weekly email

We had more activities than I have fingers this week, but here are
four short highlights:

Pizza Party Eikaiwa.
The sisters set up another Eikaiwa party, and it turned out really
well. They tried to set up a life sized Life, with English questions
on the squares, but the road turned too long and teams got too crowded
around the bends. We had to end the game early, but there was food so
that OK.
At least it would have been, if the kids weren't placed in charge of
making the pizzas. I'm sorry to say, but I'm not down to eat a pizza
that has both pineapple and potatoes on it, plus everything in between
and ketchup for sauce. It was just too much to ask.
We actually met a prior baptismal candidate at the party who had gone
off to college before his date, but may be down to take it up again.
That was sweet.

Elders Gubbay and Nelson came down that night from Matsumoto, as they
had the Mission Leadership Conference to attend and a special 70
Conference from Elder Yamashita the next morning to be at. Inuyama is
actually Elder Gubbay's bean area, so he used the chance to visit the
Recent Convert Maria Virginia. We had set up After Baptism lessons
with her earlier that day, actually. Elder Gubbay was a great help for
her motivation.
Since we had the opportunity to talk, we picked up a lot of old
contacts and information about the area from Elder Gubbay. He's a good
guy and a great missionary who loves those he serves.

LA Guitar
At another activity, a Less Active came who needed some love, and he
was able to find a bit by teaching me the guitar. Two birds with one
stone, I definitely want to pick this back up again. Just a sweet guy.

Carlos and Leticia
We were finally able to follow up with this Part Member family this
week. I absolutely love these guys. Carlos is a non-member, and
Leticia has already told him that she wants to be sealed with him in
the temple. They're working on the gospel together, along with their
seven kittens. It's great.
During the lesson, they told us that they'd be moving in the next week
or so due to work. That was a stab in the heart to hear, mostly
because I didn't understand when they first said it and wasn't caught
up until after we left. I hope that they'll find the lucky elders in
the next area. It's hard to find people as easy to love as Carlos and
Leticia.

愛しています！

カードん長老より
Elder Cardon

Happy Father's Day (transfers, new companion)

Happy Father's Day, Dad!

Things are going great out here. So much crazy stuff is going on right
now. It's going nuts.
Nozawa got confirmed and is now in line to receive the priesthood, a
calling, and go to the temple.
Transfers happened. Elder Ribeiro has moved out and Elder Patey came
in. There's so much about Elder Patey that is just gonna hit this area
hard and change it for the better.

The first thing he did was walk into the apartment, look around, and
say something like, "No, no, no, oh, this just won't do. We're gonna
have to clean this thing if we're gonna feel the Spirit at all this
transfer." He wasn't talking just sweeping, either, he was talking
about a Deep Clean. We're purging the place and spent a good couple
days scrubbing the floors until they gleamed. There are rooms where I
hardly dare walk around in my socks in because they are so clean.

On top of that, Elder Patey knows what a ward should have in terms of
communication between the bishopric, Ward Mission leader, and
missionaries and has determined that Inuyama has nothing on it. He's
going for a purge on this system, as well, and we've already talked
and explained to the ward the kinds of problems we see and suggested
ways to fix it.

Elder Patey is very skilled at figuring people out (i.e. Sherlock-like
observation). He observes body language and those around him as he
talks. He talks pointedly and is good at directing/controlling the
conversation towards the information he needs. Very complimentary and
quick to make easy jokes. Just a sweet guy who's easy to get along
with. This transfer is going to fly by.

BTW That's awesome to hear that Jacob and them survived the Trek. I
wonder how it was. I was actually thinking that I might write Jacob a
small spiritual letter, like what you and mom wrote each of them for
the Trek. Encouragement and love and such.

I'll write more later, and you'll see my group emails come in as well,
but for now we're off to buy groceries. Love you, Dad, and I
appreciate all you do for the family. It's really just a sweet place
because of you. There's so much we hardly even think about that we're
grateful for. Have a grand Father's Day.

愛しています！

カードん長老より
Elder Cardon

weekly mission email

Transfers!
Elder Ribeiro is gone! Transferred! He's off to Meito, the mission HQ.
He's been called to be the next Zone Leader there. Kinda odd, we
thought, as there aren't very many Brazilians in Meito, but think
about it this way: He's been District Leader for a couple transfers
now and needs a step up of experience; The mission desperately needs
translations to Portuguese; we heard about one new HQ investigator
who's Brazilian. President Ishii is just killing two birds with one
stone.

Elder Patey! This guy is killer.
How can I describe him? Elder Collett meets Wallace (from Wallace and
Gromit). Just the best guy.
Elder Patey loves his cleanliness, friendliness, and long futon talks.
I might shut him down on that last one, but we're making great headway
and I can tell that this transfer is gonna fly by. There's so much
vision that this guy wants to implement.

The first thing he does is scrutinize our apartment. I've been here a
couple transfers now and never minded anything, but I guess I never
saw how much improvement the apartment could have. Like, I remember
vaguely being told that the floors were kinda dirty, but I never
imagined just how much mold you could scrape off. It's like I've been
living in a pig cell.
Cleaning! So much cleaning! But even after the first day we were
seeing vast differences and feeling good about it. The study room has
turned so glamorously holy that we hardly dare walk the floors with
our socks on.





We had a huge Nozawa scare earlier this week. What with transfers,
hard scrubbing, and a mess going above our heads I think we
overreacted and panicked for nothing. Basically what happened was we
wanted to keep in contact daily with Nozawa, and so texted, called,
and such throughout the week, right? Come Friday and the texts
wouldn't go through anymore. The calls wouldn't connect. Some weird
Japanese lady said something like "The caller's..." and crazy language
neither of us understood. We thought that we'd been blocked, that
Nozawa had fallen and would go LA. Worst case scenario stuff.
Turns out that he was just behind on his phone bills.

Inuyama is changing for the better, and there're a lot of effective
things that Elder Patey wants to implement here. Things like the way
we report, communication through the leaders, filling out roles and
responsibilities and such. I'm looking forward to it.

愛しています！

カードん長老より
Elder Cardon

district activity

food blog

Best ice cream in the world right here

This whole health thing was pretty good 

Service activity! The Japanese Art of Farming: Secrets. Hang the onions up and they won't go bad for an entire year! Here's the emergency supply 

Lots of cabbage

NOZAWA's bapTISM!!!

Spiritual Gospel Principles the hour just before the baptism. Wow. They started over recently, so we're on lesson two right now and it talks about the pre-mortal world. Picture it: we were all there, together, in perfect happiness like a huge family. The Plan of Salvation was announced and everybody gets really pumped for it. Like, really pumped. And then we're told that we'll be receiving packets similar to a mission call. Inside contains information such as what era you'll come into, your family, whether you have the gospel or not, the kinds of trials you'll need to overcome, and the gifts/talents you'll have to bless the lives of others. If you had fun opening, or watching someone open, a mission call, imagine how excited you would be for this. For you church members, I've heard that Patriarchal Blessings are somewhat similar to this. 

Has anyone heard the song 「見いだそうマイフレンド」? Google it. It's really pretty. The history behind the song makes it even prettier. Something like: 

A Japanese man was considering going on a mission. One night, he saw a dream of the Premortal World similar to what I described above. In the dream, the man was told by an angel that he would be blessed to be born into a family with a knowledge of the gospel. How happy he was! The same angel turned to the man's best friend beside him and announced that the friend would be born into a family who does not have that knowledge. With tears in his eyes, the friend turned to the man and says, "Brother, please find me on Earth. Please, re-teach me the gospel!" 

"Yes. I'll find you. I'll find you no matter how long it takes. I'll bring you pure happiness, my friend," the man replied. *

I felt that one of my eternal friends was Nozawa in that moment. 

Nozawa's baptism was so spiritual. As I was reciting the words, I almost choked in emotion/Spirit. I shed a tear during the earlier class. All went well; no slips, no redos. We got out of the font, laughed and hugged in relief. Nozawa has made tremendous progress during these last couple months, and I look forward to seeing him continue to take steps to re-learn the essence of the Gospel. 

愛しています！

カードん長老より

Elder Cardon 

food blog

Some good ones this week

This one sauce packet over eggplants, green peppers, and onion tasted
like the curry that Aunt Marinda always takes you to. So good.

Tried out a pre-spiced (curry flavors) chicken and put it with an omelette. 

My companion makes crazy good looking food here. He found cheddar cheese, somehow, and has a bacon chicken egg sandwich going on here. Didn't share with me, unfortunately. 



Some member gave us fried chicken and fried mashed sweet potato things.



This Indo Curry nan is special because mine is a honey cheese coconut version. 



Kimchi! 



At a part Member family's lesson they made lasagna, special fried beef, and cucumber salad for us. It was heavenly. The lady only speaks Spanish, so communication is difficult, but she could tell that I liked her cooking--and so ended up giving me three big helpings! Oh, man. There wasn't cottage cheese or corn in the lasagna, is the thing, so it tasted great. My companion told me that missionaries in Brazil eat like this every day. As in, they have a member lunch appointment every day. Wow. 

weekly email

Zone Interviews!
President Ishii has recently been trying to interview every missionary
about once a transfer. Those were some of the best 15'min of my life.

This week, going out and about, we ran into a Less Active named Maria
at 7-11. It was God's guidance. She recently developed some health
issues, both physically and mentally, and had been thinking of us the
day before. Then, just earlier she had thought that she'd go out to
get lunch in the early afternoon, but had no energy at the time and so
waited until late afternoon, where we bumped into her. We ended up
going to her house and giving her a blessing to help her up again. She
loved it and has asked us to swing by every time we go up to the area,
haha.

ZL exchanges w/ Elder Garry again! We saw miracles that day as we
tried some morning housing, got rejected the entire time by old
ladies, and then ended up finding a person as prepared for the gospel
as they come at the last door we knocked on. This lady is seriously
going to get baptized. Plus, it's a perfect referral for the sisters
in the area because the lady doesn't work, and so is at home doing
yoga all day.

The very next day was our baptismal candidate's interview. Sounds like
it went great!
I went on a 30 min miracle exchange with Elder Garry! Trying to find s
new PI before the interview finished, we met a cool high schooler, an
awkward middle schooler, a new PI college kid, an incredible young
Vietnam fam, a kinda reluctant young businessman, and then had the
honor of meeting a professor from UCBerkeley! Nelson!

Church was overflowing with people on Sunday! Literally could barely
fit in the chapel. It was great! Lots of Less Active Brazilians and
such are coming back, and we had three investigators come.

愛しています！ [I love you!]

カードん長老より
Elder Cardon