June 17, 2010

Dear Family

The last two days have been a little crazy. I’m actually in a hospital waiting for them to deal with Elder Howells. We’ve been here for about an hour and then said they can take him about in about another hour. I want American Hospitals. They don’t air condition them here. Also the doctors aren’t the best that’s for sure.

We had interviews yesterday. It sounds like I will probably be transferring next Wednesday. President leaves to go home on Thursday. He wants me to be pushed harder with my Japanese. Currently my only practice is with Arisawa Kyoudai. It’s good because he doesn’t talk with me at full speed but other than that I don’t speak it very much.

Jason your phone sounds pretty sweet and there is a huge advertisement push over here for the same phones actually. They are 12.1 mega pixels and you can use them under water (that’s the biggest thing). What carrier are you on? Do you have a sim card? If you do then I might have a pretty cool trick for you.

I actually got the package from home in 7 days. I got it last Wednesday. Thank you so much. It is great. I think the Kit Kats are my favorite. Katie once again thank you for all the wonderful letters and cards. I sent you off a letter yesterday. Hopefully you like what’s in it. I was a little surprised when they told me it would be 3 dollars to send. They pulled out a customs slip of some kind then asked me a question I didn’t fully understand but I think they asked if it was just a letter. I said yes because that’s my default answer when I don’t know what they say. He then put away the customs slip and gave me a weird look. You will realize why it’s funny when you get the letter. It’s obviously not just written letters. They also considered the regular American sized envelope “over sized.”

It was really sad yesterday. The Travllers are leaving. Elder Walter one of my zone leaders who I’ve gotten to know pretty well is going home next Thursday. Also Elder Insch my trainer doesn’t have a ton of time left and if I get transferred I might not see him again. I guess it’s just part of the mission. I don’t know if there are people as funny as them though. Elder Walter was trying to get these two elders to run for their train yesterday and teach them a lesson on seeing miracles. They were not cooperating so Elder Walter decided them we would demonstrate. So our goal was to get to the train station and get to the ticket machines in 4 minutes. We made it in 3:15. I would usually care that I look pretty stupid with a backpack and a short sleeve white shirt running down the busy streets of Kanazawa but I really didn’t mind at all. It’s just part of the job. Speaking of Kanazawa train station, you should totally look it up on the internet (all who read this email). Look up Kanazawa eki. Eki means train station. It’s one of the coolest man made structures I’ve ever seen. I love going there. It’s so stupidly over the top (literally)

Funny story. I asked my companion if he used AOL when he was younger. He said, “You mean AMERICA online” I didn’t see his point until I remembered he was from Canada.

Hey does Abby have a college address? I don’t remember if you sent it to me. If you did I didn’t write it down. I’ll look after I send this. Resend it anyway please.

Quincy your laptop sounds way cool. It sounds like that one that I used for college won’t be used at all. It’s sad but maybe my stuff will still be on it when I get back.

Here is a funny story. President Erying’s grandson used to be my Zone Leader but now he is AP. At the last zone conference the President made a joke about how the new president is bringing his daughters but one of them is only staying for a couple of months. Then he said that President Beard will love us all and especially Elder Erying because he might be his new son in law. I guess it’s the only reason why one of the daughters is coming. I’ve never seen someone handle a situation so well. It was still quick awkward though.

Quincy thanks for the letter in the package. I actually read that same talk the morning I got that letter.

Japanese is going all right. I’m slowly getting better. I’m at a hard point right now where it seems like I’m getting worse. I might be but I think I’m just trying to speak more advanced so I’ll be digressing for a while.

At the wedding last week I had some of the most awkward experiences of my life. It was so great I loved it. First of all I met the wife of the man that put together the p90x program. Maybe I’ll buy it for real someday now. She said Tony is a really nice guy. Also there were tons of cultural differences. In the Japanese culture you like never tell someone that you love them. The bride said “ichiban daiski desu” to her mother. It literally means you are my number 1 favorite. I’ll be sure to tell you that I love you Mom on my wedding day.

Thanks for the music in the package. I enjoy it. It’s relaxing and helps the apartment time go by a little faster some days. Maybe next time you could send that Mormon tabernacle choir CD that I really liked. I just thought of it.

So I weigh 200lbs now. I need to go real quick. Maybe more later.

Love, Tyler

Now we are waiting in a different spot. It’s been forever now. We left the apartment at 2:00 and it’s now 4:30. Anyway, I weigh 200 pounds now. I think it’s because I’m not taking advantage of my lactose intolerance. I don’t ever drink milk and so I think my food stays in my longer. None of my pants fit me. I almost couldn’t get my pants on this morning because they are the smallest pair. It’s embarrassing. I have a feeling that after next week though I won’t have a problem.

This week has been alright. I’ll have news next week of where I will be going (or I guess if I’m staying one more). President said he might put me with a Japanese companion so I can be pushed harder. We will see though. He also wants me to resume Portuguese in a couple transfers. My hope is that I will train a Brazilian when I go senior but that’s a long shot and I’d have to get really good at Japanese first. Sorry I have to go but I love you all. Have a great week.

Love, Tyler

June 1, 2010

Dear Family,

So this week was interesting. Don’t worry I’m a happy person and it would take a lot to break my sense of humor. My companion went into full blown depression and the Mission President asked him if he wanted to stay in the mission. So I spent that whole day just studying again. My companion called him back and said he wanted to become junior companion again and wanted a Japanese companion. So, since Takaoka is a Brazilian area I was the one that would be forced out.

Things started to go better and I got Elder Howells to work more over the weekend and things were going well. Yesterday (Monday) went by without a call from the President. We thought it wouldn’t happen and Elder Howells even said he felt better and it probably wasn’t needed but today while I was memorizing stuff during the time that we were suppose to be having companionship study, Elder Howells walked in on the phone and the President is the only person that is allowed to call during that time so I knew that it was going to happen.

As of Friday I will be going to Nanao. Elder Howells will actually be with an American; however I will be with a Japanese companion. Nanao is super rural and has 9 members. They are very old and impossible to understand. Also, my new companion speaks zero English unlike most Japanese missionaries in the mission. I also have to give talks quite often as you can imagine. I’m not upset about this. In fact, I’ve convinced myself that I’m quite excited. It will be good to learn Japanese better and it will be a good experience.

The previous part of this letter is what I was planning on sending today, but now things might change. We walked out of the apartment today to go write emails and I was checking the mail with my bike as Elder Howells was fooling around on his BMX bike and I heard his bike fall. I thought it was just normal because he tries to do tricks all the time so I grabbed the mail (there actually wasn’t anything there) and turned around and he was lying in the parking lot. So I went over to make sure he was still alive and he couldn’t move his ankle and he got his arm scratched up pretty bad. So we called Arisawa Kyoudai and he took us to the hospital and we spent most of our day there. It looked like he had about 3 ping pong balls (the official system of measuring ankles in Japan) jammed in his ankle.

So now there is a slim chance (since he is out for 3 weeks which is how many weeks are left in the transfer) that the transfer actually won’t happen. It would be nice because I would just do member exchanges with Arisawa Kyoudai who is fluent at Japanese and Portuguese and Tanaka Kyoudai would learn English from Elder Howells in the apartment. Arisawa Kyoudai is so cool. He used to have a awesome skyline but he was drifting it in the mountains and rolled it off a cliff (70 feet, we converted the measurement). He’s okay now. It was about a year ago. But I think that transfer still might happen so next time you get a letter from me I probably won’t know English (or Japanese still) and will weigh 35 pounds less.

In other news I ate spaghetti this week and didn’t have to change my white shirt after. Also, I went on an exchange in Toyama and we went to play basketball with a bunch of college kids (to get them to come to our classes and it worked pretty well). It was so awesome. It was nice to do something that felt American again. Everyone there loved me. They didn’t want me to play at first because I was so tall. I also learned a lot of Japanese from talking with them. I realized I’m super fat and super out of shape but that might change next week. The first two games that I played I was pretty bad and only scored like 4 points but the last two games I scored about 80% of my teams points. It was super fun and there were ouuuus and ahhhhhs coming out of the stands. We got most of the girls to commit to going to the English class in Toyama. It was good.

I might cry the day I go back to America and I can throw away trash into just one can because I’ll be so happy. Here you have to separate EVERYTHING. It’s so annoying and we got yelled at the other day for putting out our trash wrong. (Real quick have Jordan and Kaden received my emails as letters? just a question).

I went to a member’s house this week and he was like a Japanese president Bowman but with 3 gold teeth...and I didn’t understand a word he said. My companion met Jack’s daughter from “24” when he was in Canada. She lives in his city. He has also met a lot of different singers. I told him, “Oh yeah, I trespassed on Mel Gibson’s ranch with my dad.” It sounds like everyone has a lot on their plates. Monica and Quincy are working a lot. Dad has a lot to do with his conference and moving into his new office at work. Mom has incredible amounts of responsibility with work and church. Jason and Carey didn’t even have time to write me (not complaining, I understand life). I’ll be praying for everyone. Thanks for working so hard. Also, it seems like about 10 days ago all of my friends must have been super busy because I didn’t get a letter this week from anyone (not complaining I’m just saying...).

So don’t send the package to my address it Takaoka, send it to the mission home. I’m not sure if you should use the same address or not. You can just look at my call or whatever information we were given. Here is a story that might be offensive to people (maybe don’t send to grandparents). Toyama has an investigator and his name is ほりした in romaji it is horishita. It comes out to be Ho-ri-shi-ta. Hoe-ree (roll the r)-she-ta. He is hard to teach to say the least. I giggle after I say his name.

This week was good. I strove (I don’t think that’s an actual word) for 100 percent obedience and tried to work as hard as I could. I made some good progress in Portuguese. I know that this next week the Lord will put me where I need to be and I’m not too worried about it. I trust that He knows best. It might be tough but it will be good for me.

I love you all and will try to put together a more coherent email next week. I will continue to pray for you. Love you all.

Elder Hooton