Japan

Elder Hart

Aragasaki apartment

Week 13

Mission Log

Things are going really well here. The weather is starting to cool down. It`s not even that hot anymore. My companion is from Whakatani, New Zealand. We`re going to the stake center in Kobe to watch conference. I don`t know what days or times it is at though.

I`m basically starving all the time. We have hardly any food in our apartment other than rice and curry. There`s nothing to eat. There is one COSTCO in the mission and it`s in our area. We will go shopping there later today. It will be fun. I`m going to buy so much American food. Everything here is really expensive. The loafs of bread that you buy at the store here only have five or six slices in them. I need to buy about one million of them in order to be fed for a week. A two pound bag of cheese cost eight hundred and eighty yen. That`s a little more than nine dollars. Cereal is very expensive and they don`t have any of the good brands. It`s like they`re trying to make me eat Japanese foods.

We`re having some success. I haven`t baptized anyone yet though. When I got to Nishinomiya, there were zero progressing investigators. It`s better now. We have two people that have baptismal dates. I hope it will work out.

The weather has cooled down a lot. It isn`t even hot anymore.

Japanese is coming along pretty well. I`m getting better at understanding what other people are saying. I don`t have very much time to write this week, but next week I`ll write a bunch. I hope everyone is having fun.

-Elder Isaac Swift

JAPAN

Week 12
Mission Log

I`m finally here in Japan. It just took me forever to find the apostrophe on this Japanese keyboard. The group I was in that was going to Kobe had fourteen people in it. President McIntyre said it was the biggest group he`s ever had. We stayed in the Mission Home in Kobe for the first two days. We just did lots of training and stuff. One morning, some of us woke up early and hiked up this big hill to a park that overlooks the whole city. There are just giant buildings as far as the eye can see.

Then I got my assignment and my first companion. I got assigned to Nishinomiya. I was pretty happy about that. It`s right next to the Kobe area. I could probably see it from up on the hill. We even go back to the Kobe Mission Home sometimes for activities and stuff. And, it`s a big city area. In the whole Kobe mission, Nishinomiya is the smallest area geographically. I`m glad that I got to go to a city area and didn't have to be in the countryside. We never knock on doors here. We just talk to people on the street or on the trains.

My companion is Elder Hart. He is from New Zealand, and he is basically the exact opposite of me in every way. He lived in Japan for a few years before his mission, so his Japanese is really good. He's the district leader. Two other missionaries live in the same apartment with us. They are Elder Lee and Elder Hoffman. They're the district leaders. They're pretty cool.

It's way harder to understand people here. In the MTC everyone talks pretty simply and slowly and they have American accents. In the Kobe Osaka area people talk really really fast and they have their own unique dialect from the rest of Japan.　　It`s really hard to understand.

Japan is way cool though. Just because I'm an American, I'm basically a celebrity. People stare at me. Some people just try to talk English to me. A lot of people are pretty good at English, but some aren't very good. And, their accent is so funny when the try to talk English. A lot of the time, when I walk by, girls will say "kakkoi" which means cool. It's pretty fun here.

There are like fifty billion bicycles. Even old ladies will ride bikes around. It's really weird. Also, there are vending machines all over the place. They're just on the sidewalks of all the streets. Not just the big streets. Every street has vending machines. There are tall building everywhere. They seem like they're built around the train stations. There are a lot of train stations and everyone rides the trains. Everybody really likes English. A lot of the time, if you try to stop people on the street to talk to them, they'll just ignore you. But, If you talk in English, they'll stop and try to talk to you. It's fun. Sometimes I have to speak English in a Japanese accent for them to understand. I have to say I'm from Shiatoru instead of Seattle. Everyone knows Ichiro. People love baseball. It's really hot and humid all the time here.

The first lesson I taught here was to a man from India and his English was much better than his Japanese. So, we taught him in English. We usually teach in Japanese though.

I had to introduce myself in church and bear my testimony up at the pulpit, in Japanese. It went pretty well. There are only like forty to fifty people in church every week, but it's a ward, not a branch, and we have our own church building just for this ward. The second councilor in the bishopric is really cool. His name is Senba. He just got back from a mission in Sapporo recently. He's easier to understand. Some people are really hard to understand, and some people are a lot easier.

Talk to you next week,

-Elder Isaac D Swift

Mission President and my Companion

JAPAN

Hey. I'm allowed to send you a quick email to tell you that I got to Japan safely. Everything is great. I'm living in the mission home for a day or two. Then, I'll go to my first area. Love you.

Bye.

Elder Isaac Swift

JAPAN

Isaac is finally in Japan! His new address is

Elder Isaac Swift
Japan Kobe Mission
4-6-28 Shinohara Honmachi

MTC 7 Sept 2010

Week 10

Mission Log

This is likely to be the last time that I'm able to contact you from this facility. Once they trust me enough to sent me off of a mission in Japan, I'll be able to contact you more easily. On Friday, I received the plans for my traveling. On Monday morning, I leave the MTC at 10:00am. I might be allowed to call home from the Salt Lake City airport. I then fly to Tokyo, Japan. I arrive there at 4:35pm on Tuesday. That makes the flight more than 24 hours long! It's really just like 15 hours. The international date line makes it seem longer. I also might be able to call home from there, but probably not both times. Probably one call. I don't know when. Then, I fly to Osaka. There the mission president will meet me, take me out to dinner I hear (Kobe steak I hope), and bring me to the mission home where I will spend the night. My companions are both going to the Nagoya Mission. So, they are on different flights completely. Therefore, I need a new companion while traveling. I've been assigned Elder Jindo. He's Japanese. It may be a pretty interesting trip.

I did receive the camera card. I'll be sure to take a lot of pictures when I get to Japan. The tie that everyone loves is the Donald Trump tie that's silvery white with blue boxes on it. It's pretty awesome.

They teach some forms of magic here. That is how I learned to run up walls and such.

Nathanael and Mary-Anne: Thank you for infiltrating the security here in order to help me acquire some of the necessary "tools." They are greatly appreciated and very much enjoyed. As far as I can tell, this infiltration has gone unnoticed by the guards, but I can't know for certain. I've been seeing all kinds of storms from my classroom window. I've seen more lightning since I've been here than I've seen in a long time. I like watching them on some of the really long days.

Japanese is coming along pretty well. It seems like I'm learning more this week than I did on any of the other weeks. It's the last week. So, I have to work as hard as I possibly can.

I don't really have that much to write about other than I'm excited to go to Japan. Oh, I probably won't be able to email home next week. Here in the MTC, my P-Day is on Tuesday. Out in the field it will most likely be Monday. I leave here on Monday and arrive in Japan on Tuesday. Therefore, I completely miss P-Day. So, if you don't get an email, that's why. You don't need to worry that I was killed or anything. I'll make my email extra long the next week.

Signing out,

Elder Isaac D Swift