August 1, 2010

Dear Family

Well this week was all right. It’s hard to get a lot of work done. We had to go to Shizuoka twice because Elder Wilson is District Leader and we had to do more stuff with that baptism. It was good though. It was super hard to meet with investigators this week. We only had 10 lessons which is fairly low and only 4 were with investigators. People were just once again super hard to meet with. Because of that I don’t have a lot to talk about. But Saturday we went to the baptism in Shizuoka. It was a very good experience. We actually weren’t supposed to go unless we had an investigator with us but they needed Elder Wilson’s signature so we ended up going. Elder Wood sang a primary him in English. It was very nice hearing it in English and it was just a good song. Also, the girl getting baptized was awesome. She has a super strong testimony. She also had really understandable Japanese. I could understand almost everything she said. It’s weird in Japan though because they talk about things openly that we wouldn’t talk about in America. Like how the family was opposed to her getting baptized and stuff. Anyway she was baptized and it was a good experience. She then gave a testimony and it was really great. The next day when she woke up though her mother had put suit cases outside of her room and told her to move out. The girl just said she’d do it later and then went to church to get confirmed. The Elders there said that she wasn’t even phrased. She was a trooper about it. Then when she went back home her mother admitted that she was bluffing and said she wasn’t going to kick her out. There are still problems but it’s good that she can still live at home. I wish I had as much faith and hope as she does.

I noticed some significant improvements in my Japanese this week. It has been a real blessing. I’m very thankful for all of your prayers. I’ve been understanding a little bit more and trying to jump into conversations more (failing but still trying). Then last night during our night sacrament meeting I bore my testimony and decided I wouldn’t memorize it in my head before hand and that I’d just talk about a couple things. I was way preachy and probably offended people but I feel like I was thinking in Japanese and putting out the sentences all right. Despite the fact that I had enough courage to read a scripture and read the wrong one and then stumbled through the right one it went pretty well (you don’t become literate in Japanese...ever).

Hopefully we will be able to meet with investigators this week and get people moving. I’ve got high hopes for this next transfer. It will be very difficult but I want to start coming up to the role of senior by calling people and talking to more people by myself and pushing myself into learning more Japanese.

So today while I was at a member’s house where they usually feed us curry and these little cookies that are way good. Instead they fed us gudon that wasn’t that great even though it’s my favorite Japanese dish and also some baby eel. Now I know I love eel but I love the meat. This was hundreds of little tiny ones that were about half an inch long with eyes and everything. I thought they were still alive (they might have been). As we started to eat them Elder Wilson just said, “start pounding it back and you might be able to do it.” He got poked by something and it grossed him out and then I felt something pop in my mouth and I didn’t want to know what it was so we took the couples offer of not eating it if we didn’t like it. They weren’t offended. They just laughed at us.

Dad I have an idea. You say you always want to write down all the stories from you life. I was thinking this week about some of your stories from when you were a kid and couldn’t remember everything so I was thinking that maybe you could write me a letter every week with a couple in it and I’ll just keep the letters (or you can save them on word or something) and that can become your journal. I would love to hear them and I’m sure my companions would find them interesting as well. If anyone else wants to do the same, I’d love to hear.

We found Mac and Cheese (Kraft) at a store this last week. It blew our minds. We bought it and ate it that night. It was so great. Also, we bought an Old El Paso taco set. I’m excited to eat tacos tonight. Hey in the next package that you send me can you send some soundtracks to some Disney movies? Mulan, Lion King, Hercules, etc. (we have the last two already but they are elder Wilson’s so I won’t have them after this transfer).

I’m sorry this week was so lame. It seems like all of our time is sucked up by things that don’t even have to do with missionary work. This next week should be fun though because we will be at the World Scout Jamboree. It will be tough though because I have to talk at a meeting there about how great my Eagle Scout award is and how great scouting is. On top of that being difficult and in front of a lot of people, I have to do it in Japanese. It’s going to stink pretty bad.

Love you all. Have a good week.

Elder Hooton