we had a seed spitting contest and I had the farthest spit until the Bishop came along and showed me up :P But I humbly accepted defeat :P

Dear Mom and Dad,

 

Helllllllo!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! I'm doing great :) We just got done with a Zone activity and it was way fun! We played games in the upstairs of the Honbu (headquarters) and got to know the Zone really well :)

We have our first Zone Taikai tomorrow and I'm very exited! We've been thinking about it a lot and it's going to be great!

 

Things just keep getting faster and faster though.

 

It sounds like you had a great time this week mom! I don't remember how to crouche (and I can't spell) =P

 

That's a way cool story dad! Thank you so much for telling me! Sometimes it can be pretty hard to pray from the heart when you're out doing the same things everyday. You have to find ways to keep yourself humble and wanting toserve god with all your might.

 

I'm very grateful for Furigana. It helps so much for reading things!

 

Well, for my week...

 

We have been working as a 3 man companionship and it's really interesting. We're finding ways to make it fun, but it can be a little intimidating sometimes I think. We're getting a good system down though.

 

Yesterday at the church we had a Nagashi Soumen Kai. That is eating soumen (noodles) that are run down an open tube and you pick it out of the water streaming down the tube with chopsticks and stick it in your bowl and eat it. We did it with the ward after church and it was way fun! Unfortunately one of the members almost fainted because of a sickness he has and we had to carry him inside and sit him down to rest. He asked me afterwards to give him a blessing and it was a wonderful opportunity to use the Priesthood. It always makes me feel very humble when I have opportunities like that.

After thatwe had a great lesson with an investigator and we all feel very strongly that he is going to get baptized. He is really starting to feel the Spirit and its very fun teaching him.

 

My companions are awesome! One of them is on his last transfer and he is an amazing teacher! He really knows how to get people to think about the gospel and help them apply it in their lives and then they realize they want it in their lives. It's great :)

 

We also had a lesson with an investigator that is awesome at guitar! He played Bon Jovi while we were at his apartment and it was really good. He is an amazing singer and guitarist.

 

We had a lot of fun things this week.

 

We went and cut wood at a member's house that lives in the woods and we also got to go with the ward and some investigators and English student out to pick strawberries and eat all that you can. Unfortunatley there were no strawberries left so we went to a cherry orchard and picked a ton of cherries and ate them. I probably ate 60-80...and I don't really want to eat cherries ever again :P But we had a seed spitting contest and I had the farthest spit until the Bishop came along and showed me up :P But I humbly accepted defeat :P

 

And that's about all I can remember. It was a really fun week!

I'll talk to you next week! Bye Bye!!!

 

Elder Sotto!!!

Mitch's english is beginnig to fade..present tense instead of past,ing instead of ed....hahaha

Hello Family! I don't have a lot of time because it's actually 8 oclock at night and I need to get biking back home, but I have interesting news this week.

There were two missionaries that went home this week because of sickness and there were a couple emergency transfers because of it. An elder in our apartment got moved to a new area and our companionship became a threesome with the other Elder (Onishi) in our apartment. He is now the 3rd ZL of Oodori. He is 17th transfer, Elder Kudo is 12, and I'm 11...its really awesome and interesting haha.

 

Elder Onishi was my ZL while I was in Kitami, so it's nice to have someone with experience helping us out :)

...I know there were a lot of other good things this week, but I can't think of many specifics.

We have been trying to work together well in everything we do as a companionship and we've been meeting a lot of people that are willing to meet with us. This week has been great!

 

Actually, I remember an experience!

 

We contacted a young college kid on his way to work and made an appointment to meet with him again, but he started to act a little wierd towards the end of the contact. Then we he started to bike away he fell over on his bike and we went to help him. He almost seems to be having a stroke or something. We talked to him and sat him down in the shade and bought him a waterbottle from a nearby Vending Machine. He got really light heading I guess (it was a really hot day) and he started to sweat a lot and had a pain around his heart, but we asked him if we could pray with him for his health and he let us! After the prayer we talked a little more and he felt better and left again to head off to his job.

Had we not stopped him and contacted him he probably would've fell over by himself and wouldn't have anyone to help him. It was a miracle! God works in mysterious ways.

 

Alright, I better go. I love you all sooooooooooooooooooooooo much!

Talk to you later!

Mata ne! Bye Bye!!!

 

Elder Sotto

And for the awkward moment of the week. Being bold and saying " hey!

Dear family...Happy July! I love you!

I got to watch that video as well and it made me really want to talk to all my friends that I could have invited to church or an activity or something. I have so many friends who would have come had I just opened my mouth! But I still have chances when I get back I guess. So I'll wait and pray! I know this is where I need to be right now :)

I've noticed that sometimes the best way to invite people to things is by just doing it. Being bold and saying " hey! I have a church activity this week and I'd love it if you come!" The Lord really does bless us when we try our best though.

Well, for my week, I have some fun news!

My companion got transfered to Kushiro and I got a new one named Elder Kudo from Kanagawa Ken! And what's even better is...we are the New Oodori Zone Leaders! Yay! 

I'm really excited for the next transfer. We are planning and talking about the Zone and its needs all the time. It's way fun!

My companion and I have really been focusing on dendoing (doing missionary work) together and really getting involved and bearing testimony together, and it has been amazing! We talked to one nice lady who didn't seem very interested at first but then we introduced the Book of Mormon and testified together and her heart started to open slowly. She let us know about her desires to know about Christianity and we let her know that we would be there to help her. It was great! and we hope to see her again soon!

Also we were able to go visit a bunch of less active missionaries with a member in the ward and it was a great experience. It helped us know where we needed to focus in the ward and we got to build a good relationship with the member and it was just wonderful :)

And for the awkward moment of the week.

When you're biking at full speed for 40 minutes after church to go to the Stake Center for the World Training Video Broadcast and another elder's tire pops so you walk to the Honbu with him to get a new bike. 

When you get to the Honbu (main office) you meet the mission President and another American with him and introduce yourself. He introduces himself as the roommate of your mission president when they were at Harvard University before your mission president left on a mission.

Then you ask him where he served his mission and he says, "I'm actually not a member."... ... ...then you hurry up and bike to the stake center with everyone as fast as you can and you make it 2 minutes before the broadcast starts...then 5 minutes later you are told that the English version isn't working...so you do an emergency split and go with 6 foreign elders back to the Honbu (by car) to watch the English Video online. 

About halfway through the Japanese Elders return to the Honbu by bike and let you know that they had to cancel the video halfway through and still haven't seen the last half...so you finish it in English and the end result is that you watch the rest of it in Japanese another day when you get the DVD. :P 

My companion will finish watching it another day I guess.

That's about all I have for this week, but I'll talk to you again next week! Love you!

Bye Bye!!!

Elder Mitchell (as grandpa Perry says =P)

the fact that he is starting to love studying is kimochiwarui (a disgusting thought :P). He's so funny!

Hey family! I love you!

And Happy Birthday Kellie!!!! I love you so much and I miss you! Everyone says that you are a Bijin (beautiful girl) when they see your picture :)

Starting from the bottom, Go ahead and add the Yuichi Sakamoto san person to facebook. I met him at eikaiwa in Kotoni.

That's so cool that you're going to memorize a scripture a day! Good luck!

What! Boise is getting huge! That's awesome! We're about to break 100 in Sapporo and I'm way excited :) I guess sisters will go from 15 to 40 soon. It's so cool that everyone is going out to serve the Lord!

I'm really excited to see the growth of the ward as well when I get back :)

That Yosokoi song is really interesting haha. I got to go see Yosokoi and it was so cool! I got a lot of recordings and I'll send my memory card when it gets a little more filled up!.

I love love love love! Hearing about camp =D It makes me really excited to see how everything is changing. I remember I didn't like working at camp at first but that's because I regretted being away from my friends. Then I made friends and camp and I didn't want to return home :P

The mission is so similar. I've made so many good friends and memories here that I don't want to leave. I love it! It's pretty hard, but very rewarding :)

I got to see the training video as well this last Sunday as well and it made me really excited to fulfill my duties and made me want to be the best I can in any position I may be called to fill. Good stuff :)

As I've been reading the scriptures lately I've noticed a lot more connections in the Bible and Book of Mormon and it's so interesting! I love reading the Scriptures! My companion from Okinawa and I talk all the time about cool stuff from the scriptures. He is discovering his love of the scriptures for the first time right now. It's fun to watch. He said in a testimony recently that the fact that he is starting to love studying is kimochiwarui (a disgusting thought :P). He's so funny!

Well, a little bit about my week. And transfer.

We've been looking for investigators for a long time now and we finally are starting to see some people who are interested in the gospel :) That is a miracle. I can't remember any big specifics this week, but there are miracles everyday and answered prayers all the time.

I did have a good experience with following the Spirit. I had a feeling that we should visit a guy we met on the street a couple weeks ago and so when we visited him he let us in his garage. It was really cool! He is 80 and has a lot of Model cars and trains and guns and airplanes. We talked about lots of fun stuff and then naturally got into a conversation about how he wishes his body wasn't so frail. We then shared scriptures about the resurrection and testified of it's truth. He said he wants it to be true. He said he would read some of the Book of Mormon and we are going to go visit him again soon :)

That experience helped me learn to follow the impressions that come to my heart and mind.

Well I'm off to hike Maruyama mountain with my district now! Talk to you next week!

I love you!!!

Bye Bye!!!!

Elder Sotto

no time!

I love you soooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo much!!! Just thought I'd let you know...you know just in case you forgot ;P

 

Today was crazy!

We had a zone activity whereeveryone would go to Maruyama Koen (park) and play sports, but the AP Elder Hansen wanted to go running up to Maruyama mountain so we went running up the mountain for an hour before the sports. It was somuch fun!!! It was way beautiful looking over the whole city! Then we played ultimate frisbee! It was so much fun!

 

Wow, you are all really busy. It's way fun to hear about everyone! I gotta go back and take a shower cuz I'm a little sweaty and bloody :P

 

But for this week, the sisters have been teaching a lady we found and she's getting baptized this weekend! yay!!!

 

Alright...that's about it! sorry its so short! talk to you next week!

 

Bye Bye!!!