Elder Durrant has completed his mission and returning home!!

His return is May 5th. He will have his homecoming talk at the Ricks Creek Ward at the Centerville North Stake Center on May 14th from 9:00AM.

Well Done Elder!! Well Done!

Last email below.

Hey Y'all!

How's everyone doing? Well, this is my first and last group email of

my mission. I just never really got around to doing group emails for

some reason. I guess I just liked to personalize things.

Well, as the title also suggested this is my last P-day on my mission.

The two years has come to an end. It's crazy how fast two years has

gone by. I still can't process the fact that I'm going home this week.

It never really hit me until yesterday when I had to pack my suitcases

and give a short talk in sacrament meeting about my mission. All I can

say is that it has been a ride! These past two years have been the

time of my life. It's sad to say that my time here in Japan has come

to an end. I have truly been able to love my mission, the gospel, and

the people I served. I don't want this experience to end but all good

things must come to an end. I have lived in Japan now for 10 years of

my life. I've always loved Japan but these past two years have helped

me have a deeper love and a more personal connection to this country.

I just wanted to give a quick shoutout to all of you all and say

thanks. Each and every one of you have helped me and inspired me

before, and during my mission. You have all had a profound influence

on me and the decision I made to go on a mission, and the decisions

I've made on my mission. I couldn't have done it without you.

I am truly grateful for the opportunity I have had to serve the Lord

in the Japan Kobe Mission these past two years. I have loved every

area I've served in, every companion I had, and every missionary I've

had the opportunity to work with. I am grateful for all the good, bad,

hard, easy, fun, painful, joyful, and spiritual experiences I have had

on my mission. Each one of those experiences have helped me build a

firm foundation upon the rock of my redeemer. I'm thankful for trials,

not because they are fun or easy, but because of the opportunity I

have to learn and grow from them. I have truly been able to strengthen

my testimony that God loves all of us and has a plan for all of us,

that the afflictions we may face in our lives truly are for our gain,

and that our Heavenly Father will be right there cheering us on and

helping us so we can overcome our trials. God loves broken things and

through him we can be made perfect.

The gospel is true. The savior lives. Heavenly Father truly does love us.

Thank you all for all your love and support these past two years. To

those who are home, I'll see you in a few days. To those who aren't,

I'll see you whenever you get back haha. Also, to all my past

companions, starting with my trainer Jonathan (oh man that sounds so

weird), the promise is still there that we are all going to a Taylor

Swift concert once everyone is back. #TraditionsOfOurFathers

I love you all and will end with the words of Jacob in Jacob7:27

"And I, Elder Durrant, saw that I must soon go down to my grave...And

I make an end of my writing upon these plates, which writing has been

small; and to the reader I bid farewell, hoping that many of my

brethren may read my words. Brethren, adieu."

Thank you all and have a great week!

- Elder Durrant

Hey everyone! 

Sounds like everyone had a good week. Ashtons still making cray videos and Ayumi is drawing on her tablet. Nothings changed... haha Whats mom been up to lately??? 

Well another week has past. This week was a lot faster than last week. Its strange how that works but it was. Way faster, so it was somewhat of a good week. We didnt see a lot of success this week, we met a few nice people and have a few new investigators but no crazy miracles or change with the investigators we have right now. Its a little frustrating that we havent been able to find anyone with too much potential but im sure there are prepared people in the area. We have been receiving a ton of referrals lately from other missionaries. None of them are super solid but its more people to work with and meet. We got a pretty good referral from the Church headquarters last week though so we are excited to check it out this week. The district here is looking really well though. We are planning on having two baptisms here next month. One is the sisters investigators here in Nishiwaki, which im way excited for because she was my investigator for a little while but then we referred her to he sisters, and the next baptism is with the Elders in Fukuchiyama. They are in my district and are planning on having it in Nishiwaki because we have a font and they usually baptize in the river in Fukuchiyama but its February so that might not be the best time for a river baptism... haha so the district here is definelty doing well! My companion and I need to keep up with the other areas in the district now haha

Things have been going well here and its been an interesting week. Nothing super interesting has happened which makes it not interesting but for some reason its interesting. Theres a sister in the branch who had surgery recently and we went and visited her at the hospital. She is one of my favorite members I have met on my mission, shes just been like this Japanese grandma to me, mainly because i already have my mission mom. So shes my mission grandma. She always takes us out to each and buys us bread all the time haha. But shes super nice so we wanted to see how she was doing. As we left we asked her if there was anything we could help her with and she said she wanted a blessing. So my companion anointed the oil and i gave my first blessing in Japanese. When she first said she wanted the blessing i got really nervous actually. Just my first time giving it in Japanese. But when i got up to give the blessing all the fear just went away. It was actually a really cool experience. I think just when i got up i decided that i had to put my trust in the Lord that he would direct me in what to say and how i need to say it. It was cool how just putting confidence in the Lord and not in yourself gives you power. This experience really taught me that. Ever since ive been in Nishiwaki ive been asked to give sacrament meeting talks, very sudden talks also, lessons during sunday school and what not, but I have realized is that everytime i initially do have a sense of nervousness but when I am able to get the attitude of "Forget it lets do it." then it kind of just works out. I really believe in it. When the time for decision has come, the time for preparation is over. And thats when you need to get that attitude going and just put your trust and confidence in the Lord that he will work through you. It wont be perfect, there will still be mistakes made, but the people will feel what they needed to feel. And if you have tried, put in preparation, studied, and taken time, then you can feel confident that the Lord will work through you. It only works if you`re prepared. Im gonna try never to write another talk again, Probably write  an outline but i wont write another talk again. 

So that was definelty a good experience for me. Nothing too special other than that has happened this week though. Lately my companion has been trying to like natto. I told him that if he eats it every day for a transfer, by the end of the transfer he will like it. Right now hes on day 8 and hes somewhat not hating it as much as he did before haha. But he documents his journey and is planning on making a documentary about enjoying natto. 

Lately ive been a little sick. I think on saturday i woke up and was just dizzy and had a head ache and a sore throat but i went out and worked. My companion had this oil that you spray on the back of your throat called thieves so i tried that and it worked wonders. Its amazing hahaha im a huge thieves fan now! It kind of numbs the pain and burns your throat but the soreness definetly wasnt as bad and in one day my sore throat went away. Anyway, huge fan of thieves now. Im better now, just coughing a lot and runny nose so i just have a cold. 

Today we are heading over to Osaka, back to my old area, kinda. We are going back to Northern Osaka for exchanges tomorrow with the zone leaders. Its kind of a pain that we have to ride a three hour train for an exchange and bring our bikes but we`ll survive. I think we will be heading back to our area here on Wednesday morning. Kind of excited but its still a big pain.  haha. The cool thing is the place we are going to has the worlds first mr.donuts so i will definetly make it a priority to buy a donut from the worlds first mr.donuts. 

We have exchanges with the Fukuchiyama Elders this friday as well and im looking forward to it. I think ill make myself be with Elder Bailey. Hes a new Elder from Morgan Utah. Kind of cool to talk about Utah with him since literally everyone in Nishiwaki has been from Spain, Seattle, or california. Nishiwaki needs more Utah people. Actually there really isnt that many people from utah in this misison anymore. Kind of weird. But all roads lead to Provo, except my road because ill never be going down to BYU. But for every other cliche missionary, all roads lead to provo haha

Times ticking away and we are not into march this week! Crazy, just two full months left now. Miles gets back this thursday i think. Thats weird. But the rest of us are still out. Man i feel like Rocky from the movie Creed when hes telling Creed he doesnt want to undergo treatment for his Cancer. He tells him that everybody hes loved has moved on and hes still here. Well, literally everybody i came here with in Japan is gone and im still here haha

I hope you all have a good week. Love you all! Thanks for everything! 

- Elder Durrant 

Hey everyone! 

I hope everyone had a good fun week in the cold weather! It's seems to be snowing across all of Japan! Well, maybe not Okinawa. Snow in Tsukuba too? It's been snowing from Thursday on. None of it really sticks but it's snowed a lot. Most of it melts around noon though so that's kinda sad. Working In the snow was pretty fun. Nishiwaki didn't get a lot of snow but the areas around us, Fukuchiyama, Toyoka, and Tottori got a ton it sounds like! Like a meter of snow! Haha sounded like they had a lot of fun last week in the snow. 

It's Valentines Day tomorrow! I forgot about that haha! Actually tomorrow we have Zone Conference clear out in Osaka. Actually in my last area Okamachi! So it will be funny to go back to that building for Conference tomorrow. So the Fukuchiyama Zone (the one I'm in right now) and the Osaka North Zone (the one I was in three transfers ago) combined last week! So now the Zone is twice as big but Zone Conference is twice as far now. It will take a few hours to get to the Okamachi for Zone Conference tomorrow but it should be a really good conference. I'm really excited! Only got one more Zone Conference I think and after tomorrow, only one more interview! It's crazy! The next ones are in April. 

We did have transfers here this last week and Elder Sepos transferred out! It was surprising but he was only here for one transfer and left. Super fast. He left last Thursday and transferred to Shikoku, a place called Imabari in Ehime ken. Not sure if you have heard of the apparent "world famous" Imabari Towels, but he's in the area where they make them. So as of last Thursday my new companion is Elder Suzuki. He's half Japanese from California...again. Man my last three companions have been from California.. He didn't know Japanese though. Actually his dads like a third generation Japanese American. 

 The weeks been good though. We've been working hard and seeing miracles that come from it. We've met a lot of good nice people lately and have placed a few Book of Mormon and got a few phone numbers to set up an appointment. 

On Saturday we decided to go to a place in our area called Sasayama. We never really go there because it's an hour away away by train! Haha our areas pretty huge and Sasayama is kind of in the middle of our area. Nishiwaki is in the far west side of our area. But we decided to visit the Aoba's and try proselyting in Sasayama. So we hauled our bikes on the train and rode our bikes around in Sasayama. Pretty big pain in the butt but there's no other way haha. The Aoba's are a way cool young family. Aoba 兄弟's dad is an area 70. So his dads a general authority who lives on Shikoku. But Aoba 姉妹 is from Nagoya and went to the Meito Ward! Haha didn't know that until Saturday but it was way cool. She knows the Yoneda's and a few of the same people I still remember. Honestly can't remember a lot of names, just faces. But it sounds like she moved there in 2011, probably right when we moved back to America. They are a way cool family with two kids though, total life goals right there. 

Sasayama isn't the greatest to work in though. It's pretty Inaka with nothing there. But we set a return appointment with a Filipino in Sasayama so we have to come back again on Saturday and haul our bikes clear out there, such a pain in the butt. 

That's cool that Sister Tanda came back to Tsukuba for the baptism. I wonder how she is doing. I hope her health is back to normal. Do you mean Elder Suda? I know Elder Suda, didn't know his sister was in the Tsukuba Ward though! That's really cool. Elder Suda was my MTC companion! I think he's in Osaka now though. He goes home in a month now, 6 weeks before I do. 

Actually lately I've noticed how tired and broken my body is now though haha. Two years really does it to you. My back always hurts, my legs always hurt and are sore, I'm so tired...always. Just have to ganbaru for 11 more weeks. 

There's a story I heard of an apostle, a really long time ago, who spent the night at a bed in breakfast. The owner wanted to hear how an apostle prayed so when the apostle went to pray she snuck up by the door and listened in on the prayer. The apostles prayer went something like this. "Heavenly Father, your servant is tired. Amen." And he went to bed. 

I've decided my last prayer on my mission will be like that. 

Well this week should be a somewhat good week. We have been finding a few new people. Lately there have been people who have contacted us first and asked if we were the missionaries. We've been able to exchange contact information and set up a few second appointments with those people as well. The area has been picking up lately and we've been finding a lot of good people to teach. Hopefully some of these will turn into progressives and come to church! That's been the hardest thing to get people to do right now. Just come to church people! Haha. Lately we've been contacting more people and teaching more lessons though. If the mission and the church counted the lessons we taught it would probably be like twice as much now but they don't do that anymore. We're just focusing on finding new investigators! 

Well that's been bout it for this past week. It sounds like, everyone else had a pretty alright week. Hope you all have a good week this week as well! Thank you all and love ya! 

- Elder Durrant

Hey everyone!

Well this week is the end of November and the beginning of December! Its crazy, time has gone by so fast! 4 months left... Its starting to get cold here too but not cold enough to the point where it snows. Ive heard from people that it snows here in the winter but ive also heard that it doesnt snow here. Maybe is snows rarely. Im not sure but it has been getting pretty cold recently. We went housing up to this really ghetto neighborhood on the edge of a mountain yesterday and they told us it would snow a little bit during the winter. They also told us not to house this area because there are bears and wild boars that come down pretty often so its kind of dangerous at night.... but i guess it might snow this year.

It sounds like it snowed a lot in Tsukuba. There was a member that came up to me last week and told me it was snowing a lot up by Tokyo. So i guess it was pretty big national news. Along with that Fukushima had another earthquake and tsunami! Here the earthquake wasnt that big. I guess. We had a really small earthquake here last week too so it might of been that earthquake that we felt. Like you could only feel it if you were sitting on the floor like I was. Its a crazy world out there now.

Well this week was pretty alright. Man missionary work in the rice fields is some hard stuff. Eveyday we jus bike around ricefields. Nothing super special happened this week. We werent able to meet with a lot of our investigators. 1 out fo 5 investigators we met with... Everybody else was too busy this week to meet. Man we really need new investigators out here. I just went from my last area where i had 20 investigators to here where i have 5. So its been an interesting adjustment going from city to country, but its nice being back out in the rice fields all day. The members here are amazing too!  A member drove me all the way into the Kobe zone on Saturday so that i could pick up my bike that i left there last week and then we went to a Korean restaurant the same day with another member. We had dinner at a members house last night. It was sashimi and it was way good! Also on Wednesday we went and visited members. One of them is a guy named Inoi kyoudai and shimai. They are both like in their late seventies - eighties but they are super strong members. We went and visited them and they made us dinner! haha they are so nice to the missionaries and really take care of them. The branch here is about 60 people and its a pretty big branch just because we are in a district here not a stake. Its the biggest branch in the district/zone and definitely one of the strongest in the mission. This ward is on fire and always willing to help the missionaries. The struggle here really is just finding investigators. The branch is totally ready and willing to help investigators and missionaries, we just need to do our part now and find people.

Because nothing too special happend this week, i guess i can tell you guys some random facts about my area and mission haha

1. Nishiwaki is the exact center of Japan. Thats the only thing it is famous for haha. There is a park here called Nihon Heso Koen. The belly button of Japan Park. The park is where the exact center point is. Kinda cool.

2. Nishiwaki does have a Uniqlo. Not so inaka afterall.

3. The mountains around us are all turning orange now. None of the mountains are green anymore. Just this bright orange color. Way nice to look at when all thats around you is rice fields.

4. The farmers are all burning their fields right now so thers always smoke in the air and the smell of a campfire.

5. The greatest rugby player of japan is a member in the Kobe ward (The mission home ward).

6. I guess half of the city of Osaka is man made. As, half the land is man made. They dumped a ton of dirt in the ocean and used a ton of cement to create more land to build Osaka on. So if a huge  earthquake hits, its gonna be bad.

7. According to scientific studies, Japanese is the hardest language to learn for Native English Speakers.

8. I really dont know anything that you guys dont know since we have lived in Japan for 10+ years haha

The area here is great and the members hare are amazing! This are is really blessed to have these super cool members. I just hope we can find a new investigator soon and see a baptism. I`m excited to spend December here and Christmas here too! Also, i guess i am the first almost Japanese person to come to Nishiwaki for a while haha. They have only had American, Spanish, and Korean missionaries come to Nishiwaki so i guess i am the first "Second Generation" or half or somewhat Japanese to serve here in like 3-4 years. Maybe they will remember me for that when i transfer out. I think this trait has really helped build a good relationship with the members here though.

This week we have Zone conference on Friday and i have been asked to translate for that as well. My third one! I`im nervous for President Welch`s bit but the second half should be alot easier when the AP`s give their training. They dont use as much hard language or go into as deep of things. The members here are making lunch for Zone Conference but im sure they wont even tough what mom and the relief society in Tsukuba were able to do for lunch in their Zone Conference.

We have Christmas conferences coming up this month as well so that is exciting! Man I love December!! Our ward Christmas party is on the 23rd of December too.

our goal right now as a companionship is to find a Christmas tree to decorate our apartment with! Maybe daiso sells them.

Well i hope you guys have a great week! I love you all tons and hope you are doing well.

Christmas skype is less then a month away! See you guys soon haha

- Elder Durrant

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

Hey everyone! 

I heard you guys took a surprise trip to Disneyland and sea last Tuesday? Whatt! That sounds way fun. I think Ashton wrote me and email just to tell me about Disneyland. 

So this past week was pretty good. We taught 20 lessons and did half of them dressed up as Santa. Yes, we looked like the picture I sent you except only Hancock and I dressed up, Yamachan played the violin and didn't dress up.

Yamachan is also the district leader. And because we there is a district leader conference tomorrow, he has to go up to Kobe with all the other district leaders in the zone. So today we are going to the area next to us called semboku to have companion exchanges because the district leader in senboku and Yamachan are gonna go together. It should be pretty fun since I'm going to be with Elder Westbrook. YES! Durrant and Westbrook. REUNITED! He's in my doki to so I've known him since the MTC. I swear one day Kaicho is just going to make us companions just to recreate the dynamic duo of Oklahoma City Thunder. Anyways, so tonight we are heading to senboku and will get back to Hashimoto tomorrow. 

I got a package from the Tsukuba Ward today! It was really cool to get it! You have to tell the Ward thanks for me or I'll write a letter to them or something! It's way awesome! Like I don't even know any of these people and I got a care package from them full of food and tons of European chocolate. It kind of showed me how much people, members, appreciate missionaries. Which also made me want to work harder for the members. I can't wait to be able to meet them in person now though, seems like a really good ward. In the package was also a not from the Tanaka's that said よろしく for Elder Tanaka. I'll have to tell him about it. It see him every once in a while. 

You guys did mogi lessons with the missionaries? Haha how did it go? Mogi lessons always kind of get me nervous but I guess it's not even really a mogi lesson since you still mogi on what you think the member needs right now even though they may already know the doctrine you are going to try and teach. Since we have that goal to teach 20 lessons a week, the area presidency wants the missionaries to do tons of mogi lessons I guess because teaching 20 lessons without teaching members is way freaking hard. Like border line impossible but nothin is impossible hard. Haha what did you feed them? Last night we had a ton of oden at the Ward mission coordinators house. The families name is Kobayashi and apparently he's like this ex yakuza member or something but he's really cool. He speaks English fluently and works in English I guess. I don't know how but before my mission I did t really like oden but now I really like it. Except for the konyaku. That stuff still nasty haha

On Friday we had ZTM and it was probably the most spiritual ZTM I've had so far. We talked about the new goal Kaicho set on the mission. He wants everyone to have a baptism each week starting at the beginning of May. Then they talked about how it's not kaichos vision, or the area presidencies vision. It's gods vision and we need to do our best to carry out his work. We talked about how Heavenly Father knows each and everyone of us. Then to top it off, a dying missionary gave his last testimony and it was way powerful. Dying missionaries have some crazy strong testimonies. 

Well I think that was my week in a nutshell. This week was a little warmer then before. I bought a new sweater this past week. It's a nice grey one. It seems like everyone had a good week, except Beebee... Poor Beebee... She has to wear the cone of shame. Just one more week with Though right? Hope she starts feeling better.

I hope you guys and Beebee have a better week though. Love you all and miss you tons!

- Elder Durrant

When it rains, it pours. 

How's everybody doing? 

Well this week was a little crazy... I think Hancocks bike is officially a little せいしんびょう...  Well it began on Tuesday, Hancock bike had magically gotten both its tired flat so we decided to fix next day. That day came and it was pouring. We spent a couple hours in the rain trying to get all his holes patched. I don't know how or when or Satan but he had over 7 holes in one tube! SEVEN!? Like how does that happen? Anyways, we had to make like three trips to a store, walking, and bought like 3 patch kits, used them all, and his tire still was flat so we decided to end the day and take a trip to the area next of us to buy a new tube and fix his bike. It took all day. In rained like 4 days in a row and every day we were presented with an additional bike problem, complemented with a lovely flat tire. His bike had a flat tire everyday, sometimes two a day. It was probably one of the most annoying weeks of my mission so far. But we got through it. Everybody's been slightly flustered this week. Plus his bike had a lovely flat tire this morning too. 

Anyways, we are going to go to a batting cage today and hit our stresses away. 

Well for some good news,
On Saturday, we had an 音楽さい so we all went to Sakai. The branch has been practicing a song to sing, and we were part of the chorus, so we performed at the music festival along with a. Few other wards in this stake. Then they brought out the professionals that they payed to come. One was this super cool cello player. Like after that day, the cello rise a few bars and became slightly cool to me. 

We taught two really good lessons this past week. So we have these two investigators, Akiyoshisan and Ishisan. In Akiyoshisan's lesson, we began to talk about baptism and she told us how badly she wanted to be baptized but she can't because her husband is against the church. I don't know what we can't do to fix that except pray. We are going to try and meet with her husband this week and try to leave a good impression on him. Ishisan on the other hand is a 47 year old single male with food intentions. He really wants to return to live with Heavenly Father again so we are planning on inviting him to baptism this week! He's an awesome man and is probably a little lonely so we are also trying to get more members to meet him and doseki for our lessons. He's felt the spirit before but we just have to get him to be able to recognize the spirit. 

I did some inventory this past week and I'm down a couple shirts and pants so I'm planning on buying some this week or next week. I'll go get some Uniqlo pants and some "Cool Buiss" shirts from Aoyama or Aoki.. I think I'm ok for now though. Money's all good and I don't need anything to badly. Transfers are in three week, December 17th is transfer day and it is two days before the branch Christmas party. 

Speaking of which, to advertise the Christmas party we have been doing caroling dendo. Like Yamachan plays the violin so we go housing with his violin and when they open the door we just start singing a Christmas song while he plays. We Alpha tested this a couple days ago and visited less actives but we are planning in beta testing it and actually stopping people on the street, play a Christmas song on the violin, and explain what it means. 

Lately Yamachan has further gotten me into the 文化 of Hokkaido. We were practicing the ソーランムシ dance at district meeting and we are going to make a video of us dancing. An actual video after we all get good. Hopefully it makes it onto the Kobe, Japan mission DVD! 

So that was a summary of my week, we hope to have a much better one this week! Baha'i hope you guys have an awesome week and I'll try to get a picture of me for the postcard thing. It's been raining everyday so it's been hard. 

Love you guys tons! 

- Elder Durrant