先週は長かったね～。

Good Morning Sports Fans!

Well this has been our longest week here in 野並 but it was a good one. We
had several member appointment cancellations so we unexpectedly had to
fill our time, but other than that we have been seeing a lot of good
things.

This week with our investigator 松本 has been very good. We taught her
twice this week. We talked to her about the importance of prophets and
then she was able to come to a baptismal service for the Nonami
Sister's investigator. It really helped her understand what baptism is
and see how it is performed. She also came to church again yesterday
and told us that she doesn't always understand everything at church,
but she feels so good while she is there. The members of the branch
have become her friend and she is opening up with them and it is so
exciting to work with her. She really wants an eternal family and we
are helping her on her pathway towards creating one. We are
going to the 本部(Mission Home) and are doing a family home evening with
her, her kids, and President Ishii, so we are really excited for that.

This week we also had an opportunity to work with a part member
family. A lady in the branch named Sister Fujimoto (藤本姉妹) wanted to
meet us and have lunch together and as we were finishing eating she
started talking to us about her husband. She has been a member of the
church for about 24 years and has really strong faith and really wants
to be sealed in the temple and create an eternal family, but her
husband is not a member. She told us her husband likes the
missionaries, but doesn't show any interest in the gospel. She wanted
our advice and what she could do to help him. We talked about having
her discuss things about church in her home and then she remembered
that we had a baptismal service this week and she said she'd bring her
husband so we could meet him. They came and he was a nice enough guy,
but showed almost zero interest into what was going on and he wanted
to go home as soon as the ordinance was done. Sister Fujimoto came up
to me right before they left and seemed so stressed. She told me how
hard it was to get him to come and he didn't show any interest. She
looked at me with absolute desperation in her eyes and said, "What can
I do Elder? What can we do?" This was kind of a life changing moment
for me. I saw this woman who wants an eternal family-something which
is more precious than anything- so bad, but she doesn't know how to do
it and is looking at me, an almost 21 year old guy from a small town
in northern Utah who has never had to worry about this, for
assistance. Her desperation showed me how important eternal families
are. For those of you in this email list who don't know, our church
believes that through the power of the restored priesthood of Jesus
Christ our families can be sealed (united) to live with each other for
time and all eternity. It's a pretty big deal. Who doesn't want to
live with their wife and children forever? Through this gospel there is
no more "until death do you part", but living in unity for eternity.
My goal as a missionary is to help people achieve this dream, this
state of eternal happiness.

I guess the last thing to make sure I talk about is the actual
baptismal service. He sisters had a baptism on Saturday! The lady who
was baptized was Filipino and since Tommy has been studying Tagalog he
performed the ordinance in Tagalog. It was a really good service with
every missionary  companionship in the district bringing an
investigator to the baptism. The members in this branch are really
pleased with the success that we have had since the five of us came
into the area and it has been so much fun to work. This lady was
confirmed yesterday at church and I also bestowed the Aaronic
Priesthood on another recently converted Filipino. So many blessings
here.

Last night at a members house I was asked what makes being a
missionary fun/why do I like being a missionary even with all the
rules and restrictions. I just expressed how great of an experience
this is from living in a foreign country and learning a new language,
to teaching people about how to become eternally happy, to seeing these
people accept the restored gospel of Jesus Christ and let that light
fill their life. It is indescribable. Just as Dad used to always say,
"Missions are so cool."

I hope you all had a great Thanksgiving. We didn't have one... But we
are going to try to do one this week! I love you all! Thanks for all
you do!

スピードと天使

堅城長老

Team 野並 getting it done

名東しかない。(Only in Meito)

Good morning Sports Fans,

This was a wild ride this week. I know that most people think that as
Zone Leaders we just sit back, take cool pictures, and eat bonbons,
but that simply isn't the truth. I've been all over the place this
week and it was a wild ride. Meito Zone is notorious for being the
most susceptible to have problems and it didn't disappoint this
weekend. But before we get into all of that, let's talk about the
week!

So things really started off on Tuesday with a Zone Leader conference
call where President Ishii shared some things he learned at a Mission
President's seminar in Korea. It was good and I learned a lot from him.
Afterwards we went on an AP exchange. I worked with Elder Nakamoto
(who is American) in the pouring rain. We talked to a ton of people on
the street and tried housing a massive apartment building where we
found a young kid who had a ton of interest in us and about God and
the purpose of life. It was a blessing to find him. We then got back
on the bikes and rode home in the monstrous rain. Elder Nakamoto was a
pretty fun guy to work with. He's from Torrence, California who was
kind of a beach bum surfer and is a way chill guy. He is a way good
missionary and has been helping us out a lot. Tommy on his exchange
met and taught Matsumoto-san and she loved church! We were supposed to
teach her again on Friday, but she got sick and couldn't meet and
couldn't come to church again, but we are meeting her tomorrow.

Wednesday it kept raining, but we were supposed to help our new found
Canadian friend Dave build a deck on his roof. Instead we did some
other projects to prep to do it next week. He is a way interesting
guy. He asked us a lot of questions about the church and told us that
he has met missionaries in every country that he has been in (Canada,
America, Mexico, Bolivia, Australia, Japan, etc.). We did some service
with him and then he grilled us some BBQ under an umbrella. He is also
a collector (his house shows it) and offered to give us each a sword.
That was way cool and we gave him a copy of the Book of Mormon and we
are going back to help him this week.

On Thursday I rolled out to go on an exchange in the actually rather
beautiful city of 春日井 (Kasugai). I worked with our District Leader,
Elder De Spain for the day. He is one transfer less than me in the
mission, but he is way young (he just turned 19) but is full of energy
and is doing well as a missionary. We had a lot of opportunities to
teach and it was a lot of fun to work with him. He really wants to see
success and even though this is his first transfer as DL he is doing
really well. On Friday we attended his DTM as well and he good there
too. He's just young and gets really excited and if he just relaxes
and doesn't hold the reigns too tight then he'd be perfect.

Friday night we had to head to 名東 (Meito) to meet with the Okazaki
ZLs, Stake leadership and President Ishii for what we call 伝道調整種会
which is as difficult to say in English, Mission Coordination Meeting.
We discussed recent converts and people with current baptismal dates.
It started at 2000, but as all meetings go, it started late and went
until 2115. As missionaries we are supposed to be home at 2130 but
since we had a train to catch and walk home we didn't get back until
around 2230. We were just smoked from the day of meetings and travel.

Yesterday was another good Sunday at church. We are trying to develop
good relationships with the members here and I think it is working.
Especially with the Christmas season coming up they are trying to help
us and work with us more. We had a ton of meetings after church and
planning for the branch Christmas party coming up. After church we
taught a lesson to an investigator named 岡本(Okamoto) who is actually
Christian and a former investigator. He has searched the US and other
countries for the true church and he knows that the Book of Mormon is
true and that our church is the restored church of Christ, but has a
hard time with the commitment to one church. We are working with him
right now to strengthen his testimony.

So after this lesson is when things got more crazy. We were trying to
visit a less active and the phone rang and it was Elder Nakamoto
informing us of an emergency transfer that would taking place the next
day (today) with the Meito elders. The poor elder who is staying there
just got there three weeks ago and hardly knows his area and all of
the investigators and is only a transfer 5 missionary and they are
giving him a companion who needs his help. That's a lot to chuck on
his shoulders and I hope that doesn't create more issues. Also, our
sisters had a crazy experience with their two 約束者s (investigators with
a baptismal date) at a member's home. I won't go into too much detail
about that, but I will say that I was very grateful a priesthood
holder was present at the time. Also while talking to one our DLs on
the phone we had to help coach him and comfort him in his frustration
of not seeing success this week. He is a really great guy I don't want
him to be discouraged and talking to him helped him I think.

Holy cow this email is long, but it gives you a little look into the
life of one such as Elder Thomas B. Eadie III and Elder Holden J.
Hardcastle as we work from our little HQ in 'Nam to protect and serve
those in the 名東 Zone.

I hope you all had a great week and have a great Thanksgiving. We are
going to try and celebrate it as best we can. I love you all and am
eternally grateful for all of your support and love. Happy
Thanksgiving!

スピードと天使

堅城長老

Katanas

This is now how we solve companionship issues.

The 春日井/野並 District

Drying out my shoes with Sister Tomas's hair dryer

Bright Lights, Big City

Good morning ladies and germs,

Welcome to your weekly update from the fourth largest city in Japan.
NAGOYA! But today our thoughts will be mostly directed to a quaint
little section of the city known as Nonami, or as we like to call it,
'Nam. This week definitely had it's ups and downs and ended on a high
note. So let's get started!

This week everyday has been long. Since there are hardly anyone we can
talk to on the street during the day so we spend most of the morning
and afternoon looking for older members who don't make to church very
often. A lot of the records are wrong so we are the ones to check and
see if the addresses are correct. We have met a lot of cool less
actives who have really strong testimonies and love the church, but
due to work or health issues that can make it out to the church very
often. Two of these members have been really cool to work with. Both
are Filipino named Rose and Marian and were converted in Japan. They
have such big hearts and love the missionaries. We visited them last
night with a Filipino convert, named Roberto, who was baptized last
transfer. He is getting the priesthood soon so we wanted him to see a
little home teaching and priesthood blessing. We first visited Marian
who gave us and Roberto tons of meat which she got for free from the
store she works at. We talked for a while and it was good for Roberto
to have another Filipino friend who is a member. After that we went to
give Rose a blessing because she has an illness that fighting for years. 
A little before we talked a bit about the
priesthood and about priesthood blessings. When we gave Rose the
blessing Roberto was so awestruck and you could tell he felt the
Spirit. It was a way good experience for him and it was a great
evening.

One random occurrence this week was while we were trying to visit less

actives and had tried all we planned for and none were home. Since we
had no more options, Tommy wanted to show me a good ramen shop in the
area. After we got into the area he remembered a house at was just
down the road where a Canadian guy was living that the missionaries we
replace were supposed to do a service project for. So we went to the
house and met Dave. He has a thick Canadian accent. We have an
appointment to help him build a deck on his roof and BBQ with him this
week, so we'll see what happens. He is an interesting guy. Most
foreigners in Japan are kind of strange and he's been here for 20
years so I hope it hasn't made him go too crazy.

Speaking of crazy people another "investigator" went crazy on us this
week. We went and visited and he invited us in and started showing us
this video about the Sendai tsunami and just talked and talked. We
didn't have much time and when we brought the gospel he got all crazy
and telling us that we need to not worry so much about religion. We
explained to him that our sole purpose for being in Japan was to share
a religious message. He then proceeded to tell us that we are too
young to teach people about God because we're only 20 years old. He
kept telling us that we don't have the life experience to teach
others. We tried explaining that life experience isn't what we share,
but spiritual experiences are what are most important, but he wouldn't
listen to us. This both made Tommy and I slightly peeved because we
both dislike when people try telling me that my personal spiritual
experiences count for nothing. It reminds me of a scripture in 1
Timothy 4:12 "Let no man adespise thy youth; but be thou an example of
the believers, in word, in conversation, in charity, in spirit, in
faith, in purity." I am younger than everyone I teach, but I have an
important message to share and it benefits people of all ages.

We saved the best for last. So our best investigator came to church on
Sunday! Her name is Matsumoto and we met with her earlier in the the
week and talked about faith and how important church is and she came
with her son. It was her first time and the members were so nice to
her and she really enjoyed it. Her son participated in primary and
told his mom he wanted to come back. Matsumoto herself asked if church
was every week and said that she wants to keep coming. Tommy set a
baptismal date with her last transfer and she is looking like she will
be baptized next month. She is so nice and we are working with her
children as well and it is so good to work with them!

That's about it for the week! I heard USAFA beat USU, which is rare so
GO ZOOMIES⚡️!

Back in 'Nam

Good morning Sports Fans,

It's a dark rainy day in NoNAMi. (Hope you get the joke). We've been here for a week and life pretty crazy here. We haven't had a whole lot of time to work quite yet. Pulled into a lot of meetings and didn't
have much time to dendo. I spent a lot of my first day learning about our zone and current investigators and learning how to dendo here.  I've also been able to meet quite a few members here as well and they
seem pretty nice. We are in what can be best described as the suburbs
of Nagoya. We are still technically part of Nagoya City, but during the height of the day no one is on the streets because they all commute into the more central part of the city. At night things liven up a bit, so from here we are just going to have to work hard.

On Thursday night coming back home from an investigator lesson I blew my bike tire pretty bad and I couldn't get it fixed in the dark so we had to walk halfway across the area to get home, which only took about an hour. The tire was so messed up it caused me some grief for about two days because I kept finding holes and decided to just buy a new tube.

On Friday we had MLC and the primary focus was how to work better with members. The member missionary relationship in Japan feels really strained a lot of the time and we really want to improve it. The most
difficult thing is having members want to be involved with the missionaries. They often don't want us visiting, or don't want our help for service, or won't make the time to just sit in on a lesson and bear a simple testimony. The members are the most important part of the work of salvation so we really need their help. At our stake
conference on Sunday Elder Choi of the Quorum of the Seventy spoke on this very same principle. Every time a General Authority visit they always tell the members the same thing because there hasn't been much of a change. However, we are still trying.

On Saturday we had one of the strangest experiences ever. We were going to visit a former investigator who seemed to have a lot of potential. When we got there however the place was rather creepy. It seemed to be an old abandoned workshop that nobody had used for very long time. Just as we were leaving a man walked up and beckoned us over and we starting walking down the street and started telling us about how he had received some sort spiritual baptism. He took us to a coffee shop and proceeded to tell us that he heard the voice of God.
He then proceeded to tell us some crazy stuff telling us that we are wrong and that we can't be missionaries since we've never heard the voice of God. He was also making up and twisting scripture trying to prove his points. It was way weird and we will definitely not be going back anytime soon.

Right after that we got a phone call from the Mission President to go to the mission home because wanted us to be to a Stake Conference meeting that we weren't originally invited to. We rushed to get on the
subway and hurried pretty quickly to get to the mission home. When we got there there was about an hour left in the meeting and afterwards we were very confused because nobody needed us there. So we
essentially lost about three hours of our time that evening. The joys of being a zone leader in Meito Zone! Yeah we are still adjusting to it.

Finally last night I the pouring rain we met with a nice bloke from Blymouth, England who was a former investigator. It was nice to get to talk to someone from Blighty for a little bit. He didn't have much
interest in listening to our message, but he did tell us, "I like you Mormon missionaries. I believe that if the whole world was Mormon then it would be a better place."

Well I hope you have a great week and we'll being hearing from y'all later. Best of luck!

スピードと天使

堅城長老

写真

野並 (Nonami)

I Hear There's a Party In Nonami

Good Morning Sports Fans,

Welcome to the start of Transfer 10! Double digits baby! I guess I
better update you on the situation of all of us inside the 松本
apartment. To start things off Andrade and I both requested to stay
together in 松本 so that we could try to see some more success in the
area and zone. I had the worst nights sleep before transfer calls
because I had a dream that they were still going to transfer me and
the reason would be due to one of the current APs wanting to be
Andrade's companion.We were 90% confident that neither of us was going
to get transferred. Klein on the other hand had just finished training
and we new he was leaving. Transfer calls normally last an hour and it
was five minutes to the hour and nobody had been called so we assumed
that everyone was staying. Then Elder Klein's phone rang. He is
getting transferred to Ogaki in Gifu Prefecture. His bean-chan, Elder
Hansen, is staying and going co-Senpai. As he is finishing talking he
asks the APs if they need to talk to the ZLs-us. They said yes and I
was told I was leaving and I was way angry. I was told that I was
going to be sent to become the new Meito Zone Leader, but they changed
the ZL area to Nonami, which is suburbs of Nagoya. I was then told who
my new companion was and I almost couldn't believe my ears... My new
companion is none other than Elder Tommy Eadie!! That's right folks, I
get to be companions with one of my best friends from USAFA! It's
crazy. What is even more crazy is that Andrade's new companion is
Elder Tanner one of our APs. So my dream from the night before came
true. Darn APs.

Currently I'm all packed up and ready to roll, but before we talk
about he future let's talk about this past week.

Tuesday was Zone Conference which took almost all of the day. The ZLs
didn't have much time to give any training, but what we did do went
really well. Andrade and I talked about Peter and how through faith he
was strengthened from being afraid to have been associate of Christ
into the leader of the early church. Peter has become one of my
personal heroes. There's a great talk by President Uchtdorf (a current
Prophet and leader of the church) that he gave to all new mission
presidents in July about Peter and helping missionaries become like
Peter that was amazing. Maybe I'll send it out to you all.

In a somewhat festive mood we had two Halloween Parties at the church.
One was on Wednesday during our Eikaiwa time. We talked a little about
Halloween history and did some Halloween English words and then had a
party. The students favorite game was doing the classic
donut-on-a-string eating racing contest. Not as many people came as we
hoped, but it was still a lot of fun. Our Branch Halloween Party on
Saturday was a huge success and two of our investigators came and a
lot of non-members also came.

One way cool experience this week was that my former companion Rhys
Tramacchi came back to 松本 from Wednesday to Friday. He came to our
Eikaiwa on Wednesday and we went and ate dinner with him on Thursday.
It was way good to see him again. He didn't look as tired as he used
to so that means that after the mission you do get to rest.

Lastly the saddest moment of leaving will be tonight saying good bye
to Aoki and Preto who pretty much adopted me as their son. I am really
going to miss them. They told us that we are the two missionaries who
have touched them the most and they don't want us to get split up. I
love them so much.

That's about it folks. Next week you'll hear all about bright lights,
big city Nonami, so stay tuned!

Love you all. Best wishes!

スピードと天使

堅城長老

Pic 1- After Zone Conference

Pic 2- 英会話 Halloween Party

Pic 3- Tramack is Back