Email Jan. 27th

Hey!

It was a good week! I ate some average quality Egyptian food and it cost me an arm and a leg! One Elder in our district has been sick for a couple days because of it. In other news, we had the most lessons this past week than we have had any other week of the transfer so far. We got an email from the Mission HQ saying that O Ryoku-san in Nakatsugawa has got baptized and confirmed this weekend! Yesssss! Elder Gillespie and I found that guy! He was so prepared and I'm so happy for him.

We had a fun district activity last week and we ate a whole roll cake by ourselves. It was about 2 and a half feet long and about six inches wide and 4 inches deep. It was a workout but it was tasty. I also got a sweet new watch. We had interviews with President Baird on Friday. It's kind of sad because I will only have one more interview with him before he and Sister Baird go home. I always love interviews with the President. Super cool.

Well I said I would send pics, so here we go. We got Roney Choro, Hunt Shimai and Fujisawa Shimai partyin' at sweets paradise. Some spam, Japanese style. I made some sick Katsu-curry. And a bar. Happy Birthday, Jill.

Well that's it for this week. Love you all.

Love,

Elder Sanderson

Spam

Katsu-curry

Happy Birthday Jill!!

Shabi dop shoobi doop shabi dop

Shoobi doobi beedop boo beedop,

Hey there. It was a good week. We got another new investigator this week. Her name is Ogasawara-san and she isn't interested at joining the church right now, but she's an investigator! Yay! Inaba-san committed to reading the Book of Mormon this week. Yes! We have a bunch of appointments this week and we did a bunch of member lessons last week. One was an FHE and we played the most intense game of Jenga ever! It lasted 35 minutes and we got down to the point where the last person had to take a piece, but it would fall over for sure. It was super fun. We got some good referrals too. We'll be checking up on those this week.

We're going to Sweets Paradise today for our district activity. It's an all you can eat dessert place. It's a good thing I ride my bike a lot, eh? I went to Kappa sushi this week with our ward mission leader, who by the way is awesome! We ate 25 plates of sushi, some soup, karaage (fried chicken), and some cake. It was delicious! It had the conveyor belt of sushi cruising past our table so it was hard to stop eating. I also had sashimi for the first time last night. It's kind of like sushi, but you make the "rolls" yourself. It was fantastic. Man, Japanese people are really lucky to have such good food right at their fingers. I ate chukadon this week too. It is some squid, octopus, shrimp, clams, and a tiny egg with a good sauce on top of rice. It was super good. When I first came to Japan, I was unsure about Sushi, but now it's No Problem-o. I'm making myself hungry.

Kind of short this week, but that's it. I'll send some pics next week. Love you all.

Love,

Elder Sanderson

The Subject Line is the Hardest Part of My Email

Hey there!

 Things are pretty great in Fuji! This past week we got a Yakusokusha! In English, a person with a baptismal date! Woohoo! His name is Inaba and he loves the Gospel of Jesus Christ. We hadn't planned to invite him to baptism, but he accepted our invitation! It was pretty cool, when we talked about Baptism he said, "This stuff is pretty cool!" Then I asked him what he would think if he got baptized and he said, "Wouldn't be good?" So we invited him to baptism. The Spirit is working with him and changing his heart. His goal is set for February 17th. He and our new investigator we got this week, Sakaguchi-san, came to church. We also have appointments with both of them this week and a ping pong activity to fellowship the less-active youth in our ward. Oh ya, dendo!

 So, I said my companion was American, but he has a very Japanesey pallet. He likes all kinds of Japanese food. Usually the ones that us foreign-folk don't like. Remember the soy bean snot stuff? He loves that stuff. He also has some very American mannerisms too. He's adjusting really well to the field. He's really good at thinking about our investigators and how things apply to them. His dendo fire is intense too. I love it. He makes dendo very easy.

 So it appears as though I'm coming home early...but don't freak out because it's only by two weeks. The rush of missionaries has made it so next transfer cycle will be only four weeks instead of six. So I'll be headed home on the 11th of February, 2014, if my calculations are correct. I'll hit my year-to-death date before I hit my year mark on my mission. Crap, time flies. that's only like a few weeks away! Everyone was kind of freaking out when we heard about it at Zone Training. Two weeks just disappeared in a day. Insane.

I have a random question. Did our home stake presidency change? If it did, I didn't hear about it. Megan said something about President Elzey, but I don't know who that is exactly.

In other news, it was relatively warm this week. We were actually kind of hot on one day. But when the sun goes down, woowee! It gets chilly.

 This coming P-day (a week from now) we're doing a district activity. We do one every transfer and this transfer we're doing it in Fuji. Fuji is the central location of our district with Numazu to the East about 25km and Shizuoka to the west about 40km. We're gonna grab some food, hang out, and just chill on a P-day for a couple hours. I love district activities.

 Well there's the news. Good night and good luck.

 Love, Elder Sanderson

It's Fun Turning Japanese, Oh yes, I think so.

It's an email from yours truly, Elder Sanderson. Yep.

Well let's get to the stuff you are dying to hear. My new companion is Tsukamoto Choro. He is a Nihonjin born in Hiroshima, but when he was two years old he moved to America. He has lived in a lot of places, but most recently Kaysville, Utah. So he's basically American. He is fluent in English and is learning Japanese because his parents spoke English in their home. He surprises a lot of Nihonjin when he tells them that. I'm still district leader, but our district changed a lot with the transfers. The Shizuoka Sisters got a bean-chan (new missionary). Her name is Breck Shimai and she is from PG, UT. We also had a transfer in Numazu and we got Roney Choro, who is a stud. He hails from Heber. 5 out of 7 people in our district are from Utah. All in all it's Me, Tsukamoto Choro, Roney Choro, Prestwich Choro, Hunt Shimai, Fujisawa Shimai, and Breck Shimai. It's a great bunch and I love 'em to death.

Well this week was really good. We invited Ouchi-san to baptism, but he said not right now. But he came to church on Sunday and he is super close to baptism. We also visited a lot of members because of Shogatsu (New Years). We had four meal appointments and we had a ton of Sushi! It was amaza-zing. We also found a new investigator! Woohoo! His name is Yoshihiro-kun. He's about high school age and is really interested in the Gospel. We found him just knocking doors, but we gave him a small explanation of our message and asked if we could come back next Sunday to talk more about it. He said yes. So we asked if we could say a prayer with him and he said yes! I explained how we pray (talk to God, thank Him for things, ask for things we need, etc.) and when we were about to pray he put down the door stop so he could fold his arms and pray with us. It was kind of a small thing, but it was super cool!

Well it's getting pretty cold here. Let's just say I'm glad I'm not in Nagano prefecture because riding your bike in 4 and 5 degree weather is a little chilly. I called Perkins Choro to tell him that I shipped his luggage and he said it was snowing in Toyota. He's from Arizona, so he's not too used to that kind of weather. He thought he was going to die. It's warmer than Utah here in Fuji, but I haven't ever ridden a bike during winter in Utah. I'm glad I have some nice warm winter gear to bundle up in.

Yep, things are moving here in Japan. I love being a missionary. I love you guys. Stay safe and warm and have fun.

Love,

Elder Sanderson