First week in Urawa

GRETA KAAAAAY!!!!  She's so cute!!!!!  I can't wait to meet that little friend!!!  Elder Frazier and I were so excited when we read the letters and I found out about my new niece!  I'm glad she's healthy and everyone is well! :) Oh man, I love my nieces and nephew!!

*Ehhrm*

愛するお母様へ、

元気なの！？いつも通りで母ちゃんの人生が楽し過ぎそうだね！先の週が良かったです。私は浦和に来るのが嬉しくてちょっとドキドキしたのですけれど！でも本当にこの新しい浦和と言うワードは最高です。

It's been amazing.  This is easily leading up to be my favorite transfer yet.  Elder Frazier is on fire with dendou spirit, and although we're constantly busy planning and setting up zone activities, whenever we have the chance to go finding he gets super excited and basically pushes me out the door.  I want to be just like him in his love for going out and doing "classic missionary work."

We met a new friend and went to 7/11 together to add each 

other on Facebook!  And I'm wearing your tie you sent :)

Elder Frazier is a super smily, super nice, and very outward focused elder.  He's always cleaning the apartment, or complimenting you, or making ridiculous impressions, or just... Focusing on others!  He's such an amazing example.  I have so much to learn from him!!  And being companions with him is even more fun than I thought it would be after living with him for 3 transfers in the Shibuya house and already getting to know him so well.

It's definitely been suuuuuuper busy, but I've never been more connected with my purpose of inviting others to Christ, and that alone has made me a lot peppier than usual!  Every minute of every day we're either in a meeting, planning for a meeting, calling and answering calls, teaching lessons, or if we're lucky, finding on the streets!  We make calls at night to the zone too, and honestly, I love it.  I've gotten to know so many strong missionaries and as we've councils with them we've come to learn so much from them and have gotten to become good friends.  It hasn't even been a week, but I could spend the next hour writing about my new friends!!

Elder Frazier and I send pictures with emails to the zone so 

that people actually read them (pictures are to missionaries as 

lights are to flies) and so they're pretty goofy but... Oh well!)

The ward is perfect.  No exaggerations.  The chapel is seriously filled every Sunday, and I got more smiles/handshakes/"nice to meet you Elders!" than I thought a person could in one Sunday.  Not only that, they are all so dendou fire and want to help us and meet with us and they're just the nicest ward!  I feel like I'm back in Highland 13th, it's THAT good. :)

President Dorff is legendary here.  (President Dorff is the stake president in John's new area.  He served as a missionary in the same district with John's mom years ago in Sapporo.  He sent her a message when he found out John was transferring to his stake.  He happened to be visiting Utah and offered to take a package to John.)  Every church member knows his name because he works insane hard to magnify his calling and hasten the work.  President Nagano and him are in constant contact, and so are we, so I'd heard his names several times before his son approached me at church with a massive envelope and a big hug.  I LOVE Ren and his mom and dad.  The Dorff's are so neat, I can't wait to get to know them better.  And mama/everyone, thanks for the package! :D It made my entire month.  Just ask Elder Morris, he saw me with my new stuffed cat/Buddha Board (which everyone wants to use,) and said, "Elder Stout, you just look so happy.  It's like your birthday again!"

The apartment is also more than I could've asked for.  It's almost spotless and everyone keeps it that way, it's cozy—but it's definitely comfortably big—there are 2 other Elders in it and I love both of them (Elder Hugo, whom I went on several splits with in Narita.  Selfless, always improving, and just a way kind, good Elder.  And Elder MORRIS!  My district leader from Shibuya who is one of the funniest people I've ever met.  He's already my brother after our 3 transfers together/the MTC, so it felt like coming home.) 

I GOT THE PACKAGE!  AND AN AWESOME APARTMENT!  

IM SO HAPPY!!

As far as our investigators, that's probably where this area is weakest right now.  Which is ironic considering we're missionaries here to teach people ;) But in all honesty, Elder Frazier and his last companion Elder DiCastri worked extremely hard, so I know it's just the way things were meant to play out.  We've been able to set up 2 appointments.  One with a Fuji San and one with an Alam San.  Please pray for both of them to meet with us and to understand our lessons and apply them to their lives.

Fuji San!  He's very tall and very nice!  Haven't really talked with 

him much yet, basically just met and talked briefly on faith :)

We've seen countless miracles occur as we've gone finding.  Though we've only found one new investigator, I can see The Lord preparing us to find more soon.  For example: we've been focusing on simple 1 minute street contacting messages as a mission, and so we have 10 different topics we focus on.  Well, when we were out focusing on The Restoration specifically, it just so happened that the first 4 people we talked to had solid Christian backgrounds and understood all aspects of the restoration after minimum explaining....... THAT DOESN'T HAPPEN IN JAPAN!!

On top of that, we had an appointment reschedule 3 times in one day within the span of 2 hours, and because of us rushing to get there on time, realizing we have lots of time to street, and then rushing again, we met two families who were interested/one man who had taken the lessons before, and a Jehova's Witness missionary who we left a good impression on and parted friends with! :) I'd heard it said that God consecrates your time when you're busy, but now I can testify to it!

I love you Mama!!  I love you Papa!!  And I love you family!  Reading emails and letters from everyone does my heart good.  I love all of you so much more as time goes by.  I don't know how I got to be so blessed.  Well, I guess I owe a lot of it to you and Dad! :)

スタウト長老 ^o^

        🇯🇵  •  🇺🇸

  Elder Stout! :D

Transfer to Urawa with Elder Frazier as Zone Leaders

Grandma Shaffer's party sounded like such a hit!  The story about her watching my video made me laugh!  She's the cutest!!  I'm so sad I missed her 100th birthday, I've been looking forward to this one my whole life.  But--I'm aware this is the cliche thing to say--I know that this is where I'm meant to be right now.  I'm not just saying that; being with Elder Taylor right now, meeting Tsukagoshi and Xia, brother Hamada and Bishop Touma, there are so many people that I needed to meet at this time in my life.  I wouldn't rather be anywhere else, no matter how much I would love to be with all of you.  The day for us to be together is coming all too fast! Let's make the most of right now.  "We haven't a moment to lose!" :)

I hope I don't miss Grandma by a short time, but if I do, I know that that's God's way of saying she's needed on the other side.  I love my Grandma Shaffer!!!

Today was transfer calls.  After interviews with President Nagano, I thought maybe I had figured out my transfer, but I couldn't be sure. President had made it pretty clear in our interviews that training is a very important role and that he "actually trained twice and really loved it."  He also said that district leaders and zone leaders are important, but that training is more important.  SO, I think you know where I'm going with this ;)  When the phone rang, Elder Taylor and I both jumped a foot in the air before scrambling to pick it up.  It was President Nagano.  Something big is happening.  He said, "This call is for Elder Stout.  Hello, Elder Stout?  Are you ready for your transfer?" "I'm ready!  Ready as I'll ever be."

"Elder Stout, you are going to Urawa, your new companion will be Elder Frazier, and you're going to be a zone leader!"

I am still in complete shock.  All 3 of these announcements were completely unexpected and I don't feel capable of the calling the Lord has asked of me.  But I know he will qualify me for this work, because he did when I became a trainer (even though I was so unsure of my capability at the time, somehow Elder Taylor and I did ok.)  I'm so excited to start a new chapter of my mission and my life, and especially with someone I look up to so much as Elder Frazier!  He was in the Shibuya Flat with me for 3 transfers and all of us think so highly of him.  In fact, yesterday before the calls, Elder Gonzales had said, "You know, I really respect Elder Frazier.  He's just so firm and bold and yet just the nicest guy." Elder Taylor's new companion is Elder DiCastri, my old zone leader in Narita!  He's a phenomenal missionary and this area is going to take off with the two of them working hard together!  Elder Taylor has made a massive impact on my life and I owe so many lessons learned to him. I've been honored to be his companion, and am so glad that we've become such good friends.  I'm really gonna look forward to seeing him whenever our roads diverge throughout our missions, and know we're gonna hang out again after these best two years!  I'm so blessed.  I'm excited to have the opportunity to work with so many amazing Elders and Sisters.  As Elder Clark once said, "This calling is nothing more than an opportunity to serve."  I'm so excited to serve so many people.  That's my favorite thing in missionary work and really in life: serving others and making friends!

Speaking of friends, this week we had an amazing lesson with Tsukagoshi and he came to several activities!  We gave him a picture Book of Mormon and he's been reading it daily! :D Xia and his friend Zen met us for pizza and afterward we had an awesome lesson that Ikeda and Koji both came to.  For the most part our other investigators have been hard to contact, and I'm sad to say I won't see most of them before I leave.  However, on splits, Elder Ulrich and I road down to Tanaka's house and he said he wanted to have dinner with me before I left.  We had an awesome lesson with him on the atonement and he seemed to really open up again.  I love that man.

Saying goodbye to all of my Shibuya friends has been so sad the past few days.  I never imagined what it would be like when it came to an end, but just like Narita... somehow it did.  I can't wait for Urawa and my adventures with Elder Frazier!!

Seeing pictures of our family just makes me so happy :D I love all of you so much!

スタウト長老! ^o^

Elder Stout! :D