Final Call from Japan!

May 26, 2013

My Beloved Family,

Well, this will be the final time I send you an email as a full-time missionary from the Land of the Rising Sun. How great has it been? How fast has it gone? I have a few things I'm supposed to coordinate with you before I go home: 1.  Do you have an appointment set up with the Stake President so I can get released?  2.  My wisdom teeth came in the top, I think they need to come out...  3.  What will the first 48 look like when I get home? and  4.  I am pretty overweight on luggage, so my plan is to send a bag of books and stuff that put me overweight to Nancy and we will just pick it up when we come back to Japan. I don't want to pay the overweight fee and I have too many books from the mission and just stuff that I don't need right when I come back.

 

We had a pretty fun and busy week out here. I told you how last Monday we went to that arcade place and had a ton of fun. Well, we are going again today with the whole district! Super stoked. On Tuesday, after we helped that old crazy lady weed her yard again, we went to the beach with one of our investigators and had dinner and just discussed over a few things. We had invited her to baptism a few days earlier and it went really really bad. Like, it turned out to be a huge mistake. So we had to make sure everything was ok and just had a good time.

On Wednesday, we headed down to Nagoya for the big conference we had on Thursday. We stayed in Inuyama with four other elders. It was so much fun! It is a really nice area. Shinoda lives in that area, we couldn't make it down because there was Eikaiwa and some members took us all out to dinner.

The conference was so awesome! One of the best ones since I have been in Japan. Elder Ringwood of the Area Presidency came and spoke to us. He was way down to earth and just a classy man. The first half, he talked about identifying ourselves with scriptures. I chose 1 Nephi 11:17 where Nephi tells the angel that he doesn't understand the meaning of all things, but he does understand that God loves him. The second half was just question and answer. Someone asked him how he handled going home and the down feelings you have when you get home. He gave some awesome advice. Just saying to have fun, keep praying always, study, and date. He said that we should be thankful for the mission we have, our mission president, all the people you meet, other missionaries, companions, and just everything, because nothing is a coincidence. Wise words from a great man.

The district headed up to Takayama together after the conference and we all stayed there for the night and had DTM there the next day. It was a really fun day. DTM was awesome, got sushi together, and visited the Mahikari temple together. Like some crazy devil worship religion. Really cool and gold building.

I ate a lot of food too, a member took us to an all-you-can-eat meat place and the next day a family made us so much tacoyaki. I love the people here so much! Church was awesome too, which is weird to say because I feel like it was because our investigator didn't come.

I love you all so much! As much as I am so excited to see y'all, I am also torn apart. So sad to say bye to the land and the people I have come to love so much. There is a time and a season for everything. I will see you as I walk down those escalators next Tuesday. As I always say, Life is good, God is great.

Final shout-out from shortBOOB
the Barbarian in the Land of the Rising Sun!

Nearing the End

May 19, 2013

Hey!

Ok sorry it took so long to get an email to y'all. I know you are all asleep, but a member took us and the Toyama missionaries to a gaming center that had a fishing pond, batting cages, arcade, and some darts. It was so much fun! I will send a few pictures. I was rockin' it up in the batting cages, good thing it was only on like 70 mph haha.

This week was crazy. We had a lot happen in such a short time. I guess that's the story of missions. We did an exchange on Tuesday and I was with Elder MacDonald. My man who knows baseball. We talked ball all day it was so awesome. We had a busy day, visiting a member and housing around her, doing manual labor at an elderly lady's house for a few hours, and then had dinner with an investigator. Gotta love it.

The rest of the week kind of blended together (or I just don't have a whole lot of motivation to write a long email) but on Friday we had a member from Takayama take us and the district out to lunch and she gave me a kimono to go home with! PS about coming home, there was a missionary who didn't have money to buy an extra luggage bag or ship stuff home, so I talked to the Honbu and gave them one of mine and I bought a huge duffle bag (which is a life saver because it is so light and huge!)  I was happy to give it to him. Crazy what two years can do to you.

We got dropped by an investigator, yay, not haha. But we had the FUNNEST sports night ever! We had five  investigators come and we had such a blast! The Big Three were on my team and I did fairly well! Even made a behind-the-back ally-oop! Call me LeBron James for now on haha.

Church was crazy...put it short, we tried inviting Yuka to baptism and she ended up crying because she felt stressed and super pressured and her handicap was just getting to her. This lead to another emotional phone call later for almost two hours. Now you understand why I am balding. Then we biked in the pouring rain to visit our depressed member. Nice guy, didn't really give us much....I love this!

Two weeks, not a lot of time. I'm excited to see you. You don't know how many people have told me they wish they could meet you all here. Especially after my Mother's Day talk. I tell them I get my good looks from my mom and my smarts from dad divided in half hahaha. Dum-diddly-dum-dum.

Call of the Boob

Mother's Day

May 12, 2013

Happy Mother's Day!

Sorry we aren't talking today. I figure I will see you in just a few weeks anyway. Things are going pretty well here too. This week overall is leaving the area better overall than how it has been lately.

We did a lot of yard work this week. Since Tuesdays are tough to plan for, we decided to clean up around the park that's in front of our apartment. So we have been doing that and someone picked it up and cleaned up the rest of it! Then a random lady came to Eikaiwa and asked us to come clean up her yard. It was the biggest yard I have seen in Japan. It was pretty fun though. I guess it's just a little glimpse of working for Paane when I get home haha.

It was a good week overall. A member took us to a yaki niku tabehodai and I pigged out. Then we stopped by a members house and had a very special experience. She had recently had a stroke. So I decided we should try to see her weekly. We went over and she told us she had been really tempted by the devil and she prayed for a ton of help. Then we came and gave her a blessing almost five minutes later. Way awesome.

Had my last Zone training meeting last week. Now I'm having all these lasts. I realize more and more every time something happens. I got my death papers this week with my flight plans and checklist to go home. Just so you know, all my garments, socks, suits, white shirts, pants, and shoes are gettin trashed. I might burn it all haha.

So on Saturday, the bishop took us river fishing. So much fun. It poured rain on us and I didn't catch a fish again haha but still way fun and in a way pretty place nonetheless. Then yesterday we had Mother's Day. They asked me to speak and I was a bit confused why just three weeks before I head home. And I forgot it was Mother's Day too haha so I made it up on the spot. It ended up being a really good talk. Best part about it, it so happened that the Katsuragawas (a sister missionary who served with Craig) from Gifu came up to see me right when I was speaking. Pretty cool eh? We then went to a Brazilian birthday party and had dinner at the bishop's with an investigator. It went so well. I think there is a chance she could get baptized before I go home. She also already made plans to meet us in Tokyo. I love it out here!

Love,Boob

Fishing for P-day

May 5, 2013

Hey y'all!

Is the truck gonna be ready when I get back? I gotta roll around town in my Voltron again! Things are going fine here. We have good people to teach, but in all honesty, this past week I realized that they might still have the potential, but it will be harder for everyone. I thought Anderson Louise and Shari were doing well, but it's at the point they just want to hang out and have a good time with us and Yuka is having a hard time understanding our lessons because of her stubborness and handicap, it makes the lessons pretty difficult. It's hard to see people not give the same effort you do or just stop in their progression even after all you have done. It's even harder because I come home in such a short time. I guess it's just the way God wants me to end and I have to figure out how to work with it.

Not a whole lot happened this week....We went on two exchanges and did some service. We did go fishing this morning with the Toyama missionaries and got only one fish haha. Not a whole lot of luck.

It's kind of weird, coming home pretty soon and the weeks are moving by so fast. As my man Tupac says, Life goes on.

To my beloved trunky family, The Elder Parry

p.s. Steve wants an all-paid vacation to Japan this summer with us

PS from Becky.  We told Evan not to bring the yellow shirt in this picture home.  Truly ugly.