Hey how are you all?

This was a pretty good week for us, sounds like everyone is busy and having a good time back home at the moment too. I bet you that it is Sister Mai that Elder Payne wants to bring over. She is the lady that I gave you her email address. She is way cool and her english is perfect so yeah she won't have any problem talking to you. If you can I would love for you to meet her. Let me know if you do meet them or not she is awesome. Could you get her address for me? I would love to write her a letter. If you email her you should be able to get the address do you still have the email address? Anyways have fun

So yeah this was a pretty good and kind of crazy week with a church meeting I will never forget but hey I guess thats missionary work right?

Monday -

We had the Sports meet after email and it was a ton of fun. Around 40 missionaries showed up and we had a big football tourny which was a blast. My team actually won it all and I surprised myself on a few plays. It was a blast seeing a bunch of different guys from around that I hadn't seen in a while and making new friends. We got home and ate some food and headed back out. We had promised a member the week before that we would stop by his house sometime so we decided to do it after p-day. We headed out and shared a message with his son who is less active and him. It went alright he seemed to be happy that we came. The only problem was that I did a seiza (Sezia is when you kneel down and sit down on the back of your calfs, usually when they see you do that they tell you to relax but I guess they didn't notice) for around 45 min and when I tried to stand up I couldn't feel my legs at all and almost fell over. I had to grab on to the table so I wouldn't fall. I was pretty embarrassed but I honestly couldn't feel my legs at all. It was a way fun P-day.

Tuesday -

We had a lesson with a new investigator named Okada. He was a way cool guy and when we taught the plan of salvation he was answering our questions with all of the right answers. We committed him to read the BOM and pray about it. Right now he is busy so we can't get another appointment but he wants to meet again and already has read the assignment we have given him. Other than the lesson not a lot really happened.

Wednesday -

We went out to do work and did some streeting but not a lot really happened. On the way home we got stopped by a lady that was deaf. She could hear a little bit and read lips and respond in pretty hard to understand Japanese/English. From what we could understand from what she was trying to say that she had met missionaries in Australia and lived there. I thought she was kind of weird and maybe crazy but figured because she was deaf she came off that way, so we invited her to church and headed on our way. We had Eikaiwa after and we were able to invite 2 people to heard the lessons and both accepted which we were excited about.

Thursday

We had Japanese class in the morning which is always way fun. Lots of people ask us why we are in Japan and what we are doing so its really easy to introduce the church. I am pretty sure we will keep going. After that we had an exchange with the ZL's I went with Elder Matsuoka and Elder Akina went with Elder Cutler. It rained all day and elder Matsuoka and I just streeted but its hard to do in the rain.

Friday

We got done with the Exchange and elder Akina and I got back together in Ibaraki. We had District Mtg. which went pretty good. Better than last week so I was pretty happy about that. We went out streeting but had a hard time getting people to listen which was too bad.

Sat.

I had an Exchange with Elder Kudo in the morning for a lesson that I thought he could help with. On our way to the lesson we talked with a guy and were able to setup an appointment which made our 3rd new investigator that week. We had our lesson with Otsuchi again. We talked for awhile and found out that he believes the church is true and has no problems with the commandments he is just scared to make the final step of being baptized. We just need to help him get over that fear. We committed him to pray and choose a date before our next lesson. Hopefully it works. Elder Akina and I got back together after the lesson and did some streeting but not much luck.

Sunday

We got to church and had our first meeting with our ward mission leader and afterwords went outside to greet members as they came in. Out of no where that deaf lady we met the other week shows up and starts talking to us in broken english that I couldn't understand.

We took her inside and she started dancing and singing a song at the top of her lungs and that was when we figured out she was 100% crazy and not just deaf, and at that point I realized it was probably going to be the best Sunday of my life. We got her into a different room with the help of our ward mission leader and his wife and tried to teach a lesson but she kept singing and dancing and telling us about the 3 boys she met in Australia over and over again. She stood up on her chair and started doing the whole song thing and I tried not to laugh but it just came out. Anyways, after trying to teach the plan of salvation by writing thing back and forth with her on the white board we gave up and just took her outside and when we waved good bye she got up and headed home. I won't ever forget some of the looks the members had.

Anyways after that we went to sacrament meeting and had a good meeting there.
After church we got home and made a game for the family we were going to visit for a lesson that night. They fed us Gyoza (Pot stickers) and it was super good. We played the game and the little kids loved it and then committed them to invite someone to the next ward sports night. Hopefully they can do it, they are a great family and super nice. We called a potential investigator after we got home and were able to set up an appointment with him. That made 5 investigators in one week the most I have had on my mission so far so we were pretty excited. Now we just need to get some progressors and we will be set.

So yeah that was our week. it was pretty fun and full of crazy stuff but we had a good time. Mothers day is coming up and our number is 080-2149-6238
If you could call me at 8:00 AM our time over here that would be great. You will call Sunday night Mothers day over there, Monday 8:00 AM over here. Here is what the mission home sent us about calling when calling to Japan remember that after dialing the country code the first “0” in our area code should be omitted. Ex: Country Code + 80 2149 6112.You figured it out last time but maybe it will help I dunno. Anyways if you have any questions or anything let me know.

Thanks for everything
love you
Cam

Hey

Well again another week without a ton of time. Sorry, we have this sports meet we are going to go to down in Abeno, Osaka I don't think I will have time to email dad or derrick but I will try to get something out.

Mon
Right after email I got a call from Uno the guy that was suppose to be baptized. He talked to his parents and his dad doesn't want him coming to church or to get baptized. We can't really do anything about it so its a little disappointing but oh well. I guess we will have to move on. We can have him come to activities and stuff and if he really has faith he can join once he is 18.

Tuesday -
We had service with the handicapped people again. They really like Akina Choro and this one lady give him hugs every time she sees him. Its way funny I just about die laughing everytime. Anyways, after service we had tracting time but not alot came of it.

Wednesday -
The night before Elder Murphy (Elder Buergers replacement who went to a place called Yamotokoriyama) got into a bike crash and thought he might have sprained his arm. It still hurt the next day so he figured it would be better if he went to the doctor rather than tough it out. They had a lesson so I did an exchange with his comp. while they went to the hospital. Turns out that he busted his elbow and has to have a hard cast for 4 weeks. President gave him the option of staying at the mission home and our 2 areas becoming one for 4 weeks and being a 3some or him staying. He chose to stay but can't ride a bike so its kind of crazy for him. They are still working as hard as they can though. Elder Kudo and I went out and dendoed and also had a lesson but it got canceled at the last minute. Later that night elder Akina and I taught eikaiwa which went well.

Thursday -
One thing we have been trying to do is find more places where it isn't so unnatural to do missionary work. Knocking on someones door or stopping them on the street can be great but...normal people don't do that sort of stuff so we decided to go to the city hall to see what activities they have there. We found that they have some free classes for foreigners to learn Japanese so we went to one. It turned out to be pretty fun and I think we will go every Thursday we can. Hopefully we can become friends with the people and try do bring them into the church. Also it turns out that one of the teachers is a member which surprised us. We later had District Mtg (I am District leader again btw). It went alright nothing real special and we had our weekly planning.

Friday -
It poured rain all day not stopping once. Elder Akina and I decided to ride our bikes around the area trying out different places to see if we could find somewhere new to street. We found a college that should be really great to try when it isn't raining We found a few other places that we want to try out. While it wasn't the best day for contacting and work like that it was a good day and we were able to lay out our plans for the transfer.

Sat.
We had a lesson with Otsuchi again. He has been an investigator for around 4 transfers with no progress so we decided that we have been too nice to him in the last few lessons and to push him hard and make him decided to either join or stop the lessons. We had a member join us and he had been praying a lot before the lesson on how he could help. He prepared a bunch of stuff before the lesson and when we got together a few minutes before it turns out what we had planned to teach fit perfectly with what he had prepared. It was pretty cool. We taught alright and were really bold with him. He wants to join the church but won't say why he won't be baptized. I am guessing its a commandment but he won't say. We got him to go home and pray about a date for him to get baptized and to come back to the next lesson with that date. Hopefully it happens, if not we will probably drop him soon.
After the lesson we had Sports night which was a ton of fun. We got one investigator there which was good.

Sun-
Pretty normal Sunday. After church we had dinner with a member which was super good. We shared a message afterwords that we kind of killed but I think they understood what we were trying to say. We also got a referral from some elders in a different area and were able to get an appointment for Tuesday so that was a nice blessing.

It was a really fast week and we had a good time. We are planning on doing finding really hard this coming week and working the new college we found. Hopefully we can meet some cool people that have some interest. We will see what happens.

I will think about the package and let you know next week.
Sorry this email is kind of short and all over the place I will try to make it a little better next week.

love you tons
Cam

Hey,

So you didn't get my email last week? Too bad a lot has happened in these last 2 weeks. Anyways we did end up having a transfer and I got a new comp. My new Comp. is Elder Akina and we were in the same MTC district together. Its pretty fun you hardly ever see a companionship that was together in the MTC (called doki) so being a comp with one of your doki is a ton of fun. We are doing pretty well and having a blast. Elder Buerger also transferred and Elder Murphy moved in. I lived with him my first transfer and so it was fun to see him again. He is a great missionary and I have always looked up to him my entire mission, way fun guy too so its been a blast.

We had that lesson with the referral from the zone leaders and we were able to set up a baptismal date with him for next week but at the moment it doesn't quite look like its going to go through. We can hope but we will see what happens. He got permission from his parents to talk and hear the lessons from us but didn't quite get the permission to be baptized yet so we will see what happens. He is 16 years old and went to church all by himself looked it up on the website and everything so its pretty cool. He has been prepared and its been great teaching him so far. We have taught lesson 1 and 2 and some big commandments so far so no problems yet. We will see what happens.

We have also had a big change with finding people. We have found a bunch of new people but no real solid investigators yet which is a little frustrating sometimes but at least we are setting up appointments. We also had a great zone conference this last week probably the best up until now I think. President was the CEO of Japan Franklin Covey when he was called and has stayed away from really using much of that stuff with us but this time he taught us the first 3 habits of the 7 habits of highly effective people backing it up with scriptures and PMG and it was super awesome. Everyone got really pumped up and is really excited again to get doing missionary work. For sure the best Zone Conference so far in my mission it was really great.

You all watched Conference right? (You better have) It was pretty good this time. I really liked the talk about the bibles history and also the talk about patience that President Uchtdorf gave. They were all great and it was fun to watch. Its kind of like the super bowl for missionaries so we get kind of excited when it comes around I guess.

So last week we went out to Kyoto again because the Sakura (Cherry Blossoms) Were in full bloom. It only happens once a year and who knows what area we will be in next year so we decided to go while we still could. We went to a place called kiyomizudera pretty cool and way old. I will send you some pictures.

It sounds like everyone had fun out at grandma and grandpa's house. I definately miss all those fun times out there. Man you will have to send me a picture of Brad. Three hours at the gym a day? Man thats a ton. I bet it was kind of weird without Jake there for everyone.

Um I think thats everything I can't think of much else that has gone on. this week is pretty open for us so hopefully some good things happen and we get some more solid investigators. I will be sending a bunch of pictures out to you hope you like them.

Love you tons
Cam