January 18, 2015
Week 20

Every week is an adventure and always full of suprises!! I will start of with P-day we went to the biggest Aeon in Hokkaido which is just a mall so ya that was fun there was a sports Authority and I was in Heaven when I got to go in it felt so much like America!! It was quite nice! After that we went to another store which is called village Vanguard which is like a story with all of the most interesting things that you would never think to buy I guess, but anyways I bought a pair of Darth Maul Lighsaber Chopsticks that have a magnet at the end and they connect and make a double-bladed lightsaber probably the best purchase that I have made in Japan! Also had the most delicious bowl of Katsudon in japan so far, katsudon is rice with breaded chicken over it with soysauce and an egg pretty simple but I really do love it.

 

The phillipean family, we were able to meet with this we and they fed us food that doesnt really happen on the second visit, we had shabu shabu which everyone just puts meat in this pot that has super hot water and the meat cooks like unbelivably fast then you take it our dip it in some sauce and then eat with rice it was probably one my favorite meals in Japan not gonna lie, but anyways we were able to take to them A little bit more about our church and then the dad wanted to know more about why we didnt drink alcohol then we told him about the word of wisdom and he was totally amazed at the fact that we had never drunk coffee or beer or anything, after we kind of talked about Dendo Life it really invited the spirit and got the attention of the mom and she was really impressed by how we lived, we invited to church but the dad had work on sunday so they would have had to take a bus we gave them a paper telling them which bus to take but unfortunately they didnt come on sunday, its ok though because when we teach them again this week I know that they will come to church!

 

It was a really good week we got 7 new investigators and we were able to meet with a lot of our progressing investigators as well!!!

 

Elder Stevens

 

 

 

January 11, 2015

Got this email from Jarek yesterday.  His grammar and spelling are going to pots. I know....it's because he has to write  a lot of people and he doesn't get a lot of time on the computer. He did inform his dad that they will have to buy their own ipads in March so I'm hoping that will give him more time to write, give us more detail, and use better grammar ;) Love this kid.

Week 19

Another Great week every week on a mission is great but this one was even better while we were housing this week on thursday the last house we pinged was a family of five and the mom seemed really interested so we set up a follow up appointment and we will be seeing them again on thursday, but that isn't the only family that we found either, the first house that we pinged on sunday was my contact and I said Hey we are missionaries from the church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day saints, and the guy said to wait a second he was coming to the door, I was pretty excited at that moment not many people come to the door and talk to you then, he came to the door said hello then he said come in to the genkan, so we went into the genkan and that only happens like 1 out of 150 houses you contact but then he told us to take our shoes off and go inside and that never happens an on the spot lesson it was so crazy, it was a family of five a japanese dad and a philipino?(dont know how to spell that word) wife and they had 3 daughters, I guess she had been contacted by missionaries before in the philippians because she had a book of mormom in Tagolag so that was freaking crazy but then she says that she has been looking for a church to go to and she wants baptism, we had about a 2 hour lesson with them about the restoration and they said theyd come to church and we are gonna meet with them again on thursday, this was an absolutely crazy awesome miracle, and I just wanted to share.

 

That is the week I hope that everyone is doing great and loving school:)!!

 

Elder Stevens

Sorry, I fell behind on posting updates for Jarek.
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Here is his email from Dec. 21, 2014

Another Great week I say that a lot but it really is true every week is great, this week we got to do some snow shoveling missionary work I was so freaking excited we asked this dude if he wanted help and he actually said yes we ask all the time and even when it is a grandma in like her 70's who can hardly even walk they say no it just blows my mind, but anyways he said yes so we helped him he was a little hesitant at first because he thought that he would have to come and join our church if we helped him but we just told him that we wanted to help, it was good to go that direction because he was so greatful and then afterwards we got his phone number and told him to call us if he ever wanted help with the snow again but also he said we are going to go to a ramen shop and eat with him sometime so that is really good hopefully we can talk a little bit about the gospel during our lunch thing.

 

On wednesday the Weather was so bad that we were stuck in the appartment all day sometimes you think that would be an awesome thing but it was the longest day since I have been on my mission every minute went by so slow!!! We called some people but after that and all our studies we had like nothing to do for like 8 hours so we read some more scriptures and liahonas and we even got to play a game of Monopoly but it was just 1v1 so it wasnt that great, finally at about 7 we decided to just watch some church movies we watched Gordan B. Hinkley's Biography and his funeral, then the District, when you watch the district for fun you know you are a missionary! haha but ya that was about it every other day was pretty normal

 

Elder Stevens

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Dec. 24, 2014

 We did get to call Jarek on Christmas Eve here, Christmas Day in Japan. Got to talk to him about 45 min. It was great to hear his voice. He is doing very well. Sounds like he is focused and enjoying the work at hand which is wonderful.

We sent him a package which he said he did receive and like a good boy didn't open it at all til Christmas morning. 

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 Jan. 1, 2015

Hey just letting you know I'll email monday love you all we have a busy day today so we didn't have much time to email have a happy news years talk to ya sooon, and btw I sent an email to kyle Idk if he still can use the account so i sent it to you as well so ya get it to him love you

 

Elder Stevens

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Jan.  4, 2015

Hey everyone!! Hope you all had a great Christmas and new year's! Had a lot of fun these past two weeks about everyday until Last saturday we had a dinner at a members house had a lot of different and delicious foods our first meal was sushi and chicken and taco rice, I loved the chicken it was really good I even ate some of the sushi still don't like it but ya I ate some, the next one was yakisoba which was really good probably my favorite then we had a couple days in a row of taco rice and finished with some Hamburgurs they were so small it was so cute!! hahah anyways we had a lot of fun at these dinners! We had dinner with an investigator last night and he had us cook our own meals and he is like a professional chef so it was super nerve racking to be making food in front of him but we did it and it wasn't terrible so that was good!!

 

We didn't have a lot of time to go and do missionary work these past couple of weeks with all the dinners plus on the 31st 1st and 2nd were days where we werent suppose to go out the 31st was a day where we read the Book of Mormon all day 1st was a P-day and we did our district activity that day we went to a place called round 1 it is just a place where you get to play all these different sports and games all day there was basketball,  baseball(cages), badmitton, tenis volleyball, Golf, Ping pong, darts, a mechanical bull, and that was just a couple of the fun things my favorite was bubble soccer you get in these huge bubbles and run into each other it was funny because I basically destroyed everyone that I ran into and that ran into me. And finally on the 1st it was an all day cleaning day which was good you would be suprised at what missionaries leave and recieve. A couple of days before that we went to a gym as well and played some Bball with and investigator, but while we were playing a bunch of other guys came and played and we invited them to english class 2 of them seemed really interested so I hope that they come!!

 

Anyways those are some of the highlights talk to you guys next week!!!!

 

Elder Stevens

 The top is a picture that he sent with the email and the video is him playing "bubble" soccer on P-day.