What a wonderful Christmas!

December 28, 2015

One happy missionary doing service

Service is so fun!  I love the Japanese people!

1000 Cranes all hooked together.

Christmas morning!

Even in Japan I am spoiled.  Thank you to everyone who gave me something for Christmas.  I love it all.

Meet Elder King.  Welcome to Kasukabe!

Our best Christmas present!  What a great family I have!!!
 I love them all.Wow what a week and a half it has been!  So much has happened, it is
crazy! First off, the reason I am emailing so late in the week is
because we had temple P-Day on Tuesday but we couldn't go to it
because we got a new companion!  His name is Elder King and he is from
Australia.  He is awesome and I love him!  He went home early from his
mission a couple of months ago for some reasons, I don't know exactly
why. But he is back and we are now in a three some. It is so much fun.
He has an accent and everything. It is awesome. He is really fun to
talk to and get to know. He is pretty much as tall as elder Calhoun so
that means I am still short next to them. Haha. We have only been with
each other for one day so I don't really know him too well.   I know
that he loves sports, specifically basketball. Besides that I don't
know too much. I will get to know him this week. But one funny thing
that has happened so far is last night he was sleep walking.  We were
getting ready for bed and the lights were out, but he stood up out of
his bed and was trying to open a sliding door by pushing on it and it
wasn't working and then he was mumbling a bunch of weird words.  He
likes to sleep talk....  A lot...  Oh well, it is funny and it didn't
bother me too much last night.  He is a really great guy and I look
forward to working with him.
My favorite thing that happened this week was Christmas!  I have been
looking forward to talking with my family for ever!  Finally, the day
came and it was everything that I wish it would be like.  We talked,
goofed around, laughed, and shared stories with each other.  It was a
very special day for me and I loved it so much! It made my heart so
happy seeing them and talking with them.  They are amazing and I am so
lucky to have such an amazing family.  I cant wait to see them again,
they mean so much to me and they make me so happy.  I love how much
love and support they give me.  It makes me want to work harder and be
a better Missionary.  I love my family so much.
This week we have had a couple of lessons with members and
investigators.  Everyone seems to be progressing really well.  We are
trying to get our members to the temple and all of them but one have
gone now.  So we are now working and focusing on the member who has
not been yet.  I am sure he will go to the temple pretty soon!  Our
investigators are doing okay.  We met with two of them.  Len is doing
really well.  He loves the church and he loves learning about it, but
he has no time to be taught or read the Book of Mormon.  He has school
and this is his final month/weeks.  He is doing research and it is
literally taking up all his time.  He said in two weeks time though he
will start reading the book of Mormon again and take lessons from us.
We are helping him by sending him a Facebook message every day that
has a scripture on it.  He has to check his phone! haha  We then also
met with a new investigator named Tyler.  He is a college student as
well and he loves talking with us.  We went bowling and it was way
fun!  I am not that good at bowling but bowling with Japanese people.
But we talked about the Book of Mormon and a bit about the
Restoration.  He says the Book of Mormon is hard to read but that he
will keep trying to read it.  He is a great guy and I am looking
forward to meeting them again.
I am loving Japan so much!  I have felt so much love from the people
of Japan.  Now I have people coming up to me to talk to them.  It is
so cool!  Today I talked to my hair cut guy about the church.  He was
talking about lots of other churches and he then asked me questions
about mine.  Now I didn't understand him perfectly but I understood him
enough to be able to reply back to his sentence and then hopefully
push the conversation forward.  It is amazing how the gift of Tongues
work.  We have talked to a lot of potential investigators.  Hopefully
we can meet with some of them this week.
I am looking forward to the next two days.  It is  dangerous days in
Japan so they tell the missionaries to stay inside.  So tomorrow we
are doing a deep clean and relaxing in our apartment and then the next
day is Book of Mormon reading day!  Hopefully, I can get pretty far in
it.  Elder Calhoun says he wants to sleep a lot that day but I want to
see how far I can get in the Book of Mormon.  I am not too sure what
Elder King is going to do.  We will probably read for a long time and
then get bored and start talking to each other or something fun like
that!
Well this week has been awesome!  I am looking forward to this next
week.  Next week I am getting my transfer call so I will let you all
know where I am going.  I am pretty sure that I am leaving Kasukabe.
I have been here for awhile and now that Elder King is here, I think
that he is staying with Elder Calhoun.  Who knows!  Maybe Ill stay! :)
Well I love you all and I love hearing from  you!  Take care and let
me know how you all are doing.  Don't forget to check out the blog page
to see my photos!  I took some awesome photos this week! :)
Take care and Happy New Years! :)

Elder Unsworth

Getting into the Christmas Spirit

December 21, 2015

Here comes Santa Claus!

Merry Christmas!  Ho Ho Ho

Have you been a good little boy this year?
Saint (Elder) Nicholas 

Love the ward members in  Kasukabe

Nic went caroling at an old folks home.  They  loved it except this lady.  She kept telling them to go home and then she would say some crazy Japanese afterwards.  He had no idea what she was saying but it was hilarious.  She would do way funny things to them.  She was a hoot!  They loved the elders singing though, it was really fun!

Saint Nicholas

Saint Elder Nicholas and Elder Calhoun

Merry Christmas to all from Japan!
Well how is everyone doing this fine Christmas week?  Can I just say I
am doing dandy!  I am loving this mission thing during the holidays.
We have had two Christmas parties this week and they were so much fun!
 The first one was a mission Christmas concert and they asked me if I
would sing in it. I said of course and they had me sing the song "Oh
Come Oh Come Emanuel" I think it went pretty good. It sounded good and
I had many missionaries come up to me and tell me that I did a good
job afterwards. I was a bit nervous when I sang the song but it was
really fun. I love the feelings I get when I sing. Especially when I
sing about the savior. There were many other songs and performances
that were performed during the concert and they all were great. I
loved listening to the Christmas music and feeling the spirit. I love
the spirit that I have felt on my mission, it is the best peaceful
calming feeling I have ever felt.
The next party was our Ward party. The Ward had the members invite all
their non member friends to the party. Usually about 120 people come
to church. At the party we had about 200 people!!!  It was awesome.
There were so many non member people there!  We taught some of them
about the church and they loved it. Hopefully we see some of those
people again in the future. They loved the church and they said they
loved the feelings they felt when they were at the party. Everyone had
a friend and everyone was talking with someone. It was great. Well at
the end of the party a special man came. SANTA CLAUSE!!!!  And guess
who got to be him.....  THIS GUY!!!!!!  I was so happy when they asked
me to be Santa. I played the part very well. Haha I walked in and all
the kids eyes glowed with happiness and they all ran to me. They
followed me where ever I went and all of them said, "Thats Elder
Unsworth"......  They are pretty smart kids. Well I guess I am like
the only guy in the Ward that is white....  Oh well, it was fun giving
them gifts and saying Ho Ho Ho Merry Christmas. Everyone had a smile
on their face when I entered the room. It was great! :)  I loved that
party so much, the ward here is amazing.
I am looking forward to Christmas so much.  Christmas is my favorite
holiday and the best part about it is being with those who love and
care for you.  I am so excited to see my family this week and be able
to share some fun stories with them.  They are amazing and they have
helped and supported me so much on my mission.  I have no idea where I
would be without them.  Christmas is such a wonderful time of the
year!  Thank you all for your love and support that you show me.  I
wish I could write you all back every week but I just dont have time
for it.  Just know that you are in my prayers and that you mean a lot
to me.  Thank you for all your love and support.  I have the best
friends and family in the whole world.  I love you all and cant wait
to hear from you.  Let me know how your christmas went and what your
favorite part about christmas is!  Have a very Merry Christmas!!!!!!
I love you all! :)

Elder Unsworth

Dinner with the Honda's

December 14, 2015

Meet the Honda family.  I love this family so much.  They took us to an Italian restaurant. 

Thumbs up for friendships.

I have no idea what I am looking at!

Thumbs up for the Honda family and their kindness!

If Italian food wasn't enough, we then went for sushi

Yum, Yum

Top it off with ice cream!!! My favorite!

 

Such a wonderful family

 

The Honda's! My Japanese family.
 I love this family so much!!
Thank you for a wonderful evening!
This week has been an amazing week as a missionary!  I got to do some
things that I have been looking forward to!
Saturday was probably my favorite day of my mission so far.  I have
been looking forward to this day ever since I received my call.  Last
year I came to Japan as a foreign exchange student.   I stayed with
the Honda family which lives in Yuzawa.  That is in Niigata.  Well
about a month ago they contacted me on Facebook and said they wanted
to come see me!  I was so happy!  They told me that they wanted to
come down to where I was and have dinner with me.  I was so excited.
I have been wanting to share the Gospel with them ever since I met
them!  Well that day came and it was amazing!  We met and the Mother,
Father, and three sisters came!  I was so happy to see them, and they
were likewise happy to see me.  We went and had dinner and the whole
time all we could talk about was the church.  I thought that they
would want to talk about other things but they were actually really
interested in the church.  It was great!  I could talk to them and
build our relationship up even more and at the same time share the
gospel with them.  Sadly we couldn't teach them the restoration lesson
because it was so noisy and there really wasn't a place we could go to
do it, so we taught them principles about our church and who Christ
is.  They loved it, they kept asking questions right and left.  I was
so happy to see them, it made me even more happy to know that I was
sharing the Gospel with someone who means so much to me.  One of their
daughters had probably the most interest in the church than any of
them.  She would ask us really good questions about the church.  Well,
when it came time for us to leave I had one last thing that I wanted
to do.  That whole day I carried around three Books of Mormon in my
bag.  Mainly because only three would fit in my bag, but I carried
them around all day and it weighed me down a lot.  It was so heavy.
But it was a constant reminder to me that I wanted to give them to the
Honda family.  Well when I was getting ready to leave I pulled out a
Book of Mormon and told them that I wanted to share it with them.
"The Book of Mormon is why I came on my mission and it makes me so
happy, so I want to share this happiness with you. "  They were happy
to receive it.  I gave one to the Mom and Dad, one to a sister who
lives on her own, and for the two daughters who live at home still.
They were so happy to receive them and I could see a new sparkle in
their eye.  I don't know if they are going to convert, and I don't
know if they are going to get baptized.  But what I do know is this.
I have been waiting one and a half years to give a Book of Mormon to
that family and I didn't only give them one, I gave them three.  I am
now at peace with myself knowing that I gave someone who I care about
the most correct book of any book on this earth.  It is now up to them
if they read it or not, but I did my part of sharing that happiness
with them.  I hope and pray that they will read it, and I will be
following up with them if they read it or not.  Something deep down
tells me that they will read it.  They are such a wonderful family and
I love them so much.  When I was walking home that night, I felt the
spirit so strong.  It is hard to explain but it is almost as if the
spirit said to me, "Good Job, you did it".  My bag weighed less that
night and it brought happiness to my heart.  This day will remain a
special day for me, for the rest of my life.
I love this family so much and I am so grateful for everything that
they do for me.  I was so happy to see them and I hope I can meet them
again sometime in the future and share the Gospel with them.  They
have shown so much love towards me and I want to show them as much
love as I can.  I am so grateful for this gospel and I love sharing it
with people.  Have an amazing week everyone.  I loved hearing from you
and I am looking forward to the Christmas season!  Have a very Merry
Christmas Holiday!  Talk to you next week! :)

😊🇯🇵

Elder Unsworth

Sushi! My first time

December 7, 2015

I am so excited to try this, I think!

Wow! I am really loving this stuff called sushi!

Hello everyone and what a crazy week it has been. We have been working
really hard and it seems like it is starting to pay off. Really only
one person is paying off. So this week we had three of our lessons
fall through. It was really hard but we had one lesson that blew us
away.  We had an amazing lesson with Mori. Mori is a really good guy
and I love teaching him.  When we teach him, he is writing notes and
recording what is going on throughout the whole lesson.  He is
awesome!  Well, we got to the church and there was no sign of Mori.
He is never late, he is always on time and he is very dependable.
Well, our two members showed up to help with our lesson and yet there
was still no sign of Mori.  I then thought that we could teach one of
the members instead of Mori.  So I unlocked the church and we headed
upstairs.  When we got to the room where we were going to do the
lesson, Mori pocked his head out.  How did he get in the
church?!?!?!?!?!?!  It was locked and he said he had been there for
20-40 minutes!  Crazy right?  He then gave us some presents and told
us he could not be baptized because he likes coffee.  He went to the
primary program last week and one of the kids talked about how we
don't drink coffee.  He then told us he can not be baptized.  We have
barley talked about baptism, he must be thinking about it all the
time.  Because he has brought it up a couple times.  But we then sat
him down and had a lesson about the Word of Wisdom.  We explained why
we don't drink it and all the blessings that come from it.  It was an
amazing lesson.  The spirit was so strong and our members helped us a
lot!  Mori has some really hard Japanese and it is way hard to
understand!  So luckily Brother Matsunaga was there and he could
translate for us.  It was so helpful.  We then asked Mori why he drank
coffee and he said that he drinks it because he is diabetic.  We then
promised him that if he stopped drinking then he would have better
health.  It was a really good lesson.  We then taught him how to pray
and then asked him if he would pray about baptism, the Word of Wisdom
and the Book of Mormon.  He said he has been reading the Book of
Mormon and he knew that it was true.  He is a really cool guy.  He
knows the church is true and he knows why we have commandments.  At
the end of the lesson he said he would pray about the things we asked
him to pray about and then at the end of the lesson he said, "Well we
need to end so I will pray".  It was so cool to hear someones first
prayer ever.  He is so sincere and he is an amazing person.  His heart
was changed so much and I know that he is going to be an amazing
investigator.  He has progressed so much, he is amazing!  It was an
amazing lesson.  Even Brother Matsunaga said he was surprised with how
much he had changed.  It was such a testimony strengthener.
That lesson was so much fun and I can't wait to see where he goes!  I
know that if he feels the spirit he will be baptized!  Please keep him
in your prayers and please bless that he will be our Christmas
miracle. We have a lesson with him on Wednesday so wish us luck.  He
is an amazing guy and I love him so much!
Another good thing that happened was I had sushi for the first time
this week!  It was so good and I loved it!  Japanese sushi is so much
better than American sushi. The fish is a lot fresher and it taste
great with wasabi!  I had tuna belly, salmon, roast beef, duck, and a
California roll.  It was so good!  I am excited to go back! :)
Over all I think this week was amazing.  Yes we had some dropped
lessons but we had an amazing lesson that might lead to baptism.  This
week was amazing and I am looking forward to this next week.  We are
going to meet with a lot of investigators and  hopefully also find
some new investigators.  Needless to say, this next week is going to
be awesome!  Christmas in Japan is very different.  There is no snow
and there aren't Santa's on every corner.  But the stores play music,
houses are decorated with lights and the Christmas spirit, and there
is the spirit of Christmas about. I am so excited to share the true
meaning of Christmas with Japan.  We have a little bit so far and we
have seen some pretty cool miracles. I can tell that the people here
really love Christmas, probably just as much as I do! I love Christmas
and I cant wait for it to come!  It is going to be great!
I love you all and I always look forward to your emails.  I love
hearing from you and I hope you have been seeing my pictures on line.
I hope you all are having a great week and looking forward to the
Christmas season!  If you have time, shoot me a Christmas card! :)
You might get one in return! :)
I love you all and hope to hear from you soon.  Take care and here is
a message from Old Saint Nicholas, "Have a happy Holiday!" 🎁🎅🏼🎄
😊🇯🇵

Elder Unsworth