Food Blog

Crunchy banana bread because we put it in while the oven was preheating, but the crunch actually turned out to be the best part. 

The best bakery in Japan is located right next to our church 

Bottom left: basically Apple Turnovers/cobbler filling 

Top left: berries and cream cheese filling 

Top right: bacon and cheese chunks 

Bottom right: pizza filled cheese bread 

Some lady gave us shark meat, so we fried it up and ate it together with the Brazilian beans and rice that a different lady gave to us. It was a good day. 

weekly email

This week in Tsu>: 

For the first time in my mission we received a call from temple square! A lady requested a BOM in our area! Wait, wait.. it’s the lady we found two weeks ago on an exchange, and followed up in a brief drop-by last week. We always called her Wonder Woman, but I wondered what her actual name was (she wouldn’t tell us); turns out to be Maegawa! 

We had a return appointment that same Wednesday, so we took our best copies of the BOM in each of our bags and brought along the sister missionaries, because we planned on handing off this investigator to them. The door opened and the transaction went smoothly. The sisters were invited inside and we were off on a train to work somewhere else. 

...and then two hours later we got a text, one of those mandatory information texts sent to everyone important when something happens. (I’m District Leader down in this area) The Sisters had made this Wonder Woman a baptismal candidate, with a committed date! Wha? Did we happen to hand-off the next baptism in Tsu? Whoa! Let's go Sisters, miracle workers. 

In other news, Monday night we were down in Matsusaka for a Family Home Evening (FHE) with members. Having an hour or so before it started, and having set a goal for a certain amount of people talked to each day, we wondered around the station in our first actual time working in this part of our area. 

There’s practically nobody around, but Elder Reis stopped a lonesome high schooler caught on his way inside the station. The high schooler actually stopped to listen for a bit, and by then I was back to jump into the conversation; he had his book out for some light reading, but a glance revealed that like all typical high schoolers in Japan the Book wasn’t for amusement but rather for cramming in subject specific information—this one happened to be English. 

And the conversation took off! We set a next appointment where we could help with his English homework, and then get a couple minutes in to talk about God afterwards. It was great! 

Shuuya. The appointment was kinda sketchy because we had no way to contact the guy, but on Sunday night we faithfully went all the way down to that area again to meet him. 

And he showed up! Right on time. It was awesome. We sat down at a local park and had a great time, and we laughed over his insanely difficult English practice essays.  

At the end, we talked about the idea of God and what kind of person Shuuya thought God would be. We encouraged him to think about prayer, and the intimate relationship he can have with our Heavenly Father. It was smooth and didn’t seem to stumble anywhere. 

So we’re blessed down here. We’ll meet again with the people we found last week, and find more people to meet more next week. Japan has a bright future in its youth. 

愛しています！

カードん長老より

Elder Cardon 

Paper houses in a paper town. Right? 

Reis' traditional clothes

food blog

Thanks for all the delicious chocolates! Reis has kindly rated them
according to his favorites. The results are as follows:

1) Toblerone 
2) Oreo Milka chocolate bar 
3) 100 Grand 
4) Hershey's Vanilla Creme cookie bar 
5) Take 5 
6) Twix 
7) Snicker's Hazelnut 

Thanks! It was a fun experience. 

The bakery next to the church is soooo good. 


Emergency Drill Test 


Look at the tie. Love the tie. 

weekly letter

Tsu is such a good area. Honestly, I don't think that an area can be
as good as Tsu. It has everything!

This week we were all super charged after a fire Zone Conference about
Goals and then channeled all that spiritual energy into a bomb
exchange. It really was the best exchange ever.

We were just out to talk to everyone on the street on the way to a
housing area that I wanted to check out, but actually we never arrived
to the housing area because we talked to so many people on the street!
There was this Vietnamese guy who waved us over, who doesn't speak a
lick of Japanese or English, but was pretty good at giving high fives,
whom I happened to have a leftover Vietnamese pamphlet for. He lives
close, maybe I can give the sequel pamphlet if I ever see him again.
And a cool young guy who we stopped and he rejected us three second
flat, but just talking to him and being energetic he ended up giving
us his number and asking that we go out to eat sometime.
Unexpected Indo Curry and super spiritual lesson/instant investigator.
This chill guy from Osaka, who has a lot of addictions, is wondering
what he's doing with his life and then he met us. It was all fun and
games until we asked him if we could go out to eat together sometime,
and he asked in return if tonight wasn't alright. And so we got dinner
and a lesson! But really, the dude opened up to us and his attitude
turned from a skeptical, kinda draw away from the whole Christian
prayer and reading deal into something more like, "Alright, maybe I'll
try it." It was definitely a memorable experience for both of us. It
was cool relating to him through my own experiences and then bearing
testimony through that. Pray that this guy was touched and reads the
BOM.

We wrapped up that night by talking with a green haired Babylon. Just
a dude with his friend chauffeuring people into a night club. They
were chill.

And then lots of other cool things. We had two birthdays in the
District last week. Elder Higashi didn't think he would get anything
on a mission bday, but he ended up receiving some of the best food a
missionary in Japan can find: premium Indo Curry, fondue Oreo balls,
and Matsusaka Beef! A5 stuff that's ¥1000/100 grams. Soft, juicy, no
contaminants (we didn't buy this; the Ise Branch President did).

Loving it out here.

愛しています！

カードん長老より
Elder Cardon

Happy Birthday, Mom!

Best of wishes and all the love in the world to you!

I didn't get to send a letter, but I've taken the liberty of making a video and taking photographic pictures. 

Hope it makes up for everything. I'm excited to hear about your special day, along with Ben and Grandpa Cardon! Best wishes to them, too. 

food blog

Some kind of Brazilian treat. Pretty good.

It was a fancy hotel food restaurant 

Waffles! We actually have a Maker! sweeeet 

Oh, my companion...

weekly mission email

Down from Tsu in that awkward week between transfers:

We saw miracles!

We found a spot in the area close to the big University that has a ton
of small apartments and such scattered all over the place.
Missionary's dream, right? Basically Disneyland.

We're out knocking doors at night and looking for the prepared, tired
from the stairs but excited to try a building that's bright orange!
What a welcome change in scenery.

And of course the top floor, last door opens up to us and it's a lady
from Okinawa who doesn't mind listening to us about Christ one bit.
But then her kid comes out to talk, and another, and another ...it's a
whole family who's open to us, and they're all super Genki! Haven't
really thought about the idea of God before, but it's not like they're
against the thought or anything. We're excited to follow up with them
and teach the Plan of Salvation this week.

But better yet, on Sunday we had Ward Council Meeting and mention the
family as part of the missionary efforts, and the young women's leader
happens to know them! She's a school teacher for that area and knows
each of the kids, by name. It was awesome. So, instant fellowshipping
plus great insights for us. Loving God's hand in all of this.

And we'll see how it goes! Hoping for the best.

愛しています！

カードん長老より
Elder Cardon

weekly mission email

This week in Tsu: 

I've found that the more I actually understand the scriptures, the more I want to go out and preach the gospel. Isaiah is a powerful teacher, and a great motivator. 

Reis has been eating hotdogs wrong his entire life. Silly Brazilians are making a sausage stew-type thing and then pouring it into the buns. 

"Doesn't it all just fall out the ends when you go to eat it?"

"That is the problem with this." 

We called a guy this week who's been hanging around in the records for 10+ years, and made contact! Turns out he's moved recently to a city called Kihou--right on the very edge of the area below us (Ise). The city is basically a town made up of three streets, and is split in half by a river which also divides the Japan Nagoya mission from the Japan Kobe mission. Takes five hours by train to get there (from the Ise apartment) ...let's go! 

We were in a rush biking around late at night, but starved out of our minds, and so decided to grab and go with Take-Out at Sukiya (a rice bowl restaurant out here). Literally took less than a minute for them to prepare and hand us the food. I don't think I've ever seen even McDonald's have such fast service. 

At our apartment check, the Senior Couple told us to take out all of the grass we had growing in our small garden outside (because we have a mini house for an apartment). I guess that's the reason behind the sneaky small bugs we had weezling into the apartment, and trains of ants on the countertops! 

We had transfer announcements Friday night, and I got my text pretty much on time, but Elder Reis' never came. We're just gonna assume that he's staying by default. 

I dunno why, but we keep running into guys from India who happen to be Christian and are looking for a church with English translation services. Well, you found one! 

It was an interesting week. 

愛しています！

カードん長老より

Elder Cardon





The food is a Brazilian treat called Brigadeiro, made up of Condensed Milk and cocoa powder and butter. He's using butter as anyone would use spray to keep food from sticking and is attempting to make little chocolate balls to put into the mini tin cups. But, it failed. Miserably. 

Look like donuts, but actually, it's a local treat made up of a honey dough and red bean paste filling. Almost like a custard donut, but really small. Only 60€