the ones at the church for the kids? That’s like the height of all the ones here. Back problems.
• The mission home and the MTC are the number 1 places in the world where unwarranted high fives and hugs are given. Also the words *way* *sooooo* *jazz* *epic* are over used.

Final observations:

• I am a dangerous person to have in Japan because some poor girl was staring at me in the mall yesterday and ran smack dab into something.
• If one child sees me and I go knock on a house then I came back and there is a whole mess of them.
• Hymns being sung in Portuguese, English and Japanese together sound terrible.

I’m having a hard time with the work but not like it sounds. I want to be doing more. It seems like we aren’t as effective as we could be. I’m trying to do better and my companion isn’t lazy but we just don’t use our time as well as we can. Things are going really well though. We are teaching lessons and the languages are super difficult but slowly coming. I’m doing well. I’m just trying to work hard and figure out what the Lord is trying to teach me and what He wants me to do.

Please send email addresses next time and keep sending great letters. I’m glad everything is going well. Hopefully next week my letter will be better and I can spend time on things that you probably care about more. Have a great week. I love you all...but seriously, repent :)

Love Elder フトン

April 1, 2010

Dear Family,

Have I already hit my head on door frames?...yes, yes I have. Have I already used “hello kitty” TP?...it’s my new favorite thing about Japan. Did I wash my hands in toilet water without knowing it?....yes, yes I did. If I got in a car wreck here would I do more damage to the car then it would to me? Probably. Did I eat dad’s egg/toast sandwich already for breakfast? Yes. I love it here though. It’s so great.

It sounds like mom already talked with my mission president. The plane ride over was good. It was super long but luckily I got to sit next to my good friend Elder Boss. Tokyo was super cool. Way clean and we met an Air Force guy that was Mormon. I realized I don’t actually speak any Japanese when I was trying to translate for the Japanese sister sitting next to me on the flight to LA. The Flight Attendant wasn’t too impressed with my efforts to help.

I’m sorry that my emails are still going to be weird. This keyboard is messed up and the space key is the size of 3 regular size keys and then to the right it changed my Romanized characters into 箆後名 ga. It’s so annoying. I had no idea those were the congi for heragano though.

Anyway, I’m sure everyone is wondering how I’m doing (by the way a; is now a` on the keyboard so sorry). I love Japan so much. Today has been getting a little worse because it’s getting stressful because we haven’t done anything yet. We have been at the mercy of the members today. We are with this one member that just plays video games in his mom’s house and he is like 30 something. It was annoying because we needed a ride to the city hall and he sort of wouldn’t take us. He kept showing me all of the videos games that he plays on the computer. I guess he gives a lot of referrals and stuff and he is always willing to help out even though he isn’t the most efficient. It’s super nice of him though.

Well I know that my comments about me learning Portuguese were taken with a grain of salt but I will be learning it. I’m in a very Portuguese populated area. My trainer knows it and this is his first transfer of doing it on his own. He is doing really well though. I love him a lot. He is super cool and reminds me SOOOO much of Quincy like you wouldn’t believe. From straight on he doesn’t look like him but from the side it’s almost exact. Also he acts like Quincy a lot.

My mission president is way cool. He is such a relaxed guy. We got through customs and we were met by the two APs, the Mission President and his wife, and a senior elder. They took really good care of us. The first night was the best sleep I’ve ever gotten. The next day we interviewed and then met our trainers. I like the president and the interview was good. There is a lot of success in our mission I guess. We have the least number of missionaries but the most baptisms. It is very exciting. President Travaller is very inspiring. He is also an emotional man.

Back to the Japan experience though, Dad, Jason, Quincy, even Jacob, try walking around the house in a suit for the entire day with no shoes on. So to explain the toilet story, I don’t know if it was like this in Korea but the toilet bowl and the toilet base are separate. So I think it’s a brilliant idea because it’s clean water that goes into a toilet tank but once it’s in there it gets dirty all the sudden. So they have a faucet that drains into the tank but you can totally wash your hands in it. People here don’t, I was just mistaken but you totally could. Elder Incsh, my trainer was like “yeah, I used to wash my hands in it but that’s not what it is for.” Elder Incsh is from West Virginia. He wants to make movies when he gets home. He is smart and knows three languages. He isn’t training me too much. He kind of just thinks my Japanese is good. I feel like we are companions and he just jumps in and never mentions it. I’m looking forward to learning from him.

We are in the north part of Nagoya. I was told President Travaller already told you. It’s so nice and cool here. We have about 15 investigators too. Most are Portuguese. They are really good with the gospel I guess.

There was about an hour gap between that last sentence and this one. We went and met with some of the employees at this company that we are writing emails at. It is owned by the second counselor in the bishopric. They were only speaking Portuguese with my companion and only Japanese with me. Am I the only person in this dang country that only speaks one language? Most people know all three. Anyway, so I’m doing great. I love the country. I’m excited to learn. I want to get more missionary work in but today was just kind of tough because we had a lot of business to do today. Oh I’m writing my email today because my companion didn’t get a Pday this week. So my Pday will still be on Tuesday. I feel bad that I’m straying so far from the work but I want to hit it hard tomorrow and when I’m in awkward situations with members, I try to just study vocabulary and stuff. I will also probably be buying a bike in the next couple days. I don’t remember what the first estimate was but the consistent number now is about 500 dollars and I’m not sure how much a dictionary will be but might be up to 200 dollars. I’m sorry. Let me know if that’s not cool.

The technology here is insane, except the laptop I’m on right now is quite old. But the roads are super cool and your car automatically pays for tolls and stuff and so you just drive right though them and it tells you how much you paid. Road ways are incredible. Buildings are huge. Nagoya was sick. You should look up the Nagoya Station. Biggest floor space train station in the world. It blew my mind.

I hope everything is going well for everyone. I’m just basking in blessings here. I hope I can keep a consistent optimistic attitude and not let small things phase me. I feel like I’m in a honeymoon phase though. I am teaching an English class tonight and then we have a lesson, so it might get stressful which makes me glad I sent this email off first so it still sounds really good. I want to come back here so much some day. There are so many awesome things to do.

Oh so the members give us tons of food in this area. We just have it all over the house. Elder Insch (I might have spelled his name wrong earlier) said that he has tons of money that he will just end up giving back to the mission at the end. We only made one meal today. Then we went to a Brazilian restaurant that is owned by members (their son is the one that drives us places) and we just went back into the kitchen and the son grabbed us some authentic Brazilian food and we ate it there. The drink that I had alone was supposed to be $2. It’s way cool.

The people here are so nice. Everyone wants to help the elders. I’ll try to send some pictures next Pday. I have my camera but I don’t have the cord and for some reason these computers don’t have a place for the card. I also might be able to email friends next time. I’m not sure. That might make things a lot easier for me. So I’m still just trying to be as obedient as possible and working hard. I love you all. I’m stoked to be learning two languages. I am already learning so much. I’m way excited to be doing missionary work. Thank you everyone for your prayers. I hope things are going well. I will continue to pray for you.

あい フ-トン　著路

Another Email he sent later in the day:

I just made an 8 year old child cry because I stood up and said nice to meet you in Japanese. He hid behind his mom and said “he’s too big” and then said that I had blue eyes too. Oh, probably only a couple of you will know what this us but I went into the parking lot when I got off the plane in Nagoya and like 4 rows in I saw a sick black GTR. It blew my mind. This place is incredible. I can feel the diarrhea or 下痢. It’s okay for other people to email me so if you could put my email address in the last email when you send it out. Also, tell them that I probably won’t be able to respond to very many emails but I can still read them. I keep on meeting members. It so ridiculous how diverse it is and how little I can communicate. I just talked with some investigators as well. I don’t want to be wasting time emailing though so I’m just going to spend time studying until we need to go. Please distribute this email as well.

Love Elder Hooton