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