Christmas Vid

Hey guys! :) I posted a couple videos on Facebook yesterday. You may have seen them. The one about what it would be like without a Savior is soo good. It's a great missionary tool you can share on social network and with friends. I hope you are all remembering my challenge this Christmas, the video can help but give out a Book of Mormon, invite someone to church, invite someone to learn with missionaries, something like that. A short testimony about how you know it's true and how they can know if they study and ask God. Pray for opportunities and help doing so. Ask the missionaries if you need some help knowing what to do or say. You can role play it too. The most important thing is that we approach it with love. Our Heavenly Father wants them to hear it so bad.
love you guys :)

Spackman 長老

Video Links-

Purpose of a Savior

A Savior is Born

New Niece and Bed Bugs

Hey guys!

Hope you all had a great thanksgiving and had an opportunity to reflect on what you're thankful for. This year I am thankful for all of you who have played a positive role in my life, big or small. From my perspective if it weren't for you guys I wouldn't be on a mission and wouldn't have a relationship with my Heavenly Father. I'm thankful God loves me enough to send people like you.

This week was a little harder to get a lot done. We have had a bed bug problem since I got here. I haven't been bit, in fact no one has except my companion who got bit a lot. I woke up one morning with one next to my face just staring at me, then I killed it, went back to bed. 15 minutes later I woke up and found another on my pillow... Killed it but they get filled with blood from biting Elder Gailey and I got some on my pillow. Bad start to the day haha but the extermination this week was intense enough we had to get everything protected by plastic bags. Took a long time. It also was pretty cold and rainy this week so that didn't help. One night this week we were super tired and didn't have much time but we talked ourselves into going out and we ran into a kid we had met last week and we had a great talk. We got his name but can't find his Facebook :(

For Thanksgiving we actually got to have two dinners. Gotta love having Americans in the area that take care of us. We had one dinner with the Sorensons one night which was just the best atmosphere, then on Thanksgiving day every companionship in the zone got assigned a family on the Yokosuka Navy base. Elder Gaily and I went to one with three different families. It was like we were in America for a night.. Man that got us scared to come back to America.. First time I have ever felt that but it was so loud and hectic. We didn't know what to do with ourselves. Our English has gotten a little weird too haha. Almost felt like we don't belong in America.. But I definitely don't feel comfortable in this weird Japanese world either...What is life?... Lol

So here is the highlight of the week. We met up with our new friend Ken Kimura at the church. He is pretty good at English and wants to learn more. We talked to him about this program we do where we teach about God and English. He was like "I want to learn both of those!" We then taught some English and had such a good lesson, kinda. We explained that as he learns about God he will want to blessings from and a relationship with him. Eventually he will want to be baptized. I was thinking we would just mention the baptism thing. Then we kept talking about it and Elder Gailey challenged him to be baptized haha. I was surprised, Ken thought about it for a long time then finally said, "what is baptism." Lol we hadn't really explained it.. but we explained it and the blessings that come with it. Then he got way excited and was saying how he wants eternal life and stuff like that. After the explanation he said he was down. Which was so dope! But we haven't been able to get a hold of him since.. I'm worried we gave him too much at once and scared him a little.

We had another lesson at the church with an older man who was the most prideful person I have ever met. He was really good at English and kept telling us how we are talking to the best of all the Japanese people. He wouldn't listen to anything we said. We were super blunt with him, like suuuuper blunt, kinda called him out. If we stumped him he would just change the subject to something ridiculous. It was so ignorant I was just laughing. We had only talked on the phone so we had no idea that was coming lol. We had like 4 crazy people at church this last week too. We don't try to find or teach crazies but they are some of the only people who are willing to come to church or listen.

Other than that not much else is going on, we played ultimate frisbee again with some members in the morning this week, that was a blast. Also in case you wanted to know some bird dropped a huge poop on our balcony railing and it splattered all over our sheltered apartment windows. I have no idea how a bird could put out something so big!

Also congrats to my sister Nancy on her second baby girl London Crump!! Proud to be an uncle.

I love you guys! Oh and check out the last video I posted on Facebook!

1. That thanksgiving meal at the Sorensons tho

2. Cute Twins

3. Ultimate frisbee last week with some of the zone

4. The most American pizza you will find in Japan, maybe the best pizza I have ever had.

5. Thanks for the package fam!

6. View from the apartment

7. Mt. Fuji from our apartment

8. During the bug spray

Oh and today I got word that Julian, a kid I found in Sagamihara, is planning to get baptized, that was some really good news! :)

Spackman 長老

Flesh Eating Fish

Hey guys! Sorry I didn't write last week but this week I have double the stuff and double the pictures! :)

So a lot of my mission has been spent trying to find people to teach. Haha it's a common thing as a Japanese missionary. Most areas I transfer into are struggling in the investigator department. That was definitely the case in Sagamihara, Tokorozawa and here in Yamate. I wish I could teach more but finding is good too. It's tiring, but I think it pays off. I talked to my last companion and it sounds like they are working with a lot of the people we met last transfer, so that's a good feeling. My favorite thing to do is just go around and try to talk to people on the street. Knocking "doors" is so tough. Though since there are a lot of people just visiting Yamate to see everything it's tough to find people that live here on the streets sometimes. So we have been knocking doors a lot. Which actually means ringing doorbells talking through the speaker and being told no two sentences in haha. 

Though 2 weeks ago an older guy came to his door named Tai. He has been Catholic his whole life (rare). We shared the restoration and prayed with him. This last week we went back over a few times and met his wife then finally caught him. He invited us in! Quickly told us he can't change his ways quickly because he has been Catholic his whole life, so to take it slow he wants to meet once a month :/ then he proceded to tell us maybe in 3-4 months he can change? Haha it's like he already knows it's right he is just a little hesitant to jump into it right now. We taught him about the priesthood and prayer. We talked to him about how we don't want to push him into anything, we just want him to find an answer from God. He got pretty stoked on that. We asked him if we would follow the church teachings, including baptism, if he got an answer from God and we got a yes :) After our closing prayer he had a different look to him, looked like he might be a little emotional. I hope so and I hope he prays. So cool when we get to be there for someone's first conversation with God since they left His presence when they came to earth. Great experience meeting Tai but some experiences on the doors are a little less positive... I almost got hit by a door swinging open by a man just livid putting his arms up in an X and telling us in Japanese "bad, bad, go home, go home." I just started laughing because it was so rude. That stuff really motivates me so that made my day. Surprising thought because Japanese people are so polite. 

So today for p day we played ultimate frisbee with the zone and it was a bomb crew. Had a blast. Last week the reason I didn't have time to write is we went to a popular beach area called Enoshima which is actually closer to my old area Atsugi. It was actually way warm and we had a good time. I will send pictures but the main area is on a small island with a bunch of temples and stuff. The best part was we went to a place called Dr. Fish. It's a tub that you put your feet in and the fish nibble on your feet and eat all the dead skin, it's so bizarre but it works, your feet feel great! Pictures on the way.

We had a crazy zone conference this week. Lots of things changed and president bumped up the expectations a lot. We are supposed to invite someone to be baptized every week. Everyone is pretty excited about it. There were some great testimonies of people going home. One of which is an Elder here I'm friends with who has completely changed as a person on his mission. I have heard some crazy stories about the how terrible he was, it's crazy to see what he has turned in to. I had a good talk with him and he shared some way cool stuff about some of the things I shared with him that helped him. This gospel changes people and it's always for the good. 

We have a hoop at the church here and we had a big basketball event this last week. So perfect. We had the mom and son of the Suzuki family we are starting to work with. They are sooo great. A guy working at the MTC now home stayed with them when he was 12 and brought them to church about ten years ago. He has been working with them ever since and we were able to catch them at home and create a relationship. A FAMILY! Really praying for an opportunity to help them.

A few funny last things: I forgot to tell this, in Sagamihara two Americans walked by, I tried to talk to them and they said jokingly, "we don't need you and your magic underwear." Haha lol I was so happy to hear a joke like that, never thought I would in Japan. We taught a man a lot about our church on some benches by the bay. Elder Gailey was really bearing is testimony and a huge boat horn drowned out all the noise for about 5 seconds, right when he started again the same horn for another 5. I was ROTFL'ing on the bunch next to him. Lol Last thing we had a few random friends come to church yesterday. One I really liked, he was way funny but pretty drunk and talked super loud during sacrament. He later was trying to smooth talk the members and proposed to one. Then he tried to talk one of the sister missionaries into dating one of the elders I live with. Classic stuff.

Sorry that was long.. Not proofreading, let me know if you have questions. BUT I heard a little about the disputes with homosexual parents and their children's ability to join the church. My heart aches to hear that people are throwing away their testimonies. Quitting. I don't wanna hear any of you doubting the things you have felt and know to be true because of something so minuscule. I might even say I would have done things differently if I was in charge. That's the thing though.. I'm not a prophet of God. When I received (and continue to receive) an undeniable answer from God that this is Jesus Christ's church, that meant that President Monson is His prophet chosen to make the decisions. I trust him because I trust God. The feelings you have felt (or will feel if you search for them) are no different. Please, please don't ignore your experiences for something so small :(

I love you guys, so does God.

Pics and Vids

1. Gotta love the Yokohama life

 

2. Landmark tower

 

3. One entrance to Chinatown here that's got some bomb food

 

4. Entrance to a temple in Enoshima

 

5. One of the temples there

 

6. View from the top of Enoshima island

 

7. Same ft. Me and Elder Gailey

 

8. Cool cliff, you can see people down walking by the water

 

9. Just eating the dead skin of my foot :)

 

10. So here in Japan it's tradition to get KFC on Christmas, they have no idea what Christmas is really lol, so here is Santa Sanders

山手

Yamate is sooo sick! This place is known as the Beverly Hills of the mission. So many monster mansions in some of the most expensive areas of all Japan. You can see the coast and the really city part of Yokohama with the giant Ferris wheel and Landmark Tower from our apartment. Our church is actually famous here because it's where the very first missionaries came to Japan and dedicated the country for missionary work. Our church is on a really famous road and there are a ton of Christian churches, it's so weird to be around a lot of other churches. About half of the church members here speak perfect English and there are a lot of Americans. So weird to be around American families again. A lot of them work for the American government here. They are some of the most intelligent people I have ever met. It's awesome. The Americans love having the missionaries over so we get fed a lot. It's so dope!!

It was my companions birthday so we went to pretty much the only Mexican restaurant in Japan. It's legendary among missionaries here. So I ate Mexican food for the first time in almost a year! It's a place called La Salsa, all you can eat tacos, quesadillas, fried chicken, etc. So bomb.

Only really crappy thing is we ship our bags from place to place when we move through a shipping company. Somehow my bags got messed up and were sent to another missionary's apartment. So I have been wearing
the same clothes, sleeping without sheets and dealing without my stuff since Thursday... Kind of annoying... Also leaving any area is sad. Elder Harrison and I had found a ton of new people and started to meet with them right before I left. I am really hoping a large number of them become consistent investigators. Seems like we aren't working with a ton of people here in Yamate, hoping to change that as we go out and try to find em. Though this last week we had a friend that came to church but he is pretty lost mentally. He spaces out for a super long time then gets really restless all of a sudden. I'm so blessed with a healthy body and mind (at least from my perspective). He has had a hard life, but he turned to us during the middle of the class and just said "Ni Hau" haha (Chinese for hello).

Wow that was a super lame letter, I'm sorry. I hope you guys are doing well, getting involved with missionary work, being examples, and living righteously.

1. Dinner with some members before I left Sagami

 
2. A throwback from Atsugi :)

 
3. A crappy picture of a monster building here called Landmark Tower

Love you guys <3

Spackman 長老