No Regrets: Hastening the Work in Tokyo: United in wanting to serve The Lord to our fullest!

I am SO SO SO SO SO sorry that you haven't received an email from me in 2 Mondays. Last week I wrote a really interesting, really long email with several pictures, and I just sent it to you the normal way, but I suppose for no reason in particular it just deleted itself instead of sending, because it isn't even in my outbox. Something similar happened to Elder Taylor, and his family didn't get an email either (pretty much the worst way to end a P-Day.) I'm really sorry and was super upset when I read your email and realized it just never sent. I've never missed a week of sending you an email! I guess you just missed a week of receiving one from me... I'm sorry!

Ok, so, there's quite a bit to talk about! Where do I begin?! I'll just begin with last week. Last week was amazing! Lots of fun things, a couple sad things.

So, the sad thing. First, we won't be teaching Daichi anymore. There are a lot of really good reasons, but it was just really hard when I finally felt in my heart that we needed to let him go. Let me explain: When Elder Li and I visited him some time ago, we learned that he lives in Nakana which is about 8 minutes from President and Sister Nagano at the mission home. So.... he's not even in our area. He's also in the boundaries for a young single adult ward which would be far more fun for him to attend and would feel much more natural than our ward of young families and wealthy businessmen. But, our Zone Leaders told us it is totally our decision what we want to do. After a lot of prayer and thinking, we decided it would be best to let the other Elders teach him. So we biked down to the mission home that night, introduced them, and then said goodbye. It was so sad. He watched us leave and waved. I looked back 3 times, and he was also looking back. He's come to be one of my favorite people in the entire world. I'm serious when I say after my mission I'm gonna find times to hang out with him when I visit Japan.

Other than that, we had SUCH a fun P-Day going to get Sushi with some

Eikaiwa students last week. It was seriously a dream come true, Mama. This stuff was amazing and came out in these fancy wooden bowls. The best was when I put an entire piece into my mouth only to find that the inside was lathered with wasabi, which felt like a small mushroom-cloud-explosion-flash of instant heat followed by numbness. I accidentally yelped out "WOW!" and got a lot of funny looks from the quiet Japanese people around me humbly eating their food. It was awesome, because we got to teach them about the word of wisdom a little bit! They gave us these big fancy clay mugs of green tea and we said, "Sorry, we can't drink that!" and it lead to lots of talk about the church!

We've been doing GREAT with the members. We visit them almost every other day and I'm beginning to make some really good friends. More than just working well together, they are becoming my true friends, and it's one of the happiest and most satisfying feelings in the world. Knowing that you're actually serving the people you're with. In fact, sometimes on Sunday in this ward we hardly get to talk to anyone on Sunday before and after church because everyone is so busy, but as we've been reaching out to ward members so much recently, we were stopped by half a dozen members and invited to 3 different people's homes randomly. (That's a big deal. It means our ward members are beginning to trust us. I only hope we can maintain and continue to deserve that trust!) This was two days ago at church and it boosted my spirits so much.

A wonderful experience from that same day happened with a brother in our ward named Kan Kyoudai. So, he lives far away, but we had called him wanting to meet. He said he doesn't want us to go to far, so we agreed just to meet with him before church sometime. Well, Sunday came and we tried rushing out the door, but due to some setbacks got to the church late. We weren't able to meet with him because of our ward mission meeting. Just before church started, we came up to him and said, "Brother Kan, I'm sorry!" his response was, "I was here an hour early, where were you?" I tried to explain the situation, but he was really disappointed.

The worst way to destroy a relationship with someone is to start to gain their trust, and then let them down. So we road our bikes to his house with a bag of treats and a handwritten letter in kanji. Apparently he'd moved and it was the wrong address, so we brought it to church. The look on his face was pure shock, and then came a big smile, and after reading the letter he hugged both of us. He refused to take all the treats (but I made him take at least half of them). When we secured his home address we promised to visit him sometime this week, even if his actually house is a little farther. Humbling ourselves and doing our best to make amends lead to an experience I will never forget, and a good friend I will have for the rest of my life.

Elder Taylor and I are doing great! It's funny how so many things about us (his love for music, his love for Japanese culture, his love for movie soundtracks, Nintendo, Ghibli, movies, and family,) are super similar, and yet so many things are completely different. We are always united in wanting to serve The Lord to our fullest, and so we're doing good things every day. I hope I'll have a good impact on him in the end, I've been doing my absolute best. He's an ambitious and funny one, and we have some wild adventures!

Seeing pictures of Hazel broke my heart, I was seriously thinking about her all Sunday. I was really concerned that she might have a bad condition, but it's looking like just an eye problem? At least her eyes are unbelievably adorable until third grade. :)

I've seen the Joseph Smith video recently and frequently reflect on him and the other pioneers. I love having pioneer heritage, it's so cool!! You should send me a story or two to tell people! :) I really want to start doing family history dendou, because I believe the spirit of Elijah is having a massive influence here in Japan.

Got Kebabs at Deniz! Long story short, because of a missionary named Elder Ries, these people LOVE missionaries and the church. It was like converting a nation, but just converting a kebab shop instead. Basically, all of the employees love us, listen to our message every time we come, and give us twice as much meet and sauce in our kebabs.

Got up for seminary at 5 and road the whole hour and a half in the rain. When we got back I bought Elder Taylor a donut for breakfast and another Elder took these pics as we walked in the door.

We made lots of friends while talking to random people we ran into! They all asked for pictures, so I asked for THOSE pictures. J Here’s a man who pulls people in wagons, and below is a man from Taiwan who doesn’t speak English or Japanese but was grateful we spoke to his family!

AWWWW!! That birthday celebration looked so cute! Shoutout to Megan and Hudson with their birthdays!! :)

So I was thinking about when we visit Japan together.... I can't wait to give you a tour from the perspective of an actual resident of Tokyo :) I can't believe I can say that I've lived here!! I have so many awesome little shops and places we HAVE to visit. Namely: Narita church, Narita san, several ward member's, my whole Narita area, all of Shibuya crossing, Tokyo Temple, Go Hyaku En Ramen (500 yen Ramen,) Odaiba, Deniz.... too many places. What are the odds of you maaaaaaybe picking me up so that we can hike mount fuji and such? ;)

By the way, on splits I met a famous politician who did a conference in UVU a few weeks ago. He met with many very successful people, including someone you might recognize....

Ok, I've written insane amounts this week. There is so much more to talk about, but those stories are prolly gonna have to wait until a Sunday dinner some other day.

Elder Gonzales said that if I could eat more sushi than him, he would buy my lunch. He ate 32 pieces. I ate 34.