Dearest Family and Friends,
This past week went really well! I lost my iPad and found it recently, so I got permission to email later in the week. I am loving working in Senzokuike. I've done a pretty terrible job of explaining what I've been up to lately. My apologies. I will try to tell you about where I am and what I've been up to. We're in an area in southern Tokyo called Senzokuike. The church is right next to this huge pond, which gives the area its name. In Japanese, the characters for Senzokuike are 洗足池, which respectively mean wash, foot, and pond. A long time ago, a famous Buddhist priest came and washed his feet in the pond, and so it was named foot wash pond. It's a pretty sweet pond. I'll take some pictures of it this week. There's a cool shrine that's well maintained on a tiny little island close to the shore, a sweet bridge, and tons and tons of koi fish. There are some fish that are just out of this world big, at least a meter long, which means they're ancient. Koi fish can live for a super long time. The church building itself is a little older, but recently got remolded and is in good shape. It's a big square around a courtyard. There are two wards, or groups, that meet in the building. At 9, the Japanese ward meets, and the other ward, Tokyo 2nd, meets
at 1:30. Tokyo 2nd is an English speaking ward, so there are people from all over the world, but most are Americans living here in Tokyo. It was super weird initially to see little white kids with blonde hair and blue eyes running around everywhere. We are right next to the border with the Tokyo South Mission, but thankfully the border is a river, so it's really easy to stay in our mission. The Tokyo 2nd situation is a little weird though because they, along with the other English speaking wards in Japan, make their own stake. Because there are far fewer white people in Tokyo, the boundaries for the 2nd ward are pretty huge, don't follow the same boundaries as the Japanese wards, and the members are spread out. Because our mission boundaries follow the ward boundary for the Senzokuike ward, we aren't allowed to visit a lot of the members who live in Tokyo 2nd who live in the South mission because their stake's boundaries are different. It's a bummer sometimes, especially because a lot of the members that want to feed us live outside of our area. Our area is amazing though, there are always people to talk to, the members are great, there's tons of areas to go finding, and lots of good places to eat.
Our apartment is pretty fun. It's me and Elder King and we live with Elders Snyder and Broberg. It's been good to be with Elder King again, he's a good guy. Elder Broberg was in the same district as me when I was in Kasukabe. We didn't live together, but it's been fun to live with him again. Elder Snyder is great. He played basketball in high school and has a pretty shot. He's a big, athletic dude and a hard worker and fun to be around. We're all trying to eat healthier and lose some weight, with varying degrees of success and commitment. However, we're all currently very committed and eating very healthily.
Our investigators are doing well. Yuuta (pronounced Utah) is still our number one investigator. He's a great kid. He's 19, tall and skinny, super happy, a college student, wears glasses, and is so kind. I'll send a picture of him. He was supposed to be baptized a few weeks ago, but his mom wouldn't sign his baptismal form. She said it was ok for him to be baptized when he turns 20 (the age you become an adult in Japan). I think she just didn't want to be responsible for his baptism if it turned out not to be a good decision. His new date is
on September 24th, his 20th birthday! He's still doing really well, we're meeting him three times a week or so and he's coming to church every week.
Our number two investigator is a man named Basnet. He's from Nepal and is around 35. He's a super nice guy in kind of a rough patch. He just applied for a refugee work permit, which means that he can't work for 6 months (we have no idea why, but it's some government rule). He needs money though, so he's looking for a secret job right now, and he's so stressed about it that he won't meet right now. Please pray for him that things will work out and we can keep meeting with him!
We're doing quite a bit of finding. I really feel like things are about to take off here, so many different things have come to together in miraculous ways. I really feel like God wants us to start doing work, so please pray that things will start coming together. We actually set standards of excellence for our district, so it you could specifically pray that we could meet those, it would be fantastic!
Things here are going great! I'm loving the work and everything about being a missionary. I know these last few months of my mission are going to be the most focused, productive, and spiritual. I'm so grateful for the opportunity I have to be in Japan and to share the thing that has blessed my life so much and made me so happy!
I'll end with a quick spiritual thought. I've been thinking a lot recently about how God knows and loves everyone individually, and has a plan for everyone! All we have to do is our best and rely on Him, and whatever happens can be for our good. I've never felt more strongly in my life that God loves me, knows me, and that as long as I do my best to follow him, everything that happens to me is for my best best good, as long as I allow it to be. I love God and am so grateful for the knowledge I have of His existence and love for me and for everyone, and am loving telling others that He is real and loves them.
I love you all, talk to you on Tuesday! We have temple p day, so p day will be a day later than normal. Have a fantastic week!
Love,
Elder Calhoun
