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!