9/11/12 Update:

It has only been a short while since the last time I emailed, but here
I am again! And I do have some news that I`m excited to tell you
about. One of my investigators that I taught in Ishikawa is getting
baptized! yay! I`m glad that he finally decided that it was his turn 

to take the steps into the waters of baptism. :)

After District meeting on Friday, my companion and I decided to save
on money and just walk all the way to our apartment from the District
meeting and talk to people along the way. Well, it took us about 3
hours to get home. bleh. my legs hurt WAY bad by the end of THAT walk.
I was glad to sit down and take a load off. 

The work here is slow, but it IS moving. I expect it`s like that all
over Japan. There are actually a lot more members than you think there
are. Most of the Japanese members are less actives. I have a feeling
that`s going to change in the next 7 years. 

Transfer and new P-day.  Update from 9/7/12:

So this past week has been kind of crazy! I was transferred! And I think it was good that I did. I was transferred to Yahata. It is an amazing place and my companion is equally amazing. He makes me laugh all the time! His name is Elder Unice. He`s also from Utah and is hilarious.

So, a little bit about my new area. It is exactly what I thought Japan
looked like before I came to Japan. Out of all of the areas I`ve been
to, this one looks the most like a Japanese cartoon and or game. I
love it!! There are places in Japan that just amaze me. I always think
that I`m in a game or something like that. The members here are great
and there`s a really nice old lady that lives next to us that LOVES
us. We baked her a cake and did some other things for her. She really
is the sweetest old Japanese lady ever. She gave us some fish... that
I nibbled and then immediately gave to my companion... haha, fish is
still sometimes gross to me... Yahata is a HUGE area. We take the
train to random places a lot. I like big areas! It`s less likely to
become boring. There`s also a huge black hole at the end of the road
from our apartment. (Our apartment is at the top of the hill.) There`s
a shopping district down there and the shopping district is a tunnel.
My companion and I call it the Maw. hhaha. I love Yahata. 

Other than that not much has happened. My new apartment is good. Still
sleeping on the ground. :) And it`s fairly big. And the best part is,
the bathroom only has a little mold! haha It`s probably one of the
better showers I`ve been to.

 
I will email you guys again on Tuesday. That`s when the Yahata
missionaries email.

Things are good. 

--Sounds like he's settling right in. There were no pictures with his

 email this week. 

Hopefully we will see some next week! 

August 19, 2012:

"My week was a good one! My companion and I are teaching a woman. She has Alzheimer`s disease, so It`s hard for her to remember what we taught her, but she remembers some things. Like Prayer. I think she remembers prayer pretty well. She`s a very sweet lady. Always making a lot of food for us... It`s really hard to not overeat as a missionary. The members make soooo much food for us! (find missionaries and feed them!! That`s my request!)"

"We also helped a sister who had a slipped disc? in her back. we had to lift her up and put her into the car. We drove her to the hospital and they`re going to take care of her there. We`ve given her several blessings and I`m sure that she will be fine, whatever happens. Oh, speaking of blessings... I gave a blessing to a less active one day at church. She just came up to us and asked us for a blessing and she chose me to do it! I`ll have to admit that I was scared, but It went pretty well. I tried to follow the spirit as best as I could and after the blessing she said that I said exactly what she needed to hear and that she felt better and more relaxed. I`m glad that I could help her out. She seemed like she was going through a lot."

Connor, helping a woman to her car in the rain. Awwwwwww! sweet!

"I`m glad that you like the pictures I send, because I enjoy taking them. It`s kind of become a small hobby of mine. Japan is such an interesting and beautiful place that I can`t help but want to take some pictures. Sometimes I wish that I had a camera in my eye so I could take pictures whenever I wanted to."   

Pictures from a neighborhood

I love you guys!

Until next time ...

愛、帆船長老

Update from 8/12/12:

"This last week was a fun one. My companion and I went to a yakiniku place. It`s basically a personal indoor grill. In the middle of the table is a grill and they bring you a plate of meat and other things to grill. It was very delicious. And the salad bar was all-you-can-eat! They had potatoe salad... that was my favourite. I attached some pictures of us to this email. You can take a look at all the fun we had. "

Yummy Food!!

 

Connor talked about his Grandpa and Grandma Jones who were just called to the Ogden Inner City Service Mission:
"They`re going to be the best missionaries. In Japan, missionary work is EVERYTHING. Everyone wants to become missionaries here. It`s all that they ever talk about. Missionary work, missionary work, missionary work!"

Had to add another picture of Connor working hard!!

"I also had Zone conference this last week. It was really good. The new mission President is definitely not President Margetts, but he`s a way good President! I love him! And it was fun to see all the missionaries again. Oh, and my ward`s relief society fed us! They did a way good job! Tsuboi represented!!!!

I played basketball with chinese people one morning. It was fun. The chinese people are good at basketball and it gave me a chance to practice my chinese. I would talk to them in Chinese and they would answer me in english. interesting, huh?

For our other Eikaiwa, we explained American games. It made me home sick! haha American games are fun. like "red light, green light" and "mother may i"
 

 One of my investigators is going home to fukuoka! dang! He`s done with college. We just told him to keep reading the book of mormon and to try and find the missionaries in Fukuoka."
 

Today's update will cover 2 weeks:

July 29, 2012

"Things are going pretty well here in Japan!! I`m still studying, teaching and talking to a lot of people. Which is VERY tiring. I remember my farewell and how tired I was after I talked to all of those people. That`s basically a missionaries life every single day... Except in Japanese. haha!"

Working Hard!!

"I had a split this week. I was able to do missionary work with Lawson choro. Barros choro`s companion. I love lawson choro! Me an him had the best time ever! I feel like I`m ready to be senpai (which is just the older missionary who makes a lot of the plans and decisions)."

Pictures of the City 

       

 "The temple was really good. We went through twice. haha It`s very interesting in Japanese. On the way up to the temple there`s a pretty steep hill and there was a sister trying her best to get up the hill to the temple. She has leg problems and needs a wheel chair, but she was pushing her wheelchair up the hill. Her son was helping her push her wheelchair up the hill. That day I was reminded of how important families are and how blessed we are to have them. Thank you for being my family! You guys are the best!"

This must've been a game of "who can open their mouth the widest"???

Silly Boys!! :)





Monday August 6, 2012:


Seems this week he started his email with a question and a thought:

"Does my room look the same? It`s weird to think that I`ve been away from my room for so long. I like looking back at all the time I`ve spent on my mission. It makes me feel good knowing that I accomplished some big tasks. Thinking about it... hasn`t it been about a year from when I recieved my mission call? yay! This will be MY mission for the rest of my life. It`s special to me and I`m glad that it`s Japan, Fukuoka."

"Oh and you`re not going to guess what I had for lunch today... FISH. Oh man... It was weird... It still had the skin and the fin on it. It had it`s head cut off... so that` good."

 

Working in the Kitchen:

 "Last week we had a ice cream party for eikaiwa! Lawson choro and I taught about American History then we ate ice cream and I gave a spiritual message about families! Other than that my week was... I guess you could say boring. We keep finding really good people, but they just don`t progress. Hopefully one will. We had a special fast this fast sunday. All the members in the fukuoka mission fasted for the missionaries to have baptisms. We`re trying to double the numbers from last year. We`re working hard every day! (and my Japanese is getting good ) I don`t think I`m fluent yet... but I think I`m on the right track. haha"

 

So.... sometimes when we get emails from Connor they are a good length, but sometimes they are short. This week we got a shorter email. I'd like to believe it's because he is so busy with missionary work he just doesn't have the time to think or worry about things at home:

 "Sorry this week was a little boring and nothing that exciting happened! We had transfer calls and we are ALL staying! haha almost no one in the mission transfered! ahhhhh! What`s going to happen from now on!! ? I have no idea! But, anyway, It`s been really fun.

It`s HOT!!!!!! oh my gosh, I`m so sunburnt... it`s terrible. But, I love the weather. As a missionary it`s kind of hard though, because we can`t wear normal clothes. We always have to be dressed up. OH, and also, Our shower broke! We only had freezing cold water! We called the landlord and he came and tried to fix it. 2 really cold showers later we had warm water again! yay!"

 Looks like they're having a little fun while studying

" You`ll see a picture of KFC food. This food was nine dollars and 74 cents.... look how tiny my meal was!! This is normal for Japanese people."

Connor said that on the 28th his ward is planning a trip to the Fukuoka Temple. The missionaries are going too! :)   I've included some other pictures he sent:

 The biggest spider I've ever seen!

A beautiful picture of the city.

And this was one of my favorites because at the end of every letter and email I send to Connor, I always write "keep smiling"!

So... Connor requested a blog.  This is my first attempt at one. (I'm his mom) My very awesome and talented sis-in-law Andrea helped me get it set up.  I hope you all enjoy! :)

We'll begin with Connor's latest email sent to us July 16, 2012:

"The weather here has been crazy. One morning we all woke up and our parking lot was flooded. haha In japan, Everyone has a trash day and we leave our trash bags outside, so that the trash man can come pick it up. We also have to sort our garbage. Everyone recycles in Japan. The water was very high and I saw a garbage bag just floating down the street. haha It looked like fun. If I wasn`t a missionary I would have definitely played in it. We decided to do some Noah missionary work. haha We had English class too. Which is always fun!

Today, for P-day, my companion and I decided to do Mormon helping hands. The flood destroyed some things. It`s not that bad, but man there was a lot of mud. It was really fun and I liked volenteering for my P-day. In sunday school we even talked about sacrifice. So, I guess this week has been about sacrifice for me!"

Pictures of the flooding

Connor also talked about a man they met while "streeting" (talking to people out on the street to get contacts):

"We found him streeting and we were out of pamphlets, but by the church, so we decided to ask him if he had time to go to the church. He said yes. We got to the church and there were members there! He got to meet the tsuboi members. (my ward) and got to see some of the church. We gave him pamphlets and the book of mormon. He said that he`s been thinking about religion and which church is the right one. He was a jehova`s witness, but he decided that they were wrong. And, get this, he said that he got on the wrong bus that day! He said that it was destiny that we met. He seems like such a neat guy, but we haven`t heard from him. We tried calling and his phone is turned off. Oh, well. I know that something good will come of that."