Eric's Mission, Tokyo, Japan

So after a 5 hour bus trip and a 2 hr train ride I have finally reached Togane, the land of endless rice fields. lol  We have a pretty sweet apartment in a building right next to the station.  My companion is named Elder C... and he is pretty nice.  We have seen some pretty crazy miracles this week.  We started off with zero investigators on Thursday and we have found a new investigator everyday this week!  That's 4 new investigators!  I have no idea how it happened, it just did.  Actually today my companion was playing the flute outside of the station and a guy came up to us and asked us if we could go to his recording studio so he could record him.  We were like yeah but let's meet at the church and teach you a lesson about the restored gospel of Jesus Christ first and he was like no problem.  Who would have known the power of music.  lol Unfortunately I left the violin back in Niigata because I was too lazy to carry it around during transfers so I don't have an instrum

How is Everyone? So the big news for the day is that we got transfer calls today and guess what, I am officially leaving my home in Niigata and moving way down south to the rice paddies and strawberry fields of Togane.  Apparently Togane is the 2nd most rural area in the mission so I'm going to have tons of fun conversing with Japanese farmers.  I was talking with my companion Elder Pronk who used to work there and he says that it's a 30 min bike ride to the nearest town and to the church so I'll get in really good shape!  Which is good because I'm gaining more weight.  It's all because of the rice we always eat.  And guess what, they called me as the Senior companion! How crazy is that?!  I feel like I definitely don't know enough Japanese to be the best one at Japanese in my companionship.  And on top of that I am opening up a new area which is crazy!  There is already a Togane A team and we are going to be Togane B team.  We are going to have no investigat

How has your week been?  From what I have heard it has been super cold, even colder than it has been here in Niigata!  I feel super bad for all of you because I can barely survive here in 30 degrees!  I'm sure that at least all of you that had exams this week are excited for them to finally be over. Hm so what's new with me...I got to play a guitar with an amp as I was buying a string for the violin.  And while I was playing the guitar I was able to dendo, do missionary work, with the guitar center rep that was helping me out.  Unfortunately we didn't get another appointment with him so he's technically not a new investigator but we got his # and we are going to visit him today when we go suit shopping.    Oh also this week I was able to work with a brand new 1st transfer missionary named Elder Smith.  He is super nice and he really has tons of faith and desire.  Even though it was just us in a world full of Japanese people he was determined to find an investigator.

Happy New Year!  I hope that everyone had an amazing winter break and that everyone is super excited to start heading back to school and work this next week.  lol  Because of the raucous New Year celebrating in Japan, we did a lot of house cleaning and scripture reading.  Unfortunately, I wasn't able to finish the whole Book of Mormon in a day but I did get to Alma so I'm pretty proud of myself!  Elder Shibuta and I went on splits with one of the transfer 1 missionaries last week and it was super interesting.  He kept asking me for help with Japanese and to my surprise I actually knew the answers to most of his questions!  I can't believe that I have learned so much in such a short amount of time.  But I still feel like I don't know very much so I need to keep working hard to learn more.     We have our big mission conference at Niigata tomorrow and since we have the apartment closest to the church everyone gets to stay at our apartment tonight.  That's like 15