Halloween

This week was absolutely amazing! First off, we taught 25 lessons in all, 20 of them to investigators! We received 622 referrals at a fireside we ran yesterday at church, and we had a baptism! It was so awesome. Nakamura Kyodi  bore his testimony after his baptism on the love we have for him as missionaries and how quitting smoking has been the best thing for him.  We bought him a white shirt and tie at the dollar store, but the bishop and some other members brought him enough stuff to have a suit, two white shirts, and two ties. Our stuff was crappy compared to it, so we didn't even try haha. It was so awesome and he was so happy!

So as you can tell, we had an extremely busy week. We didn't even get a p-day.  We taught five lessons to all the investigators that day! We have to give ourselves some relaxing time throughout the week.  We got to see President Baird on Friday because he did the baptismal interview with Nakamura Kyodai.  Afterwords, Nakamura said that President Baird was big, tall, and that's the first time in his life he has been hugged by a guy. Haha, it was so funny. Japanese culture is way different. I see why Dad doesn't like to hug people.

 

This week was so awesome. I had many moments of little by little testimony growing. It was amazing. I also noticed I`ve never been involved in changing such a huge part of someone's life. Nakamura Kyodai qutting smoking is huge.  It's crazy. He said he smoked two packs a day for 15 years and this week he tried to light up but the lighter didn't go off.  He said it was a sign from God. Ya it is! That was so awesome and I know that God's hand literally is involved with all the work. 

We have another baptism planned for this Sunday for Tan Kyodai.  He`s Chinese and he is ready to go! He loves coming to church and says he has so many more friends because of the church. He has been here for 10 months and said he left his apartment to see people like five times, now he does it every day.  I love it and the work is just waiting and ready to boom. 

We had a huge ward Halloween party. It was crazy haha.  There was a haunted house that made little kids cry I guess. We did some crazy games. We were in charge of the fishing game which turned out to be the craziest game of them all.  Tons of people, including almost 20 non-members, came.

It's chilly and rainy here now, today is our last day to wear short sleeves, not excited to have to wear a suit every day.  We both think Elder Hollister is transferring next week, crazy things happen though so who knows.  Most likely one of us will not be here after transfers . My favorite thing about Japan is how nice and humble the people are I think.  Haha, it's hard to say my favorite thing. I look at Japan a different way as a missionary. I`ve seen the Shinodas like twice this transfer. Every time we call he says he`s sick. It's kinda sad.  He called them my `Japanese grandparents`.

I'm glad to hear everything at home is great, I pray for each one of you every night. Thanks for all the love and support!

Love For the People of Japan

Shelom,

Actually, all my shirts poof out the sides and I have a major mushroom shirt. Haha that's OK though.  Couple quick things though, can you send me Blake and Bradley`s address?  It's great that everyone is sending Dear Elders from Dad's account, except I know no one's return address. Could you also send a copy of my mission call? And Dad, two things: The Itos have time October 27 from 4-6 and they really want to meet. They said they`d call when they got there. They're staying at the Courtyard.  I think a run to Temple Square would be good for both of them.  He didn't get baptized.  And I met a Kumiku Ide and a Tooru Ide. She said she served with you and he said he knew you. They both recognized the name but not me, they said I am MUCH bigger haha. They seemed to love you a lot and she said to find her on Facebook and come back to Japan.  He also told me you said we were related to the Admiral Perry....are we?

So I absolutely love the people of  Japan.  I never thought I would.  I really do, they are all so different, but look the same pretty much haha.  They are so humble and generous, I love them.  I was able to really have a growing experience this week.  We watched the testaments on p-day.  The whole time I had this feeling like `Christ did heal the sick and blind` then when He healed Helam at the end and they were so happy with tears and I shed some.  I know Christ lived.  He died for us.  My faith and testimony have grown so much, little by little, that's the mission.

So we taught Nakamura Kyodai the Law of Tithing and his baptism is on Sunday!!!  But we asked Ina Kyodai to explain it. So this was his example, `Tithing is like pooping, if you hold it all in, you`ll explode! So when you eat food, you need to poop out a little bit.  If you keep pooping, the Lord will bless you with more food.`  Hahaha that was so funny. That's the best explanation of tithing ever.

We had a less active take us to the Marriot Sky Lounge of the Marriott in dowtown Nagoya.  It was so good we just went crazy and got so much food!  We had a view of everything too. I can officially say that I have seen the Nagoya castle haha.  I took some pictures that I will send you.  His wife is an investigator, but he says she is too stupid to learn anything, so that's a shame.

We got another baptismal date!  It's on November 6! He is a Chinese guy we found on the street, Tan San.  We taught him the whole first lesson and committed to him and he was like, "of course"! Yesterday at church, I had to go teach him all by myself and I was able to give him a 45 minute lesson on the commandments, it was crazy.  The Spirit was so strong and I loved it! This is great! We are so blessed to be a part of this gospel! Let's go find some more of Christ`s children and bring them back!

Elder Parry

p.s. Jake, I love you. I love you too Sam Isaac and Caroline, but Jake, hang in there.  You have a great attitude on life.  Better than I did.  You are blessed for that. I kind of had a breakdown this week realizing I might not see you for like 3 years

Ping-Pong Champion

Sounds like an exciting week of sports! I'm so glad things are working out for Jake. Even though I grew a lot and learned a lot, I still wish I could`ve played a little. It's so fun to hear about everything.

This week didn't have too much going on.  We helped this member of the Fukutoku ward named Hall Kyodai clean up his car yard from the floods.  He is from Canada and served in the Utah South Mission.  He loved it, he was so awesome and we did service in his yard for about seven hours.  He was way nice and hooked us up with a few people to contact.

We had shabu shabu again, it was as amazing as ever.  Right after our district meeting, we didn't have two of the elders show up, so we decided to go haha. Could you do me a favor and get me Matt and Ryan's addresses? Thanks for the package! And the newsletters! I was really happy to receive both of them. Looking at the pictures it looks like it was a lot of fun and things are going great. Isaac already looks bigger.

We went to a matsuri on Saturday and also had a ping pong activity. I won every game easily. I felt kind of bad. I tried to lose sometimes and still won haha. One of the members was giving me crap for the Yankees losing and I couldn't tell him back that the braves lost a huge lead in Japanese, so I beat him 11-0 haha. I didn't feel bad at all. But for the matsuri, everywhere we went, people were looking at our tags and all the people were trying to yell at us in English, pretty entertaining haha.

So we have two Chinese investigators now, Ryu Kinton and Tan. Good thing we have someone that speaks English, Japanese, and Chinese fluently haha so they have to come help with our lessons.  It was really fun yesterday, they both understand the reasoning for prayer, so they both prayed in Chinese and even though I understood even less of that than Japanese, I could tell it was sincere and the spirit was strong.  It was amazing.

I finished Alma today, aren't the wars just the coolest thing!

We don't do a lot of door to door and no streeting at all. President Baird has a lot of finding techniques that don't involve those.  We do a thing called 10x, where before or after a visit, we go knock on 10 doors. God will put someone there if we really are supposed to be there for the lesson. We don't have sisters in our area. Yesterday, I realized that conversational Japanese is very hard desho. All I`ve been taught is how to teach which makes it hard to just talk now.  I can put together a lot gospel wise. It's also harder for conversation because it's hard to understand haha. Yesterday was hard, I was missing baseball so much for some reason. thinking back on memories and wanting to play it again.

Elder Parry

Melon Pan

So we have to go to this thing at Gokiso today and that's why we are emailing early and I'll only be on for like 30 minutes.  I'll be back on tomorrow and I can email more.  So I'll quickly say a few things.  I got my first haircut in Japan. It took 45 minutes and doesn't look any different. I've decided that I'm going to bring home a futon with me.

 

One of our investigators with a baptismal date is having trouble quitting smoking.  So we told him that I would eat melon pan and Elder Hollister wouldn't eat peanut butter 'til he got baptized.  Man has that been hard haha I love melon pan. 

We had interviews this week with president Baird.  It was so awesome.  They take on average of like 6 minutes and he spits out the best advice.  I told him I was having trouble not thinking about home.  He said it's natural to have feelings, people and places from home you long for.  He then said I need to squeeze everything I can get out of it because I will have those same feelings for Japan when I go home.  I love President Baird.  He is truly led and called of God.

We had yakiniku with the Shinodas, they had us eat cow tongue haha. She said Dad doesn't eat it haha I thought that was funny.  They were really nice to us.  That night was awful because we had two dinners and the second house infested their food with carrots. I told them I had an allergy so the dad told me to pick them out. It was like cooked in, I couldn't pick them out.  It was miserable.

We went as a district and took puricura pictures! Haha they were so funny and ridiculous, it's like a teenager girl photo booth.  But it was fun to go and mess around and have some fun.

So I figured out conference is amazing when you listen and watch all the sessions.  My favorite talk was Elder Cook's.  Elder Holland and Elder Eyring in priesthood were way good too.  So tell Jeff May that when you guys say your favorite talk.  I was able to receive a lot of answers and I am truly blessed.

Tell Keith and Malena I say hi! I have had shabu shabu, we used dad's money haha. I think either me or Elder Hollister will get transferred this next transfer. Most likely him, he's been in Kasugai since the earthquake.  We will see. We have a baptism on the 30th for Nakamura Kyodai.

For the J-mission yesterday, we were promoting missions. There were only 10 missionaries there and Elder Ellsworth and Elder Ashcroft were two of them! Tt was awesome to see them.  We got split up into districts and companionships. I got paired up with two nihongin who didn't speak English, go figure, it was so hard.  After doing some role plays and listening to presentations, we went out and did housing and streeting for 3 and a half hours. That was long...but we made it. yesterday was a Japanese confidence killer haha but oh well, it'll come!

Elder Parry

Seeds Planted 25 Years Ago

Elder Parry and Elder Ellsworth (from his MTC district) 

 

Elder Parry at his apartment eating nato--it's gross! 

On punch!

Why does the best night in the history of the MLB have to be while I'm gone? Like I wanna cry that sounds like it was so exciting and fun :) OK, this week didn't have much, but I have a lot for Dad.  So we got to go to Meito and do a training and my whole doki (travel group) was there! So I hung out with Ellsworth and Ashcroft Choro all day and that was super fun.  Elder Dinkel said someone came up to him at a stake conference and asked if he knew me and said that they were baptized by dad.  Ya crazy.  Then we met the Fukutoku bishop and he said he remembers dad! And last night someone came over at like 10:00 and said they were baptized by dad! It's the Kitagima family. He said because of dad, he went on a mission, married in the temple, and have two kids in the gospel. That was an awesome meeting and I was so happy and they were so happy.  They want missionary pictures of dad to see him, so could you send me some of those please?

A couple things for the next package quickly, could you send me this little book called The Missionary`s Little Book of Inspirational Stories.' Elder Hollister has it and its sweet.  Some teri sauce, mac and cheese, and that picture of me and Ramsey from my farewell? And any other picture you want, I like the hard copies because I can have them.

So I finally had nato this week and that was pretty gross. We had an entertaining eikaiwa (English class).  They started talking about bath houses and we said we couldn't go so they talked about us being naked. Awkward.  And we started talking about Ricky Bobby and Talladega Nights hahah. And they wanted to learn slang, it was a really funny class.

We had this American move in.  He loves to be involved with the missionaries...like really bad.  We`ve already ignored some of his calls because he`s turning into a pest.  He's cool and has a great testimony. 

So when we taught the Ito Kazoku this week, she works for Nuskin and did this facial cream on us! Haha it was so funny.  She put all these lotions on and just had a fun time. And Kan got the priesthood! It was way sweet and he said he wants to serve a mission! Crazy stuff.

Love you all!

Aisuru musuko yori

Elder Parry