2 June 2008

Dear the fam . . .

BLAH!! Have you ever had the feeling you’ve got all the time in the world and there’s no rush for anything; and then, in one day, a million things come up, and you get all frustrated thinking that you could have done all that work spread out through many free days instead of all crammed into one? Well, that was today. Dad, is this a taste of office work? I know, I could have probably planned better so that wouldn’t happen, but for being recorder for one week, can you blame me? Haha, yeah. . . I just found bunches of stuff (baptism records and stuff) this morning, and we were also very “strongly urged” to clean up the apartment by President Yafuso, and we had to go shopping for groceries all on top of that. Not to mention I had to read your letters before I could respond to them. Haha -- oh man. Sometimes I wonder if the mission will help me go bald early. Haha, then, me and Dad could be twins!

Let’s see, we had transfer calls this past week, but I had already known where I was going, what I was doing, and who my companion was going to be (Mission Office Recorder, Kobayashi with the wrench!), so it took all of the fun out of what many elders refer to as the Christmas that comes once every six weeks -- TRANSFER CALLS! Since people move very fast and very frequently here, odds are that one thing changes out of every companionship almost every transfer. Pretty crazy, huh?

So, back to Elder Kobayashi -- he is the man! We are about the same height, but he is about 40 pounds lighter. Haha, he is one cool dude. When nothing needs to be said, he doesn’t say anything -- a gift that I could probably learn a lot from! Haha, he also has a goofy side a lot like me, so even though language may be somewhat of a barrier, we still communicate very well, if you know what I mean! Haha . . . oh man . . .

I think it’s pretty awesome that Dad’s “Dear Elder” now comes with letters from a sister and two cousins, all on missions! We really are God’s army! Hehe . . . in case this letter gets to any of them -- YOU ALL ROCK!! The sisters just have an amazing touch for building good relationships with members, making missionary work a member thing -- WHICH IT IS! In an ideal world, missionaries would go from referral to lesson to less active to referral, all with the members in their cars. But the Lord knows I still need a good humblin! So I’m still working hard with what is going on. We have the family baptism this Saturday, so please pray for them and us! I will be sure to send pictures. Who knew the Lord would have sent me to Japan to learn Portugese? Most of our strong investigators are Brazilian, so it’s a way neat experience! I just know I will look back on these days and wish I could go back so bad. So I’m going to work hard and continue onward -- ever onward? Well, I love y’all.

Take care, [unintelligible Japanese characters]