High School Musical

Steve and I went to Maryville-Pilchuck's annual spring musical last night. 

This year the school put on The Sound of Music.  Some of the "sounds of music" were better than others, but overall it was a nice way to spend an evening.  Congratulations and thank you to the kids who participated.  I went to support Lydia (who is one of my seminary students).  We didn't know until we got there that one of Steve's Scouts was in it also.

The chairs in the auditorium don't get any softer as I get older.

Our Man in Japan

Dear Family and Friends,

How are all of you? I'll give you a more in-depth summary of my week this time.

On Tuesday we prepared the program for Nagai's baptismal service. We also met with Hata, someone who lives about 80 minutes away by car. He's read the whole Book of Mormon but has trouble meeting because he's busy with work and it's a long drive as well as not feeling like he can give up smoking. We watched a General Conference talk with him, discussed it, and then watched another General Conference talk. In the late evening we had pancakes at a member's house and taught him a lesson from Gospel Doctrine (We don't have Gospel Doctrine class in our branch) It's been really good going through it with him and learning together with him.

On Wednesday we traveled up to Wakayama for the night. At one point in our journey we had the choice between transferring to a different train to get from Tanabe to Wakayama or transferring to a bus. We decided to make a dash for the bus which left as soon as we got on it. There were only 4 people on the bus including the driver so after checking if it was okay with us, skipped the rest stop and we got to Wakayama a little early. Elder Mizuguchi for some reason wanted to eat at the infamous 'Stinky Foot' Ramen shop, that's what missionaries call it at least. We went in and it did indeed smell like stinky feet. I can't really say I enjoyed my meal much.

On Thursday we had zone conference. I found out that Yanagihara Naoya who I had taught before transferring to Shingu had been baptized last month. Anyways at Zone Conference we focused on chapter 8 of Preach My Gospel and learned about having goals and visions for life, prioritizing what's important and what's not, as well as what's urgent and what's not. It was really good and inspired me to raise my vision. Even though I wrote a few pages of notes I don't think I'll include them here.

On Friday on the way home from Tanabe, Elder McKeller and I (Companion exchange) hopped off the train half way to visit Hataさん. It was raining so we bought cheap umbrellas, unfortunately it was also windy so we didn't use them much for fear of them breaking. Actually Elder McKeller's did break on the way back to the train station. We had a nice chat with Hataさん and were able to get to know him better, it was the first time we've visited him.

On Saturday we had Brother Nagai's baptismal service. We held the opening at the church, drove down to the ocean held the baptism, and then held the closing at the church. On Friday the weather had been cold, windy, and rainy. Saturday was the opposite, warm, calm, sunny. After the baptism we changed in a little portable changing tent.

On Sunday Brother Nagai was confirmed a member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. When I think about where this small branch could be in a year I'm amazed. Everyone is trying so hard. During Sunday School we were talking about how Shingu was the smallest branch in Japan. One of the members said this 'When I've gone up to church in Osaka people will say they're grateful for this opportunity to speak and that it's been two years or so. Here we're lucky because everyone gets to testify/speak in church every month.' That's a really wonderful way of putting it I think.

Well This past week was good for me, I hope it was good for you as well. Take care of yourselves.

Love,
Elder Andrew West

It's Official....

I'm the world's biggest klutz.

I tripped on one of Steve's shoes yesterday (he wasn't in them)...caught my pinkie toe in them and....ummm...yeah, I broke it.

I'm pretty sure I've broken a pinkie toe before (the time I fell off the ladder while painting Keira's kitchen comes painfully to mind)...but I don't think I've broken one so thoroughly before.

It's a good thing the weather is turning ever so slightly warmer.  I'll be the only 50 year old wearing flip-flops to church today.  And limping.

Our Man in Japan

Dear Family and Friends,


How are all of you doing? I hope you all enjoyed General Conference. I'll be watching it this weekend in Japanese, it's not the fact that it's a little harder to understand that's disappointing as I like to hear their actual voices. The translation's top-notch but it's the translator's monotone voice instead of the actual speaker's voice.

As far as plumbing problems goes there haven't been any problems since last time. So Japan has a lot of different toilets. You have the traditional toilet in the floor, a raised version on the floor toilet, a normal toilet, and then normal toilets with features. The missionary apartments all have normal toilets as far as I know. Our current one in Shingu has a heated toilet seat.

Transfer calls came last week and I'm spending another 6 weeks here in Shingu.

I'm living in a city in the middle of nowhere right now so I don't have access to big music shops right now for the most part. I'll probably be transferred back towards the center of the mission again before going home. To be honest if I transfer anywhere it'll be closer than where I am now I think.

The mission boundaries changing isn't going to effect my release date. It's still the weekend of August 6-8. I imagine I'll leave Japan on August 7 and arrive in Washington on August 7th (Time zone changes) though I don't have my flight plans yet that's around when I'll be getting home so you can plan vacations without worrying.

Sincerely,

Elder Andrew West

Our Man in Japan

Dear Family,


I mentioned how there was the sewage problem last week. That wasn`t in the apartment, it was in the church. To be honest I`m a little grateful for that because no one had to stay in the church and deal with the smell. The carpet in front of the toilet was replaced so it`s fine again, even if they never did find the problem. The assumption is something was stuck in the pipes but then went down.

Thanks for sending the rules for Go. I ended up playing a game with an old man, I sort had an idea of how it worked. But I wasn`t quite sure on all the rules so I kinda felt like I was just randomly placing stones on the board with no idea of what I was doing which wasn`t far from the truth. I ended up with less than 0 points :P.

We had Branch Family Night this last Friday. We made soft tacos together. I made a lot of tortillas from scratch because they`re not sold in Japan for the most part (As far as I know). It turned out good. Everyone had fun and it was the first time most of them have eaten tortillas, taco meat, and salsa (The salsa was from Costco).

We ordered a new set of CDs for Sacrament and a new CD player so that we don`t have to worry about the music skipping. They`re both pretty old I think.

We`re teaching a man called Nagai the lessons. We met him around the beginning of the month and invited him to church. He ended up coming on the 21st and yesterday as well. We`re meeting with him again tomorrow. He`s a really good person and really has been searching for the truth. He reminds me of D&C 123:12 For there are many yet on the earth among all sects, parties, and denominations, who are blinded by the subtle craftiness of men, whereby they lie in wait to deceive, and who are only kept from the truth because they know not where to find it—

Well I think that`s all for this week. Take care of yourselves.

Sincerely,
Elder Andrew West.

Our Man in Japan

Dear Family,

*Gurgle Gurgle* went the toilet. I went to see what was the matter and to my surprise sewage was spewing out from under the toilet onto the floor. It kept coming and made it`s way to the carpet even. I threw some random rags at the flow to little or no avail. After about 30 seconds it stopped. Alas it was too late the floor around the bathroom was soaked in sewage and it smelled pretty bad. We called the apartment owner and he came over and couldn`t find out what had gone wrong. They dug a hole behind the toilet the next day but didn`t find anything. Anyways it`s working fine now so... They replaced the carpet this morning. I had to clean the bathroom.

Anyways, how are all of you? Good I hope. Despite having to make a hour long bike ride to email today I think this email will be pretty short. There`s not much else to write about.

I decided to go to BYU-Idaho, and will be starting in the Fall semester. My major will be Computer Science. I`m not sure what to do about continuing Japanese yet. I may have to study on my own, it would be cheaper I guess.

Sincerely,
Elder West

Our Man in Japan

Dear family,

You all sound like you`re doing good. We`re doing pretty good over here as well.

Probably the most amusing thing that happened this week involved me arm-wrestling a trio of drunk old men...

We went back to visit the half-drunk old man we came across on March 1st, I was hoping he wouldn`t be drunk this time. No such luck. As we approached the door to his tiny apartment we heard a bunch of voices inside. We opened the door and after a few seconds they invited us in and offered us a drink. They were having some neighhood lunch party with some beer. We told them we didn`t drink and then they noticed I was a foreigner. They decided they wanted to greet me in a Japanese style which they said was arm-wrestling. I beat the first guy, but lost to the second, and the third one beat me by using his body. I talked to them a little bit after that to keep their attention on me while my companion talked with a lady who wasn`t drunk and invited to church and gave here a Book of Mormon. She mentioned she believed in prophets but her church didn`t have one. We left right after that.

I played Shogi for my first time this past week. It`s fun but I`m used to chess so I made a few bad moves because I`m not used to how the pieces move.

I had a short phone conference on Saturday morning with the Elders who came to Japan at the same time as me. It was good talking to all of them again.

So is going to Granite Falls for church a temporary thing? Are they building a church on the hill? And if so is that where you`ll end up going?

I really don`t have a lot to write this week. Take care until next week.

Sincerely,

Elder Andrew West.

PS

This is from BYU-Idaho, I guess is I go it`s the Fall/Winter track. I do know Idaho is cheaper, but its Japanese program seems pretty limited, I`d just have to study it on my own. Anyways I`m not really thinking about it too much until I know whether BYU is a choice at the moment. Which track are Nathan and Rebekah on? I assume winter and ???