10/25/10

Herro Mom and Dad,

HI! Um, unfortunately I don't have much time to write emails today. I spent most of my P-day making Navajo tacos and playing board games with the other Elders...but I shall hurry. But before I start, how are you guys? I see you guys went down to Las Vegas without me huh? It clearly looks like it wasn't fun at all. Probably because I wasn't there. I didn't know that they made a bridge near the Hoover Dam...hm well now I know and knowing is half the battle.

Ah there was so much that went on this week! First of all, I've now finished my first full transfer. Can you believe how fast time is going? I only have 16 transfers left! NO! Its such a awkward feeling. It feels like I've been in Japan forever but at the same time it feels like time is just slipping by. I need to work hard every moment of this mission and be sure I don't come home regreting anything. {Thats from Elder Holland's talk btw. I loved that talk too. Thanks Mom.} Well anyways, I had my second interview with the President this week. Turns out that he wants Elder Hinton and I to stay for another transfer in Okamachi. This will be Elder Hinton's last transfer before he heads back home to the states so were gonna tear it up over here. As for our yakusokusha, Okamoto, we've decided to move his baptism date to the 31st of October. He's such a stud though! He has progressed spiritually throught out the past month. This past week we were able to teach the Law of Tithing. I thought this would be the one commandment he would have the most problems with and I was kind of dreading to teach it. Elder Mclaws and I taught him the commandment on a kokan and surprisingly, he had no problems with it! He understood how tithing is a test of our faith rather then a sacrifice of our money. We've now set up this weeks schedule to meet with him too. We're planned to meet with him everyday until his baptism and his interview is on Thursday! Wish him luck! I'm so excited for him and I have faith that he can pull through. Its really amazing to see how the Spirit can change people. He seems a lot brighter now and smiles more often even if his life is pretty hard. He works a lot throughout the week at some bar type thing. His schedule really sucks and he doesn't get much sleep. His work starts at 10pm and goes till 7 am so its hard to get a hold of him at times. He's a still a stud though!

Well, my Pday is coming to an end. Sorry again that this email is short. There's a bunch more I'd like to tell you but I don't have much time left. I'll try to update you on the baptism next week! Hm yeah I still have that calculator watch. It serves me perfectly fine! haha Oh and thanks for the packages you guys! That extra food was awesome! Hope you guys are doing great back in Utah. Tell Pochi and Monty I miss them...but punch Rupert in the kidneys if he goes in my room at all.

Love, Elder Saito

gold mine of pictures 10/18/10

Oh Herro!

How are you my famiry? I`m happy to hear from you guys! It sounds like everything is going awesome over there in Utah. I finally got the package you sent to me during zone conference this Wednesday. Thank you so much! It was good to get letters and shtuff from all you guys. I can`t believe how slow the mail system is though. I`m getting letters from my kohai that they sent in the MTC two weeks ago. I think they`re already in Japan already though...but I`ll get around to writing them back sometime...sometime...someday. Well, good news is that I`m still alive. Surprisingly, I haven`t been hit by a car nor have I crashed on my bike yet...so it must mean I`m invincible. No worries about me! Oh and for Dad, if my lungs do somehow collapse I`ll be sure to take advantage of the ambulances here. I heard people call the ambulance if they get a papercut over here cause its so cheap.

Well, tell Akemichan thanks for the advice! Mostly all of my contacts have been from natural conversations that transition to religious conversations. Its also really funny when we do awkward contacts on purpose...Well anyways, its usually really easy to start talking about religion with people because they`re always wondering what in the world we`re doing in suits on a hot sunny day. Oh and tell Connie that she`s amazing.

For Selena and Ilikea...urge them to eat the chestnuts. I heard if you eat enough poisionous chestnuts they`re actually not poisionous and you grow a foot taller.

OMG! LOL! I can`t believe how fast time is flying by! I`m on my last week of my first transfer already. This past week has been pretty sweet though. We were only able to find a few new investigators contacting but we`ve had huge blessings this week. We were doing some bike dendo towards Hatori park when we came upon this awesome 19 year old college student named Furukawa. He seems really interested about the Gospel and trying to figure out what true happiness is. We found him on Saturday and gave him a BOM/invited him to church the next day. We couldn`t get contact information from him because he was too scared to give us his phonenumber...which is understandable when two random guys start talking to you on the street...but he said he would come to church. The next day we were waiting in front of the church for him and I was almost sure he wouldn`t come because we didn`t have contact info...but surprise! He showed up! AND he went through a lesson and all of church. He`s really an amazing guy. So young and so interested. We have a return appointment with him later this week so I hope everything goes well!

Rest of this week has been amazing too. We had zone conference this Wen and guess who I saw? Elder Burns and Elder Chappell [my old companion from the MTC] I was so happy to see them there! Turns out Elder Chappell finally flew in to Japan about two weeks ago. He`s the one who was quarantined and had to stay longer in the MTC. Funny thing is that he had to stay 3 weeks longer because he had an allergic reaction from the medication he took for his throat and got chicken pox. Ha! But I`m so glad he finally made it to Japan. Him and Elder Burns are doing great! Oh and I also saw Elder Richardson too! I tooketh pictures.

Well I`m running out of email time so quick overview of rest of the week. We met with Okamoto and he seems to be progressing pretty well. This last Saturday we had two lessons set at the same time so a member and I taught Okamoto. We talked about the role of Jesus Christ and Commandments and Okamaoto seemed to understand Christ`s purpose pretty well. I`m so happy that he`s progressing! He`s even reading and praying! but unfortunately I don`t know if he`s ready for baptism though...the zone leaders are still pushing for the 24th but I don`t think he`s spiritually ready for it. I don`t wanna force him to get baptized too early so I`m not too sure what to do...but we`re going to try and meet with him as much as we can for the next week though. Wish him luck! But I have faith that he can progress and prepare for the baptism.

Unfortunately we may have to drop Kawai san because he`s not keeping his commitments. He`s so busy that he doesn`t have time to read/pray or come to church. Its really sad because he`s interested but not willing to sacrifice 5 min to read. But its okay because he`ll be prepared when the next missionaries contact him when he has time. Next is Ishikawa. He`s a stud! We watched Testaments with the ward and him and he responded positively. We talked more about faith and he loved it! We`ll see how it goes!

Well I gotta go, I don`t have much time left! I hope everything is going supergood! Tell everyone I love them! Except Rupert. I`ll always hate him. Hopefully Dad rolls over him when he`s sleeping.

Love you guys!

Elder Saito

10/10/10

Herro Famiry!

I is happy to hear from you guys! Sounds like my pictures finally sent through that email though. I swear this computer I`m using is from the 1800`s. I can`t trust it with anything really. The guy I`m standing next to is Okamoto.

So things are good in Provo huh? Ryan`s finally turning in his papers? About time! Oh and tell them I was able to say hi to Emma over the phone. She accidentally called us because she thought we were the AP`s haha. Yeah but anyways I think I`ve lost a little weight here too. In the MTC we had food shoved in our mouths every fourish hours but in the field, our schedule is different. We dendo pretty hard and our area is pretty big too so its hard to find time to go back to our apartment and eat. We don`t really want to waste money eating out so dinner is usually a small meal that we eat at like 9:30. But hey, I still feel fine and genki. Plus I`m not here to impress anyone with muscles anyways. I want to buy a protein shake here just to maintain but it costs just about my right leg for a little bit of powder...sooo i`ll be ghetto and just eat eggs and milk all the time.

So this week was pretty long and tuff when it came to finding new investigators. Mainly because we didn`t have that much time to do finding because of General Conference and stuff. The first part of the week was definitely the hardest. We decided to go down near Osaka, the city, to do some city and mall dendo. The city we went to was called Shinosaka. Its actually a pretty big city with people running around all the time. It kinda reminds me of New York but smaller. Anyways, city people are cold as ice. Just about 80% of the people there were dressed in business attire. Black suits, suitcases and cellphones. Many of them are just running back and forth from their work and had literally no time at all just to stop and talk. Most of the people wouldn`t even acknowledge us when we said hello. Seeing people like this just reminds me of Elder Uchtdorf`s Saturday session talk. I KNOW WHAT YOU`RE THINKING! "Rex actually listened to Conference and now he`s gonna make a reference to it?!" I know right? Amazing. Maybe all of Japan will sink into the ocean now. Anyways yeah, Elder Uchtdorf`s talk about how just slowing down and going back to the basics in hard times can be the solution to most problems really hit me. Its so simple! Yet its so hard for people to abide by. I`ve caught myself during this week trying to use complicated contacting methods and stuff when we couldn`t find that many investigators. And for lo and behold, it didn`t work. Next week we`re gonna take things easy and go back to the basics for dendo.

Well, more news of the week. We were able to get another baptismal date with this guy named Kawai. He`s an owner of a dog grooming store named Shampoo Plus. Very sincere guy who works every day to support his family of four. He really likes how our church is family based and understands that his example is going to affect how his children will be raised. His date for baptism is set for the 30th of October but I actually think that it may take longer. He`s always so busy that its hard for him to read the BOM and praying to know is so foreign to him. But he seems to be progressing well.

What`s really bad is that we can`t get a hold of the boxer,Tomonaga! We haven`t seen or heard from him this past week. Hopefully he`s not dead!

Our other 約束しや　Okamato seems like he`s improving. We met with him yesterday with our bishop after watching conference. He told us that he didn`t feel comfortable getting baptized because of all the new commandments he`s learned. It really scared us when he said that but we were able to settle his woes when we explained that commandments are not rules but rather things to protect us. Then, we threw in the analogy of how commandments are like fences to protect us rather than limit us. (General Conference reference!! YEAH!) We then shared 1 Nephi 11:16-17. He then understood the importance of baptism and keeping the commandments and committed to try harder to become prepared. I`m so glad we got some of his doubts out of the way. Like you said, we don`t wanna baptized him if he doesn`t feel ready.

Anyways, life is good on this island. I think I`ll be just fine so no worries about me. Well I gotta go and do some missionary stuff now! Hope everything is going well at home. Mom and Dad, I know you guys are working hard but don`t forget to stay genki too! And you better be using that tredmill everyday Mom! Well tell Rupert that I hope a plane crashes into the house and only lands on him.

OK! Bye!
Love you guys,
Elder Saito

10/4/10

Mom and Dad,

Sounds like things are going good over there in Utah. I hope the family is doing AWEESOOMMMEE!!! This past week has been pretty eventful for me too! Well,we haven't seen general conference yet. I guess we're planning on watching it this upcoming week with all of the stake. I'm pretty excited actually, which is odd because I've never been excited for conference before. That's what happens when you're a missionary I guess. So lately its starting to cool down over here and rain quite a bit. That rain jacket you got me sure has helped through them rainy days. Thanks!

Well, are you ready for the awesome, fantastic, sweet news of the week?! We have a baptism planned for Octover 24th 2010!!! CCCHHHEEEAAA! His name is Okamoto Kazuma. He's this 19 year old guy we found streeting last week by some river near a part in Osaka. He's such a stud! We've already met with him 3 times and he's already come to church once and it hasn't even been a full week yet! In the very first lesson we committed him to read and pray if the Book of Mormon was true and we felt we might as well try to commit to baptism. When I asked him if he would get baptized, there was about a 30 second pause of silence. I thought I was gonna die! Those 30 sec felt like forever! Well after the pause he looked up at us and said that he's gonna try and prepare the best he can. I'm so happy for him! I have faith that he can make it as long as he tries his best reading and praying. The only problem is he works a lot and doesn't really know his schedule for the week very well. but as long as we can contact him I think he'll progress really well.

We actually have two other progressing investigators as well. The only problem is when we committed these two to baptism, they both had their own problems. One of the investigators is this stud named Ishikawa. He's one of the coolest 74 year old man I've ever met. His dad was in a concentration camp during WWII so him and his dad didn't meet till he was 11 years old. He really like the Book of Mormon but is determined to read it all before baptism. The only problem is that he just got out of the hospital two months ago and isn't in the best shape of his life. I mean last year he went to a Janice Kapp Perry concert and left in an ambulance. We're trying to explain to him that you don't have to read the whole thing or even understand it all to get baptized. But he seems to be determined. We're meeting with him again this week so we're gonna try to explain the Gift of the Holy Ghost and the importance of baptism in a bit more detail.

The other investigator is named Tomonaga. He's a 22 year old boxer who's parents died when he was 14. He doesn't have a strong belief in God because he feels that if there were to be one, he would have not let his parents die. BUT he seems to have responded really well to the Plan of Salvation. He wants to believe that he'll se his parents agian after he dies and it really gives him hope. He told us he would get baptized if he didn't have one problem. After his parents died, some members of the Sokagakai church took him in. He doesn't really like the church's teachings but likes the people in it. He told us if he were to get baptized, he'd feel as if he stabbed the people in their back. We told him to read and pray about it so he can figure out what to do. Both of these progressing investigators are really amazing people and I have faith that they can choose what will make them the most happiest.

Well, I need to go now. My P-day is almost over. Things are going well over here so no worries about me! Hope everything is going well over there! Tell Pochi and Monty I love them and throw Rupert down the stairs for me!

Love,

Elder Saito