I've begun my transfer with Elder Crosby!

Kitagaki Chourou is gone and I've begun my transfer with good ol' (er... good new) Elder Crosby!

It was really sad to send my companion home, but he was so awesome to the end.  During our last personal study time, he airdropped me a bunch of inspirational stuff, and in the middle of it was this: 

Elder Stout is awesome because :

1 he is happy person!

2 he loves to talk!

3 he always make person happy.

4 he is willing to accept someone's favor even if he is busy.

5 he loves to do dendo!

6 his Japanese are great.

7 he is good at teaching Eikaiwa.

8 he is sweet like a chocolate that he likes.

9 he always try to talk people as much as he can.

10 he is always positive :)

11 he work hard so that he overcome his fear.

12 he try to help people as much as he can.

13 he knows his weaknesses but doesn't blame about it.

14 he try to stay in healthy!

15 he is good at teaching and have good smile!!

16 he is so trying to overcome trails he face.

17 he is willing to accept someone's advice and act.

18 he is good at to singing.

19 he take good care of his body with drinking water, taking Ushijima's medicine.

20 he is hard worker.

21 he strives to be exact obedient.

22 he always has desire to improve himself.

23 his Japanese is awesome more than he thought.

24 he love to dendo.

25 he is good singer and can read the notes which is jealous!!

26 he is awesome dude because he is good men

27 he loves peanuts and apple so much.

28 he is doing way hard to stop eating sweet for investigator.

29 he loves his family and his families are awesome which I definitely love it. 

30 his Japanese is getting super good. Oh my...

31 he loves dendo and have fun.

32 his atmosphere make people relax and relief.

32 he is positive and doesn't stay in frustration.

33 he loves Christmas so much so, he doesn't want to clean Christmas tree. His Christmas Day never gone.

34 he is health men.

35 he is so good at making many sounds. I love Star Wars one and Donald Duck.

36 he is funny

37 he is strict himself and wants to improve.

38 he understands and knows why he is here.

39 he is my homie G!!

40 he is one of the best companion ever!!

Thank you, my brother!! Love you!        

Elder Kitagaki

I'm sending it partly because I don't want to lose it, and partly because it was just SO nice.  I've committed to, from now on, do the same thing for my future companions.  Every day, write one or two things I love about them.  I've already written quite a few for my new companion!  There's so much power in writing down little inside jokes, funny comments, and things you like about other people to share with them.   One of my District members in the MTC wrote a note for me with about 50 such comments, and I've cherished it and will cherish it the rest of my life.  I think everyone would do good to do more of this kind of communication on FaceBook, but also just in daily contact: giving each other nice notes and such.  I'm always astounded at the power that comes through sincerely giving little gifts that seem goofy or childish when you discuss them in leadership meetings.

And now.... my new companion!

ELDER CROSBY!

He is an awesome missionary; he's super funny, has lots of experience, and is beyond kind.  To every person he meets, he is so sweet.  He is also so good about trying to contact every person we run into when he has the chance.  He's so good!

I have been the senpai for the last little bit!  Its been terrifying.  During planning I have to take the lead, during travel I have to talk the lead... I feel very grown up at least (; But its been really good for me.  I know I'm growing a lot along with all the stress.  Lots of stress... (;

Honestly, on a daily basis I go from feeling extremely confident in Japanese to feeling like I still can't speak a single thought of my mind.  It's such a roller-coaster, I have no idea.  But I'm doing my best, and that's all The Lord asks of me! (I just hope that before long I'll become fluent.)

It's funny how the gift of tongues is designed to work.  If God wanted to, he could send extremely qualified middle-aged men and women who were already fluent in the language, (or whom he would cause to speak fluently without any effort.)  However, he sends the young ones for a reason.  I know the gift of tongues is real because it has come through my mouth in all of its glory when The Lord knew I needed it (and on few occasions when I thought I needed it.)  And yet, I know that it is always slowly working on me so that I can profit from the experience of struggling, toiling, making mistakes, and growing.  My testimony only grows stronger every day that this gift is real.

Takahisa kun has been a little hard to contact in the last few days.  I'm only a little worried, but I know he is so so busy with college.  I hope he can meet his baptismal date, but its been pretty difficult to meet.  I'll keep you updated!  However, have I mentioned Sugano kun?  He's 24 years old and is just graduating college as a masseuse!  He took half the lessons from the missionaries a year or so ago, but had to stop because he had no time.  However, in the last two weeks we've been able to meet with him and he wants to have all of the lessons!  He's expressed sincere desire to learn the truth for himself, and we're going to do our best to help him!  Our lessons have been super good so far.  Today we had an insanely tozuzen (unplanned, spur of the moment,) lesson, but it ended up going so well.  To be honest, as far as my ability to speak Japanese goes, I felt more inadequate than ever before.  But like we learned in church yesterday (while I was sitting in with the youth class helping out!) the spirit is the real teacher.  And it's so true.  I'm not being humble when I say my Japanese was almost impossible to understand the entire lesson, but the spirit was so strong.  OH!  Also, we got him chocolate for his birthday the other day!  That was super fun, he wasn't expecting it at all (:

That's me with Unari Kun, Narita's mascot!  He's a bird-airplane!  He's basically everything Super Man never was.  Cool, huh?!

スタウト長老! ^o^

Elder Stout! :D

We drew each other! (Originally that stick was a tooth pic, but I spat it out...) 

 Fuma Kun is my favorite person in the world, by the way.

Mochi tsuki (a traditional Japanese ceremony where they pound sticky rice into a paste and mold it into rice cakes).  I think these pictures of me are hideous, but you'll probably like them, so douzo (;

English Class!

Elder Stout & Elder Kitagaki went to the airport to meet an investigator,
and ran into Sister Nagano and the newly arrived missionaries from America.