Eric's Mission, Tokyo, Japan

Hello Everyone, And a Merry Christmas!  Not ganna lie, I am pretty excited for the holiday season, especially because I get to talk to my family in like 3 days.  I can't believe that it is so close.  I will probably be friending you on skype today so yoroshiku onegai shimasu!  I hope I get to talk to Andrew for a little bit too.  Too bad I can't just call him separately, but I guess I'll just have to wait until next year. What can I say about this week, well I guess it was pretty much the same as all the other weeks as a zone leader.  We did a ton of planning, lots of meetings, and lots of talks with the Sister Training Leaders to know where we should take the zone the next few months. Luckily the weather has been pretty cold and rainy so we haven't had to deal with that too much because we have been inside a lot.  We were able to meet with a lot of really cool people this week though.  Idk if you remember Y..., but he fi...

Hello Everyone! How are you doing?  Well the votes are in, and the transfers have been decided.  I, surprisingly, will be staying in my area.  This is the longest that I have ever stayed in one area before.  By the end of the transfer, I will have stayed here for over 6 months.  The ward members are really happy that I will be staying because I was going to be singing for the Christmas party which is coming up next Saturday.  But remember how I said earlier that every zone leader companionship was changing, well ours did.  My dear companion Elder Scoville will be moving to Takasaki and training a new  zone  leader over there.  Since he is leaving, I need a new companion and guess who it is?  Elder Barray.  I will still be a zone leader and I will actually be training Elder Barray how to be a zone leader because this is his first time. So that's 2 zone leaders that I have trained so far the past 4 transfers as a ...

Dear Everyone, Another awesome week over here in the land of the rising sun!  Luckily though, since it's beginning to be winter now, the sun waits to come up until 6:30 instead of the usual 4:30.  Needless to say, with all the extra hours of darkness, I have been sleeping a lot better recently. The only problem is that since the sun is out for only 8 hrs, it has been getting really cold really fast.  I finally broke this week and got my big trench coat and gloves out.  I was looking at the weather for Niigata though and guess what the weather was for the next few weeks, rain, snow, sleet, hail, and thunder storms.  That sounded just like Niigata to me.  Just think, that was me just one year ago.  I'm counting my blessings right now because at least where I am in Tsukuba right now it is nice and dry. I would like to specifically thank all of you for your fasting and prayers this week during fast Sunday.  Because we were all unit...

Hey everyone! It was amazing to hear from all of you again this week!  It's good to hear that you all had a fun time during Thanksgiving and that I was not needed to make the mashed potatoes.  I also enjoyed hearing about the Ohio State vs Michigan game, about how Ohio totally owned Michigan so thanks for sending me the game stats Grandma Stevens!  How was black Friday?  I hope that everyone is safe and that you bought lot of really cool cheap Christmas presents. We had a pretty fancy week ourselves.  We went on splits with the Assistant Elder Sakamoto last week and that was a great learning experience.  We went to visit one of his recent converts, Bell.  He works at an Indian restaurant here so we got some good curry.   We had a crazy big miracle this week during splits.  We were at the big train station in Tsukuba doing some finding, and we only had 10 more minutes before we were going to go and eat our dinner ...

Greetings everyone! And welcome to another addition of Eric's weekly mission update.  Guess what I have cooking in the oven right now...two pumpkin pies!  They smell so good and I am pretty excited to be able to eat them soon. Unfortunately, I don't get to eat them both by myself.  I am waiting for them to finish cooking with my companion, my dear friend Aaron and the sister missionaries in our district.  They sorta just showed up while I was cooking and I couldn't say no so I guess that means less pie for me but more blessings!  Everyone was just so impressed that an Elder could actually cook stuff.  First it was the mashed potatoes and now it's the pumpkin pie.  I guess I'm just full of surprises. Another thing that may seem surprising to many is that I've been practicing the piano and the violin a lot recently.  We have a big 2 zone conference coming up in a few weeks and I get to play a special musical number on the violin and ...

Crazy to say it, but it was starting to get cold this week.  I guess I shouldn't be surprised because it is November, but I had to break out the jacket and gloves this week.  Besides the increase of shivering, we had a great week. We taught the most number of lessons that this area has seen in 6 months which was really exciting. It was only 14 so we still have a while to go before we get up to standards but we are starting to see a pick up with all of the new investigators that we are finding while on the way to other appointments.  The Lord is definitely hastening his work so that we can see the Christmas miracles this year.  Before I go any farther, I would like to wish dad a very happy bday! I know it's not your bday yet in America, but in the future over here you are officially a year older! Lol. We had a zone conference call today and during the announcements part of the call I made sure to tell everyone in the zone that it was your bday...

Hey everyone! I'm glad to hear that everything is going well in Ohio!  It sounds like everyone is getting ready for Christmas and the winter season. The weather started getting a little cold last week, enough for me to start wearing a fleece jacket around but it still isn't too bad for me yet.  My companion is from California so he's already bundling up in his heavy winter clothes.  Everyone here tells me I'm crazy because up until recently, I was wearing nothing but short sleeve shirts.  I keep telling them that this weather is normal in Ohio and they never believe me.  I wonder what they must be thinking when they see a white guy with blond hair, wearing a short sleeve shirt while everyone around him is bundled up in jackets.  Just thinking about it makes me laugh.  Luckily, I am not as far north as I was last winter so hopefully I'll be able to survive all the winter months. Last week, I was able to go on splits with our recent conve...

Hey everyone! Guess what, we had another transfer call day yesterday.  And for the first time ever, I haven't transferred or received a new companion. I was so surprised when we got our call saying that we were staying together because it has never happened before.  I think the Mission President is doing it this way because we are right in the middle of the Christmas miracle focus and he doesn't want to switch things up in the leadership that much.  I'm just glad that I get to stay with my companion again.  He is really cool and we get along really well and have the same vision for the zone.  The weird thing about this transfer is that I am now officially old.  I didn't know this, but I was informed that as soon as you finish your 10th transfer and start your 11th transfer, you are considered old and experienced. So now I only have like 4 to 5 more transfers to go.  Crazy stuff! Sorry I couldn't email you yesterday.  Whe...

Hello everybody! Guess what, this is the last week of another transfer!  So next week, I will officially be labeled, an old missionary. Lol They say after you finish your 10th transfer, that you know what your doing but I'm not sure about that.  It's been a fast fun transfer and I'm looking forward to one more week with Elder Scoville.  But I think this ones going to go by really fast as well... We just got back from the temple today and it was really fun.  They accidentally started the session in the Japanese version, so the first little bit was in Japanese!  I felt really cool because I understood the whole thing!  I think for my last transfer, I'm going to try to do the session all in Japanese instead of English.  That's my language goal that I'm working on right now.  After the temple, we went to Wendy's like we used to do back home, well except everything was a lot more expensive. It was really good and brought ...

Hey Everyone! Where to begin?  This was a very interesting week.  It started off with tons of miracles and ended with a lot more, but the middle was really long and hard.  Well Dad, I'm sad to hear that you are feeling sick.  Luckily I am not sick yet, but my companion was sick for the past few days. Actually he is still pretty sick.  Because he was sick, we had to stay at the apartment for 3 straight days and do nothing but call people and study.  It got really boring after awhile.  Just watching your companion sleep and wishing that you could sleep too, but knowing that you had to stay as productive as you could so you stay awake and keep pushing on is the hardest thing I have ever done.  I got to study a lot of The Book Of Revelations from the Bible though. It was very interesting.  Also since my companion was down, I had to take care of the zone and that was very tiring.  I know why they have two zone leaders to take c...

Hey everyone, Sorry you didn't get my last email last week.  Idk what happened.  I sent it and it said that I sent it, but it didn't go through.  Maybe it's because I tried to send home a video and that messed it up. We had a great week this week with conference.  To watch it we had to take the train for an hour to get to the stake center.  The building was massive!  It was five stories tall and was bigger than our stake center in America!  It even had a bball court which I have only seen in 2 churches since I have been here.  I think my favorite talk was the one about looking in the right direction, because I see it a lot in myself and in others. After conference, we went to a park close to our apartment with a football field and volleyball net and met with one of our friends named M... He is from China but he was born in Japan and speaks fluent Japanese. And what's even better is that he loves volleyball.  Luckil...

  Hey Everyone, How's it going back in the good ol state of Ohio?  Things are pretty amazing over here and very wet. We just had a big typhoon, or well, it was supposed to be big, but my companion and I went out and braved the storm just to say that we did and we didn't get blown away, so we were a little disappointed.  We did get a lot of rain and wind but that was about it for the typhoon. It was really fun to go to the temple last week.  It is just so relaxing to be able to go there and feel the spirit all of the time.  We usually watch the session in English because the Japanese is crazy hard in the temple but I think I'm going to try it in Japanese next time.  Wish me luck!  It was also really cool this transfer to go to the temple after transfer calls because we got to meet our new companions right there at the temple.  I wonder if they'll do that again next time... Last week was pretty busy with planning as usual....

Hey everyone! Whats up?  Right now I am on a train to Tokyo so that we can go to the temple!  From Tsukuba where I am right now it takes about 2 hours by train to get there so we have a long ride ahead of us.  I'm really hoping to get some inspiration at the temple today for a big Christmas devotional that we are hosting this Friday.  It's really important because it's the meeting to start out our big Christmas miracle.  We are going to have 100 baptisms from now to Christmas. That's going to be huge!  But we need to make sure that the meeting goes well. So we just got our transfer calls yesterday and I am really surprised because I am actually staying.  My companion is leaving though to open a new area for Elders.  It's pretty exciting!  I will be getting a new companion named Elder Scoville!  He is from Sacramento, California and he is amazing!  He was actually one of the district leaders who I have been...

Guess what, another transfer is almost over!  This is our last week till I'm a transfer 10 missionary!  Crazy right? This week went pretty well but it was so stressful.  Have any of you had to plan for a zone meeting with the sister training leaders, plan for a baptism in Japanese with the ward mission leader, and plan for a big 3 day zone blitz with the district leaders?  All I can say is that it was pretty stressful and I am glad that it went well.  The baptism was amazing.  My companion did the baptism correctly the first time and do you remember Elder Alred?  He was my companion last transfer in Tokyo but he came to the baptism because his companion used to live here and taught T...  It was really good to see him again.  The next day we had the confirmation which was also very stressful but I did it right and everyone said that they were amazed at my Japanese and how it was so good.  I'm telling you it wasn't m...

Hey Everyone! I don't know if you got my facebook post or not but today in Japan we are celebrating respect for the aged day!  So no mom, since you are 29, you don't count as aged. lol  I just didn't have any other pictures of my grandparents so I just added that on.  So everyone have a great day!  Also today is the 15th so that means that tomorrow is my 1 year anniversary of living in Japan.  One year ago tomorrow I was stepping off the plane into a very strange new place that I had only dreamed about.  And now look at me, I can get around just fine.  It's crazy how much you change in a year. This week, mom was totally right, we had a big all day meeting again. This time it was for 4 zones so we had over 1/3 of the mission attend. I got to sing in an octet with a violin and a piano so it was pretty fun.  The bass part was more of like a tenor part so it was a little hard for me, but also for the real tenors. I don't ...