From the set of Frozen...

Elder's Eliot and Spurling

01/25/2015
Hey everybody. Our week wasn't amazingly exciting this week, but some cool stuff did happen. We were out housing a few days ago, and found this cool extremely prepared women. She is wanting to find the true church of God on the earth. She full on believes that it's here, she just doesn't know where to find it. We gave her a Book of Mormon. We'll see where that goes. I got to go on splits with Elder Yamada, my District leader. He was way cool. He is fluent in English too so that helped a lot. 

Oh and did I mention the blizzard we had this week? No I didn't? Oh ok let me tell you about that. We walked out our front door, and I sunk up to my knee. Remember if you haven't seen me for a while I'm tall. There was a lot of snow. There still is too. There are several pathways in which the snow is above my head. By quite a few feet too. Oh and also the ocean is frozen. There are Icebergs. Lot's of them. I have pictures too. And I have really cool videos that i can't send so you'Ll have to wait till i get home to see them. We walked on Icebergs this morning. It was soooooooo cool. We also went with the rest of the district today to play a bunch of sports. I discovered, that I'm not have bad at badminton. So yeah. 

The rest of our week was pretty normal. Nothing super amazing. We do have one investigator coming to church every week again now, so that's good. Shout out to my Mom, my Sister, and my Uncle who had Birthdays (that I might have forgotten.....) I'll get you presents, but since things are so expensive to send from here, and I don't have money, I'll just bring them home with me. 

This is a blizzard!

I've got to say, I love writing in my Journal. I used to hate it, but I love going back in my Journal and reading entries, and laughing at the things that were happening during it. I have written it as though many other people will be reading it so you can all have fun with that eventually. If you aren't currently writing in a Journal, start it. It's a commandment, and it's way awesome too. Stop being disobedient, and just do it. Love you. Also Shout out to my friend Jeff. Leaving for Nagoya Japan (to be a missionary) here in a week. Good Luck Jeff. がんばてね。

Well I think that's about it this week. Love you all.

Bye bye.

Elder Eliot.

Where I live

Mountains remind him of Utah

Elder Spurling's not too strong

This is the ocean!!!

Kelson walking on the ocean! FREAK!!!

Add caption

Snow anyone?

The Seed Example

What it's all about!

01/18/2015

Hey everyone.

So this week was kind of cool.

We went to Kitami, and saw our friends, and had a cool DTM (District Training Meeting), and received a ton of revelation for 2 of our investigators, and then just did a lot of housing, and pinging, and weren't seeing to much success, but we decided, we were going to challenge our only 2 stronger investigators to baptism. We met with the one Tuesday night, and had this really cool plan to use Alma 32, and the Seed example, to get her to want to be baptized. We watched the restoration video, and then got ready to dive into it, but then she had questions about some anti-Mormon stuff she found online. So the whole lesson turned into answering her questions, and then giving her a Joesph Smith pamphlet. Didn't go so well. But we did slyly "accidentally" leave the DVD at her house, hoping that maybe she'd watch it again.

Anyway, then we decided we wanted to meet with her and our other investigator, (Higaki san, and Kanaya san) at the church. Elder Spurling Called them, and they were both way down to meet with us, and then he asked them if they could do it at the church (with other members just btw) and they were both kind of like "umm. mmm maybe... not sure... ok" and they both said they could. YES. miracle there.

Then on Friday, we went to meet with a new investigator we found named Aoki san. We didn't get to talk with him a lot, but it does seem like he has some interest and we have another appointment, so we'll see where that goes. Then we had an Old Investigator call, that wanted to meet us. Sadly we didn't get to pick her up, because, she is really busy. We had never met her, and she literally had only 30 minutes, and it wasn't normal. But she is way strong, and Golden Investigator material, we just need to have time to meet with her. We'll see where that goes. 

Then I stopped this guy on the street (pay attention, cause this part is way cool) I started telling him about who we were, and asked him if he had ever thought about the meaning of life. Per usual for Japanese people, especially those under 30, he hadn't. So I asked him, why he thought he was on this earth right now, except I messed up my Japanese so badly. It was funny, but he was really chill, and did have a question for us about Christians. He wanted to know the difference between Catholicism, and Protestant churches. We told him about how Protestant churches are branches off of Catholicism that are trying to "reform" the old church of Christ. Then he asked us which one we were. The thing that Elder Spurling then said "That is a question isn't it" So we asked him if he had some time, and he kind of did, he said Oh I've got my job, and there's time, but he was going towards his hotel, so we caught him on it, and he said Ok we can talk on the way to my hotel, and it just so happened, that the our church was right on the way. As we passed it, we invited him to come in, and he was like way excited, and we get in, and he starts looking for the cross. In the end, he started teaching him all about the restoration. Lesson 1 for those who understand missionary language. The best part is the entire time, he was talking about how cool it was, and full on understood it. He took a Book of Mormon and really wanted to read it. He was ready to pay for it, and then we told him it was free. The only bad part, is he doesn't live in Hokkaido. *face palm* He lives down in Sendai. But his job (which by the way he told us was "secret") takes him all over the country. But he did say the next time he came he wanted to meet us. He was way chill, and was using all this informal Japanese to talk about how awesome all this was.

Anyway then we taught Kanaya and Higaki on Saturday, and it went ok. In the end, we dropped Kanaya, and got Higaki to start coming to church again. *fist pump with tears*

Long story short, we only have 2 investigators now, and one of them is brand new.

We going to do lot's of finding.

Well that's it for this week.

Love all of you

Do something for someone else this week for free.

Love life, and love homework, and love oranges. :)

Elder Eliot

Since he hasn't sent any photos lately, here's a classic!

When you brush your teeth, the tooth brush goes in your mouth, not your ear!!

01/11/2015

New Sapporo LDS Temple, will be finished in 2016

Hey everyone.

So this week wasn't too exciting. We went to Kushiro for Zone Training meeting last Monday, and learned a lot of cool things. One of the cool things about that day, was it was one of my zone leaders birthdays. Elder Brackner, (who is from Payson, UT btw) turned 21. Me, Elder Spurling (my companion), and another guy in the zone made a song for him. I played "the dumb song" and Elder Spurling sang a bunch of crap he made up on the spot, and then Elder Dennison rapped. It was fun. 

Other than that we had a normal week of Dendo (contacting people). We had a cool guy that we found through a housing contact come to church yesterday. He didn't actually have a lot of interest, he apparently just promised us that he would come to church. But he did come, and that is a huge step, so we'll keep an eye on him, and keep encouraging him a little bit at a time. 

Huh?

We had fun yesterday too. We went with our Ward Mission Leader (local member that is assigned to help the missionaries) Home Teaching, and I used an example about following the prophet using Origami. I gave them all a piece of paper, and told them to make what I make. But then I didn't tell them anything I just made it. Then I told them that they needed a prophets voice to tell the people what God was wanting, and how to do so. I then proceeded to teach them how to do it, and it evolved into one persons being good, because she asked questions, and "studied" the "prophets words" and the rest being kind of meh, with Elder Spurlings being something entirely different, because they were all listening, but kind of, some only sort of asked for help while others didn't at all, while Elder Spurling didn't even watch, and just did it as well as he could with listening. IT was funny. Welp. 

Other than that, we didn't have to much happen this week. Your all awesome. I'll send you some pictures next week. I haven't had a chance to get to many. Remember to be grateful for how warm it is there, because it is colder here. Don't forget, when you brush your teeth, the tooth brush goes in your mouth, not in your ear.

Lot's of love from Japan

(still can't believe that I'm here)

Elder Eliot

Abashiri Prison (Japan's equivalent to Alcatraz)

01/01/2015

Hey everybody.

Elder Eliot here.

So really really long week eh. Our Preparation Day was moved (from Monday) for us so that we could have it to check stuff out on New Years Day, and then we needed to move it one more day because of all of the things we had planned for New Years with members. So yesterday wasn't P-day after all. Thats Today.

We've had a lot of fun out here in Abashiri. We finally got our heater fixed in our apartment, so now we won't freeze to death. That was fun! Christmas day we were actually in Kushiro (a city about 100 miles south of Abashiri). We went down to Kushiro to have a zone Christmas activity. It was a lot of fun. We played a bunch of different games, and had a gift exchange (I got a bunch of chocolate, it was yummy) Then we came back to Abashiri, and went with our Ward Mission Leader around Caroling. It was a lot of fun. We met a lot of cute young families. 

Yesterday for New Years we went to a Shinto Shrine, and did the whole Japanese culture thing where you throw the money in the box and clap and ring the bell and all that stuff (repent of your sins). It was cool. If you ever look anything up about Shintoism it is very obviously apostated Christianity. The shrine layout is basically exactly like Moses tabernacle. They have the whole washing basin, sacrifice alter, unleavened bread (which is mochi), and the Holy of Holies per usual. It was cool. We went after to eat at a church members house, at which we at a lot of food, and then after played a game. We played Scripture Trivia. It was a lot of fun. We all came up with difficult questions based off of the scriptures. For instance, the hardest one for me was: When Noah's ark finally landed, it was on a mountain. What was the name of the mountain? Yeah I didn't know. But that was a lot of fun too. 

We've done a lot of housing, and my Japanese has improved 10 fold. It's still not very good, but it's up there. I can actually tell people what we are doing. It's been a lot of fun. It's way cold though. Just on the walk over to the church my face froze. I couldn't feel it at all.

Oh just a thing to add to the achievements list. I have tasted the best Sushi in the world. The best sushi is in Japan right? Well the best sushi in Japan is in Hokkaido, and the best sushi in Hokkaido is in Kushiro, and the best sushi in Kushiro is at a place called Matsuria. We went and ate there for Christmas lunch. It was very good.

I've kind of run out of Idea's for what to write about. lol. I guess I'll look through my journal, and give you more stuff next Monday, since it's not to far away. I love you all and hope you had a very happy new year, and a very Merry Christmas.

Until next monday,

Be kind, and love your neighbor.

Elder Eliot