So um. I'm Leaving...

10/30/2014

So um. I'm leaving. I'm going out of the USA, and I'm not coming back for 2 years. I'm actually doing this. Suddenly it seems like I'm actually on a mission. I can't wait for Monday, but it seems like it came to fast. Has it really been 2 months. Have I really been away from everyone for that long. Does it seem like it's been that long to all of you? It really has just breezed past. Hmm time is weird. 

Well I don't have a ton to write about this week. It was just another normal week. We had Sis Rosemary Wixom (Primary General President) come and talk to us on tuesday. It was really awesome. She talked about an Elder that at one point in the mission, was getting discouraged and was wondering who he really was, and if he really believed everything and why it was all worth it. When suddenly he started humming and then singing and old Primary song.

♫"I belong to The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints.

I know who I am. I know God's Plan.

I'll follow him in faith. I belive in the Savior Jesus Christ.

I'll honor his name. I'll do what is right. I'll follow his light.

His truth I will Proclaim"♪

How powerful that was to look back at that song and think wow i'm living that even still today. I haven't thought about that song in so long, and she brought it up, and had us all sing it. I wish I had a recording of it. It was so cool. Great way to never get discouraged I'd say. 

The other thing that she said that I really enjoyed, quoting Elder Holland, who was quoting a very successful swimmer, when asked how he was so successful replied "I stroke when I don't want to stroke, and I kick when I don't want to kick." I'm not even going to comment on that. Just let it stew in your minds. Good food for thought.

Well I'm getting ready to head out to Japan, and don't have much more time, so I'll just end this by bearing my testimony for you. Yes in Japanese! I can do that.

末日生徒イエス．キリスト教会はしんしつだとしてます

このふづいんはとてもすばらしとしんじつだとしてます

イエス。キリストはみんなのすくいぬしだとしてます

みなをあいしています

いげんのたまものはしんじつだとしてます

わたしはにほんにいくことをじゅんびします。

ジョセフ。スミスはよげんしゃだとしてます

トマス。Ｓ。モンソンはきょうのよげんしゃだとしてます

イエス。キリストのみなによっておあかしします。アーメン

愛しています

エリオと長老

Good bye to everyone

10/23/2014

Here's the haircut you told me to get. :)

Good bye to everyone

Don't be to disturbed by that message. It's just stating that i'll talk about my Senpai. They left for Japan this week, and I want to talk a little about some of them.

So this week was a little bland. We had a few funny moments, but we did finally get kohai. That was cool. One of them is Tyler Meldrums cousin too so that was cool. They are pretty cool kids, and will do well in Japan. This next part is about a language mess up that one of them made his 2nd lesson. If you don't want to read about it, it's funny, but it's "language" so just be forewarned that some people my be put off by this. Elder tait, in his lesson wanted to ask if he felt the power of the spirit, which is "Seirei no chikara o kanjimasu ka" but instead of saying Seirei he said Seiri. Their "investigator" broke character and became the teacher and just laughed. The lesson was lost after that, but after they came back to class they looked up what Seiri meant. When they found it in the dictionary, it said that it was "to begin one's menstrual cycle/period" so instead of saying do you feel the power of the spirit, they asked if he could feel the power of his period. It was great.

Skip to here if you don't want to read that last part. One other language mess up that I want to say, not as bad as the last one, but one day in one of our lessons, my companion, I don't know what he was trying to say, but he said "Iesu Kirisuto wa (name of investigator) o koroshitai desu" which translates to "Jesus Christ wants to kill you" It was pretty great. 

I don't really know what else to talk about here, there hasn't been a ton going on. Our awesome Senpai left this week. They headed out to Tokyo south, Kobe, and Nagoya. Including Mac Johnson. Ill send a pic that we took of all the Salemites heading to Japan. We took it right before he left. I don't really know what to say anymore here. I've pretty much explained everything that goes on here. We did have a really good lesson this week. One of our Kyudousha (investigator's) has a smoking problem, that we found out about when we taught Word of Wisdom. We left that lesson with him feeling a little discouraged, because he wants to be baptized, but he doesn't think he'll be able to quit smoking. It'll be to hard. We were going to teach law of tithing next, but something told me uh uh. We need to talk about this again. So as we were asking how his reading was going, i wanted to see if he was actually getting things out of the scriptures, or if he was just reading. So I asked him to ready 1 Nephi 3:7 to see what he got from that verse. Turns out yeah he was getting things out of the scriptures, but the comment he made was that it obviously didn't apply to him, because God gave the commandment of the Word of Wisdom, but he smoked alot and he didn't think he would be able to quit. So using the Spirit, I: 1. Relayed an experience of my Grandpa quitting smoking. Told him of the night that he drove down to a drug store to get some cigarettes at like 2:00 am, and while he was driving back, realized how stupid it was, and threw them out the window, and never smoked again. 2. we shared like 10 scriptures about how God will help, and that he just has to try hard, and 3. we shared an object lesson with him. We had him get on his knees, and try to draw a straight line from the bottom of the chalk bored, to the top. Obviously he couldn't make it, so my companion then told him that sometimes we can't get all the way up but God has a long arm and as long as we have gone as far as we can possibly go, he will help us the rest of the day. He felt pumped and felt that he really could quit this. So we set a goal tat by next friday he'll be completely done smoking, so that he will be able to be baptized, and not have that craving anymore. It was pretty awesome. We could totally feel God talking to him through us. 

Welp. I'm out of time. Please please please. Send me some questions so I have stuff to talk about next week. It is so hard to think of what to write in these. 

みな　愛してます

エリオット長老

www.mormon.org

This is my friend Elder Tsuru. He his doing 1 pull up. He couldn't do that before he came here.

It was really cool, but then he slipped and that happened.

This is my Friend Elder Cannon

These are some pictures of the sisters in the Ni Hon Jin (people from Japan) as you can tell, they were a lot of fun to talk with and get to know.

This is Miranda Choro, all the way from Brazil, he doesn't speak much English,  but we got to be good friends before he left.

Me with Ikeda, and Ishijima Choro. The nihonjin elder's. Sad to see them go but it was fun getting to know them while I could.

My District with the Nihonjin Sisters

The 4 Nihon bound Salemite missionaries.

This is Santos Choro. He is from Florida, and he is one of my Kohai. He's way cool.

Sorry y'all (Arkansas has ruined me)!

Kelson's Dad here, this is his letter from 10-16-2014. Kelson only has two weeks from tomorow (Mon 10-20) till he flys to Japan. Keep praying for him (and writing him)! His best friend Jeff Crippen got his mission call this week to Japan too (see below). He also attached several photos of the missionaries in his district in various poses of sleeping!!

Sorry y'all (Arkansas has ruined me) get a short one this week.

I'm not even sure what to write really, It was a fairly bland week. Had a fairly rough week too. I got some food poisoning Sunday, so I was out of commision that night, the next morning, and monday night. That was fun, and yesterday I had an awful migraine. Story of my life. But that's ok. We just kind of had a normal week besides that. Study, Class, Study, Class. The big highlight was probably Tuesday night. We had a devotional from Elder Lawrence of the 70. It was kind of scary. The whole beginning of the talk was about all the ways that Satan get's at us, and all the ways he will attack us. It kind of made me feel weak. The worst part was that as he was talking about this, the camera was just slowly zooming in on him, so it was way intimidating. However, he proceeded afterwords to talk about all the ways that we can defend ourselves, and all the things we have against him.
Quoting i think Genesis, where God casts Satan out of the Garden of Eden "Thou Mayest have power to bruise his(her) heal, but he(she) shall have power to crush thy head." That is so awesome. Satan may be able to attack us and hurt us, but we can stop him and get him to stop so easily. One of the things that he brought to mind, was that unless we let him, Satan cannot hear our thoughts. He can force thoughts on us, but he can not read our minds. The other side of that though is that we can't just think the words "Depart Satan", but we need to Vocalize it. If you are ever being overly tempted, and just need him to back off, just tell him, Outloud, "Depart Satan", and then Quote scripture. If you feel weird saying that phrase, you can use Heber J. Grants favorite saying from when he was a kid, and say "Mr Devil.... Shut up" It works too. Remember that when Jesus was tempted, each time he vocally told Satan to leave, and then quoted scripture. I'm not sure where that is in the scriptures but he would say "Satan Depart, for it is written...." i'm paraphrasing, but obviously it works.
So yeah that was the highlight of my week. Oh also if you didn't hear, and you know who he is, JEFF FRACKEN CRIPPEN GOT HIS CALL TO NAGOYA JAPAN. NAGOYA FRACKEN JAPAN. So stoked for him. It's so awesome that he get's to go there. The Lord is truly hastening his work. I know this is true with every fiber of my being. I love you all. I miss you, but the Lord needs me in Japan so I got to go. I'll see you all in 22 and 1/2 months (man how the time flies)
みな愛しています。
エリオット長老

www.mormon.org

My companion, and Tsuru Choro playing with the guns that we've got.

Mac Johnson Sleeping durning Personal Study.

This is something I found in one of the classrooms :)  

me with a Japanese flag in my hands

This is my selfies with the nihonjin elders (from japan). This is Ikeda Choro.

Ishijima Choro. Ikeda Choro is the smart aleck that is photo-bombing us. 

 and district leader (below) asleep during personal study. 

This is my companion (the one in the suit)...

This is my teacher Kawamura Kyodai sleeping during our 5 minute break

Hey all you followers of Watashi.

Hi all Kelson's dad here. Below is his last letter to the world. Please send him a letter or email if you want. He says he doesn't get many letters and we all know getting a letter as a missionary is way great (OK not all know that but...)

His email is: kelson.eliot@myldsmail.net

You can write a real letter (or send him expensive goodies!) atwww.dearelder.com Just click on "Write a Letter" at the top, choose "Provo MTC" on the pull-down menu and click "Write a Missionary" Then just fill in his info (Unit Code is 12, Mission Code is JPN SAP, and Departure Date Nov 4. and write. They will get it to him with 24 hours in an envelope.

Thanks Shawn Eliot

10/9/2014

Hey all you followers of Watashi.
How is y'all doin. (garsh nads arkansas got me speakin' the language of the south)

Me, Oh I'm pretty Genki. I haven't been sick for a while now. so yeah that was good.

My Japanese has increased Ten Fold. We got new Nihonjin Choro Tachi, (Japanese(from japan) Elders) and one of them was delayed a day because of the Typhoon in Okinawa. So Ishijima Choro had to stay in our room for one night. When people tried speaking to him in english, I would translate for them. I only needed to use my jisho (dictionary) once. I'm feeling pretty confident in Japanese. But other than that, Last night I gave a (get ready for it cause its a long list) language lesson to Ishijima Choro. (oh btw choro is elder) I taught him: Chinese, English, Spanish, Portuguese, German, French, Tagalan, and even Afrikaans. I only speak 1 of those languages and only slightly. And yet I taught him how to say so much crap. He has this electronic Jisho, and would pull up common Japanese phrases, and translate them into these languages. And then I'd have to tell them how they were pronounced. I even wrote them out in Katakana (one of the Japanese alphabets) to help him figure them out. So yeah not even worried about Japanese.

So yeah G-Conf (the LDS Church holds General Conference every 6 months where talks are given by leaders worldwide). I didn't get to see that Saturday Afternoon session because oh what was I doing? Oh yeah I was on a bus to Salt Lake to go and sing for Priesthood session. So yeah once again. That happened. It so Happened. and it was dang awesome too. Other that that I loved Elder Cook, and Elder Godoy (the guy who spoke in Portuguese). They're talks were dang awesome. I also will admit, I fell asleep during Sunday Morning. Oops. But we were in a dark room, and Motab just does that to me. I did wake up in time to hear Pres. Monson's talk which was pretty cool. The other talk that inspired me was Pres. Uchtdorf's talk in the Priesthood Session. I loved the story he used of the Last Supper when Jesus told the apostles that one of them would betray him, rather than saying "oh i bet it's john", or "It's going to be Peter i just know it" each one of them in turn said "Lord is it I?" I think that sometimes in life we need to do a reality check, and when something like G-Conf is on and you here a talk, rather than thinking "Oh that talk was so meant for brother brown", or "Brother Smith needs to listen to this and get his life in check" we should be saying "Lord is it I?" I've been trying to do that a little more now.

Other than that I don't really know what else to say. If you want to send me a favorite scripture, be it from the Bible, or the Book of Mormon, or the D&C, or even a conference talk, I'll translate it into Japanese for you. That could be fun, and oh heck yeah I can do that.

Send me some questions that y'all (there's that arkansasian talk coming out again) have for me so that I have a little more to talk about in these letters.

Oh well for now i'll be good.

みな愛しています。

Elder Kelson Eliot

www.mormon.org

LDS General Conference Missionary Choir

Kelson's dad here.  Elder Kelson Eliot is a movie star.  He was at LDS General Conference on 10/04/2014 and sang in a missionary choir, in the same place that the Mormon Tabernacle Choir sings.  He looks great! And sounded great (me and Thane were there)! There we're over 300 missionaries in this choir.

Taken off the TV. Kelson is in the 2nd row from the top, 3 from the right!

I am a month into my mission. Da crap.

10/05/2014

I am a month into my mission. Da crap. That happened so fast. I'm in all astonishment (drama joke)

But hey lot's to talk about today.

First health
I got over the bloody noses pretty fast. The doctors work well here. But I did get Pink Eye for a day or 2. That sucked. I'm ok now though. I think the way that satan is trying to hinder me is my health, but I'm pushing through it. Ain't no devil going to keep me down. Just get up and smack him in the Jaw and then walk away (over him if you can)

Next Spiritual stuff
So me and my companion had really been struggling to teach our investigators. They just weren't seeing the importance of prayer and scripture. One of them was kind of making an effort, but the other one was just flat out not doing it. I got some Coaching time with Kosaka Kyodai (brother kosaka, one of the teachers here) and he told me that maybe now that we're getting better and nihongo we should stop saying such simple things and try to get them on a more personal level. The one thing he said is if you say or ask general things you'll get answers that are general, where as when you say or ask personal questions, you get that kind of answer. So I tried it and told one of our investigators a story, and it impacted him. He is reading and praying dillegently everyday now.

General Conference stuff (twice a year church-wide meeting)
I get to sing at General Conference! So yeah It's been dang awesome to get to go to choir everyday to practice rather than 2 times a week. I love it even if it's early in the morning. I love it, and we are singing some powerful songs. If any of you know someone that is struggling with knowing whether or not to go on a mission, make sure they are watching priesthood session. The choir alone should answer there prayers. It is going to be so cool. They have told us that they are going to make a point to try to get every elder on camera at least once. We are all wearing red ties, but I will be wearing one of my grandpa's ties (mom could you find a picture of grandpa's mission tie, the one I wore for my farewell, and send it out with this) I will send pictures. Just watch for me. I won't be doing anything to special. I'm so excited to do this I hope lot's of you watch I'm so stoked.

Well My time's already up this week. Make sure y'all are sending me stuff during the week too so that I can get stuff during the week and not just on P-Day.
Love all y'all
Elder Kelson

www.mormon.org

Selfie Time

Group Selfie

Elder Eliot (again), Elder Adachi (encore), and Elder Thompson (etc.)

Grandpas red tie worn for the GC Missionary Choir