Leaving the Office!!!

Hello family and friends, 

I hope this week has been wonderful for you with various thanksgiving parties! My week has been nuts! 

Monday

After studies we went out for big gioza, it was delicious, as always. After we had our normal shopping and relaxed. We decided to change into normal clothes and email in the gym. Elder Yamada played the guitar and Elder Leach threw a football around. I dragged the couch from the mothers lounge and lounged on that and emailed. About mid way through Elder Leach decided to make some faux commercials. Which was a blast filming back and forth! It was a blast! Then we finished emailing and helped president with his iPad issues. After we changed and helped set up for FHE, then during FHE we had to set up the office again. They finally finished all the construction! 

Tuesday

We woke up early for the temple! They needed some other Elders to go since it would be packed soon. I was debating to go in Japanese or English but grabbed a tag anyways, in the hallway I saw a sister who looked panicked because she couldn't find one, neat how the Lord helps you out sometimes. The temple was great, I love going to the temple. Then we came home and had more office work. To be honest I don't entirely remember what was do editing the day. It is all blurring together. 

Wednesday 

During staff meeting President told me it was very possible that it would be my last time for a while in staff meeting. It was bittersweet. He also said that my new assignment will cause me to stretch and grow a lot. That kind of freaked me out a little ill have to be honest. After staff meeting we went to our after staff meeting ritual, Shakeys! It was good, I mean as good as Japanese pizza can really get. I'll never really understand why they put mayo on pizza as a replacement for tomato sauce. After pizza we went back to the office and worked on creating a sheet to travel to any eki in the mission with price included. It is pretty extensive. About halfway through the assistants called me back to the apartment. They had my transfer call...they told me that I'd be replacing my current district leader in Kichijoji, and be senior companion to Elder Ishikawa, as well as district leader. Also that the switch would be happening Saturday. O.O what? I don't know anything about leading a district? Talk about feelings of inadequacy. At dinner, I felt so sick I didn't eat. Eikaiwa was great one of our students gave me an ear pick, and a thing you can wrap your headphones around in the form of a ninja! It was pretty neat! I love my Eikaiwa Class! Afterwards Elder Richardson and I went to PEC, that was kind of nerve wracking for both of us, he is becoming the new assistant. 

Thursday

Happy Thanksgiving to all you Americans! I woke up feeling awful, and it lasted most the day. However my day was spent mostly on the 3 floor of the church for zone conference. I'll tell you what, it was a great meeting! President announced that I'd be the new district leader, and elder Richardson would be coming into the office. He then added, I'm keeping Elder Dunn close so he can continue to help the office Elders. President really helped us understand more of the scriptures in our daily lives. Sister Wada had a great demonstration about asking for blessings through prayer. After lunch the assistants brought out the new standards for the mission that we have been working on for a while. It will be exciting to implement them, they are extremely bold, but have the potential to have a lot of miracles seen. At night we went out with Josey to indo curry, it was his first time going, which is amazing since he has lived in Japan for most his life. He told us about the new Star Wars game that came out, it sounds pretty neat. We talked about life goals with him and how he can better his life through them. After dinner we went back and a friend of ours, Tadokuni had an issue about the Book of Mormon, specifically where Nephi is commanded to kill Laban. It can be a deep topic of you try to make it one, but if you rely on the simplicity of the restored gospel, it makes complete sense. 

Friday

Waking up feeling bad still is never a fun day. I worked on packing, and fixing an video for president, I'll tell you what subtitles can be pretty pesky if you let them be. At night we had district meeting, it was good. Elder Richardson is a great district leader. The meeting was just weird to me thinking I am supposed to run it next week. 

Saturday

We woke up early for some missionaries going home, needing to collect various items from them. It has to be hard for missionaries to go home for various health reasons. We then went to a stake blitz in Fuchu, Elder Moua and I were companions, talk about a small miracle! If anyone could help me at that moment it was him. He helped me put a lot, especially being a district leader in a neighboring area! We talked to two men, one is a professional dancer! Talk about a good looking guy! He was way nice and offered to accept our half English half gospel lessons. The other man we talked to knew of the Mormons because he stayed with a Mormon family in California! Whoa! He also accepted our offer for lessons! After the blitz we came home, I threw my stuff into the car and Elder Mukai dropped me off. Easiest transfer ever. When we arrived at the house, yeah, house! It was pretty messy, which was kind of upsetting. Elder Ishikawa and I started weekly planning, talk about getting thrown into straight Japanese practice! It felt good though, I am more comfortable than I was with my last Japanese companion, and he is so easy to love it is great. We then went to the church for Thanks giving dinner with some families from the ward, all of which had lived in America for some time, so it was mostly in English! It was so weird hearing members who normally refuse to speak English speak. Elder Leach and Brother Talmage talked about guns forever haha. He is the great grandson of James Talmage. In the background they played one of my favorite Christmas albums by Micheal Buble, which threw me back to the last thanksgiving at home 2 years ago now! Whoa! Dinner was so delicious but I felt so sick, mostly from the stress, but I am sure some was from being homesick too. After the dinner Elder Ishikawa and I hit the park for some dendo! We talked to a nice couple, of which the woman spoke English and had met missionaries we invited them and kept working. By this time I felt awful, my head was pounding, I felt like I was going to puke, however I had the toughness to make it. We arrived home 15 minutes early and I'll tell you what, I wanted to go inside so bad. However it's during those last 15 minutes that some of the coolest miracles are seen so we kept at it, we knocked around the block with nothing, each person rejected us kindly but with no interest. Then came the last house, we pushed the intercom, nothing....again....nothing. So we knocked! A man answered and said he had no interest but asked us to wait a second. About a minute later a woman came to the door told us she is Catholic but had interest in our message, we asked if she wanted to hear a message from our sisters and she accepted! We thanked her and sprinted home making it just in time. We planned and I hit the hay right away. 

Sunday

I woke up feeling a little better. I was really stressed out over DCS, but thanks to the enabling power of Christ I was able to make it. Sacrament meeting was great, I don't remember what was being said, but I just remember feeling happy. After church we had a big member shokugi (meal). It was wonderful, we sat next to the Akamatsu family! I was really interested in their daughter who is 5. She skyped everyday to the Philippians for kindergarten! It is completely in English! Talk about an interesting way to have school! Brother Akumatsu was baffled by how young my parents were, his oldest child is 8 I think, so an 11 year age difference is a big deal haha. After we helped take down the meal we went back to the house for planning. I was looking at my schedule and I am packed the next two weeks, so much for having a lighter load outside the office. After planning we had "clean up" time with the other Elders. I'll tell you what the house looks a lot better now! After that we went to the church to collect statistics from the missionaries and found a nearby address of a less active. We then went to visit ueki Kyoudai! He is so kind and humble, we shared a simple message about Christmas and the savior a love and invited him to the Christmas Concert on Saturday! We then biked to another less active, he likes computers so we had something to talk about, we shared Luke 2 with him and committed him to read it and come to the Christmas concert as well! As we left we got a call from the Sisters, they just set a Baptisimal date with their Chinese investigator! Yay! Since they were at the church we had them submit ours too, that we forgot. Then we biked home and housed around the house again, but we got yelled at. After planning we had a conference call where I had to report on the district, it was good. Halfway through we got a call from the assistants asking about a tech question. Guess I'll never be finished with the office. 

Okay to recap. I am in the same area that I used to be in only now I am a normal missionary. I live in a very nice house in Tokyo, for the first time in my mission I am senior companion and district leader, Elder Ishikawa is my companion who is actually younger than me too, and I'm having a blast blessing the lives of the people living in Japan! 

Big hearts!

Elder Dunn

P.s. Our P-Day will be on Tuesday next week! Going to the temple again! 

Thanksgiving Dinner

I love the English used here.

Christmas lights! 

Sore throats and stake conference

My beloved Family and Friends, 

This week was a long one but it was good. 

Saturday

Elder Bates and I have worked hard on our morning runs by telling everyone we meet hello or good morning. This morning we told one man who was what you might call a "usual". Only this morning he told us that there had been an earthquake and they were expecting a tsunami...well that made us giddy on up home. Thankfully we weren't affected at all, not to mention it was pretty small comparatively. For lunch we went to a tsukemen shop it was pretty good, it is one of our favorites. Then we did some shopping we went to Loft to look at pens, and the Star Wars exhibit. Then to this hidden mall above the train station that sister Wada helped us find, it is a pretty classy store. You can buy a suit made to you (I actually forgot what the word is in English). It was pretty cool. When we got back to the apartment the assistants were in a buzz which is weird for a p-day. Then I was called over, it turns out at the mission presidents seminar, president learned a lot and now wants to make so,e big changes to our mission standards, which means changing a lot of information, such as; an app, the portal, how we gather statistics, and where we report....it is a lot of work. Not to mention he also has asked that either I or Elder Yamada go to each zone conference and give two presentations! Oh, and this all needs to be finished by Thursday because that is the first one. Talk about stressful. Thankfully after all that news I distressed by writing home, so sorry last week was so short. Then we began getting all the work done for the change. I finished a new baptismal date reporting system which I had been working on all week. Around 10 president and sister Wada came back from one of the stake conferences they were asked to go to. Last week we all gave them money and they purchased ties for us in Korea because you can get them really cheap there. Like handmade silk ties for 10 dollars! So we all got to pick one out of their selection! 

Sunday

The night before I got a message from an investigator in one of the other companion ships in the area telling me that he was coming to church! So my companionship sat with him and Josey at church! It was a great time. Sadly Josey had to leave halfway through for another yotte. After church we sang in choir "Angels we have heard on high" it is way weird singing it because last time I was singing the hymn I was in Japan and had no earthly idea what I was saying, now most of it makes sense. Interesting how that works out. After church we are lunch and weekly planned which took forever but we were able to set up appointments for most the rest of the week. Boo yah! After dinner we worked on another musical number for zone meeting on Tuesday. I don't know what it is and having missionaries sing. Then we went out to dendo. With this new swagy dendo style being released we decided to give it a shot, and boy oh boy does it work miracles...literally. We stopped two men and talk to each for 45 minutes it was just perfect. We showed one man the Easter video from two years ago, we are so fortunate to be able to use iPads to hasten the work, sometimes a simple 3 minute video can touch people in ways we simply cannot. After we got back president told me I could be leaving the Honbu as soon as the 3 of December! Hallelujah! With some extra time at night I decided to relax by doing some of that good'ole family history work. Or basically detective work. 

Monday

We woke up to a big problem with our statistical report for the mission. The date for tracking ended...today. So elder Leach and Yamada worked on that all morning and since I am not a ton of help when it comes to excel I studied. Then worked on a statistical app for the mission. It was a slow day. We also worked on getting the new way of counting contacts working for president. It is a lot of work, but it is pretty neat. 

Tuesday

In the morning we had a zone meeting which was in the church it was way boss. Lots of mogis. We got into a good motion where it felt good. We had a normal office day, it was pretty chill for the most part. We just worked on various projects. They are still doing construction so that is kind of annoying. Then we had dinner with Tarokuni! He is awesome. He was a pianist in New York City but came back because of an expired visa. He has a real tender heart. After dinner we played the piano and sang because that is basically the only way to teach him.  

Wednesday

Staff meeting was held in the Wada's living room because of the construction, comfy chairs yoshu! We found out afterwards that You can't take your bike through the trains anymore and there was an elder emergency transferring because another elder who was sick was coming back! So I went with the assistants to go and pick up them which took about an hour via car. So we put the bike in the car and then I went on the trains with them to make sure things were sorted out. It took us about an hour to get there by car but only 12 minutes to get home by train... Now we see why missionaries don't have cars in Japan. I took the companion of the elder who was emergency transferring to Gioza, then we dendoed in the park where we met a man who is from South Carolina. He was pretty nice and had never met us too! Then we went back to the office to drop him off so he could go to the airport to pick up his new companion. Then we had some work to do through the the mission. Then eikaiwa! It was fun, we just talked about color idioms which was confusing and fun for everyone.  

Thursday

I have a really sore through the so sister Wada dropped off ginger, lemons and honey and told me to use it to make tea for my throat. It worked so well, cleared me right up! So president decided instead of having us go to all of the conferences we should just skype in so we waited and waited but it turned out that we weren't needed. After the work we went to sports night but I had the feeling we should go dendo in the park. So I grabbed elder Mukai and we changed and went. There we found a man who was playing the harp! In the park, I had talked to him before but he had showed little interest, but this time he was all ears. It was great we handed him a Book of Mormon and set up a follow up appointment. Then at night it was just Elder Yamada, and Elder Leach in the apartment which was pretty strange because I haven't been in an apartment with less then 5 people in it for a while. 

Friday

Walking up with a sore throat always kinds of sets the tone for the day, but you know what. A study of Christ-like attributes is really helping out with that. Positive thinking...buzzz.. Then worked on creating a mircle collection page for the website. It is a lot more complex then I was anticipating which basically means it took forever. We had dinner early, McDonalds, home of the mega mac. Then District meeting, this weeks was especially funny because Elder Mukai basically gave interpretive dance to the whole thing. It was hilarious!!! I really like this district we all seem to work well together. 

Saturday 

Well it would normally have been out p-day except we had stake conference and we might have had to help out with a blood drive so it made things a bit complicated. So we just moved it to Monday. We worked on the excel file for the key indicators. Turns out excel really isn't that bad. It is just a lot of formulas but coding is more difficult. Stake conference was really good president wada really pushed for more missionary work in the stake. The evening session he talked about the miracles seen throughout the mission using Facebook. He used a powerpoint I helped him make it was kind of neat to see what happens to all the crazy project we have around the office. 

Sunday

We had stake conference in the morning, it was great. I stayed awake! That was a miracle in and of itself. When Japanese people speak in church they use a lot more kaigo (formal language). Which isn't normally used a whole lot. Afterwards we had weekly planning, it was kind of long but we got it finished. Then we had to "emergency clean" the office. Turns out someone really big was coming and we needed to clean up....no idea who though. We then made bread for the bishop and headed over, sadly he wasn't home but we were able to leave a note. We then housed around and met a really sweet 92 year old woman! She was so kind! However she was a little crazy and asked if I wanted to eat some of a plant with her, i did but i think it was mint but it dried my throat out pretty bad. We came home early and then housed around the church. We found an awesome lady who came outside and wanted to learn more! It was such a neat miracle #thankful. 

Well that was my busy week. Sorry it is kind of long, but there is a lot of neat things going on in the mission! 

愛しています！

ダン長老

Preparing shots, fixing sister Wada's blender, and skyping the MTC!

Dear family and friends,

Well a lot happened this week, but if you can read past Saturday you'll be fine their isn't a whole lot. 

Saturday

How do you add to an already eventful week? If you were thinking go to an American Air Force base then you are thinking right! We made our way there no problems with our suitcases. For our lunch Elder Leach and I got philicheese steaks with cheese bacon fries! America ja nai desu ka? I payed with the American money I had and no joke I felt like I was using play money, it was so weird to me. It was oishi desu. When we bought our groceries we ran out of money, I have never seen Elder Ford scared before but uhhh...when you are twenty bucks short it gets a little scary. Thankfully I had extra cash so we were safe. On our way home we were on the train emailing and a visibly shaken and upset man got on the train. He was just talking to himself and kept saying he got beat up and was going to call the police. At the next stop he got off and and got on a different car, and began stopping on the floor. Confused because we couldn't see him we all looked at each other bewildered. Then at the next station he got closer to us, and picked up his phone. Which is super bad in Japan... Like way way bad. So he gets on his phone and begins screaming into the phone, the translation would basically be, "I can't believe you did this to me, I'm going to hurt you, I'm calling the police..." You get the feeling. Then he hangs up, and throws his bag on the ground over and over. Scaring the woman and children next to him. Thankfully when I took a step to ward him to protect the woman he moved further down the car and stomped on his umbrella, and punched himself in the face. It was quite the scene. The people on the train just looked boggled at the man. Trains are basically silent in Japan. When we got home we finished those emails. Then began set up for flu shots for the mission! I found out that you don't have to have a degree to prepare the shots, so I volunteered to prepare the shots! That was a blast getting all of the shots ready for missionaries! The doctor administering the shot is a surgeon, and the wife is too. So I enjoyed talking to them as well. Afterwards we worked on moving the stuff in the sisters apartment to the new office couple apartment. Only the sisters were in a lesson and had the only key so we basically just sat their and waited. 

Sunday

Rainy day. At church Josey came! It was exciting! Then afterwards he went home teaching! Progression is being made! We scheduled a lesson for later that nit then Elder Yamada and I headed over to Kunitachi for a appointment with a man I met via a zone blitz and have been communicating with him via Facebook for the last little bit. On our way there I took the opportunity to get to know him a little better. He is from Manhattan and his father is a well known Oncologist working in the New York area. His Grandparents were some of the first converts in Japan! He is Canadian by birth but grew up mostly in America. So that is the gist about him. When we arrived in Kunitachi , I split with Elder Moua (my old companion!!!) and we went to a nearby eki to met with him, however he stood us up, more like forgot, and we ended up waiting in the eki for him for an hour. Then back home and to the bikes we went to go to Joseys. We helped him cleaned and ate curry, then had a super awesome lesson really focusing on change. There was a great spirit there. 

Monday

Well they are doing construction in the office this week so we had to hold staff meeting in the Wada's living room on the third floor! It was a good meeting, we enjoyed spending time with the Wada's and discussing Christmas as a mission. We got assigned to do a little digging for the new Christmas video this year. After the meeting we worked and worked and worked in the office. Trying to catch up on all the work that we needed finished from the previous week. Elder Leach had a big report due so we worked on more projects and helped the Wada's out for their trip. 

Tuesday

The Wada's left for South Korea for a mission presidents seminar. They continued working which was really loud so work was really slow. So we took a break and went to the back and had weekly planning. Since our area is brand new we took the other elders area book and referred people over to us. Let's hope we see some miracles from it. Remember last week when we had the issue with the toilet? Well they decided to look at the plumbing which entailed taking out the entire wall, and drilling and drilling. It was way nostalgic to smell wood, and plumbing primer and glue! At night we needed to get out so we went to dendo for a half hour, sadly we stopped all of one person, but the good thing is we tried. I can't wait to leave the bu.

Wednesday

They had a district leader meeting so one of the elders from a base area brought the grease we ordered from online. So Elder Leach and I went upstairs and played with the mixer until we got it fixed. When we thought we finished we turned it on it made a really bad cranking noise so we took it apart and put more and more in then finally we were a little fed up so we turned it on really high which made the cranking really bad, then it all stopped! It worked! No more issues! So to test it out we mixed some bread, yum. Then came back and backed it and worked more on creating a new statistics app. (Which I just found out today, Saturday, is going to be completely different...). Then to Eikaiwa, which was great we taught about some American slang which was enjoyable. 

Thursday 

In the morning we had a way cool opportunity, we skyped the MTC to work on debugging an app with them! That was a lot of fun to throw ideas around and help them out a little bit. So I have been drinking a lot of water recently, which is helping with headaches and forcing me to get up a little more often. Work in he office was slow, but we are getting things finished, I found that since thanksgiving doesn't really exist here in Japan everyone listens to Christmas music super early. After the long day, we met up with Josey for sushi! That was a lot of fun, we discussed neckties around the world, and used it as a great opportunity to get to know him a little better. 

Friday

Work in the office was good, I am getting the hang of coding pretty well which is great, because now it is a lot more doing and a lot less studying. We worked on projection numbers of missionaries, along with eikaiwa stats, with some baptismal dates as well. It was a lot of nerd work, but it is cool to see how numbers work. We then found out that there is a big issue with area book happening around the mission, actually the apple servers are down in Tokyo so we are having a little issue. After a long day of that I engaged in my new mealtime pass time 10 minutes of eating and 50 minutes of sleeping, it is helping...somewhat. We then had district meeting which was good, we are really focusing a lot on BTR as a mission which is basically how to teach like Ammon which is great being here in Japan. 

Sorry this week is so short. President just got back from Korea and gave us a big project, in fact I just found out I'll be going to a few zone conferences giving presentations. There are some big changes coming. 

Big Hearts, 

Elder Dunn

Elder Yamada took my iPad and thought I'd delete the pictures hahaha...

They decided to build a little room so they wouldn't bother us...it was kind of ridiculous to be honest. 

Elder Dunn and the horrible, no good, very bad week

Dear family and friends, 

You know how some weeks refuse to end? Well yeah, that was basically one of those weeks here. Here let me explain; 

Monday

Our companionship and language studies were wrecked by going to the bank with Elder Leach and a Elder Mukai. It gave me an opportunity to read a little bit with was nice. Then we wrote our families, de-stress begin.  Then we went to Kumars as a district which was great! Elder Jennings and I reminisced about the MTC. Then we went to koenji. Have you ever heard of the term, "hipster"? If so I can almost guarantee that that is where the root of it all is. All of their shops have just outrageous clothing. I think the most interesting part is that they all think it is the American thing, so they wear it. I'll tell you what my sense of fashion has changed on my mission being emerged in a culture where everyone is aware of what they wear. But, I refuse to wear a 1950 motor cycle helmet for fun because it is fashionable. It was a culturally intriguing experience for sure. Then we came home, and I slept during dinner. After we began the cleaning party! Yay! It took a while, and to be honest I turned into the apartment barber and cut everyone's hair. I'd rather do that then find out what kind of monsters are growing in our vegetable drawer. 

Tuesday

As we were getting ready Elder Ford came in and announced that one of the missionaries that was supposed to be on their way didn't get on the plane because he forgot his passport on the train in Utah. Talk about a great start to the day. Then during companionship study sister Wada asked us to mogi with her, only I forgot about it, and a Elder Leach was at the bank! So I grabbed Elder Ford and we went upstairs. It worked. It was just kind of weird being he only one that wasn't ped. I got a lot of helpful feedback though. I just need to relax more when I speak. After that we planned to begin setting up futons in the church however the youth reserved the room we normally use for a choir practice so we had to wait on that. Around 4:30 Elder Yamada arrived and we all made bread however we were having issues with the computer downloading the videos needed. If that wasn't enough sister Wada called us telling us that the plane was over an hour late and two Japanese sister arrived on a different plane! So they were stuck at the airport. We were told to go get a light meal so Big Macs it was. We were also waiting on a sister via Shinkansen from her hometown so we sent the sisters to the eki, well she made her way from the eki to the Honbu no problem, so We called the sisters. Then sister Wada called saying she would be at the Honbu in 30 minutes and asked for Elder Leach and I to meet her at the eki to grab their bags. Well on the way over we met an American man who tried to argue with us about grace. We told him flat out we didn't have time to argue, and asked him instead if he thought it was Christlike to argue with his fellow man. With that we ran to the eki to find sister Wada. Helped her to the Honbu then went to the bus depot to meet new missionaries. I talked to a man about his skateboard for a little bit that was relaxing. Then when the bus arrived president wasn't on it because he had to wait at the airport with a sister who left her wallet on the plane! So we helped he new missionaries take things to the Honbu and went upstairs to the Wada's. Well just when we thought nothing else could go bad one of the sisters that just arrived exclaimed, "I'm so sorry, I have no idea what I did but, the toilet is overflowing." Oh no...sister Wada looked like she was going to cry so we burst into action. We told her not to leave the kitchen and went to  face the mess. And sure enough there was water just gushing out of the toilet. So we ran downstairs and grabbed all of our towels and the plunger. Then back upstairs where I rolled up my sleeves and pant legs and got to work. Who knew I'd use those skills here. Then we cleaned up all the water, and since my pants were pretty weak just left them rolled up. Funny thing was that president was on his way and elder leach wanted his jelly downstairs for bread so we ran down, and noticed president and the new sisters on their way, so we ran after them. Only my clothes were on a mangled mess, my tie pulled down button unbuttoned, pants and sleeves rolled up, and not wearing any socks. President and the new sisters gave me an interesting look so I explained what had happened. To which president judged, "today has been horrendous!". Indeed it had been. We then ate dinner, cleaned the kitchen which took us past 11, and then went to bed. Now you are getting the idea of how this week was going...

Wednesday

We woke up pretty worn out and went for a run. I ran with elder Siqueira he is from San Paulo, Brazil, and a recent convert of 2 years. If that is t awesome enough he learned English and Japanese at the MTC! He is amazing! We ran together and talked to a man. Had our normal trainings and Elder Yamada and I worked on putting screen covers on all the new iPads. Around 11 a man came in and asked if we knew about a doll in the church. Confused we went with him and looked around, sadly we didn't find anything but would look for it. It was really creepy. After lunch we planned to dendo with the new missionaries however I lost my wallet, so we ran around everywhere looking for it, it was in my bag...that was embarrassing, and the other Elders went so we didn't need to go. For dinner I lead the group to ippudo a Japanese ramen shop! I think the new elders and sisters liked it. In my group we had an elder from England, and a sister from Finland with us! That was pretty cool. Then we went to eikaiwa and on our way back we ran into the other group that went to udon. Elder Leach ordered a ginger ale and they brought it out in a giant mug, confused but impressed by their generosity he drank it, then turning to the other elders asked, this tastes like vinegar. So he asked the one of the workers what was in it, to which he responded, "sake". Which is Japanese for alcohol. And uhh news flash for anyone reading this who isn't a member, Mormons don't drink alcohol. So that wasn't too good. When we arrived at eikaiwa though we had a surprise from one of our students! Markers! The past few weeks we didn't have a good marker so she bought us one! It was an enjoyable class and thank goodness nothing flared up during that but when we got out president texted to tell us that the elder who missed his flight had come except his luggage was destroyed in turbulence so they would be at the airport working on figuring things out. We think they got home around 11. After we tried to start setting up the iPads however the new missionaries used iPads in the MTC so they had already created Apple ids so we had to plan to get them all and change all the missionaries passwords. 

Thursday

During breakfast we got a call from sister Eyring telling us that her and her companion were separated on their way to the Honbu and her companion didn't know how to get to the Honbu. So Elder Yamada and I went out to go and try and find her because we had an idea of when she would be arriving. At the train station, eki, we waited and prayed we would find her. Elder Yamada had the impression to go upstairs and after we got their I had the impression we needed to go up the escalator. At the top we waited and sure enough 10 minutes later a blonde sister came running toward the gate win fear and panic, she didn't see us. So when she clicked through we walked up next to her and I said, "hey, we will help you from here." To which she screamed and began to cry. It was cool being able to help someone. She then told us the story of how a member found her and asked her for help and also someone in Shibuya took her to the exact train to get on! It was pretty amazing! Then we began changing passwords and setting up iPads. Around 11:30 I received a package from China! I was confused out of my mind! It was the new screen covers sent directly to us from the factory! That was pretty legit. Then we began to finish only some of their passwords wearing right so we had to go without lunch to fix it all. Our training afterwards was alright, we finished strong which was good. After we began figuring out all of of the returning missionaries out as far as futons go. That was a fun run around. During dinner I slept, and about half way through we got a call from the Nagoya mission asking if I would build their portal. I told them to call me next week. This week was a little too busy. After we finished we began getting all kinds of office work done involving a new transfer. Getting rosters and pictures up. 

Friday

I'll tell you what, being exhausted from the night before did not help in the morning. I felt to dead to play dodgeball with the missionaries so I slept in until 6:30. Breakfast was so delicious! It was one of the best breakfasts I have eaten in a while. It was a pretty sad morning though Elder Kennedy and Elder Bennion went home! They were in my first apartment in Japan! That is crazy to me it has already been that long! They seemed so old to me when I came into the mission. After the goodbyes. We worked on taking down all the futons and iPads. Except when we had to pay for the futons we had no money in the cash box which basically turned into the box because it was drained...it has been a long week. We got a lot of office work done which was great. Around 3 a crazy man came in for president so that was a little exciting. But then we kept working and had dinner then district meeting. It was great we talked about farmers so naturally I was all ears. Then we went out to find people, everyone was turning us down except the last man we talked to named Caesar who is from Brazil! He was way nice and we were able to exchange some contact information! 

Well as you can tell it wasn't awful, no one died, but it was a pretty dang tough week.

The title of my email is from one of my favorite children's books! 

Either way, 

Big Hearts! 

Elder Dunn

Sorry there weren't a whole lot of good pictures taken this week in the office! 

Talking to gaijin, Going to the Shinden, and Transfer Emails

兄弟姉妹の皆さん。こんにちわ！

This week was long! So it might not make perfect sense. Gomen! 

Saturday 

Our morning study was interrupted because of the returning missionaries having a study session. We just gave them the procedure about going home, I can't believe we are already gearing up for missionaries to come in and go home again! Wow! Time sure is flying. We went shopping, then emailed, after Elder Leach wanted a new watch for his birthday so we went shopping, ate some dinner. After dinner we 

Sunday

Church was really good, we sat next to our older friend this week! We are slowly wearing off on her. Her conversion will take some time. After church we had some office work to finish, we also were able to do some weekly planning. At night we met with Josey! It was a great meeting, he really has a desire to choose the right and follow  God, slowly but surely we are making progress, it is always exciting when you can see it first hand. 

Monday

After studies, Elder Leach and I were at the stoplight waiting to cross and we notice a middle aged woman looking at a map, up and down, she looked and then she began the whole flip the map in different directions motion. It was pretty obvious she was lost. So when the light turned we walked over and offered to help. She was kind, and was lost, so we walked her to her hotel. It turns out she is from Ireland and came here to visit her daughter, she had never met missionaries before and was curious as to why we were in Japan. Great question! Then continued our journey to zone conference. On the train we talked to a man from England, I have noticed in my few months here in Japan that foreigners are afraid to talk to missionaries because they know 9 times out of 10 we will talk to them. Elder Leach and I were talking back and forth and noticed the man was listening in, so I just turned and asked, "well you seem like a smart man, what do you think?" I think he was more surprised that we acknowledged his presence then me asking for his opinion on the matter. He openly voiced it then we were able to talk with him. Turns out he is a chef in Shinjuku! Way cool! Zone meeting was good, i have been trying to find how things I learn can apply to me in the office, it is a neat paradigm shift. Afterwards we were on the plate form for a train and wouldn't you know it, there was a foreign woman standing a little of the ways off, then I had the impression that I should talk to her we ventured over there. I was a little nervous because we aren't supposed to approach woman about dendo, but I was told so I will go and do. We got on the train and I was trying to figure out how to not awkwardly start up a conversation, that is pretty socially unacceptable. So I ignored the prompting at first and sat down next to a Japanese man and began talking to him, well I asked him one question, looks at me, then his phone and then gets up and right off the train he went. Well looks like there is no ignoring the prompting now. She said something to me and we were able to talk! Turns out she is half Indian and half Greek but was raised in England, and she is looking at various religions and was curious about ours, Elder Leach and I were able to place a Book of Mormon with her before we had to get off the train. Talk about an interesting train ride. After we got off we were walking down the street and met a man with some clothes that would rival any hippie with long hair and round glasses. He was way cool, sadly no interest but we got a picture anyways. We had FHE at night which was fun because we were able to help sister Wada with the food, as well as catch up on some office work. 

Tuesday

We got up for the morning pack of the trains. I'll tell you what getting smashed into other humans at 8 am is just a great feeling...I am sure of they packed people like they do here in America there would be fights, and sweaty Americans. We felt sick from the hot air so we walked to the temple from a nearby eki, a woman called out to us on our way turns out she is a Filipino from the Tokyo 2nd ward, way kind, she even helped us get to the temple. Elder Leach had some work at the Area Office to do so we went there and talked to some people for a little bit. The temple was wonderful, I did the session in Japanese which amazing, I couldn't believe how much I understood. After the session we came home and got to work. Then we went to Koenji which is at the end of area and mission. When we arrived we needed somewhere to park our bikes so we found a grocery store so to make sure they didn't tow our bikes we went in the store to look around. There were two American-Japanese businessmen shopping. The one was so surprised at how cheap everything was he exclaimed, "I don't know how they are doing it, it so cheap...they have to be losing money? Does this make sense to you?" It was funny to us because we were the only apparent English speakers there and his comments weren't directed toward us. We found a dang expensive cantaloupe though, he was right things were dirt cheap there. We met a few people, one man tried handing us fliers but we kind of dendoed him instead, I think that kind of threw him for a loop. We tried to visit a less active but got lost/the map told us the wrong address. So on our way back we met the Japanese version of Jack Black, I kid you not this man had a scraggly beard, a little heavier and was holding a corn dog! It was awesome talking to him. We walked him back to his house! 

Wednesday

Staff meeting was good, we discussed the transfer breakdown. The Wada's are Leaving for Korea in two weeks for a mission president seminar so the office and assistants are holding down the fort. Talk about frightening... We then had our various office work to do. We helped Sister Wada set up their printer, she showed us some of their family photos which were awesome!  At dinner Elder Mukai got upset because it turns out a companionship will have to move out and it is looking like it'll be him and Elder Ford. Next transfer there will be 7 people in the Office, which is a lot. So he punched the fridge, kicked a hole in our potato box, punched his bed, and broke my water bottle. It was an adventurous dinner calming him down. Eikaiwa was great! We talked about the weather which was fun because we traded phrases in Japanese and English. After we helped sister Wada set up for MLC and she proposed that Elder Leach and I only speak Japanese to her from now on. She wants us to speak well by the time we leave. We saw president in his office and jokingly said something about one of the Halloween costumes he wore that sister Wada showed us. He then talked to us for a half hour about his previous costumes! 

Thursday

Breakfast with the leadership was enjoyable, we found out one of the elders has to go home due to whopping cough. So he go to stay with us during MLC. We kind of kept him away from everyone else. After lunch, we had to go up for my favorite part discussion items. They are pretty dang funny to Elder Leach and I because we have the special opportunity to see things from a more birds eye view. We gave a training about iPhoto sharing which was pretty entertaining. After Sister Wada and I spoke in Japanese about my nose. To say the least I look like rudolf the red nosed reign deer. That was a fun and exhausting adventure. 

Friday

Everyone was out of the office so it was Elder Leach and I ruling the roost. Then sister Wada came down, and had some things to discuss. 10 minutes later she called and Elder Leach compared us to an Indian call in center speaking tech support. Sister Wada thought it was pretty funny because she started talking with an Indian accent! She had to hang up she was laughing so hard. We came to the realization that we needed screen covers for iPads since we hadn't heard back from the company who supplies us. So we took a trip to Hachioji to go to daiso to buy all of their screen covers. Then we ate at Go Gos curry it was delicious. Then we came speedily home to make it to district meeting on time. District meeting was good, most of it consisted of planning out the Halloween party the next day. After we worked on finalizing all the transfers before emails tomorrow.

Saturday

We worked on getting all the emails ready to send to everyone for their new transfer. It took some time but we got it all out smoothly on time. Afterwards I took a nap because I was exhausted. Then we went to kumaras for lunch. It is a nearby Indian curry restaurant with some of the kindest people running it. Then we came back and began getting things ready for the new transfer we will be receiving a new companion to the Honbu, Elder Yamada from Manhattan! I have had quite the variety of companions on my mission.we look forward to work with him. Around 4 we went over to the church for the Halloween party. I wore my cowboy hat, rain boots and a bandana, also known as a cowboy with limited resources. Elder Leach was a "movie producer" wearing a baseball cap and basketball shoes with his normal missionary clothes. The missionaries were asked to creat booths for the event so we did an obstacle course filled with all kinds of fun stuff. I was asked to work this goblin contraption made from boxes and construction paper. It was pretty impressive. As most people know a good goblin has to make growling noises so I became horse from the station. The party was awesome, it is amazing how big Halloween is here in Japan. They even had a piñata! Sadly none of the kids could break it with the plastic bat or the young adults so I was asked to finish it off. Ha. That was fun. At the end we sang I with one of the investigators, and then got chased around by the primary children. 

Sunday

I woke up and was horse, I mean I could hardly speak. Thankfully Elder Ford gave me some cough drops. Those kept me awake at church too! After church we had weekly planning which mostly turned into a split the areas game. Since we are splitting into two areas we are making all the proper preparations to fix things when it happens. At dinner we had an apartment pow wow. About who was moving out. Chief Bates was in charge. Thankfully Elder Leach and I are in the clear since Elder Yamada is becoming our companion. It turned into a came of approaching the elephant in the room in a calm manner. Well it all worked out for the greater good between all of us. Elder Leach and I sped off to a lesson with Josey. He read the assignment we gave him, it is neat to see our lessons to transition into more gospel related talks. It is exciting. 

Sorry if this is a pretty dry week, my brain is fried from all the office work. 

Big Hearts! 

Elder Dunn

The hippie  

I love the causes to delays here in Japan

This is a little larger than an apple and it costs almost 20 dollars.

Elder Leach with the Cantaloupe 

Curry and waffles made by our beloved assistants.