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