SICK New Year!

Happy New Year! 

2015 here we come! Here's to a full year in Japan! I can't wait! I hope all of your New Years festivities were the greatest and you brought the new year in with a bang! I was deff in bed by 10:30 so you could say brought new year in with a bang... Or a loud snore! Thanks for a wonderful 2014 everyone who was a part of it it's been real! 

So in Japan for New Years is kind of a big deal! They actually celebrate it here for like 4 days! Everyone goes back to their home town and also everyone is drinking and having a good time which is great... But not for missionary work... We spent New Years Eve deep cleaning the apartment then we went out to go eat sushi! It's kind of weird some people go super hard for New Years and others act like it's not anything special... I kind of went all out and ate a ton of sushi ahh well gotta bring in the new year right! On New Year's Day we were given the opportunity to read from the Book of Mormon the whole day! I read a lot in Alma and it really helped me remember my purpose and what I am doing as a missionary. 

For lunch we were invited over to the Takara families house! We had okonomiyaki which is like a dinner pancake... Kinda it's way good! It was fun talking to them and having a good time. Kimura shimai was talking to me about wanting to help her friend out and have her hear what they believe but she felt like she wasn't worthy or qualified because of some things that happened and her situation. I had a really good conversation with her about how because of her situation she is even more qualified to help her friend out! The spirit was so strong and I felt it telling me exactly what I needed to say to help her. I really felt the lord working through me to help her out it was so cool! 

For dinner we went over to the Ito family's house! All I can say is it was fuuuuuun! Ito Kyodai is one of my favorite people here in Sakado! He is so funny and so just warm hearted! We ate temaki sushi where you make it yourself and make a little sushi ice cream cone, lamb, and some more fun stuff! I love Japan because there are always really cool things that you eat for New Years! Like there is this thing called... Yorokonbu... I think but you eat it because it sounds like yorokobi which means like joy, excited, happy! So to bring in the new year of happiness, joy and excitement you eat it! So fun! After we had a little jam sesh with his guitar and my Uke it was so fun! I love the itos!

Friday to continue a week of not being able to do much missionary work we had a mission conference! This was the first time I have been able to see the sisters from the MTC! It's way weird we have all never hugged each other ever but we all wanted to way bad when we saw each other! All I can say is the handshakes were reeeeeeeal! Other missionaries are cool and all but there is something about going through the MTC together that just brings you closer together. I know me and my MTC district will always be way tight! It was really fun all gathering together and seeing what the whole mission is like (well minus a few areas they are too far to come) we had some trainings and reviewed our year... Which was weird cuz I haven't been here for much of it... We were able to watch "Meet the Mormons" which is a movie about... Well Mormons... Haha it's was really fun and we got to see a real movie!!!!! I had forgotten what that was like... Haha! I loved how one person said I am not perfect... But I am perfect in trying! I love this so much as long as we are trying our best that's all that matters! I liked this movie a lot! It has some really cool stories in it and it taught me a lot! It is so cool that no matter what it is there are people from all walks of life that can connect on certain things and hearing about different places my friends are serving it really helps me realize that although we are all very different we are all people and we can all connect one way or another. The movie was really good also it was a movie! What!? Conference was way fun though I learned a lot and it was too fun to see everyone again!

Well.. The rest of my week has been spent laying in bed and praying.... I got really sick the day after the conference and have been in bed since then. I've been thinking a lot about my savior during this time. I think of how if I took how much I am suffering and how much pain I'm in now and added just a little bit it would be too much for me to bear. I thought of all my sins, struggles, sickness, pain, guilt, bad feelings, choices, and mistakes in my life and how if I felt all of those there would be indescribable amount of pain that I couldn't bear it. I thought of how he has done this for me. For me alone, all that pain is too much to even fathom... Yet he did it for the whole world all at once. I am so thankful for my savior and all he has done for me and for all my family and friends. I thought also of how lucky i am to have a working heathy body most of the time. Whenever I am sick it's always a reality check for me and helps me remember that just being able to stand is a blessing. I think I forget this a lot of the time. I hope I can get better within the next couple of days because I have missed doing missionary work. In the MTC when one of us was sick it was like vacation but now I really have come to love missionary work and can't wait to get back out there and help people! 

Challenge of the weeeeek!

New Years happened! Of course resolutions are on everyone's minds but I'd like to challenge you to review your year. Take a look at what you did and what kind of person you were. Think of the fun times and the sad times. The things you remember are the things that had the biggest impact on you... Most of the time anyways. So what are you going to remember this year? This time next year what will you remember? What are you going to do so you will be able to remember what you want to... If that makes sense. So I guess my challenge is to review and to make a change so that you will have the best year full of amazing memories! 

Tweeeets! 

Let me describe to you my sickness

I feel like an alien is trying to escape my body, like the hulk is squeezing my head trying to make it into orange juice, like I got hit by a semi truck... full of Mexican wrestlers who after they hit me got out and used me for their training, like I am super Mario that just ate a magical flower finding out that I can spit out fire, like someone thought my throat was a dirty grill and needed to clean it with a wire brush... Oh and my nose! Like old faithful... Builds up for 45 minutes then BOOM! But I'm ok :)  mom sent me the exact medicine I needed two weeks ago! #momsjustknow #thiswouldhavebeenlike10tweetsandanunfollowontwitter #emailperkes #prayforkengo 

Someone bring me a Keva Juice please... #tribalprincessplease 

I often teach my comp common words in English and he is always like oh like this? And he says a way more complicated version of that word! 

Do you think they will let us watch meet the parents instead of meet the Mormons? -Elder Tuttle

Missionaries are the weirdest people... But it's totally ok because we are all missionaries and we are all weird and awkward together! 

Thank you for all the letters and packages recently! I love you all! 

I wonder how many people actually take the time to read my blog... 

Well love you all lots hope you all have a great new year and have fun going back to school and work and such! Know you are always in my prayers and I love you! 

Love, rice, and Yorokonbu! (I don't even know if that's the right name...)

Love 

Elder Byoki ;) 

Merry Christmas! And stuff!

Traditional Japanese Christmas- KFC!

We got to Skype with Elder Adachi on December 23, which was Christmas eve in Japan. He is looking great and having a wonderful time on his mission. He now has a native Japanese companion, so he is loving that. His companion is a gymnast, so he did a backflip for us on camera! Wow!

"

A picture of a cat on a leash on a bike because you deserve happiness in your life"

Here is his Christmas email:

Hey everyone! Hope you had a magical CHRISTMAS! I hope it was filled with happy memories and time with family because that's what it's all about! Missed you all this week a ton but I felt your prayers super hard this week! Thank you so much for all your love and support! This is how my... Christmas? Went! Haha 

We visited a member in the hospital who got in a car crash and got pretty messed up. He can't move his arm and leg very well and some stuff got messed up with his head and such. His name is Hoshi Kyodai (brother Hoshi). We went to the hospital and when he came out on his wheelchair before we could even say hello he started crying. He just expressed how grateful he was that we would take the time to come and visit him and see how he was doing. He talked about how he just wanted to give up and the doctors said he'd never walk or move his arm ever again and he was in a really dark place. He said he heard the spirit tell him that he cannot give up, that he was saved because he had more work to do. He heard from the spirit that he would one day become a missionary. He says someday he wants to serve as a mission president or some sort of mission he knows that's the why we has saved and the spirit tells him everyday not to give up. He says there are a lot of times he wants to give up but he remembers the spirit and what it told him and he keeps going. He showed us how now he can start moving his arm and even walk a tiny bit. It was truly inspirational to see how even when the doctors say you won't be able to do something you do through God all things are possible. Before we left I asked if I could share one of my favorite scriptures and pray with him. I shared alma 26:27 talking about when they were going to quit the lord comforted them. He cried some more and I felt the spirit so strong. I think I really needed this I left thinking how blessed I really am. Sometimes we get way too caught up in what we don't have that we forget that we are so very blessed and all we have. Just having a body that allows me to walk, see, talk, hear is the biggest blessing. I think I forgot that I'm glad Hoshi Kyodai was put in my life to help remember it.

Got to talk with family this week! It was the weirdest thing in the world... Now I totally understand why we only get to talk to our families 2 times a year and 6 months apart...  You need 6 months to recover haha! It was way cool to be able to see everyone and hear everyone's voices though! I LOVE YOU GUYS! And it to meet BABY SIENNA! So cuuuute! It really put in to perspective why I am out here... I am here of course it bless the lives of others but I'm here becoming the best person I can be so my family and future family will be blessed. There is really no other way to learn the things I have been learning out here and I couldn't be more grateful. I trust in the lord that he is taking care of my family and friends! Love you!

So to answer a question that a lot of you have been asking... NO they do no celebrate Christmas in Japan! I knew it wasn't as big as america but I had NO CLUE it would be this bad! We went out for lunch to get KFC! (It's a big thing here for Christmas...) and I made it my mission to say Merry Christmas to everyone! I got maybe like 10 responses... It was the same as any other day and the Christmas spirit was... Not a thing. It was honestly getting me down but it was chill. We got invited to the Kimuras for dinner and it SAAAAAAAVED my Christmas! Just being in a home with a family and sharing time with good people was enough to make my Christmas this year amazing! 

We don't really have any investigators right now so we do alllllllooooot of finding. Like I thought we did finding a ton in my last area but it's nothing compared to how much we do here! One day we were finding for a long time just walking around and everyone kept rejecting us or saying the same things about how religion leads to war and Japanese people don't believe in God they believe in Buddha and just the usual stuff. On my mission so far I haven't really had any getting down on myself about getting rejected or not finding much success. Most of the stuff getting me down was companions and schedule and such. But for some reason this day it got to me pretty hard and it was so frustrating! I let myself think that I wasn't going to see hardly any success and that like what I've been told a lot " you'll have a good experience but you probably won't baptise much" I was really down by the end of the day we had like 6 hours of walking around trying to share with someone even a little bit of our message but no one talked to us for very long. As we were going back I thought of a simple word "Perhaps" now this word means a lot to me and has meant a lot to me on my mission especially. It actually talks about this word in the lorax by dr Seuss but anyways I thought of this simple word and I was comforted. In Alma 26:30 it says 

"and we have suffered all manner of afflictions, and all this, that perhaps we might be the means of saving some soul; and we supposed that our joy would be full if perhaps we could be the means of saving some."

Everyday I am working the hardest I can. Not to see a ton of baptisms or to convert everyone but that I MIGHT be the MEANS of saving SOME soul. I work so hard for the perhaps and how great will be my joy when that perhaps, that some soul receives eternal happiness! I got too caught up in the now this week and i forgot about that soul... That soul that I felt two years ago when I was driving home from school when I got my answer to come on a mission. The hours of finding, the work, the schedule, the rules, the companions, are all worth it because of that soul and I can't wait to see when that soul comes into my life and changes me forever. 

tweets

Said hello to a lady and she looked shocked and asked me why I said hi and I just said oh just wanted to! You look nice and she said ohhhh you made my day I'm 70 and no one ever says hi to me! #itsthelittlethings 

Shout out to the homie Betsy for getting her mission call to TOKYO JAPAN!!! #ホムグレン姉妹 #tokYO! #yospo #yoljo #webouttotearitup! 

Met fellow AGGIE!!!! He's in my ward!!!!! #UTAHSTATE #GOAGGIES!

There's a sister in my district who sounds EXACTLY like Marcel the shell! #wannaseemetrytoliftthis? #guesswhatiuseasabeanbag?

From all the food and candy we received for Christmas from everyone we are all going to die! #2boxesofbacon #100moonpies #foodfordays! #gonnadie! 

Met someone here who is really good friends with the Chidesters! #smallworld #chisaisekaidesune! #churchmakestheworldsmall 

Glad to hear home got a white Christmas! But... Now please pray for snow to come my way! #prayforsnow #snowway! 

Teaching slang to comp has to be one of the best things ever!!!! #youknowwhatimsayin #imdown #youreabeast! 

Challenge!

This week I want to challenge you to not worry about the day to day the little things that get to you, the little things you have to, the things that are weighing on your mind. Put those aside for a second and think about why you are doing the things you are doing! Think of who you are doing them for! Whenever I get down I think of you guys... Pretty much if you're reading this Thats you guys! I'm out here for you doing these things for you! Who are you doing e thugs you're doing for? I hope this makes sense... 

Love you all Merry Christmas and a happy new year ! Let's make this year the best 2015 it can be and not worry about the bad but only the good and why we are doing what we are doing! 

Love! Rice! And.... MOCHI! 

Love Elder KJ !