Email #60 January 4, 2016
Dearest Family and Friends,
These past three weeks have been great! Merry Belated Christmas and
Happy New Year! We've had some good stuff happen to us these past few
weeks. A week or so before Christmas, we had a really good Christmas
Concert in Koiwa, an area in Tokyo. All of the musically talented
missionaries sang or played an instrument and it was really good.
Elder Unsworth sang. It was fun to see a lot of my mission buddies and
get to know Shohei a little bit better. Shohei is the man, he's a
young convert who speaks good English and is super famous in the
mission. He's super cool. The next day we had the ward's Christmas
party. It was really fun. There was an open house for investigators an
hour before and an hour after. The ward helped us do a tour of the
third floor of the church, where the investigators learned about
different aspects of our doctrine, like eternal families, temple work,
and the gospel of Jesus Christ. It went well, there were 200 people
total at the party and the ward is normally 110 people on Sundays, and
not even close to all the members came. A few families did work, they
each brought 3 families each. We didn't get any new investigators from
it, but the sisters got one I think. It went well, and the ward is
planning on doing the same kind of thing again a few times in the
upcoming year.
Our Christmas was great. We visited some less actives, ate at an all
you can eat meat place, and cooked dinner for our bishop. It was a
pretty crazy day. There's this thing in Japan called yakiniku, where
they have a grill in the middle of the table and bring out these
little slabs of raw meat and you cook it yourself. It's the best. The
place we went to also had all you can eat cotton candy, crepes, and
ice cream, so you can bet that we went pretty hard. Our Assistants had
asked us to do service anonymously for our bishops for Christmas, and
we decided to make him and his family dinner. We looked at their
Facebook and saw that they wanted to eat Navajo tacos but couldn't
find corn flour. I had exchanges and we ate at a restaurant that
exited into an import store that had corn flour! I bought it and we
decided to make them Navajo tacos. We told them to come at 6:30 on
Christmas day, and we were going to make it and then head out before
they came. They ended up coming at 6:00 and we hadn't finished making
it yet so we had to turn off the lights and pretend like we weren't
there. We tried to do everything we could to get them to leave, but it
didn't work. Long story short, we were in the kitchen for like two
hours and then made an emergency escape by jumping off the balcony. We
ended up finding out the next day that they knew it was us the entire
time and we could have just eaten with them or not wasted all that
time. Oh well. At least we were obedient!
New Years was also great. The last day of the year and on New Years
Day we weren't allowed to go outside and work. New Years is a super
big holiday here and I guess they didn't want us disturbing people. We
stayed inside and cleaned our apartment really thoroughly on the 31st,
and then read the Book of Mormon on the 1st. Unfortunately, we had a
lunch and a dinner appointment on the first, and we were unable to do
more than 4 hours of reading the Book of Mormon. I had biggest
aspirations at the beginning of the day to get through Alma, but I
ended up just making it through 7 chapters of Mosiah. It was some of
the slowest studying I've ever done, but also some of the most
insightful. My love of the scriptures is finally beginning to blossom.
I'm really starting to love them more and more and really appreciate
their relevance in my life and their beauty. The scriptures are
amazing! Despite the sadness of only being able to read for a little
bit, our appointments were amazing. We had this traditional Japanese
food that they always eat on New Years, "お雑煮." It's called ozouni and
it was pretty good. They had beans covered in gold and these fish
cakes and tons of meat. The fish cakes were not my favorite, they were
sweet like a cake but then with a fishy taste. Each different thing is
supposed to bring them something different in the New Year, like money
and good luck and fertility. They also eat tons of mochi, or this
pounded rice that's really stick and gooey and really good. My ability
to eat seafood has increased significantly on my mission, seaweed has
really grown on me along with fishier fish and other good seafood.
This past week, we had 5 dinner appointments in 4 days for New Years.
It was great but I for sure couldn't keep that up my whole mission. I
feel so heavy from all of the food they've fed us, I don't know how
stateside missionaries do it. It makes me want to eat so much more
healthily. New Years is huge here. They don't have Christmas off for
work or school, but everyone has a few days before New Years and after
off. People in Japan are super busy and don't take long breaks. New
Years is one of the longest, and is a time to spend with family. It's
like the Japanese family holiday equivalent of Christmas in America. I
really hope that I'll get to be in Japan for another New Year someday
and go to a shrine or really get to see the things that they do.
Last Sunday, Elder Miller, one of the assistants, called us and told
us that we would be getting a new companion, Elder King from
Australia. We went and picked him up on Tuesday. He's the man! He's
from Perth and super laid back and cheerful and funny. His Japanese is
good, he went home after a few transfers and has now come back, and he
works hard. He's a stud. I was looking forward to working with him
this upcoming transfer, but we got transfer calls today. Elder
Unsworth and Elder King are gone, and I am staying! I'm pumped to
still be here in Kasukabe, it's the best. My new companion is named
Elder Faganello, he's just a little bit younger than me in terms of
mission age and from Canada and loves art. That's about all I know
about him, but I'm really excited to work with him. It's been a blast
working with Elder Unsworth and Elder King and I'm going to miss them.
Life is great, the work is great, Kasukabe is great, Elder Faganello
is going to be great, I couldn't ask for anything more! I love all of
you, have a wonderful week!
Love,
Elder Calhoun
These past three weeks have been great! Merry Belated Christmas and
Happy New Year! We've had some good stuff happen to us these past few
weeks. A week or so before Christmas, we had a really good Christmas
Concert in Koiwa, an area in Tokyo. All of the musically talented
missionaries sang or played an instrument and it was really good.
Elder Unsworth sang. It was fun to see a lot of my mission buddies and
get to know Shohei a little bit better. Shohei is the man, he's a
young convert who speaks good English and is super famous in the
mission. He's super cool. The next day we had the ward's Christmas
party. It was really fun. There was an open house for investigators an
hour before and an hour after. The ward helped us do a tour of the
third floor of the church, where the investigators learned about
different aspects of our doctrine, like eternal families, temple work,
and the gospel of Jesus Christ. It went well, there were 200 people
total at the party and the ward is normally 110 people on Sundays, and
not even close to all the members came. A few families did work, they
each brought 3 families each. We didn't get any new investigators from
it, but the sisters got one I think. It went well, and the ward is
planning on doing the same kind of thing again a few times in the
upcoming year.
Our Christmas was great. We visited some less actives, ate at an all
you can eat meat place, and cooked dinner for our bishop. It was a
pretty crazy day. There's this thing in Japan called yakiniku, where
they have a grill in the middle of the table and bring out these
little slabs of raw meat and you cook it yourself. It's the best. The
place we went to also had all you can eat cotton candy, crepes, and
ice cream, so you can bet that we went pretty hard. Our Assistants had
asked us to do service anonymously for our bishops for Christmas, and
we decided to make him and his family dinner. We looked at their
Facebook and saw that they wanted to eat Navajo tacos but couldn't
find corn flour. I had exchanges and we ate at a restaurant that
exited into an import store that had corn flour! I bought it and we
decided to make them Navajo tacos. We told them to come at 6:30 on
Christmas day, and we were going to make it and then head out before
they came. They ended up coming at 6:00 and we hadn't finished making
it yet so we had to turn off the lights and pretend like we weren't
there. We tried to do everything we could to get them to leave, but it
didn't work. Long story short, we were in the kitchen for like two
hours and then made an emergency escape by jumping off the balcony. We
ended up finding out the next day that they knew it was us the entire
time and we could have just eaten with them or not wasted all that
time. Oh well. At least we were obedient!
New Years was also great. The last day of the year and on New Years
Day we weren't allowed to go outside and work. New Years is a super
big holiday here and I guess they didn't want us disturbing people. We
stayed inside and cleaned our apartment really thoroughly on the 31st,
and then read the Book of Mormon on the 1st. Unfortunately, we had a
lunch and a dinner appointment on the first, and we were unable to do
more than 4 hours of reading the Book of Mormon. I had biggest
aspirations at the beginning of the day to get through Alma, but I
ended up just making it through 7 chapters of Mosiah. It was some of
the slowest studying I've ever done, but also some of the most
insightful. My love of the scriptures is finally beginning to blossom.
I'm really starting to love them more and more and really appreciate
their relevance in my life and their beauty. The scriptures are
amazing! Despite the sadness of only being able to read for a little
bit, our appointments were amazing. We had this traditional Japanese
food that they always eat on New Years, "お雑煮." It's called ozouni and
it was pretty good. They had beans covered in gold and these fish
cakes and tons of meat. The fish cakes were not my favorite, they were
sweet like a cake but then with a fishy taste. Each different thing is
supposed to bring them something different in the New Year, like money
and good luck and fertility. They also eat tons of mochi, or this
pounded rice that's really stick and gooey and really good. My ability
to eat seafood has increased significantly on my mission, seaweed has
really grown on me along with fishier fish and other good seafood.
This past week, we had 5 dinner appointments in 4 days for New Years.
It was great but I for sure couldn't keep that up my whole mission. I
feel so heavy from all of the food they've fed us, I don't know how
stateside missionaries do it. It makes me want to eat so much more
healthily. New Years is huge here. They don't have Christmas off for
work or school, but everyone has a few days before New Years and after
off. People in Japan are super busy and don't take long breaks. New
Years is one of the longest, and is a time to spend with family. It's
like the Japanese family holiday equivalent of Christmas in America. I
really hope that I'll get to be in Japan for another New Year someday
and go to a shrine or really get to see the things that they do.
Last Sunday, Elder Miller, one of the assistants, called us and told
us that we would be getting a new companion, Elder King from
Australia. We went and picked him up on Tuesday. He's the man! He's
from Perth and super laid back and cheerful and funny. His Japanese is
good, he went home after a few transfers and has now come back, and he
works hard. He's a stud. I was looking forward to working with him
this upcoming transfer, but we got transfer calls today. Elder
Unsworth and Elder King are gone, and I am staying! I'm pumped to
still be here in Kasukabe, it's the best. My new companion is named
Elder Faganello, he's just a little bit younger than me in terms of
mission age and from Canada and loves art. That's about all I know
about him, but I'm really excited to work with him. It's been a blast
working with Elder Unsworth and Elder King and I'm going to miss them.
Life is great, the work is great, Kasukabe is great, Elder Faganello
is going to be great, I couldn't ask for anything more! I love all of
you, have a wonderful week!
Love,
Elder Calhoun
In church we can request food that we want by writing it on a sticky note and putting it on the church fridge (in Japan, we don't have a ton of meal appointments, but the members bring food for the missionaries to eat in their apartments every week). On one of my sticky notes, I asked for a Book of Mormon book cover with the painting "The Great Wave Off Kanagawa" on it. This is a super famous and incredibly cool painting. I figured there was no harm in asking. The Bishop's wife said that she could probably make it for me, and spent the last couple of weeks doing so, asking me what fabric I wanted. She finished a few days ago and now I have this amazing Book ov Mormon cover with a ton of iconic Japanese paintings. SUPER nice of her!
Elder King bought this for himself on his birthday and pounded it like a champ. It was way bigger than it looks.
New Year's traditional food
Elder King in the futon dryer. It's to clean our futons by killing all the potential bugs in them using warm air. He got in it to stay warm.
I got a haircut and thought I would just go for the special since it was around Christmas. They went to shave my face, and started with my forehead (not sure why you would need a forehead shave). The lady asked me if she could do my eyebrows, and I said I was ok. She persisted and said she would only do a little, and I relented. I look Egyptian now.
Dessert at the Hosoya's house
The missionaries in Kasukabe made a senbazuru for a member in the hospital here. A senbazuru is 1,000 handmade paper cranes strung together, and receiving one means one wish you have will come true. The sisters made around 950 of them and we made about 50.
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