October 18, 2015

Goodbye Elder Koyama

Hello Elder Calhoun

Saying goodbye to Elder Koyama

A forever friendship.  Good luck Elder Koyama

This is a cool temple Nic saw when he handed out his first Book of Mormon

A cool statue that Nic saw in the park.  Nic feels like they have many symbolic things that represent our religion and Japanese people don't even know it.  These statues are a representative of that.  One mouth is open and the other one is closed.  It represents the Japanese alphabet with the "a" sound an the "n" sound.  It represents the beginning and the end of the alphabet.  Which also represents Christ because he is the beginning and the end.  

Elder Unsworth meet......

Elder Calhoun

Elder Unsworth and Elder Calhoun his new companion.  Elder Calhoun is the District leader.

Elder Calhoun is very tall with a great big heart.  I think this is going to be a great companionship.

Wow what a week it has been.  Well lets start off with my new companion.  My new companions name is Elder Calhoun.  He is an amazing man!  I love him so much.  He is from North Carolina and he loves sports.  We both like Basketball so we are going to try and find a place to play sometime but there arent really anywhere around here to play besides the schools. And all the schools are under construction. Elder Calhoun came from Tokyo and he has been on him mission for a full year.  He is pretty good at Japanese so hopefully I can learn a thing or two from him.Friday was probably my favorite day so far.  So we had a District and Zone meeting that day.  Elder Calhoun is the District leader so he showed us some stats of the mission and told us that we were very behind.  He challenged us to work harder and to make our stats go up.It was kind of cool to see the stats for the mission.  We then had a Zone meeting and that was pretty cool.  They talked about faith and how to use this new pamphlet we got that talks about Heavenly Father and Jesus Christ.  It was made specifically for Japan.  It is so cool!
 So at the end of the meeting the zone leaders told us that we need to get more baptisms.  They said that they had a meeting with all the leaders of the mission and that they felt like we all could get at least one baptism by the end of the year.  I think it is called the Miracle 100.  They want to get at least 100 baptisms by the end of the
year.  So we had a prayer and asked for guidance and help.  It was very spiritual.  At the end of the meeting I felt like I could do it.I just really needed to work on my Japanese.  Elder Calhoun then had a meeting for District Leaders only.  So I had to go on splits for a bit with another mission to go do some finding.  I had a transfer one
missionary who just barely got to Japan.  That means I was the more experienced missionary!  When we were leaving the room to go finding I kind of felt like the leaders didnt have faith in us.  Like they were kind of laughing about how we had to go out and talk with people.  So I asked my companion for a Book of Mormon and told him I am going to come back empty handed.  As we left the church we went to work.  We were talking to people but all Elder Lloyd could say was "KONICHIWA" and he said it very loud.  I am sure it scared people and thats why
they ran from us or wouldnt talk to us.  So we didnt really talk with anyone.  There was actually one guy that we stopped to talk to and I was telling him how I just came to Japan and that I wanted to practice my Japanese with him.  But I accidentally said that I wanted to worship.  Oops, he gave me a funny look and then just walked away.
haha  But after that I had an impression to go to a park and talk to people.  So I saw this pretty big park just down the road.  So we started to walk there.  When we got there, there wasn't that many people to talk to.  As we were walking around, there was this one guy walking and listening to his music.  Elder Lloyd with out hesitation walked up to him and said, "KONICHIWA!" The guy looked at him funny and then just kept walking.  I then said very kindly, "Konichiwa".  He then looked at me and took his head phones out.  I then said the right words and told him I just came to Japan and that I wanted to practice my Japanese with him.  He agreed so we asked him what he liked to do and he said that he liked to read books.  Boom!  I was so excited, my time had come.  So after talking to him for awhile, I brought up that I was a Church Volunteer.  You say that instead of Missionary here,kind of weird.  But he was surprised and then I just went into my Gospel spill.  I told him how the Book of Mormon makes me happy.  I then gave him some pamphlets and discribed how we teach English and that we have church on Sundays.  I was so mad, we had the wrong pamphlets for the area.  I had Kasukabe pamphlets and not Urawa.  I
was so mad at myslef.  But I showed him where the church was on my iPad.  When I knew our conversation was coming to an end I asked him if he would read the Book of Mormon and he said yes!  I was so happy!!!!  We read just a little bit on the spot, but then he took it with him.  I got his phone number and his name.  I then walked backed to the church with my head held high because I knew that I finally did what I have been wanting to do my whole mission and I did it all by myself.  I didn't have no experienced missionary with me or anything.It was just me and that transfer one missionary.  I know that I can do this now.   When I got back to the church, I was so happy.  I walked in to the room and said "Hey, whats in my hands? Nothing!"  They were so surprised that I actually handed out a Book of Mormon and got a phone number.  The zone leaders were hugging me and telling me how proud they were of me.   I feel like I am finally getting this mission thing down.  That day was the best day of my mission by far.  I felt so good when I gave out the Book of Mormon.  When we got home, we did
some finding and we gave out another Book of Mormon!  Two in one day! This time I had Elder Calhoun with me, so it was easier.  But I feel so good now.  I know that it is possible now.  Overall, that day was amazing for me.
The mission is getting so much better.  My first transfer was hard because my companion and I couldnt really talk with each other.  So this transfer is so much fun because we can talk with each other and learn from each other.  I have learned so much in the past couple of days.  I am more than excited to go and work hard this transfer.  I
really want to help bring others to this Gospel.  Everyone needs to know that they have a loving Heavenly Father that cares about them and knows them personally.  So many people in Japan have never even heard of God.  I know that I will see many miracles this transfer.  I have already seen one, I know that there are many more on their way. Again, thank you so much for all your love and support.  I am loving my mission so much and receiving your emails makes it even better.  I hope you all are having an amazing week.  I cant wait to hear from you
all.  Again, if you have any questions, feel free to email me and I will try to answer any of your questions.  But if you need to talk to someone, my mom is always available to talk.  She also does updates every so often about me.  I am sure she also posts pictures of me on Facebook.  I love my mom so much, she is amazing.I love you all too!  Take care and talk to you next week! :)

Elder Unsworth