Email #67 February 23, 2016
Dearest Family and Friends,
It's been a great past few weeks! I am loving Narita and everything
about it. I'll tell you a little bit about it. It is by far the most
hilly area of my mission. It's crazy. I'm going to have yerked calves
at the rate I'm going. No matter where you go, it's up and down some
big hills/small mountains. I hate changing gears on my bike, but I
don't know how long that will last. Church is about a 15 minute bike
ride from our apartment. There are two routes to church. One is pretty
flat, it's a little bit up hill but anything too bad. The other route
is just straight up uphill the entire way. What we usually do is take
the flat route to church, and then take the other route home and just
cruise downhill the entire time. I have literally no idea how it
works, it boggles my mind. I feel like I'm living out a dream of just
always being able to go downhill no matter where I go. I don't know
what kind of magic is required for a miracle like that, but I'm
incredibly grateful for it. The church here is on a hill and it looks
pretty sweet. It's next to a big mall and some other stores and looks
like this castle on top of a hill, it's legit. Our area is right next
to the largest airport in Japan. It's pretty weird, around 50% of the
people on the train have huge suitcases and are traveling somewhere,
and there are a lot of white people. I've developed this fear/just
huge shock of seeing white people while in Japan, so I guess Narita
will either help me overcome that fear or I'll just break and go nuts.
A bad part about being right next to the largest airport in Japan is
that our gaijin power has all but disappeared. Basically, in Japan,
being white and American gives you huge power. Japanese people love
Americans and talking to an American is a super sweet and rare
opportunity for them. It's really easy to just approach someone and
say, "Hello! How are you?" And they'll talk to you in their broken
English and you can just go from there. Being white in Japan is super
great for talking to people here, but we don't have that same power
around the airport because there are so many tourists. Thankfully, my
companion is a pretty good looking guy, so we should be able to stop
people just from his sheer handsomeness. The ward here is great. There
are a few young people who have returned from missions and have super
solid testimonies. It's a lot smaller than my last ward, there are
probably around 50 people or so who come, about half of Kasukabe. The
stake president is from our ward, and his wife has soo much missionary
fire, it's amazing. She came to DCS, our meeting where we correlate
our work with the ward, and she was spitting out ideas and help left
and right. The bishop also seems great, he made us a list of all the
less actives and recent converts and part member families in a day. We
do a ton of activities. Monday is basketball, Wednesday is English
class, Friday is Family Home Evening and Ping Pong, and Saturday is
another Eikaiwa class and once a month there is tennis. I think it
might be too many activities. We dropped basketball because only a few
people go, and none of them have interest in the gospel. We are also
going to start rotating who goes to Eikaiwa on Saturdays, as there are
only two classes and there are three sets of missionaries. We were
able to teach some good lessons during the last few days since I've
come. Our area currently doesn't have any progressing investigators,
or any solid investigators that we consistently work with. I'm excited
to do my best to turn things around. My companion is named Elder
Cardon. He's a beast. I've never met someone as happy or easy going as
him. He has a crazy past and some great stories. He's from M******n,
which could have potentially put us off to a bad start, but his family
is from Ohio and he's a big Buckeye fan and hates living there. He's
been on his mission for almost a year and is half Japanese. He's a
great companion, so kind and just loses it whenever I say a joke or
try to be funny, no matter how dumb it is. It's great. He's kind of a
convert, his parents were both members but went really less active,
and didn't go to church for a lot of his growing up. He went to some
mutual activities after the youth in his ward reached out to him, saw
how different they were from other people, and started going to
church. His family started seeing what a difference it was making in
his life and realized that it had to be true and started going back to
church. Now, almost his whole family is active and he's working on the
ones that aren't. I'm loving working with him, he's so willing to work
hard and be obedient and put up with me and my madness. Nothing
incredibly noteworthy has happened over the past few days. Before
coming to Narita, I went to say goodbye to the members I got closest
to in Kasukabe. I love Kasukabe and will carry a piece of it in my
heart no matter where I go. There are members there that have become
eternal friends, friends that I want to keep in touch with in years to
come. I have already made one of those friends here in Narita. His
name is Sugiyama Kyoudai. He's 51 right now, has a really young
family, and is one of the kindest people I've ever met. In church on
Sunday they asked me to introduce myself, and I said that I liked
sushi. He invited us over for dinner that night, as that was exactly
what they were having. We went to his house and everything about it
was unreal. His house is super American, it has an oven and an island
in the kitchen and a big table. I'm going to go back to America and
just be blown away at the wealth. Anyway, the sushi was out of this
world. He had gone to a fresh fish market the day before and gotten
really nice salmon, tuna, cornetfish, shrimp, and squid. It was the
best sushi I've ever had. I think it was a combination of my tastes
changing to really love sushi and not having $1 sushi, but man, it did
it for me. It was just us and Sugiyama Kyoudai, his nonmember mom, and
his son, Shion, who's 10. Shion lived in America for a few months and
speaks a fair amount of English and is incredibly witty and hilarious.
He knew how to play chess and wanted to play. I thought that he wasn't
going to be very good, so I didn't try super hard at the beginning (I
didn't not try, I was still 100% intending to win) and he sure made me
regret it. He won a very close match with some coaching from his dad.
It was humiliating. However, we were able to build a really good
relationship with their family because of it, Shion wants to come to
Family Home Evening on Fridays and I'm really hoping he does because I
need a rematch. They are an incredible family. Their mom passed away a
few years ago from cancer, but Sugiyama Kyoudai is as strong as ever
and is so incredibly kind. Today, we went to his house because we had
forgotten a paper there the day before. He ended up taking us to these
various shops around town that had the cheapest food I've seen in
Japan. We got probably a 15 pound bag of carrots for $2 and some other
good stuff. We also got 4 kilos of good chicken and pork for $8. I
can't remember American prices for the life of me, but in Japan,
that's a steal. It was super kind of him. He speaks English really
well and loves the missionaries. I'm really looking forward to getting
to know him better and trying to help his family. It's been a great
week. I'm living with Elders Crosby and Aleman. I lived with Elder
Crosby in Oyama, so it's fun to be with him again. Elder Aleman was
from Elder Unsworth's MTC district, and is one of the kindest,
gentlest, good people I have ever met. I am loving Narita. Please pray
that this week we will be able to find new investigators,
investigators who will have desire to learn of Christ and move towards
baptism! Really quick spiritual thought this week, next week's will be
much longer. I really cannot believe how happy I am as I testify of
Christ. We are talking to everyone (President Nagano has asked us to
really focus on people ages 15-25 so that they can build and
strengthen the church in Japan through serving missions, getting
married in the temple, having kids, and providing leadership. Because
of that, we talk to everyone who is around that age group, not so much
really old people) and no matter how those people respond, I am so
happy as I teach and share my testimony about Christ. I think that my
love for the Japanese people is continuing to grow and be
strengthened. The more I love them, the less scared I am to talk to
them, and that fear has virtually disappeared. I love Japan! I love my
companion and the missionaries here and the members and the people
that I have the opportunity to talk with on the street, and I hope I
will be able to help them as I share my testimony of the Savior and
how He can bless their lives.
Love,
Elder Calhoun
It's been a great past few weeks! I am loving Narita and everything
about it. I'll tell you a little bit about it. It is by far the most
hilly area of my mission. It's crazy. I'm going to have yerked calves
at the rate I'm going. No matter where you go, it's up and down some
big hills/small mountains. I hate changing gears on my bike, but I
don't know how long that will last. Church is about a 15 minute bike
ride from our apartment. There are two routes to church. One is pretty
flat, it's a little bit up hill but anything too bad. The other route
is just straight up uphill the entire way. What we usually do is take
the flat route to church, and then take the other route home and just
cruise downhill the entire time. I have literally no idea how it
works, it boggles my mind. I feel like I'm living out a dream of just
always being able to go downhill no matter where I go. I don't know
what kind of magic is required for a miracle like that, but I'm
incredibly grateful for it. The church here is on a hill and it looks
pretty sweet. It's next to a big mall and some other stores and looks
like this castle on top of a hill, it's legit. Our area is right next
to the largest airport in Japan. It's pretty weird, around 50% of the
people on the train have huge suitcases and are traveling somewhere,
and there are a lot of white people. I've developed this fear/just
huge shock of seeing white people while in Japan, so I guess Narita
will either help me overcome that fear or I'll just break and go nuts.
A bad part about being right next to the largest airport in Japan is
that our gaijin power has all but disappeared. Basically, in Japan,
being white and American gives you huge power. Japanese people love
Americans and talking to an American is a super sweet and rare
opportunity for them. It's really easy to just approach someone and
say, "Hello! How are you?" And they'll talk to you in their broken
English and you can just go from there. Being white in Japan is super
great for talking to people here, but we don't have that same power
around the airport because there are so many tourists. Thankfully, my
companion is a pretty good looking guy, so we should be able to stop
people just from his sheer handsomeness. The ward here is great. There
are a few young people who have returned from missions and have super
solid testimonies. It's a lot smaller than my last ward, there are
probably around 50 people or so who come, about half of Kasukabe. The
stake president is from our ward, and his wife has soo much missionary
fire, it's amazing. She came to DCS, our meeting where we correlate
our work with the ward, and she was spitting out ideas and help left
and right. The bishop also seems great, he made us a list of all the
less actives and recent converts and part member families in a day. We
do a ton of activities. Monday is basketball, Wednesday is English
class, Friday is Family Home Evening and Ping Pong, and Saturday is
another Eikaiwa class and once a month there is tennis. I think it
might be too many activities. We dropped basketball because only a few
people go, and none of them have interest in the gospel. We are also
going to start rotating who goes to Eikaiwa on Saturdays, as there are
only two classes and there are three sets of missionaries. We were
able to teach some good lessons during the last few days since I've
come. Our area currently doesn't have any progressing investigators,
or any solid investigators that we consistently work with. I'm excited
to do my best to turn things around. My companion is named Elder
Cardon. He's a beast. I've never met someone as happy or easy going as
him. He has a crazy past and some great stories. He's from M******n,
which could have potentially put us off to a bad start, but his family
is from Ohio and he's a big Buckeye fan and hates living there. He's
been on his mission for almost a year and is half Japanese. He's a
great companion, so kind and just loses it whenever I say a joke or
try to be funny, no matter how dumb it is. It's great. He's kind of a
convert, his parents were both members but went really less active,
and didn't go to church for a lot of his growing up. He went to some
mutual activities after the youth in his ward reached out to him, saw
how different they were from other people, and started going to
church. His family started seeing what a difference it was making in
his life and realized that it had to be true and started going back to
church. Now, almost his whole family is active and he's working on the
ones that aren't. I'm loving working with him, he's so willing to work
hard and be obedient and put up with me and my madness. Nothing
incredibly noteworthy has happened over the past few days. Before
coming to Narita, I went to say goodbye to the members I got closest
to in Kasukabe. I love Kasukabe and will carry a piece of it in my
heart no matter where I go. There are members there that have become
eternal friends, friends that I want to keep in touch with in years to
come. I have already made one of those friends here in Narita. His
name is Sugiyama Kyoudai. He's 51 right now, has a really young
family, and is one of the kindest people I've ever met. In church on
Sunday they asked me to introduce myself, and I said that I liked
sushi. He invited us over for dinner that night, as that was exactly
what they were having. We went to his house and everything about it
was unreal. His house is super American, it has an oven and an island
in the kitchen and a big table. I'm going to go back to America and
just be blown away at the wealth. Anyway, the sushi was out of this
world. He had gone to a fresh fish market the day before and gotten
really nice salmon, tuna, cornetfish, shrimp, and squid. It was the
best sushi I've ever had. I think it was a combination of my tastes
changing to really love sushi and not having $1 sushi, but man, it did
it for me. It was just us and Sugiyama Kyoudai, his nonmember mom, and
his son, Shion, who's 10. Shion lived in America for a few months and
speaks a fair amount of English and is incredibly witty and hilarious.
He knew how to play chess and wanted to play. I thought that he wasn't
going to be very good, so I didn't try super hard at the beginning (I
didn't not try, I was still 100% intending to win) and he sure made me
regret it. He won a very close match with some coaching from his dad.
It was humiliating. However, we were able to build a really good
relationship with their family because of it, Shion wants to come to
Family Home Evening on Fridays and I'm really hoping he does because I
need a rematch. They are an incredible family. Their mom passed away a
few years ago from cancer, but Sugiyama Kyoudai is as strong as ever
and is so incredibly kind. Today, we went to his house because we had
forgotten a paper there the day before. He ended up taking us to these
various shops around town that had the cheapest food I've seen in
Japan. We got probably a 15 pound bag of carrots for $2 and some other
good stuff. We also got 4 kilos of good chicken and pork for $8. I
can't remember American prices for the life of me, but in Japan,
that's a steal. It was super kind of him. He speaks English really
well and loves the missionaries. I'm really looking forward to getting
to know him better and trying to help his family. It's been a great
week. I'm living with Elders Crosby and Aleman. I lived with Elder
Crosby in Oyama, so it's fun to be with him again. Elder Aleman was
from Elder Unsworth's MTC district, and is one of the kindest,
gentlest, good people I have ever met. I am loving Narita. Please pray
that this week we will be able to find new investigators,
investigators who will have desire to learn of Christ and move towards
baptism! Really quick spiritual thought this week, next week's will be
much longer. I really cannot believe how happy I am as I testify of
Christ. We are talking to everyone (President Nagano has asked us to
really focus on people ages 15-25 so that they can build and
strengthen the church in Japan through serving missions, getting
married in the temple, having kids, and providing leadership. Because
of that, we talk to everyone who is around that age group, not so much
really old people) and no matter how those people respond, I am so
happy as I teach and share my testimony about Christ. I think that my
love for the Japanese people is continuing to grow and be
strengthened. The more I love them, the less scared I am to talk to
them, and that fear has virtually disappeared. I love Japan! I love my
companion and the missionaries here and the members and the people
that I have the opportunity to talk with on the street, and I hope I
will be able to help them as I share my testimony of the Savior and
how He can bless their lives.
Love,
Elder Calhoun
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