Japan 10 months 1 week-53

I have been teaching the asains the right way to take pictures. 

Lunch Party: Kitabayashi san is the one without glasses on and Itsuno san is the one with glasses on. They are the coolest. 

These are our beautiful glasses that we wear with looking at the computer so the bad lights don't hurt our eyes.

The DistrictSo there is a movie that missionaries have to watch when they come out into the mission field. It is called The District. It is just a camera crew following around a bunch of missionaries as they go out and do what missionaries do. Well this week we had the amazing opportunity to film The District... in Japanese! (It is only for the Stake Youth Conference, not world-wide so no worries.) Well we were followed by a "camera crew" (a return missionary with a little camera) and had little interviews throughout the day. Brother Kimura came over to our apartment at 6:25 in the morning and followed us around almost the whole rest of the day. It was so much fun. He would randomly ask us questions and we would do a little interview, which most of the time lead into really awkward pauses. Well because he was following us around he also got to dendo with us. When we pinged on doors he came with us. We even had him ping a few doors. We had a lot of opportunities to talk to people and it brought back a lot of memories for Brother Kimura. 

After that we were able to dendo with another member who had his mission date extended and felt a little unprepared and needed some help, so we had a little study class and then went out and dendo-ed with him. During that time we met a Jehovah Witness who was saying a lot of words that I didn't know, but the member knew and taught a whole lesson by himself! It was awesome. 

Yesterday we met with our new family! WE FOUND A FAMILY!! The Tomita family. We are teaching the Mom and the two kids, because the Dad's job takes him away from the home a lot of the time. He is only home about 2 days every 2 weeks. Her two kids (6 year old boy, and 3 year old girl) go to a Christian pre-school and pray everyday. Tomita san is struggling with praying because she has never done it in her life, but she is totally fine with her kids praying. Right now we are working on that with her. Also we may be teaching them with a bunch of other families as well!! (They want our English) 

Today we had an appointment with one of my favorite investigators ever. I found him when I first got to Japan. He has met missionaries a few times before he met met, but he hated them so he never met with them again. Well maybe it was my horrible Japanese or something, but he liked me and said we could come back. I met him probably 4 times over this last year and today we said good-bye. I visited him a month ago and he said that he finished school, but I didn't know that he would be going back to his hometown (Kushiro, It is still in Hokkaido so if I transfer there I will see him again!!) Well we went over to his house and ate lunch with him and his friend and the AP's. It was so much fun. We talked for a long time about how Kitabayashi san has met the missionaries so many times for a reason and how God loves him and he needs to act on that love. It got super deep and quiet, but I could tell it was hitting him. Him and his friend gave us there email's and addresses and said that they really want to see us again so when they come back to Sapporo they will call us. It was a really good lesson. 

This week we found another family as well and met with a few of our investigators. It was a medium paced WAIT!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! We met with Hasegawa san! She is back on the map! We felt that we should go by and see if she is alright, well she is. We talked for about 2 hours about.... food. Her interest has gone somewhere else, but she really likes us, and food. We are going to try and keep visiting her and bring her back to the light. But she and her grandson are back! I was super happy to see them again. I will take a picture of them the next time I visit them. 

I love you all! Be Excellent To each Other! 

-Mecham Choro. 

Japan 10 months- 52 weeks--1 year!!!!!!!!!!!!!

My Bean

we went curling

Can you guess which fruit I am? 

I am the Mikan. (Japanese orange.)

Tim tam slam. It is tradition.
Gross. 

I have been on a mission for a year. (in 3 days it will be a year. It is actually only March 10th right now, and I left of March 13th). I have almost finished my whole journal as well. I have been reading over random days lately, and it has been so much fun to see how much I have grown. My mother asked how I feel about my mission, now that I am half way through it. Well first off, it has gone way too fast. It feels like it has been a year, but it also feels like I just got here. Time is messed up. I have learned a lot about humans from serving a mission. I have learned how weird, amazing, and important every single person is. I have learned how we need to take every single opportunity we are blessed to have, and do our very best with it. My Grandpa Snow told me that before my mission. He said that I need to give my absolute 100% on my mission. I can't put half of my effort into anything I do. I can honestly say that there has not been a day where I have put less than 100% into the work I am doing. There have been days where I have been sooo tired and wanted to slack off, but I never have. And through working so hard through those days I have learned the most. One of my MTC teachers said that she always cries whenever she talks about her mission. I wondered why at first, but now I know why. Missions are like living 23849 lives at the same time.  There is so much learning and growing everyday that it just feels like you are living a ton of lives at the same time. A few weeks ago I was sitting in a meeting with a bunch of missionaries and looking around at everyone.  I remember feeling so much love for all of them and for the people we were learning for and training for in that meeting. We all looked so tired from working our hardest everyday, yet we were beyond happy. Some of them were even crying, but that is normal. I thought about what my mission is like and the first thing I thought of was a war. Except a war that everyone should experience. It is something way to hard to describe, something super hard to experience, yet it is the most rewarding thing I have ever done in my life. 

Well I am training right now! I have a fresh new missionary! His name is Elder Swenson from Arizona. We actually look a lot alike. It is kinda weird. He is 18 years old and now the youngest on the mission. He doesn't act 18 at all, and really wants to work his hardest. We weren't able to meet with a single one of our investigators this week, because they all decided to not be home at the same time, or not come to the door. Some of them we knew were home because we heard and saw them, but they just wouldn't come outside. I wanted to show Elder Swenson soooo bad what it is like to teach an investigator. It is one of the most amazing feelings ever to testify to them and to watch them feel the spirit. 

Yesterday we went back to a young family that we found a few weeks ago. Tomita san. She is a young mom with 2 beautiful children. She wasn't there on our return appointment, but we went back and this time she was home! My bean (Swenson choro) thought that Tomita san was a member and that we were just hanging out with them, but then I started teaching and he caught on. We started to teach the Plan of Salvation and then I had him testify. He said that during that lesson, when he started to testify, he felt the spirit stronger than he has felt in a long time. 

Training is a lot of fun. I am soooo tired, yet I am having so much fun doing it. We are learning and growing a lot.

To end it on a funny note- yesterday we were housing in this really gross area and we knocked on this one door and a half naked 94 year old man came to the door. He then asked us if we were english-jin. We said yes and  he made us come in. He then told us stories about sumo wrestlers (surprisingly the first time hearing about them on my mission) and then started to solute us and go crazy. Every time we would try to talk he would scream and try to pray hahaha. He was crazy. Then he tried to give us alcohol and cigarettes. We testified to him and taught him and then left the crazy, drunk, 94 year old man. I love Japan. 

I LOVE YOU ALL. Be excellent to each other. 

-Jake Snow Mecham Choro. 

Japan 9 months 3 weeks-51

Such a cute selfie. I loved that scarf. Then I lost it at starbucks. 

One of my best friends. Manabu Mita. I read his poems everyday hahahaha 

Yes that is an angel on the ground..... A member dressed up as an angel. This is the member that makes missionaries into pigeons. 

HAHAHAHAHAHAHA 

Sister Angelika Reika Aota 

The ikeda family!!! 

Happiness. 

The picture is way blurry but the little kid that the mom is holding was the one that ran up in the middle of the concert and screamed my name. He is too cute. I love this family and I have never been in their ward yet. I have only talked to them at events that they have came to, but they love me and make me presents every time I see them. This time they made me two scarfs!! I love them too much. 

Some more of my best friends. 

nasty sweaty flash picture, but these are my best friends. 

we made soup curry. I learned how to make it and it is my favorite food in the planet now. HAHAHAHA i look so special. 

I love soup curry! 

I think I am doing missions the wrong way... I am losing so much weight.... Please tell me those are someone else's pants? Really, are those the pants you brought. Those are the pants I brought! HAHAHAH crazy huh?! I can still wear them fine, but I need a belt for sure. Wow!!!!! Jake. Dang. You lost a lot of weight. Wow!!!!!I know right!!! I also have really good looking abs and pectoralis majors. #spellcheck. Seriously I am super hot. hahahahaha

This is a normal Henmi family visit. The sons hiding in their sleeping bags.. 

look very closely into the car. There is a man in there. He is a member in Moiwa. He is my favorite person ever hahaha he has tons of stuffed animals in his car and basically pops up wherever we go. So naturally we took a picture. 

I am just really excited to eat my Boston Bake lunch. The greatest Bakery ever is in Japan. 

Anyways this week was really slow and really fast. When it was fast it was out of control fast so we almost missed it, and when it was slow.... it was really slow. First we will get rid of the boring slow part. We had a lot of investigators we wanted/needed to visit with, but they all at the same time decided not to be home. We would visit them and wait very patiently for them to come to the door and then when we accept the fact that they aren't home, we got a little upset. One day this week we had 8 scheduled lessons. We went to each appointment and nobody was home. That was very upsetting. But that is the crappy upsetting news, now the amazing news. 

HASEGAWA SAN CALLED US!! We kind of forced her to call us haha. We went by her house and dropped off some cough drops and chocolate and an artsy little note saying that when she gets better she can eat the chocolate and call us! Well later the next day we got a call from her. She said that she just barely became healthy so she has been busy with work, but really wants to meet with us so we are going over this week!! WEEE!!! So much happiness. 

Next happiness story. We made another baptismal date! So there is this one investigator named Itei san. He is from Taiwan, but has lived in Japan basically his whole life. We have been trying to meet with him for forever, but every week he got busy and could not meet. Well we finally made a strong appointment with him and waited patiently at 1:00 in front of the starbucks for him to show up. Well.... he didn't. We waited a half our and then called him. He said he was busy and couldn't make it. Well I did not let that happen and said it is okay we will wait. He showed up an hour later. We then taught an amazing lesson inside of the busy star bucks. Nobody else was talking in there as well. I think they we listening to us. But we talked about baptism and he said that is something he definitely wants and he said he really wants to come to church. He was busy yesterday, but he should be coming next week. I am super excited for him. 

Well this last Saturday we had our last music fireside. It was sooo much fun. Tons of people came and I got to see a lot of my old investigators and eikaiwa students. I was really surprised to see some of them. But in the song that I sing in, this kid came running to the front of the stage screaming my name right when I started singing. Since there are only 4 people in that song, you definitely could hear the kid screaming my name on the recording. So they made us sing it as an encore haha. Well after the fireside when we were walking back to the subway this crazy lady came up to me and said, "SUBWAY!!!?!?!?! Where is subway?!?!" This way.... "You missionary?!" yes. " SAIKO! Honto ni! Sugoi sugoi sugoi sugoi sugoi, berry best, yes yes yes!" She went crazy and started talking about how the music fireside was the most amazing thing she has ever seen in her whole life. I have no idea how she heard about it or found her way there by her self, but I am so glad she came and had that life changing experience hahaha I love Japanese people. They are fearless. 

Well are you ready for the scary news.... Transfers are this week. I am expecting my transfer call tonight... Everyone is saying that I am going to be going trainer, but I don't know yet. We will find out tonight. I can't leave Moiwa because there are too many amazing people here right now, so now worries about that. But until tonight after we finish going curling (Yes that is right we are curling tonight) I will be freaking out waiting for my transfer call that may or may not come. I LOVE YOU ALL! 

Be excellent to each other. 

-Mecham Choro.

jake:Answers to your questions: The last music fireside was two days ago on Saturday. That is the one that is on Youtube, or being uploaded very very soon. It was a lot of fun and way good too, I will talk about that later as well. Oh the grey pants, I can wear them now. They were not approved by missionary standards for a little bit cause they looked like real life human pants, but now they are okay. I also bought another pair of black beautiful pants. I love pants.. Oh and the last fireside was exactly the same as the first one, it was just at a different stake center
Jilene:Wow. So really. No more music. That will be a sad day.
Jake:for real.
Jilene:More pants. I am happy you are buying pants. Sounds fun.
Jake:For 90$ I bought 2 pairs of pants 8 ties, 1 scarf and I think something else that I can't remember haha.
Jilene:That is some great shopping skills. Well done. Jennifer said she sent you a scarf a while ago. Do you wear lots of scarfs? You stud.  
Jake:oh yeah.... So about that scarf hahahahaha Jennifer I love you so so so so so so so so very much. I wear scarfs all of the time, but I lost one of them this week and the one I got from Jen was actually a woman's scarf so I put it in a free box and now a sister that did not have a scarf is wearing it! hahaha She helped a sister in need! I also got a scarf from one of my old companions and that is the one I am using right now.
Jilene:Another missionary told her mom that we might be getting CDs in June. I am sad this is the last one. It sounds like a great missionary tool. Oh well. Sister Evans left a great mark in Sapporo Japan and on many missionaries. She will be missed. I am excited to hear the cd. That will be fun to hear that guy yell your name. So awesome. Are you sending pictures?
Jake:YEs　I am sending pictures I am just working on emailing a family in Tomakomai so I am trying to type in じゃぱ寝せ　Oh... It just switched to Japanese hahaha 

Japan- 9 months 2 weeks-50

We saw almost too many miracles this week. It was amazing and I don't have time to tell you all of them, so I will tell you the greatest ones. 

Our ward mission leader is a return missionary who really likes focusing on numbers. A few weeks ago he went off talking about the importance of teaching a lot of other lessons. That was a week when we only taught 4 other lessons. 4 other lessons is not the greatest, but it is not the worst. For him it was unacceptable. Sooo we made goals to teach more other lessons this week. On monday I was scared. We taught no lessons, but met a crazy drunk guy. Tuesday we visited one of my favorite crazy less active members, who somehow remembered me and we sang hymns with her and she cried. Wednesday we took off. We first went to a members house to teach three active sisters a lesson about the gifts of the spirit. It basically turned into all of us sharing what we think others are good at and what their talents are. I said so a Sister, "Sister Machida is really good at being patient through trials." This was like the second time I met her and it just randomly came to my head to say this. She then got really quiet and we kept teaching. At the end of the lesson she said, "Missionaries really do have the spirit. I have only met you once, yet you know what I needed to hear. I was inactive for 10 years and just recently started coming back to church. I thought that I was really really patient through my trials, but I thought it was just me who thought it..." Well... That was basically how this week went. I had lots of random thoughts and ideas and I didn't exactly know if it was the spirit telling me to go somewhere or to do something, but I just went and did it. Even if it was just something that sounded fun. Later that day my companion needed to go to the bathroom, but I wanted to ping one more door. We pinged it and this is what we heard, "Who is it? The missionaries! Mormons? YES! Who is your prophet right now? Whoa, wait, what... Thomas S. Monson. OHhhhh that is who it is. I am sick right now. Come back later." I am so excited for that. Then right after we went to the bathroom I wanted to buy food cause I was hungry. Well this drunk guy contacted me before I could buy something and we ended up going back to his house and teaching him a lesson and he had TONS of interest. He has cancer in his lungs and wants hope in his life. He is scared about death and wants to be ready if he dies. I am so excited to meet with him. Thursday we met with our favorite less active member, Mita Kyodai. He gave us his poems he writes every year and a book about being polite in Japan. hahaha One of his poems is called 'Man in the mirrar'  and another is called, 'the satan' They are definitely helping my Japanese get better. Friday we taught 6 other lessons and met with our amazing investigators. Our favorite Grandma (Hasegawa san) is still sick so we haven't met with her but we met with 3 crazy deep thinking guys. We had REALLY longs lessons with them. 2 hours each to be exact. I was so lost, but it was a really good thing we were on splits that day and my companion was Japanese. I need to work on Japanese. Then Saturday we taught 4 other lessons. We met amazing people and right before we were going to go home and eat I wanted to see if Kitabayashi san (one of my best friends who I found my first month in Japan) was home. He is never home so I haven't seen him in 6 months, but we went and he came to the door! We talked for about 2 hours... I love him. He is only 20 years old so the Japanese he uses is really slang and hard to understand, but we had so much fun laughing about how I understood nothing he was saying. And to top it all of Sunday (Yesterday) we found a young family. We pinged a door and this nice mom answered the intercom and said that she would love to listen. That was already a huge miracle. Then we went into her amazingly nice house and taught about families. It was amazing. This week we taught a total of 13 other lessons. Pretty good. I think it is the highest I have seen my whole mission. But I am just even more excited to see what happens with all of these investigators next week. I love you all! Be excellent to each other. 

-Jake Snow Mecham Choro. 

Japan 9 months 1 week-49

I have tons of pictures of yuki matsuri But I am out of time right now. i will try to come back tonight and send more. This was the ski jump

This is sister Aota (Sunny Bunny) I am holding a pigeon. With my name on it... I am honored. 

EVERYONE AND THEIR DOGS!!! This was with Aoki san. We met with her this week as well. The lesson was okay. She has no interest so we are doing a english program with her now. 

?.....

My father is dying.... He is going home tomorrow. 

IKEDA FAMILY!!! The Ikeda family came to the fireside. I love them too much. Seriously there was too much happiness in the air. 

Teranishi san. An investigator that I taught a few times when I was in Odori. She is the greatest. 

Kotani Shimai. She gave me the craziest pictures ever hahaha. She is the member that took us on tons of adventures when i was in tomakomai, so she gave me pictures that she took from our adventures. Her pictures are a little insane... 

Our very fun maze lesson with the Henmi Family.

Our fridge broke, so all we can do is eat ramen. Hahahah I LOVE ramen... (It is so unhealthy) 

More ramen. 

Valentines Day in Japan is almost bigger than Christmas. It is definitely bigger than Halloween, so this week was pretty exciting. Last week was a huge downer because there were a lot of appointments we had with nobody home, BUT this week everyone and their dogs were home. (see picture) I just put a footnote in my email... I am way cool... We made 4 new investigators this week and taught 8 amazing lessons. For me this was a really really good week. Lately my mom has been asking me what my worries are or what causes me the most stress right now, but for real, this week there were no worries and it was amazing. We weren't able to meet with Hasegawa san because "grandmas cold is now the flu! You can't catch that! Run away!" But she says she is praying for us and we are praying for her. Hopefully we can meet her and her grandson this week too. This week we met the Henmi family (the family that just recently moved in) and taught them a lesson about the spirit. We have been focusing a lot on the spirit this week and from it we have seen a lot of miracles. We did this really fun game were we had them turn off all of the lights and gave one person a flashlight, then they had to do a maze that we drew for them. It was a hit. I think I had the most fun. We related that to the spirit and how without the spirit we might be able to make it through the maze, but we will hit a lot of walls, have to start over a lot, and it takes a lot longer to find the end. With the spirit you can do it on your first try. (unless you suck at mazes) Well that was an amazing lesson with them and they said that they really wanted to come to our music fireside that we had this Saturday. Well Saturday came around and we had one hour of dendo before we had to go to the church to have a dress rehearsal for the music fireside. We had 2 appointments and the first one they were busy so we couldn't meet them, but we felt like we needed to visit Iida san. A lady we met a few weeks ago. We went to her house and nobody came to the door. I was super confused. I felt like we were definitely going to meet her. We started to walk away when she came to the door and we taught an amazing lesson. She said that she read the pamphlet about the plan of salvation and wants to know if it is true. We taught her prayer and she said she is going to ask if it is true. She is the greatest. We then ran to our next appointment and taught an amazing lesson with our first new male investigator! Woot! We found a man! Then we ran to the church for music practice. The music fireside was amazing. Seriously. I am not just saying this because I am in it and full of pride, but for real it was amazing. I am so excited for the cd so everyone can hear it. (Actually I think it is on youtube) well The fireside was the day after Valentines and a ton of members came to the fireside with Valentines presents for us. It was amazing. I have so much chocolate now. The Henmi family came as well and they said they loved it. Basically I am on fire right now with the spirit. Life is beautiful. OH and Mother I saw my blog for the first time! Sister Aoto (a.k.a Sunny Bunny) showed me it on her ipad and she said she is in love with it. But for real it is pretty artsy. Mother you are on fire. Well done! 25 points to Gryphindor. (I don't know how to spell that but the spell check is endorphin...) I love you all! Be excellent to each other! 

-Jake Snow Mecham choro. 

Japan 9 months-48 weeks

Yesterday we tried to find a less actives house. We looked everywhere and hiked a mountain to find this. It destroyed. His house was 19-19 and this house was 19-18 

my companion likes the snow. 

half a house. I thought it was so artsy and it was at the top of a mountain, I tried to take a cool picture of it, but it just came out creepy and blurry.

Oh there is a picture of where we housed last night! It was sooo much fun.
This week was extremely busy. We only did about 3 hours of finding everyday this week. First I have to tell about the craziest thing that has happened so far. Okay maybe that was a little dramatic, but it was way freaky. 

This Monday right after emails we had planned to go out to eat with a recent convert. He has depression so we were really happy to be able to meet with him. He invited us and two other sisters to go out to eat with him at the sapporo train station. First he comes in and looks way happy and excited to go, then he ordered the taxi's and it started to get weird... He started to get a little off and agitated. We got in the taxi's and the recent convert ordered us into our specific seats. I had the front next to the driver. I was so scared to try and talk to the driver, but I got over that and we talked about how cars use chains on their tires to drive in the snow. It was super lame and I got way to excited about a boring conversation topic. So I quickly changed it to the gospel and he told us he was catholic. Then the recent convert kinda got weird and wouldn't let us talk to the driver anymore. We got to the train station and the RC (recent convert) says, 'First smoothies, then eel.' What??? Okay... so we went to the basement of the eki (trainstation) it is huge by the way. He made us walk around with him for about 45 minutes and eat anything he gave us. This was not even dinner. (keep in mind he doesn't work either, so we have no idea where this money is coming from.) At about 7:00 we made it up to the 8th floor of the eki to eat eel. He stopped at a soba( noodle) store and said, 'This is very yummy, you should eat it sometime.' Then he ordered us into the most expensive eel restaurant in the eki. We sat down right where he made us and already ordered for us as well. We ate over 500$ of food. I was sooo full. Eel is way good by the way. So we tried to share a spiritual message, but he was just ignoring us and not talking to us about the whole hour we were eating. It was 8:20 and we said we had to be back before 9:00. Well he then in english said, " I know elders always eat. GO TO THE SOBA PLACE!" oh no... we then had to eat as fast as we could. It was sooo scary. He was forcing us to eat and we had to because he has no money and spent sooo much money on us. Well we eventually made it out of there at 9:07 right after he tried to hug one of the sisters. We made it home at 9:28. I was freaking out the whole time. I didn't do a good job explaining it, but basically imagine eating dinner with voldemort. I was crying. 

Other than that this week was really sadly average. We weren't able to meet with Hasegawa san because she was sick and doesn't want us to catch her sickness. So we went over on Thursday to see how she was and she comes to the door and says, "NO! I am sick! I want you to come in sooo bad, but you can't get sick either! LEAVE! GO HOME! God will forgive you. But call me because I want you to come back really bad." It was way funny. She is my favorite. 

Other than that this was a really painful week in terms of finding people. We didn't find anyone this week and I felt really really down on myself. I thought it was my fault and got scared that maybe I was being disobedient or something, but I found out it was just Satan and now I am fine! It was a hard week, but that's it and now I am over it. 

This week we also were able to go see the snow festival! It was amazing, but to be honest, I got over it pretty quickly. The best part was there was this typical Asian girl group singing and dancing on a snow castle stage thing and this thing came running past me in a red hoodie. I couldn't see it's face so I didn't know what gender it was. It had stuffed animals in it's hands and it was freaking out and screaming like a girl because it was so excited to see the girls dancing. I wanted to go party with it sooo bad. We eventually got closer to it and found out it was a old man! So naturally we took pictures with him. Want to know something horrible? I forgot my camera for the snow festival... It is okay though! I had some of the best photographers on the planet follow me around and take pictures of me, but I forgot to copy them so hopefully next week I will have those! I love you all so much. Be excellent to each other! 

-Mecham Choro.   

Japan 8 months 3 weeks-47

  Baptismal making pants....They are beautiful 

This is a lady who carries a bunny with her everywhere she goes, Elder Sunny. The bunny that my companion is holding is President Thomas S. Monson. The other one is a missionary that is serving right now. (Elder Rodenberg) Mom expect a friend request soon hahahaha. She takes TONS of pictures of the missionaries and requests to be their friends on facebook so she can tag them in the photos. This picture basically describes this whole event. It was a raw chocolate party and we all made raw organic chocolate. HAHAHA it was the greatest. 

This is everyone that went to the onsen with us. This was the hotel that the onsen was in

This is when we went to the onsen. The public bath. 

This is the Henmi family. The youngest son is not in the picture. But this is the family we visit all the time and they are now coming back to church! Oh and this is how messy their house is. Yes. We are still unpacking with them. 

The Oda Shimai dinner appointment. (Mom this is the member that sends you letters) OH! expect one soon! I just corrected a letter for her. 

I feel good I feel great I feel wonderful. 

This is a random picture that my companion took and I just stole it from his memory card. This is Japan. 

Well this last P-day we did a great activity called "Treat yo' self 2014". This means that we took out some of our personal moneys and had a party. We went to a store and bought ourselves some beautiful new pants and they became our baptismal date making pants! THAT IS RIGHT BAPTISMAL DATE!!!! 

The lady we met a few weeks ago that wouldn't tell me her name, now has a baptismal date. Her name is Hasegawa san by the way. We went over and taught them the Plan of Salvation. We teach her with her grandson so we have to teach very very simply and it is a lot of fun. I got a puzzle from my friend Jennifer Martins and that puzzle helped SO much this last lesson. It kept the grandson so interested and focused and asking questions. We taught them, they asked questions, and it ended beautifully. We talked about how we need to be baptized to be able to return to live with God and our Families forever and asked her if she will be baptized to have this joy. At first she just said 'Yeah..' but it was a pretty vague yes. So we testified even harder and it ended with her saying YES. We were going to ask her grandson as well, but he fell asleep right when we extended the commitment. (too much spirit for him) He was probably having a vision anyway. Well that lesson was a huge miracle. Her interest spiked and she progressed so much. We had an appointment scheduled with them yesterday, but she got sick and we weren't able to meet them. We are calling them today though to meet with them this week. Basically they are the greatest. 

Our goals this transfer is to have the Hasegawa family get baptized and to find another family. I love focusing on families. Families are amazing. They are so much fun to teach and this is the first time I have done it. It is very rare to find families who want to listen all together, but it will happen! We are working our hardest! 

Other then that we didn't really have a lot this week. We did a lot of finding and pinging doors. Almost all of our appointments fell through, but that is okay we will meet with them this week. Sorry for the really short and probably really boring letter, but this picture of me in my beautiful new baptismal making pants makes it all worth it. LOVE YOU ALL. Be excellent to each other. 

-Mecham Choro. 

Answers to questions: Onsens are anywhere and everywhere, but nice ones are in hotels sometimes. You can go to them anywhere they are. There are rec center status onsens and then there are rich people onsens it just depends on where you go. It is really birthday bathing suit naked. You have a little towel, but basically everyone puts it on their heads. Average person in Japan goes like once a month. Old people once a week. The one I went to was 15 dollars, but normal is like 3 dollars. I TOTALLY DID A FLIP TURN IN THE POOL! IT WAS SO AWKWARD! The towel is basically used for looks. Haven't had the high school experience yet, the lady needs to talk to her boss first. I am going to talk about the lady who wouldn't tell me her name in my email. It is good. The heater is gas.  For FHE we play minute to win it games, sing hymns and eat cake and have a message.