Thursday, October 27, 2016

Hey everyone!

This week was totally jam-packed with awesomeness! There were so many
cool things that happened this last week. To start it off we had that
sports festival on Monday. Our ward took second place there and we
beat our rival which is another Ward that we share the building with
so it was a successful day. They took last place so it was good to see
them loose since they are always the ones winning haha

But on Thursday we went to this Halloween party that an Eikaiwa
student held. The student is a cram school teacher and held a
Halloween party to her class that she wanted us to attend. So we went
over there and it was filled with middle schoolers and elementary
school kids who were kind of dresses up. We taught English for a
little bit and then she brought out a piñata for the kids the hit but
the thing was it wasn't a piñata. It was a brown paper bag filled with
candy haha but it was the hardest paper bag ever! These kids smacked
that bag so hard with these plastic bats but the bag wouldn't break!
It was pretty funny haha it turns out that she asked her neighbors to
be houses that kids can trick or treat at too so these kids were able
to go trick or treating in Japan. It was really funny. The lady also
took us to this super nice sushi restaurant afterwards and and we ate
some good sushi, her family is pretty cool. It's a small family
though, just her, her husband and her son. Her daughter moved out and
her son who is 34 still loves with them but he is still cool.

On Saturday we had this really cool activity called Dendo Do! The
stake kinda copied the idea of Pokemon Go and started this activity
called Dendo Go. Basically it was an activity to get the youth across
three stakes involved in Dendo. We had 60 YSA and youth show up and
about 40 missionaries come from two zones. We met up at this area
called ibaraki (It's in our Zone) and did split swift the youth for
most of the day. It was so fun! We took them out streeting and housing
to experience what we do. My companion for the day was called Elder
Kaminaru who is 18 yrs old and from the Abeno Ward. He was preparing
to serve a mission in February next year so he was awesome! Super
prepared and such a good kid. He was a little nervous at first but
after a few contacts he slowly build his confidence and was fine with
talking to people. He told me he wanted to go to Africa on his mission
because the people of Africa have been humbled by their circumstances
and he wants to be humbles like them. He's a way cool kid. With the 60
YSA and 40 missionaries, we proselyted together for 2 hours and we
taught 530 lessons and blitzed that area.

Today we went to Umeda again with a few friends. Went to a few stores
and bought some clothes. I  did get the package! It was funny, they
just left it on our doorstep like in America! Haha we were all
surprised because Japan doesn't do that.  Thank you for the cookies!
Everyone in the apartment loves them. They just taste of Murica. Oh!
Actually grandma and grandpa also sent a Halloween package that I got
on Sunday. It was just filled with Hokkaido candy and some money. I've
tried to email them before but it seems like it doesn't go through for
some reason, I'm gonna send another one but let them know I said
thanks too in case it doesn't go through.

This coming week is gonna be pretty normal. Lots of finding in store
for us. 

I think that might be all for this week. It's been a great week and I
hope to keep the miracles and blessings going. We did see the Bednard
devotional but only the Sunday one. It was way good and really geared
towards investigators too!

Well I hope you have a good week! Love you guys tons! That's funny
that Ashton became an Instagram King. How many followers does he have?
Love ya! And thank you all!

- Elder Durrant