Email #22                       March 23, 2015

Rope bridge we visited last p-day.  Beautiful view & awesome bridge!

Dearest Family and Friends!

I'm so sorry for no big email last week! The week  was really awesome and so crazy. This is going to be a pretty long email because I have two weeks worth to write about. Sorry! I'm trying to do less of a play by play day by day, but that's the easiest way and it will be fun to look back on. Starting with the first week! Tuesday and Wednesday and Thursday were all pretty normal. On Wednesday, we had a really good lesson after Eikaiwa with Cozy. We are really trying to get him to do the things that will really draw him closer to God and know that God is real, that he can receive help with his family, and that this church is true, like coming to church, praying, and reading the scriptures. He has a lot of objections, but we are slowly and surely getting over them. He knows that the Book of Mormon is true, but doesn't know if God exists! It doesn't really make a whole lot of sense, but we're making really big strides. To end the lesson, we all kneeled down (after lots of objections) and had Cozy pray to know whether or not God is real. It was a really good prayer and a powerful way to end the lesson. The next day was incredible! We had a zone meeting and then a blitz here in Sanjo. Blitzes are when everyone in the zone comes to one area and we all go finding. The zone meeting was really fun, it was snowing really hard that day and had been since Monday, so there were about 6 inches of snow on the ground. We had some really good trainings and then went to Toncatsu Sanjo, a restaurant here in Sanjo that missionaries love. We went on exchanges for the blitz, and I was with Elder Sakamoto. He is a former assistant and is 26, already a college graduate, and an absolute beast. We biked over to the neighboring city, Tsubame Sanjo, with two other Elders, and they had to ride the Sister's bikes. It took forever because their bikes were so awful and it was snowing, but it was really fun. We went housing and cleared a lot of entryways of snow for people, and we had a really sweet experience where we gave a guy a Book of Mormon and told him the first vision. He wasn't super interested, but you have to start somewhere! We ran out of time really quickly and had to head back, and on the way back we all hit an icy patch and went flying. Elder Sakamota went straight into a snowbank, flew over his handlebars and landed in the snow, I went skidding and fishtailing to the left and managed to stay up, Elder Richards saw me go flying, thought, "Oh no," and then ate it and went sliding on the ground, and Elder Hibino, the last Elder, managed to slam the brakes just in time to miss the slush patch. We were all dying afterwards, it was super fun. We went back and shared our miracles, and it was amazing! Sanjo has 5 new potential investigators just from 3 hours of blitzing! It was super, super cool. On Saturday, we went on exchanges and we also found out whether or not we would be transferring. I went with Elder Farnworth and we went housing. After that we came back and found out that Elder Walker and Elder Farnworth are staying here in Sanjo and Elder Mobley is transferring! It was crazy, Elder Walker will be here for at least 5 transfers! I had been asking for a Nihonjin and was really hoping to get one. Sunday was full of miracles! It was both Sister Peterson and Sister Palmer's last Sunday and they were both speaking, and we had 48 people come! It was really sweet. Elder Mobley then had to pack and then we had a member devotional with Elder Nelson of the Twelve and Elder Evans of the 70. It was a really good devotional, they talked a lot about member missionary work and how members have to do missionary work for the work to progress here in Japan. On Monday, we went to this sweet suspension rope bridge, but it was quite a journey to get there. We had to take an hour and a half bus ride to get to the bottom of the mountain, but thankfully the bus fare was only 100 yen. We then had to hike up to the bridge, and there was a really cool view on the top of one of the mountains on the way there. As we started the hike, we got the call to find out who my new companion would be and where Elder Mobley would be going! My new companion is Elder Barnes! He's awesome. Elder Mobley is in Kawagoe. The next day, we took a bus down to Tokyo for the Elder Nelson mission conference. It was super fun, there were 30 missionaries on a bus we had to ourselves for 5 hours through the mountains. I talked a lot to Elder Henderson and Sister Goto because they love gospel questions, just like me. Elder Henderson had a few insights that really helped me a lot with some of the questions I was struggling with. It was really bothering me that Christ was only able to perform the Atonement because God was His Father. But then Elder Henderson said that even Christ had to depend on God completely to perform His mission here on earth. I really liked that, it really made it click for me. After the bus ride, we got to go to the temple! The Tokyo temple is HUGE! It blew my mind. It is in a really wealthy area of Tokyo, where all the embassies are, and it feels like you are in the Provo temple. It was a really neat experience, we had headphones to translate it into English, but you could also hear it in Japanese. It was a really good experience. The next day, we had a two mission conference in the Tokyo South Mission. It was a really, really good conference. Elder Nelson talked about being Disciples in the Digital Age, and why we have iPads. It was pretty sick, Tokyo mission has been a part of every technology experiment or testing that the missionary department has ever done. They are going to take our old iPads and give us new ones. He talked a lot about developing habits with technology that will bless us for the rest of our lives. It was a really really good conference, and it was really fun to see everyone from the MTC and from my district. At the end of the conference, I met Elder Barnes for the first time! He is super, super cool. His dad was in the military, so he grew up all over the place. He's a really hard worker but still super chill, speaks Japanese incredibly well, and is a fantastic teacher. I'm really excited to work with him. We then drove back up to Niigata the same day and were in our area by the end of the night. It was a super fun and crazy day and week! Thursday and Friday were also good, we mostly just introduced Elder Barnes to our investigators and went finding. On Sunday, there was a big district meeting for the Niigata groups. It was basically stake conference, but because the church up here is so small, it's just called district conference. President Budge is the equivalent of the Stake President. It's a really confusing situation. The members up here are awesome though. After the conference, we went back to our areas. Yesterday, the next day, we had to go back up to Niigata for zone conference. It was a really great conference. I really love the Budges and am so thankful for them. There were some great trainings about setting expectations and getting along with your companion and all sorts of good things. At the end of the conference, we got our new iPads. They're pretty sweet. They have lots of memory and are much newer and can do panorama. It's pretty sweet too that lots of other mission will be getting them too, they are such a useful tool! I'm really sorry I forgot to tell you that we wouldn't be having p day until today, it's been a super crazy, busy week! That's about it for these past two weeks, it's been super fun and crazy and amazing! Things in Sanjo are getting better and better, our new sisters are really cool (although I'll miss the last ones, they were crazy and awesome!) and are going to get a lot done, and Elder Barnes is amazing! I forgot my scriptures again, but we haven't done a whole lot of studying these past two weeks because of how many meetings we have had. I think Elder Henderson's insight was my favorite from the past weeks, but I have been reading Jacob 5 and it's really amazing. One of the insights from Elder Graham, one of the senior missionaries, from this scripture that I really liked was that we can do to our thoughts what the Master of the vineyard did to His vineyard. If we are ever getting distracted or having bad thoughts, we can cut them out, get rid of them, and then replace them with much better good thoughts. I love the scriptures! I love my mission! I love the Japanese people! Life is good, I love and miss you guys, have a fantastic week!

Love,

Elder Calhoun

Email  #21        March 17, 2015

Family!

I don't have time to write this week, I'm really sorry! I'll give you a two week update this next week. It was a crazy week, I'm getting a new companion, we had a miracle filled blitz, and right now I'm in downtown Tokyo! Life is good! Love you all, I'll give you a really big update on Monday! Have a fantastic week!

Love you all,

Elder Calhoun

Email #20      March 9, 2015

Dearest Family and Friends,

This week went really well! We really focused this week on teaching
lessons and find service. On Tuesday, we went to the service place
that was closed last Saturday. We were able to get a big packet of
service opportunities, which we're pretty excited about! Elder Mobley
was translating it and all of the ones he was translating had to do
with working at nursing homes, and they had some pretty gnarly options
like changing sheets and diapers, cleaning wheelchairs, singing, and
lots of other things that were not our forte. Elder Mobley had
basically finished the page before he realized it was organized by
type of service, and he was translating the elderly section. It had
taken him about an hour because of how hard kanji is, and he was so
bummed, it was pretty funny. On Wednesday, we had a good district
meeting, the zone leaders had a good training about finding with faith
and the sister training leaders also had a good training about no
regrets. District meetings are always good. We went to Toncatsu Sanjo
afterwards, we go there at least once a week. Toncatsu is fried
chicken that is served with rice, sweet sauce, and hot mustard and
wasabi vegetables. It's really good, but everyone not from Sanjo wants
to eat there because it's famous among missionaries. All the Elders
here have burned out on it. The Niigata Elders have a referral for us
today, and we're going to eat at Toncatsu Sanjo to talk with them and
the guy and then on Friday we have a zone meeting and blitz here in
Sanjo and we're eating there again. It's pretty funny how often we eat
there. After the district meeting, we had a lesson with Okamura San.
Elder Makisei came with us. He's a senior missionary in our zone with
his wife. They're really awesome. Okamura is pretty hardcore Buddhist
and has some very different fundamental thoughts from Christianity,
and it got a little heated between Elder Makisei and Okamura. It was
neither effective nor pleasant. We bore our testimonies and then it
got better and then it got heated again so we left. Craziness. On
Wednesday night we had a gyoza party! Gyoza is pot stickers. It was
really fun and went well. We had a lot of non members there and we
talked to them about the gospel as much as we could. Obara, the other
Elder's investigator, made them all with his sister. They are both
from China and own restaurants, so the gyoza was super good. Wednesday
was a really good, crazy day! On Thursday we went to the Nakagawa
Family's house. I really love their families. We went over with Yugi
Kyoudai. We had a good lesson with them after we ate dinner. On
Thursday night, Elder Farnworth went on exchanges with Elder
Henderson. Having Elder Henderson in the apartment is really fun. He's
such an awesome guy. He works out like an animal. He stayed for a 36
hour exchange, so he was here Friday and Saturday morning. On Friday
morning, he did 250 jump lunges and 250 jump squats and like 500 calf
raises. On Saturday morning, he did like 300 pushups. So crazy. He got
tired after around 50, but then just pushed through it and did 250
more. He's an animal. On Sunday, we went to Kumagai's house and had a
mogi lesson. We had three throughout the week, and we taught nine
lessons. We taught the Restoration a lot. It was a big blessing! It
was a really good week. I read in Jacob and lots of General Conference
talks this past week. My scriptural insight is about how we all have
room to improve. Whenever Jacob preaches, he talks about how grieved
his heart is that he has to tell the people about their iniquities. He
talks a lot about how he doesn't want their sins to come upon him. I'm
sure he was an amazing man, as we was a prophet and saw Christ, but
it's really interesting that his motivation isn't totally to help the
people or out of a Christlike love for them, it's so that their sins
don't impact him. No matter how good we are, we still have room to
improve, even the prophets but especially us! I also read two talks
that I really, really liked from last General Conference. The first is
from Elder Christofferson and is called, "Free Forever, to Act for
Themselves." It talks a lot about free agency and how justice and
mercy work together. I really, really like it. One of the points he
brings up that I really like is how if we didn't have to repent for
our sins to be forgiven, we wouldn't have our free agency. Part of
free agency is being able to choose our actions and the consequences
of those actions, and if we could receive Christ's Grace without
having to repent, we wouldn't be able to choose the consequences of
our actions and our agency wouldn't be complete. Really cool. The
other talk I really liked was by Elder Klebingat, called. "Approaching
the Throne of God with Confidence." He lays out 6 ways we can
basically become better, happier people. It was really, really good! I
love this gospel! I love seeing the way it influences people for the
better and makes them truly happy! I am so grateful I can spread this
joy to the people here in Sanjo, Japan and better their lives and make
them more happy. I'm so grateful for the Atonement and the love God
has for me individually. I am so grateful for the person my mission is
turning me into; I still have a long, long way to go, but I am happy
that I am changing for the better! I am so grateful for my amazing
family and friends! I love you all, have a fantastic week!

Love,
Elder Calhoun

 Seiko, Obara's son and the cutest kid ever

 Sanjo is beautiful! The mountains are so much bigger than they look.

 Me contributing to a lesson.  Missions are tiring!  Elder Mobley used it as an object lesson, so it ended up working out.

We made pictures for Yugi Kyoudai to help him stop smoking.

Email #19        Monday, March 2, 2015

 district dinner

Tatsuhiro--funniest kid ever in our branch

Dearest Family and Friends,

I bought a keyboard! Now I should be able to send more emails, because I was terribly slow at typing on the iPad keyboard. This week was really awesome. I'm going to try to do a few things better in my weekly emails. I'm going to try to do a better job of sharing my spiritual experiences and insights during study that I have had during the week. This means I'll probably be talking a lot more about the Book of Mormon and things from it, so to my non-Mormon friends who won't understand, you should just read it! It's full of great things and it's online or an app or you can order it for free. It's an awesome book! I'll also try to explain the lingo I use I little bit, but if you have any big questions or don't understand something, just email my dad at wcalhoun@cci.edu. He's super chill and awesome and can answer your questions. Or, you can text Dylan Jarmon because it would be good for him. The other thing I feel like I've being doing a lot of is sharing the non missionary things I have been doing, like eating ghost peppers. I promise that isn't what I am usually doing! I think because basically all I do is missionary work, the normal/crazy things I do stand out more because life can be a little bit repetitive and repeating. I probably won't stop sharing those things, but just know that they are the exceptions, not the norm of my days. Ok. This week. On Wednesday, we had a good district meeting and a really good Eikaiwa. I taught the advanced class, and one of the student's names is Kosuke. He doesn't have interest in the church, but we had a good discussion about the purpose of life and what he wants to do with it. He had a lot of questions about the earth and himself and what he is and made of and how the earth was created. It was a really interesting conversation. We aren't allowed to do missionary work (dendo) during Eikaiwa (Engilsh Class) because it is a community service, and he left really quickly after class, but I am going to tell him after class this week that our church has answers to his questions. After Eikaiwa, we had a super good lesson with Cozy. It was a really powerful experience. It really felt like the Spirit was telling me what to say or what to have Elder Mobley say, because I still can barely talk to people. It went really well, and we invited him to baptism twice. He declined both times, but said that he felt something at Nozome Shimai's baptism that he can't deny, and he know that the Book of Mormon is true. He is so close! On Thursday, we went to Nagaoka, a city south of us where the zone leaders (two missionaries who lead over our zone. A zone is usually three or four areas, and each area has two sets of Elders, or male missionaries, and one set of Sisters, or female missionaries. I hope this is all making sense!) live. Elder Mobley had a baptismal interview for one of their investigators (someone who is meeting with the missionaries to learn more about the church) that went well. On Friday we had ping pong and visited the city office to find service opportunities. It turns out there is a huge service center in town that has lots of opportunities. We went on Saturday, but it was closed, so we are going to go back tomorrow. Saturday was pretty uneventful. We did a lot of prep for this upcoming week. We also did a little of bit of housing, or going door to door to try to find new investigators. We try to do that as little as possible because of how ineffective it is. Sunday was good. We had around 25 people at church, not including missionaries. The highlight of the day was going back to visit a guy we housed into on Tuesday. On Tuesday, he said that he was busy but that we could come back. On Sunday, when we went back, we saw him walking his girlfriend out to her car in the rain with an umbrella. After he got back, we talked to him and gave him a Plan of Salvation pamphlet, and he said he would read it and that we could come back whenever! Really exciting. His name is Sakami  and he is an incredibly kind man. We are really hoping it goes somewhere. It was a really good week! This week in study I read a lot of the New Testament and in 2 Nephi.  As I was reading Luke, I was reading it with the study guide. There were some quotes from older general authorities that I really liked. Elder Talmage talked about how Jesus received the ability to die from his mother, but the ability to choose not to die from His Father, God. Because of this combination of parentage, He was able to fulfill the Atonement. The agony He experienced was literally so much that He had to willingly choose not to die from it until He was on the cross. I thought that was really insightful and interesting. I also really liked Elder Holland's insight that God didn't forsake Christ, He had to leave Christ for the short amount of time that He did so that Christ could fully experience the penalty of  sin, or being cut off from the presence of the Holy Ghost. I really liked 2 Nephi  33:4: And I know that the Lord God will consecrate my prayers for the gain of my people." I can do this for the Japanese people! I know that Heavenly Father will answer my prayers, even if it is in a way that I can't see or know. That's about it for this week! Love you all, have a fantastic week!

Love,

Elder Calhoun

P.S. Sorry, on notes, the program that I write my emails on, the keyboard doesn't do so hot and does a lot of double spaces and letters and I can't fix it. Sorry!

Email #18                      February 24, 2015

 Japanese English :)

 How cold it was in the beginning of February.  Burrrr! 

Elder Cannon! 

Planning meeting (in bed)

Dearest Family and Friends,

Hello hello! Sorry for no email yesterday, we had Elder Ballard come speak to us, so they pushed our p day back to today. This week was pretty crazy. We did a lot of fun stuff. Last Tuesday, I went on exchanges with Elder Walker. I really love Elder Walker. Elder Mobley has nightly calls every night because he is district leader, and Elder Farnworth takes his showers at night, so Elder Walker and I end up talking together every night for quite a while. We're a lot alike, except he is much better at Japanese and being kind and forgiving and flexible than me. He is going to BYU-Hawaii when he gets home, but wants to transfer to Provo. I really hope he does! We had a couple of lessons together, and then went to Tsubame, the next town over, to house. We didn't have any luck, but as we were waiting at a red light to go home, we heard some loud whistling behind us. This Japanese man came up and started talking to us! It was crazy! That never, ever happens. His name is Leo, and he introduced himself as Leo the Lion. He believes in God, thinks that family history is really important (he brought that up out of the blue, just randomly asked us where are roots are. Crazy again), has a family, and said he really respects what we're doing. He doesn't have a whole ton of interest right now, but we got his number and Elder Walker has called him a few times and he likes talking over the phone. Pray things will work out with him, because this gospel will really bless his life! On Wednesday we had a good lesson with Okamura, our Buddhist investigator who doesn't really know he's an investigator. He is trying to convert us to his religion, a pretty crazy sect of Buddhism, but is willing to hear our message and has ran into about 10 sets of missionaries throughout his life. Elder Mobley said that maybe it's God's will for him to be a Mormon, and he said, "No, it's MY God's will." Which is way weird because they don't believe in God and either way, he becomes LDS! Hey, whatever works! On Thursday, we had weekly planning. Elder Mobley and I were both extremely tired, so we did it in our futons. Here's a picture. Amazingly, I didn't fall asleep and we ended up doing it in less time than we planned! After that, we went to work on Elder Mobley's training for Zone Meeting. He had to give a training about companionship unity, and the importance of unity. The plan was to have a crepe cookoff between our companionship and the zone leader's companionship, where we worked together and they didn't, and then Elder Mobley would talk about how much better things went when we work together and have the same vision and then we all eat crepes. We then discovered how long it takes to make crepes so our plan had to be changed. We ended up using a microwave chocolate cake recipe that was much faster and easier, but we brought the crepes we had already made, there were enough for everyone to have one. On Friday, we had zone meeting down in Joetsu! Joetsu is an area in our zone that only has 3 active members coming every week, so we had the zone meeting down there then did a blitz for the rest of the day to find new investigators for the Joetsu missionaries. The zone meeting went really well, I got to meet our new Assistant, Elder Cannon (he's the older brother of the Elder Cannon I idolized and still idolize from the MTC), and Elder Mobley's training went really well. After the meeting, we went on zone exchanges. My companions for the day were Elders Hutchings and Yoshino, both from Joetsu. They are beasts! Elder Hutchings reminds me a lot of Cam. He is quiet but an incredibly hard worker, and he had a fractured foot and was running everywhere! Elder Yoshino is Japanese, but speaks really good English and is awesome. He isn't afraid to talk to anyone, and is incredibly nice. We were able to talk to some really nice people and teach a little bit about our church. We had to jog back to the train station because of how far our area was, which was exhausting, but Elder Hurchings did it with no complaining on a fractured foot. He's an animal. The only way I found out his foot was fractured was because when we stopped running, he was limping. He's crazy. The zone saw some really amazing miracles! Joetsu now has at least 2 more investigators, and lots more people coming to English class. It was a super fun day. Saturday was a really amazing day, and literally nothing went according to plan. We went to church after study and then to get money at the post office. While there, we ran into a Filipino man named Joey. He said he was looking for a Christian Church, and then followed us to church for a tour! It went really well. After that, Cozy, one of our investigators, asked us to go to the flea market. We went, and found out he runs a stand, which is why he can't come to church sometimes on Sunday. He is so nice! He bought us dinner and then gave us some wrenches for free. #freewrenches. After dinner, we met with Takashi! He wanted to hang out, which is awesome because he hasn't wanted to for a couple of weeks. We ended up having a member present lesson at church which also went well. It was a really awesome day! On Sunday, we had a pancake party before church, which was awesome because only a couple of people came, which meant lots of pancakes for the Elders. We didn't have very many people at church, which was a bummer, but lots of people were sick. Joey didn't come! Bummer. We got his Facebook information though, so we can message him and try to meet. Later in the day, we went to the Elder Ballard member broadcast because our mission leader asked us to so we could share it with the members who didn't go. It was really good, although a lot of it didn't really apply to us as missionaries. Yesterday, we went up to Niigata to watch the Elder Ballard missionary conference, and it was amazing. He spoke a lot about being good teachers and the importance of teaching the restoration. Elder Rasband and Bishop Stephenson also spoke, they talked about the importance of being able to communicate in Japanese and using our language study time well. It was good. Last night, we had a really good family home evening at church. We played musical chairs again and I won this time because it wasn't anyone's birthday. It felt good. Today has been a very tired p day. I have slept for the past 4 hours. Please pray that I will be able to sleep tonight. Sorry for the incredibly long email! Have a fantastic week!

Love,

Elder Calhoun