Email #73 April 12, 2016
I'm Still Alive
Dearest Family and Friends,
I apologize again for the lack of communication. There's so little
time to email and my motivation, sadly, continues to plunge to
pathetic levels. I apologize. We didn't have much time to email on
Monday, so I've been working on this email during meal times, which is
why I'm sending it now. These last few weeks have been really good.
We've been blessed to see some crazy miracles. I'll share some
highlights from the past few weeks and then do more of a play by play
from the past week. Pretty much the highlights of the two weeks before
this past week were staying with Elder Cardon for another transfer and
a good district meeting. This past week was amazing. We found a new
investigator named Kosuke. We found him on Saturday two weeks ago, got
his Facebook, and then met with him on Monday. We were playing
basketball with a youth in the ward and another investigator, and
Elder Cardon messaged Kosuke, seeing if he wanted to come play. He did
and was pretty good. After playing basketball, it got pretty cold, so
we decided to go inside and play some ping pong. Kosuke was like, "Is
it ok if I take a look around your church?" We told him of course it
was ok and took him on a church tour. We ended in the relief society
room, which has the font, and taught him the restoration. We extended
a soft baptismal invitation, which he accepted. He also took a Book of
Mormon and a Restoration pamphlet. He just pounded out the restoration
pamphlet while we were playing ping pong. He said that he didn't
really understand it super well because there was so much new
information, but that he would continue studying it at home. He's the
man. He lived in San Diego for 2 years and his English is pretty good.
I told him I used to live in Irvine and he recognized it and got
pretty excited when I told him. The Irvine connection has been pretty
insane. I'm just waiting for the Chapel Hill connection to pull
through. He said he for sure wants to learn more, so we're going to be
meeting him when he doesn't have work. He's like 24 and way cool. We
found him on the street, asked him if he had interest in Christ and
Christianity, and he said yes. He had interest because all of his
Christian friends in San Diego were super nice, and he wanted to know
why. Good lesson about how our examples speak volumes. Please pray for
him! On Thursday, we had interviews. Mine went really well. Sister
Nagano launched into this hilarious story about checking the Shibuya
Elder's apartment. They went to see how clean it was and only gave the
Elders there a 2 minute warning. When they arrived and checked the
shower, Elder Hipps (who now lives with us here in Narita) was hiding
in the shower with a huge trashbag full of junk that they had
attempted to clean. They had also moved all the dirty dishes into a
different sink that is at an angle that is impossible to see unless
you pass it. Pretty funny. The Naganos are the best. Conference was
incredible. I learned a lot, but feel like I will learn a lot more as
I continue to study the talks over the next little bit. One of my
favorite talks was Elder Nelson's priesthood session talk. I've really
been thinking I need to increase the faithfulness and power and
gratitude and pretty much everything about my prayers. It's amazing
that we can learn how to pray by praying to learn how to pray. After
the Sunday session, we visited the Sugiyama family, a great family
here in the ward. The mom actually passed a way a few years ago, and
when that happened, quite a few of the kids went less active. We were
able to meet one of them, Akiya. He's seriously the man. His English
is pretty good, he's 19, and he's going to college to learn law. Which
is already pretty cool but made much cooler by the fact that all of
his school is taught in Mandarin. Crazy stuff. He is a super great guy
and I think we could really help him. Hopefully we'll be meeting up
with him again soon. After that, we went home. On the way home, we
passed a guy who looked to be in his mid 30s and who honestly didn't
look like someone interested in the gospel. We stopped him and just
asked him super straight up if he had interest. I'll just type out the
conversation pretty much word for word:
Elder Cardon: "Hello, we're volunteer missionaries for a local church.
As volunteers, we teach about Christ. Do you have interest in learning
more about Jesus?"
Man: "Yes."
Elder Cardon: "Wait, really? You have interest in learning more?"
Man: "Yes."
Elder Cardon: "You want to learn more about Jesus Christ?"
Man: "Yes. I really want to learn."
Elder Cardon: "Ok, is it all right if we meet again?"
Man: "Yes."
Elder Cardon: "In order to do that, is it ok if we trade phone numbers?"
Man: "Yes."
He then proceeded to take our phone, put in his name and phone number,
and save his profile. He said he was busy for the next few days, but
to call him after that and to schedule something. We were blown away,
that has never happened to me before. Normally, you can tell the type
of people that are open to change, but even then it take some
conversation and building of trust and friendship for them to be
willing to meet up again and trade contact info. This guy is golden
and we're way pumped to meet him again. His name is Fumiyaki, please,
please pray for him!
Today we had zone p day in Chiba. It was a blast, we went to the beach
and played sand volleyball and capture the flag on this huge field
next to the beach. I miss open fields, they're so rare here in Japan.
There's literally no space. No one has yards, and a nice Japanese
house is probably the size of a double wide in America. Imagine a
normal, middle class home in America and then shrink it to half the
size just by making things smaller and cutting out any unnecessary
fat. America is such a powerful country. I was a patriot before my
mission but now I'm off the charts. Anyway, zone p day was a blast. It
was forecasted to be super cloudy all day, and as we were going to the
train station, it was lightly drizzling. By the time we got to Chiba,
the rain had stopped, and by the time we got to the beach, the sun had
come out. By the time we played capture the flag, the sun was shining,
the sky was blue, it was warm, and we were able super happy. It was a
sweet miracle. That's pretty much the past few weeks. Life is so good!
I'm sorry, I don't have time for a spiritual thought this week. I'll
send a good one next week. I love you all, have a wonderful week!
Love,
Elder Calhoun
This and next 3 photos: Sakura (cherry blossoms)
Keeping the artsy levels one hunna
The night before zone p-day at the beach, I asked Elder Hipps if I should turn my jeans into jorts. He said: "Yes. Don't think. Just do." I did. The jorts power levels were so high the entire apartment joined me. We looked so real at zone p-day. Also, I made the world's trashiest tie out of the cut-off fabric from my jeans. Trashing at volleyball in jorts and a denim tie was pretty raw.
More apartment jorts photos. Elder Hipps is squatting. Elder Alerman is in the back. Elder Cardon is on the right. Elder Hipps is also from NC. It feels good to have a fellow tar heel around.
Zone p-day! It was a blast. It's kind of hard to read my shirt, but it says:
"SNAKE PIT." I found it at a recycle shop.
We went to Sutamina Taro, an all you can eat restaurant, and I ate all this. I almost died.
Japanese people have a really weird thing for Coleman lanterns. We went to an American import store one time and they had Coleman lanterns in the antiques section. They were broken and were selling for around $100.
A pretty cool shrine in Chiba.
