A Fresh Restart...

Well, hello everyone!  Long time no see!

Sorry I don't have too much time to write today so I can't start off
my letter with Japanese this time.  I hope that you were all able to
read some of it and if you weren't able to, ask my Dad because he got
it pretty well.  Have you studied Japanese a lot Dad?

Man, what can I say about this week.  Well, the first few days were
really slow and not much happened but, the last two days made up for
all the slowness.  On Saturday and Sunday we were able to meet with 11
different people, five of which came to church on Sunday.  I haven't
been able to get that many people to church ever since I left Togane!
It was definitely a great way to end my time in Tsukuba.

Which brings up another point that I wanted to talk about today, we
got transfer calls.  And yes, I am leaving my home in Tsukuba.  I have
been living here for almost 6 months so I'm not too surprised but, I'm
still sad to be leaving all of my friends here.  I bore my testimony
in sacrament meeting yesterday and afterwards everyone told me that I
couldn't transfer because I haven't played the violin enough while I
was there.  Well, I was sorry to tell them that I was leaving in 2 days.
But guess what, can any of you guess where I am going?  I've been
there before...I'm going to Togane!  Can your believe it?  I'm going
back to my favorite area probably to finish my mission.  I will be
going back there as a district leader so I am pretty much picking up
where I left off one year ago.  It seems like déjà vu because a
year ago January 20th I was on my way to Togane from Niigata.  And now
I am going back!  Except now I can speak better Japanese and I have a Chinese
companion to help me with all of the Chinese investigators that I used
to work with.  My companion's name is Elder Li and I think that he is
actually from Taiwan.  I will have to make sure but maybe he is from a
place in Andrews mission!  Should be fun to work with him in my old
area.

As for stories this week, we didn't do too much super exciting stuff.
I guess I tried to take a lot more pictures this week because I knew
that I was leaving so that may make Dad happy.  Lol. On Friday we went
all the way down to Chiba to have a missionary conference with one of
the Area Seventy in the Japan named Elder Aoyagi.  We had a great
conference in which he told us to always dendo with a Book of Mormon in our
hands which is something that I haven't done since I was in
Togane, so I guess I can get back into the habit now.  After the
conference we went to meet with the Stake President to talk to him
about the goals in the stake for baptisms.  We have a goal of 48
baptisms in the stake which boils down to one baptism in every area
per transfer.  Pretty sweet goal, but I bet we can even do better than
that!  Oh also on Wednesday, I went to Mito to give a baptismal
interview with a great Chinese man named L....  The interview went
really well and we were able to learn a lot about each other and grow
together.  It is always such a privilege to hold a baptismal
interview.  L... got baptized yesterday and he is looking forward to
receiving the priesthood soon!

As for our Nepalese friend, he went to church again yesterday so he is
all set to be baptized on the 13th.  Too bad I won't be here anymore
to see it.  He is from the big capital city of Kathmandu in Nepal and he loved it
there.  He always shows me pics of where he used to live. I will be
sad to leave. :(.

Well I better get going now, I hope that you all have an amazing week!
Thanks for all the emails and the love that you show me.  I couldn't
ask for better family members and friends. Thanks Dad for the room
analogy for first Nephi.  That was very interesting to think about, and
I think that it would be helpful to memorize the scripture
stories and where they are located, so if you don't mind
I would enjoy looking at the rest of them.

I love you all!

スティーブンズ長老
Elder Stevens

Here are some pics of me and my good friend, and me eating sushi
with the Nakamoto family.  We ate over $100 of sushi.  It was so good!
Enjoy!


 
Nakamotos



 
Tsukuba Train Station



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