Sunday, August 8, 2010
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
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
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
July 26, 2010
Dear Family,
Well I’m with my zone leader in a church in
Preachy time. Every day I continually tell people that their lives will become easier and their loving Heavenly Father will be able to bless them if they keep the commandments. The ones that help us the most (besides the obvious ones of not killing and so forth) are reading and praying. I’ve come to realize that it is really quite simple. If we do those things then we will become better in all aspects of our lives. Heavenly Father wants to bless us and the only way he can do that is if we are obedient. So please, I beg of all of you, even the ones at camp to please pray at least every night. It’s something so easy but I know we are blessed for it. Please read the Book of Mormon as well. I know that it’s something that will please the Lord. I’m not assuming that people aren’t already doing this. I’m just testifying that I know that it is one of the best things we can do to show the Lord our love.
So I made a couple mistakes this last week. First of all I mixed up two people we met at roughly the same time (they live in the same apartment complex). One was an inactive member that we housed into and are trying to get her to come to church. The other is a lady that has interest in coming to church and reading the Book of Mormon (we are kind of excited about her). But you know how I’m a little forgetful sometimes? Well I was with one of the Japanese Elders from
The next mistake I made was that I didn’t take my parents advice. This one is a huge blessing because nothing bad came of it but I view it as a warning shot from Heaven to tell me to listen to my parents. I essentially got a get out of jail free card. Well last Wednesday we went up to that inactive member’s house that told us not to visit him. We wanted to drop off a note. Well we did it and then found a new investigator, taught lesson one and it was all really good. We were riding down the GIANT hill and I wasn’t exactly going slowly. In fact, I was gaining on this group of cars. I was about 20 yards behind Elder Wilson. He was passing a Miata (small little Mazada sports car). Right as he passed him (I was gaining on it), the car signaled to go onto a way small road. I could have gone to the left and cut in front of the car (where it was turning) but I decided if I did I would get t-boned by it and that would be pretty bad. I decided I would go right and swerve around it. But then I decided against that because I would come close to on-coming traffic. So I quickly decided to see how well my brakes work. I pulled really hard and about 10 feet before that car I realized this was one of those oh crap moments in life. I couldn’t believe I was really going to hit the car. Then I continued to sink my front tire into the back bumper of the car (I think I’ll write a descriptive essay on this some day). I saw the fiber glass bend in and then I went up into the air and then slammed my bike back down. I went to the left side of the car and the driver rolled down the window. I was scared because my companion was gone by this point. He had no idea that something had happened. I told him I was really sorry. He asked if I was okay. I said yes and he said are you sure and I said I was. He then drove off. He was a really nice, 20 year old guy. I then continued down the hill and said I’d never complain about Japanese people in my life. They are so nice. In
Yeah, yakisoba is just a type of fried roman. yaki 焼 which is one of the only kanji that I know means to fry something. So we had 焼肉 which is also another kanji that I know. It means fried meat, so yaki means to fry something.
I just had to meet a
Oh man so everyone is at debate camp; Brett, Danyon, Pam, and Tiffany? They all came back? Wow. That’s way hisashiburi (I think in English it means it’s been a long time or it means like oh I really miss that a lot. We say it when we eat American food). It was way good seeing pictures. I miss all of them a lot. Is Brett still the man? Is Danyon still great? I miss them a lot. I wish I was there. Is Jacob not shaving? Tell him to shave. What the crap is on Andy’s face?
Well this week was all right. We tried hard. We just couldn’t get appointments with people. They are so hard to meet with. We went for 15 lessons on Sunday. That’s unheard of. A good day is 3 lessons. We just hadn’t met with anyone during the week and so we went all out. We had it planned perfectly. People just weren’t home when they say they are going to be. We ended up only getting six. It was too bad. We were going to set a record. We figure that we rode over 20 miles the whole day. It was non-stop. It took a ton of planning and stuff but we visited every house and had a good unique message for each person.
Thanks everyone. Have a good week. Please pray and read. I know that it will help you improve. I’m not just saying that. The hardest part is just having the humility after you do it so that you can recognize the blessings you’ve received. Have fun at debate camp, Jacob. Love you all.
Alec, I’m sorry I missed your birthday your birthday a while ago. I’m just trying to find the crowning thing that will make your present great. Right now It’s just okay but if I can find the right thing it will be epic.
Follow up Letter on the following day
July 27, 2010
Dear Family,
Since we had to go do an interview on our P-day yesterday we are emailing now. I already emailed a letter yesterday so I’m mainly just waiting for Elder Wilson. Since I’m paying money to sit next to him, I decided I might as well use the computer a little bit more since I didn’t get much time to email yesterday.
I almost got hit by a car yesterday again. Stupid Miata pulled out of a side road while I was crossing a sidewalk. She was looking the other way and pulling forward at the same time. She probably came within a couple inches of my right pedal. I think she wet herself when she saw me. The Japanese are so scared of hitting people on bikes, especially an American. In
We taught a good lesson today. It was with this old woman that’s been taught forever. That seems to be what the majority of our investigators are, Just old people that don’t really want to progress. We brought a member who is pretty good. We decided we wanted to teach her about the importance of coming to church. She too scared to attend. I don’t blame her. I’ve noticed that she has a lot of misconceptions about church and the obligations she will have if she goes. She thinks she has to get baptized or that she will have to bear her testimony or fast if it’s on a fast Sunday. These seem like simple things that missionaries should tell investigators to reassure them that we are normal people. Last time we gave her the new church DVD that introduces us. In Japanese it’s called “gozonji desu ka?” but I don’t know what it is in English. It is something like, “do you know us?” She didn’t watch it though.
We tried to clear up some stuff today and then she asked if ancestors were important to us. Luckily the member we brought is gung ho about church history and genealogy. The next hour was them talking about that. It was going in a good direction so we just agreed and gave our input (I mainly just said yes and nodded my head). The cool thing was that I followed the whole conversation. Not each sentence perfectly, I can understand when other people are talking but the second someone looks at me and asks me a question I swear they change thing about their speech. I think they try to dumb down their speech for me and try to talk to me like I’m a child or something. I was only taught polite Japanese though so I just don’t know what’s going on.
I had a good conversation with the member on the way home though so I feel alright about my Japanese. Its times like this that I feel like I’m back at square one though. Anyway, we committed her to come to church in two weeks because she is busy this Sunday. We told her our mission president is coming so in two weeks and it will be really good and he is fluent in Japanese. She said yes and was even a little excited. So that was good.
Love,
July 11, 2010
Dear Family,
July 4, 2010
Dear Family,
Well darn, I actually don’t think I have a lot to say this week and I don’t have a lot I can reply to. I assume more letters are being written right now because I came a little early this week and Hooton’s tend to wait until the last minute to do stuff.
After emailing last week we went and did some shopping. I wrote Kaden a letter that he better
appreciate because it took me two hours. I was then excited to go take a nap then I heard Elder
Wilson’s watch beep from the Futon room and I realized it was 6:00. It was okay though because
we then went to ward sports night. It was way fun. The two Japanese Elders from Numazu came
and there ended up being like 16 people there. The biggest down side though was that it was not
air conditioned. It was incredibly hot. My hands and feet started to get wrinkly (like when you are swimming too long) because I couldn’t find anything dry to wipe my hands on. I even carry around a towel with me and that got too wet as well. Another drawback was that this member who married an American (who was also there) brought her little sister and her friend. I played semi-organized volleyball for the first time in my life I think. It wasn’t really fair because it was in Japan. When I jumped my face went above the net. Luckily I only got spiked in the face once. (It went onto the other side though score one Tyler’s nose). I slept well that night (after I rung out my skin like a sham wow). I think my descriptive writing is getting better. Sister Clemens would be proud of me.
Last P-day Elder Wilson got his haircut and a dude was paying for his haircut and I said suteki na..(I realized I didn’t know the word for haircut) so essentially I said, “that’s a good looking” I think he understood what I was trying to say. He spoke a little bit of English to me and then we started talking about sports and he said that he is a kick boxer. I told him that my friend getting his haircut was into MMA. He gave me his card and we met him later that week. He showed us a boxing gym in Fuji. Hopefully we’ll be able to meet some younger people there and talk to them. We have enough old people investigators right now we need young priesthood holders. The dude doesn’t have a lot of potential. He just couldn’t comprehend not drinking alcohol. Literally he couldn’t. He kept saying, “not even a little?” He was fun to talk to though.
We also went into a big cultural center last week to try to find people. They always have concerts
and stuff. We went into an art gallery and we were just walking around and a guy came up to us and started trying to speak English with us. We talked to him about some of the paintings. He said that he studied the Bible in Japanese and English and he loves to study stuff in both languages. We continued to walk around. He asked us how each pictures made us feel (most of them were of Mt. Fuji and the area around it). We then go to a nude painting and we tried to just hurry along but he asked us what we thought. It was quite awkward. We just made statements like. It’s a woman...she’s naked. Anyway, we went back yesterday (Sunday) and found him again (he was the artist of some of the paintings so he was there all the time) and we gave him a Book of Mormon in English and Japanese. He was super excited and asked if we had meetings. We gave him our flier and he even wrote down the day and time of our sacrament meeting (it’s the last hour here). So that was a good experience. It’s fun finding the people that are prepared.
So the biggest event of the last week was “Meet the Baird Family” taikai (conference). It was pretty scary because we heard a lot of stuff before hand because we were the last conference to be held so stuff leaked in from other parts of the mission. Things are totally different but luckily it comes from the Prophet and not from President Baird. Less people are upset that way. So we only have zone conference once a quarter and we have interviews once a quarter. Also, all leadership positions will have 4 day training sessions every other month for the next little while and they implement a new curriculum. It’s way intense. They made new “District videos.” They are videos of real lessons with real investigators. We had seen some from before (I had to watch them before I went into the MTC) but this time they are to show bad examples and stuff. We only watched one at the conference but it was really painful. One investigator thought he couldn’t go on dates for a long time.
President Baird is (as every missionary will describe him) an intense person. He yells....a lot. He
is passionate to say the least. I’m okay with it. I can handle stuff like that. He had me stand up
and read a bunch of stuff. He was yelling and crying at one point. He kept asking me questions. It
was interesting. I started to become good friends with him after the conference. He was a Human Resources Consultant (I think). So I was lucky to have him take interest in my father’s job prior to my mission. I told him that dad was an instructional designer. I shared some of my thoughts on the new training that will be happening in the mission and quoted some statistics that dad said all the time. He put his hand on my shoulder and whispered to me (also like he was crying) “your father is a brilliant man. He can teach you how to be an extraordinary missionary. Listen to every word that he tells you.” I said, “I’ve recently realized that. I only wish that I could have known that through my teenage years.” I like the man a lot. I think we will get along well. I don’t have any problems with his authority. He will be a lot different but I think he will be really good for the mission.
I’ll respond to people’s letters now. They were all great. I miss my mother a lot. I’m glad to hear her personality come through her emails. I’m glad that she can be enduring work and stuff well. Monica and Quincy’s letters are always funny. I think Quincy makes his letters extra formal for me so that maybe my English doesn’t go to crap as fast (it’s pretty badly written but I think I can speak it all right). Dad, your’s was good as well. I’m learning to just take your advice.
Dad’s story about celebrating his release was funny. Seems like same old Dad. President Griffin and the Bishop sound like the same old people, witty in their own ways. I should write one of them a letter or something huh? Tell them sorry about that.
Jacob your tennis camp will be great. You’ll make tons of friends. Trust your older brother and strive for the same goals as him. First talk with everyone. Don’t be scared to open your mouth. Second move your mouth when you talk and enunciate. Third, don’t look at girls and focus on the reason you are where you are (I think that was some pretty solid advice).
I bought brownies last week even though I didn’t get dad’s note. It was like $5 at a shop in Shizuoka. They are Betty Crocker. I couldn’t pass it up. I’m also quite rich here (for the time being) so I might as well use my money for what I have it for...food.
My companion, Elder Wilson is the same transfer as my trainer, Elder Insch. They will go home in February, so he is essentially just a year older than me on the mission. He also went in a little bit after his birthday so we are the same age as well. He did a lot of MMA. He is from Oregon. He wants to be a Navy SEAL when he gets back.
Debate camp sounds fun. It’s really sad that I don’t get to go. It was way fun with Quincy last time. It sounds like some people were probably upset because the president of Japan stepped down not too long ago for the base here in Japan. Thanks for telling me the topic
Love, Tyler
Monday, June 21, 2010
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
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