Hey,
How is everyone?

Yeah, another week has passed by super fast and I can't believe it. Its weird to think that this month I am going to hit my year mark! It's crazy isn't it? I kind of have 2 feelings about it. It feels like life before the mission was just kind of a dream and forever ago but when I think back to the MTC it feels just like a few weeks ago. I am surprised at how fast its gone and most of the older missionaries say that once you go over your year mark it speeds up alot. It's gone by super fast.

Earthquakes? Whats going on out there? We haven't heard anything or felt anything about any earthquakes. We are honestly completely oblivious to anything outside of our little apt. here so yeah, we haven't heard anything.

The new area is good and Honma Choro and I are getting along well. We joke around and have a good time. I have gotten to know the members a bit better and they are always super nice. A lot of them are wanting to help us out and dendo too which is great.

Thats great news about whit! Let me know what the test says hopefully it all works out I will keep her in my prayers. Thats way sad about Rachel. I will make sure I remember her. Hopefully it will all turn out ok.

So it wasn't the best week in the world for missionary work. We tried really hard to find some new people to teach but it just didn't quite seem to work out for us. Streeting out here is pretty different than it was in Tanabe. We have tons of chances to talk with people its just getting them to stop and listen is the problem. We will keep working on it and hopefully find some new people this coming week.

I got to go to our service place this week for the first time. It is a place for handicapped people to work. There were a bunch of older handicapped ladies there and we teach them english and help them with their work. After being there for awhile the lady sitting next to me decided to tell the entire class that I was so good looking that I could get married even if I didn't have any talents. Needless to say it took Honma choro and I all the power we had not to burst out laughing. I thought you might like that story.

One thing that Osaka is kind of known for in the mission is the amount of crazy people that are all over the place. I had heard it and thought it was just exaggeration but it is 100% true. They are all over the place it seems like. People standing on bridges talking to the sky. Some old dude walked up and asked us a bunch of weird questions and then just walked off while making a way crazy noise. It always makes the day a little more interesting I guess.

We had a sports night with our church which was fun. One new member brought a friend which was great. I hope that we can teach her later on. It was pretty fun to get out and move around. We played volleyball, basketball, and badminton it wasn't very competitive but it was fun anyways.

We were able to teach Otsuchi on sat. We watched the Joseph Smith DVD with him and asked him why he wanted to listen to us (He doesn't want to join at the moment but wants to hear the lessons still) He said he wants to learn the word of god. He reads the BOM quite a bit and he said that he felt that Charity was important. We tried to set some goals to help him develop charity but he is super super sensitive for some reason and when we put a little pressure on him he said he was going to quite coming. We backed off and he was fine but its a little frustrating. hopefully we can help him realize that he needs to be baptized.

That was pretty much the week. We did lots of streeting and other things but not a lot happened. This next week is busy and should be better I hope.
So package stuff. I will send you a picture of the journal today. Also do you remember those silver and black pens you sent me in a package awhile ago. They said zebra on them? They are super nice for planners. Yeah, I know it sounds nerdy but when you use one everyday its nice to have. If I could get some more of those that would be great. Anything else is fine I love almond joys and snickers and goldfish whatever else you feel like putting in is fine.

Thank you so much for everything
Love you
Cam

Hey,

Well, I did transfer this last week. I am now in Ibaraki, Osaka and man its really crazy. My new comp. is Elder Honma (Japanese, my name is pronounce Homa so it's funny cause our names are so close, I'm sure President McIntyre was laughin a bit about that) and he is one transfer ahead of me but I have been a missionary longer by around 1 1/2 weeks due to the MTC. We are Co senior together. We are actually living with 2 other Missionaries Burger Choro and Kudo Choro. So yeah I am living with my MTC comp again. It will be interesting to hit our year marks together which will happen this transfer. Crazy huh.

Monday (Tanabe still)

So after email we went out and did normal P-day stuff and afterwords we went back to the hunting shop we had found 2 weeks before. They were really nice and talked to us for a bit and I invited them to listen to our lessons and they accepted! It was really cool and they took a book of mormon. We got another appointment with them for today I hope everything goes well over there for them. Who would have thought that going into a Hunting store in the middle of no where Tanabe Japan would be so effective. Makes me laugh.

Tuesday

We got transfer calls in the morning and I found out that I was headed out to Ibaraki. Enta Choro is staying but an older missionary is coming down to Tanabe. I am sure that they will do great. We went out dendoing and had a lesson with a member. Her family are not members, but one of the daughters comes to church when she can and we were able to set up an appointment with her for Sunday (yesterday). I hope that they are able to baptize her. After doing some dendo we went to Eikaiwa. Tanabe's eikaiwa was pretty fun and I liked a lot of the students there. It was sad seeing them go.

Wednesday -

I packed all my stuff off and shipped it so we didn't have bikes all day. It was a little frusterating just walking around we didn't get much done but its hard without bikes in a countryside area like Tanabe. The Shingu elders came down later that night because one of them was also transferring.

Thursday

We had to wake up at 5:00 am to get to the transfer point on time. One part of Tanabe that I will not miss for sure. Some members were really great and met me outside of the Train Station which was really awesome. I will miss them a ton. It was the first area I really made some good relationships with the members because I could finally speak Japanese so its sad to say goodbye but so far Ibaraki's members seem great. We got out to Ibaraki and did some dendo which is really different than Tanabe. Its all city, like crazy Osaka city which is hard to describe but yeah...its crazy. Anyways I still am not use to it and need to practice. We went back when the shipping guy showed up and put my bike together and did a bit more dendo and called it a day.

Friday -

We went to a lot of different places and I got to know the area a little bit better. Its a great place with lots of people to talk to. I am excited to be here. The difference though is while there are lots of people to talk to its hard getting them to stop and listen. In Tanabe most people were way surprised to be talking to some crazy white kid with red hair. People are still surprised here but its a lot less. Tanabe people would almost die on the spot it was kind of funny actually but anyways its hard to get people to stop and something I need to work on.

Sat.

We had a lesson with one of our investigators (we have 3) Otuschi is his name and he once had a baptismal date but when he was interviewed the elder who did it felt like he didn't qualify yet. Anyways the guy is cool I guess but super sensitive and we have to be really careful about what we say or do. Hopefully we can baptize him this transfer. After the lesson we had some big stake mtg to go to that was about member missionary work that went really well. Hopefully we can get members more involved.

Sun.

Around 50 people came to church which was crazy. I wasn't use to it and have a bunch of names to remember now instead of around 15. It went good and Otsuchi came to sacrament mtg. our church is the biggest one in the mission (building size) and we are the only ones that have gym. we are pretty luck and hopefully can use it some time. After church we had dinner with some members and did a bit of dendo with the time we had left. It was a good day and everyone was super nice.

The new area is great and I like my new comp as well. He is way funny and a good missionary. He is also Japanese so I get more practice which is awesome. He speaks pretty good english too which helps a lot if I have questions. I would be lying if i said i didn't miss Tanabe and the members already but i am sure the people here are just as great.

As for a package the snickers and Almond Joys were awesome. Also the journal you sent me is great but I am hoping to get the same one as I have now that is almost full. Just for my everyday writing I would like to have them all be the same. Its from deseret book, bigger than the one you sent me and brown with Journal written on the front in gold. If you want I can send you a picture next week. Btw thanks for the Card it made me laugh.

Sounds like everyone is having fun watching the olympics and we see signs for it all over the place. people are pretty proud of the figure skater dude that is Japanese. He won bronze or something? Anyways say hi to everyone for me. Thats crazy about everyone getting married it will be weird to come back to all of that. I am going to hit my year mark this transfer. how weird is that? Its gone by fast some days but at the same time it feels like life before the mission was forever ago. Everyone says that after the year mark everything goes faster so I will be home before you know it.

Love you all,
Cam

Hey,

Sorry about last week, we ended up going hiking on some famous trail with some members that we decided to do half way through the week. It was a lot of fun and to make up for not writing last week I will send you pictures of it all.

Anyways highlights of last week.

We had interviews with President and it sounds like I will be transferring out of Tanabe this coming transfer. Calls are tomorrow so I will probably be in a different place next P-day but you never know. We also went down to Shingu to do an exchange with the other elders in our district.

I challenged the district to try new ways to dendo in their areas since we are pretty inaka and housing in Japan is pretty ineffective. Enta Choro wanted to try picking up garbage at a beach that is kind of like a park and see if we could start conversations with that somehow. About 10 min after picking up trash I wanted to go but decided to keep trying. Right before we were about to leave a girl got out of her car and asked if we were volunteers. Anyways we got her phone number and address and have yet to get in contact with her but it was a humbling experience for sure.
Other than that I can't remember anything super big. We taught Kinoshita san again and it went well. He is super nice but it will take a long time for him to get baptized.

This past week

We had an exchange with the Zone Leaders and I learned a lot from Elder Cutler. He is a really great missionary and we had a good time dendoing together.

So we got to go to Kobe to hear Elder Oaks speak. It was amazing and a great experience. When he was called to the apostleship he was a Gospel Doctrine teacher in his ward. He had never been a bishop, stake president etc. I thought being DL was hard! He just got a call from President Hinkley and was called the day before conference. Crazy story. It was really really great and I learned a lot. It was a lot of fun. He shook hands with everyone before the meeting and did a little chat for maybe 30 sec. He knows Springville and has played football there before and that was about all we talked about for 10 seconds but it was way cool. He is a Huge guy and its hard to see on T.V. but it was something I won't forget. We also found out that we will be merging with half of the Hiroshima mission in July. It will be a big change but President McyIntyre is the man for it and will do great. It will be hard I am sure but it will all work out.

Saturday night we went out to eat at a members restuarant because they are closed on my B-day. Sister Mai (The one going to Utah soon) made me a cake and gave me a tie which was super nice. I have picture I will send to you. It was a lot of fun. I have already told her she has to visit my family and have dinner over there. She is already fluent in English and is going down for some extra study so you could talk just fine with her.

Sunday was a good day. We were able to get new investigator and taught him about the Bom and Prayer. He is a little crazy so whether or not he is actually teachable is something we are trying to figure out but maybe it will work out. Also we had a lesson at the Enomotos house with Myuki that went well. Then we had dinner afterwards. It was pretty fun.

Thank you tons for the package it was way awesome. The CD's are great and the one CD with the one guy is really great. I loved all his songs on the CD's about Christ. The other one is great too. Thanks tons. Whitney's shirt made me laugh out loud and I am sure all my comps will be surprised when they see it. The Ring was great and everything else. Thanks so much.


Well that's all about it for these last two weeks. I may be in a new place next week never know.
Thank you for everything
Love you all
Cam

Hey

I can't really say anything about your email you sent because for some reason it didn't work. Anyways I hope eveything is going well back home.

Nothing really happened this week and we didn't have many appointments but it went by really fast for some reason. Not sure why but it did.

Monday
After p-day we went out and were able to hand out one Bom to a lady that had studied the bible before. She didn't know when she could meet which was too bad but we are going to go back soon. While we were riding our bikes I saw a hunting shop which you never ever seen in Japan so I figured why not go in. We ended up talking to the store owner and his wife for around 30 min. They didn't have alot of interest but were really nice and gave us some mikans (mandrin oranges) and told us to come back sometime maybe they can become investigators down the road.

Tuesday
We had a lesson in the morning with a member that is trying to get ready to go to the temple. She has been a member for around 5 years but comes to church off and on and is a bit less active but a great person. She really has a good desire to go and hopefully can soon. We committed her to talk to the branch president so he can help her get prepared. Hopefully she does soon. After that we went out dendoing and had eikaiwa later that night.

Wednesday
We have a bunch of small train stations in between ours and Gobo's and we decided why not go to some of them and try it out. So we went and man it was way countryside. Some of the looks I got from people were pretty funny. We didn't find anyone but it was fun to see some new parts of the area that I hadn't been to before. We had the last Gobo Eikaiwa that night. I felt bad telling the students that it was over and we couldn't go anymore but it was just a waste of time and not worth doing. We got their phone numbers so that when missionaries go back they can get in contact with them and start it up again. Hopefully they put missionaries in there soon. (just as long as it isn't me:)

Thursday
We went dendoing up until around 6:00 and didn't have much luck. At 6;00 we had a lesson with a the Sugimoto family. We had ran into them the day before while we were out housing and they invited us over. They are really great and a lot of fun. Their youngest daughter isn't baptized yet because she doesn't want to be so we are hoping that we can help her to have that desire to receive baptism soon.

Friday

We went out to Minabe and actually found someone. He was around 16 and I think we woke him up but he took a BOM and we are going back tonight. To be honest I don't think he knew what was really going on and just agreed to everything but you never know. I really hope that it works out because we have no investigators at the moment and its getting really old. Other than him not much happened that day but it felt good to finally write a 1 in my planner in the new investigator section.

Sat.
We had gotten a letter for Tsubasa from Sister Hirota (the lady we taught earlier in the week about the temple). She was her dance teacher and has a good relationship with her. We went all the way out and delivered it to her but she didn't seem to happy to see us. We went and dendoed out there but didn't see anything from it.

Sun.
It was a normal Sunday, all the normal people came to church. After we left apparantly someone came to church that we had talked to or something and wanted to talk. They talked to the branch president for a bit then left. He only got their name and it would of been great if he could have gotten some contact information but he didn't. Oh well hopefully he comes again. We went out housing for the rest of the day because it rained super hard all day.

That was our week I wish it could have been better but we tried hard. oh well.
Oh I got your card thanks a ton it made me laugh and helped give me a boost. I have kind of a weird question for ya but could I get a Walmart gift card from you? There is a member here that is going to go to BYU's english school next month and has been to Utah once before. She loves Walmart and thinks its the best thing ever (I do have to say I miss it too). As a present I think it would be way funny to give it to her. She is a way awesome member and helps us out all of the time. I told her that you would give her dinner sometime because she will be living in Provo. You could send it in an envelope or something and it doesn't need to be a big expensive card or anything I can pay you back. It would be great Other than that thank you all for everything.

Love you Cam