The Cold Is Rolling In!

Hello everybody!
 
This week has been pretty crazy!  My companions left me to go to Tokyo for a missionary training conference so I was left with my roommates to dendo (share the gospel) for a few days.  So we were two, second-transfer missionaries and four, first-transfer missionary hitting the streets of Japan together, trying to understand what everyone was saying to us.  Elder Johnson and Allred are super good at Japanese though so we were fine.  I still need lots of work.  
 
Hey mom, Happy birthday!!!!!!!!!  I know that it's not the 11th yet in Ohio but in Japan it is!  I think you should send me some of your birthday cake!  I'm sure that it'll taste really good!  I wish I could be there for you on your birthday, but I'm thinking of you now.  And dad I didn't forget about you either!  So happy birthday last week! (Actually my birthday is next week).  Sorry it's a little bit late but I wish I could be there for you too.  It's crazy to think that I'm still going to miss one more of your birthdays before I come back home.  

Wow, you know so much about our mission!  We are all going up to the Tokyo South mission on the 19th of November for our two mission conference with Elder Evans speaking.  He is super amazing!  I would really recommend watching some of his General conference talks because they are all about missionary work and they really help with missionary work!  The bus ride should take like 6 hrs so I should be able to catch up on my sleep for a little bit.  We are going to be trained at the conference on how to use the new iPads that we are supposed to get in December.  So I should be able to Skype everyone through the iPad.  I'll just have to learn how to Skype first.  Unfortunately we didn't get to ride the bullet train to get to Niigata.  I was so sad but we should be able to ride it when we go to splits to some of the areas in our zone.  Also, my companions said that I will be able to go to Sado Island next transfer for splits.  That's the really cool island in our mission and it takes 3 hrs by ferry to get there.  I'm so excited! 

About the letter, I finally did get it.  Apparently they sent it to the sister missionaries in our area instead of me so that delayed it about 2 weeks.  I finally did get it last week though so it's all good.  Sorry I didn't get to write a letter two weeks ago.  I was super busy packing for the transfer and I had like no time to do anything else that p-day except to email and pack.  But you should get one this week because I wrote one last Monday so look for that.

Well it's getting super cold outside now.  It's getting down into the 1 and 2 degrees Celsius. I don't know what that is in Fahrenheit (35 degrees) but I'm sure that it's super cold.  We are supposed to get some snow tomorrow so luckily I've been stocking up on warm clothes and stuff so I should be fine.  I don't have an electric blanket yet so I still need to get one of those today.  I have been able to use my super cool brown Gortex shoes and they're so nice.  Its been raining everyday for the past week so they are really helpful!   I hope that it stops raining soon because it is not fun riding your bike in the pouring rain.  Oh and we even got to ride our bikes in the hail the other day!  It hurt so bad!  I don't want to do that again anytime soon. lol  But at least now I can say that I did it. lol

So I got a letter from the S... family in our stake in Dayton the other day with the address of their parents living in Japan, and one of their families is in our area!  We went to visit them on Saturday and they are so nice!  We talked to them about the church for a little bit and we set up a return appointment for next Friday.  It was such an amazing experience to be able to work with a family that I know from back home.  I know that the Lord will be helping us as we continue to share the gospel with them.  On that note, could you send me Brother and Sister S... email address?  I got permission from the mission president to email them from our fancy missionary email to update them on our progress and to get more background information on their family living here in Japan.  So maybe you can have them send you my emails to them.  Thanks a lot for everything!  It's so awesome to have an awesome family behind me. 

Well I love and miss you all so much!  Stay strong and have another awesome week!  I can't wait to hear from you again soon!  

Love you lots!

Elder Stevens
 
Sunset in Niigata

 
Soccer Stadium On Right

 
Sea of Japan

 
Breakfast



 
Eric Did Not Like Seafood Before His Mission

 

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