Email #76       Tuesday, May 31, 2016

Dearest Family and Friends,

久しぶり! I know you've all been rejoicing that it's been so long since an
email of mine has hit your inboxes, but I'm back. At least for this
week. Sending long emails requires energy, something I am often short
on. These last few weeks have been fantastic! I'll just give a brief
run down on what has changed over the past month or so. One of the
biggest things is that we had transfers! My beloved Elder Cardon has
gone up to Sanjo, my first area. My new companion's name is Elder
Higashi! He's the absolute best. We've been in the same zone the past
two transfers, and I had the opportunity to go on exchanges with him
two transfers ago. He's hilarious, and I was super pumped when I found
out he was my companion. We've been working really hard and have been
soooo blessed to see tons of miracles. Our area has really been
picking up, we have found a lot of new investigators and a lot of them
are progressing right now. My main man Kosuke is doing super well! He
has come to church the past two weeks and is coming again this Sunday
as long as he doesn't have work. We're teaching him later tonight. His
understanding is super good, and he asks amazing questions. He's an
amazing guy! Please pray for him! Those are pretty much the only major
changes. This past week went super well. On Tuesday, we went to the
temple! One of the people Elder Higashi worked with in Chiba went to
the temple to do baptisms for the dead for his first time, so we went
with him. It went well. He was having a hard time getting under the
water initially and had to do the same person quite a few times, which
stressed him out I think, but it all worked out in the end and
everything was fine. On Wednesday, we came home and did some good
dendo and then had Eikaiwa. Eikaiwa is always good. On Thursday we had
exchanges. I was with Elder Hipps. It went well, we were able to make
one of the guys who comes and plays basketball a new investigator. The
other elders also found a new investigator and a potential
investigator, so we ended the day with three new people, which was
sweet. Friday was district meeting and family home evening. Both went
well. I learned how to play shogi, or Japanese chess, and am
thoroughly enjoying it. We can only play at Family Home Evening, which
is very good. It's a blast and pretty good for building relationships
with the members that come. On Saturday, we had the ward's monthly
shogi activity, which was fun but absolutely destroyed my brain. I
don't think it's the most effective activity, not a ton of people
come, and have asked to stop it, but the ward keeps it because a non
member husband of one of the members comes when he can. We did some
good finding as well. Sunday was super good. We had church, and Kosuke
came! So did the Naganos. They taught third hour, and gave a lesson
about member missionary work. They also were both able to talk to
Kosuke and hit it off with him really well. President Nagano is going
to go eat at his hotel (he works at a hotel that also has a nice
restaurant) before he picks up the next group of missionaries here in
Narita. We had a 食事会, or like a pot luck after church. It was
delicious. We also had a YSA party after the potluck, which went super
well. Kosuke was able to become friends with a lot of the YSAs.
Yesterday was also good, we did weekly planning. We've been super bad
about finishing weekly planning. We were fasting to start a 40 day
fast (i'll include a picture of what that is) yesterday as an
apartment, which made planning pretty rough. We ended our fasts with
some ramen though. I got the extra extra big size and it was a lottt
of food. It came in a huge bowl. We also saw a pretty cool miracle
where one we ran into one of the new investigators we found who said
he would come to church, but then didn't and we couldn't contact him.
We ran into him wayyyy far away from where we first saw him, and were
able to set up a return appointment and find out why he didn't come to
church. Huge miracle! Today, we got to go to the temple again! It was
great. I love the temple so much and am so grateful we have one in our
mission. I learn so much every time I go, and feel more and more peace
each time. We went and had breakfast kebobs beforehand. We woke up
early to get to Tokyo with enough time before the session started. We
ate at Elder Hipp's favorite kebob place in Japan, which is open 24
hours. It was so good. I'm for sure down to make having breakfast
kebobs a Tokyo temple tradition. After the session, we went and ate
with Yu Oto, a recent convert of two years who I've heard a ton about
but have never been able to meet. Until today. He lived in Australia
for 15 years, so his English is super fluent. It was sweet to finally
meet him and get to talk with him. We had aburasoba, which is
basically just ramen without the broth to which you add vinegar and
oil. It's pretty terrible for you but super delicious. We've eaten out
wayyyy too much this past month and are going to take things way
slower this month. It was a great day and has been a great past few
weeks! I love you all and am so grateful for all of you! Have a
wonderful week!

Love,

Elder Calhoun

P.S. Probably a lot of pictures to follow. Sorry.

(No pictures followed with this update. James must have run out of time :).