Allergies!! (6/26/17)

Hey Everyone! Sorry this might be a short e-mail this week too. I have been dying from allergies and probably from all the crappy Japanese medicine I have been taking this week. But the highlights of the week are nice. Mostly everything that happened this week happened on Sunday. Overall it was a busy Sunday just talking to various members.

Elder Bachman and I are working hard on building relationships with members this week and I talked to a bunch of people. We even got a new dinner appointment out of it.

We also had a super long meeting on the new English class that we will be starting up pretty soon. All the rest of Japan started forever ago but Hokkaido is a slow place. Probably because of the effect of the cold weather or in other words a frost debuff. Anyway, It was pretty much decided that we will continue the regular Eikawa class on Tuesdays but will have the addition of the new Eiken course (a huge and super popular test taken by Japanese High Schoolers to show that they are smart and know engrish). We are going to have to advertise a ton for this but hopefully we can hand out 3,000 flyers in a week. We also expect to get a lot of members because of just how well known Eiken is. Whether it be young kids or older people it will probably attract them all.

Then we had a super long meeting with Bishop Ota. It was super nice because we got a lot better vision of his goals and vision for the ward. We also got a lot of support from him in our ideas and what we brought to the table. He is by far one of the best Bishops in Hokkaido. He also probably knows a lot more because of his leadership background and also being the ward mission leader once. (It was a really successful ward at that time.) 

Lastly We had a dinner appointment that night which was awesome. I made a banana cake the night before which was gigantic. I used almost 3 pounds of bananas on this thing. Even though we had us (the elders), the sisters, the kikuchi family (family of 5) and one YSA member we only made it a little past halfway through the cake. It was a ton of fun being over at their house and I feel I built a lot more trust between that family and the YSA member.

All in all this week has been pretty nice. Now that I am off all the Japanese medicine I should be back and hitting the streets like none other. I hope you guys all had a fantastic week!

Love,

Elder Harvey

(Side note:  Zach sent home a video answering a lot of questions.  I wrote to him and told him that I could hardly understand him because of accents, speaking style and how he kept throwing in Japanese words and phrases.  He replied:

Hahaha yup! It's simply because I use it (English) so little and the people I use it with (e.g. my companion) are even worse than I am. Mostly because they are older missionaries or they are Japanese. It is really embarrassing when you forget how to spell a word in English when you are teaching a bunch of Japanese people and then they correct you. I am hoping for a bean (brand new missionary) soon though so I might have some practice, and have more Japanese practice too.)

Transfers! (6/19/17)

Hello Everyone!

So this week in the adventures of Elder Harvey we have transfer week!  I will be staying in Shinoro!!! And I have a new companion. His name is Elder Bachman, and was my previous ZL (zone leader). My last companion (Elder Thurston) swapped with him and became a ZL in Elder Bachman's old area. I haven't really gotten to know him yet though as I have been sick all week. It's kinda funny though because in my district (there's me and my area's sisters and Higashi's elders and sisters) all the senior companions were sick with the same thing. The only thing really to note is that I may have developed allergies and on Saturday we had Basketball! Of course I went ham and then felt even worse the next day. (^_^;) But oh well, I am going to an allergist today and hopefully will get better by tomorrow.

(As a side note, Elder Harvey mentioned that you can't just get over-the-counter drugs for simple things - even Tylenol.  Everyone has to go to the doctor or the hospital.  He went to the hospital for his allergies and received "an Army's worth" of medicine and it cost him $12.)

Love y'all

Elder Harvey

I don't have a title (6/12/17)

I didn't know what to write for a title, but a TON! has happened this week and I don't know where to start. We had an awesome Eikaiwa (English class) this week which was massive! We set up at least 18 seats and more had to be set up for people to sit down. It was tons of fun and always passes by so fast! We have two littler kids in the class which actually makes it way more fun! Little kids learn so fast and are so full of energy!  Haha. We also taught another family Eiakaiwa to an investigator family with a bunch of kids. After that we taught the kids and they had tons of deep questions about the scriptures and partially about life after death. It was amazing to see their faces light up as they understood and were like, "this makes so much sense!" And then one of them kinda ripped on Buddhism for not making sense, but we just were like, ahuh, cuz we didn't want to make any comments, especially since we don't really know all that much haha. They also planned a popcorn party for us this Wednesday which is going to be AWESOME! Their littlest kids were also hilarious, maybe because they were beating up the Colombian (Elder Thurston). 

Thursday was a slow day and not a whole lot to talk about there. Friday I had splits with a Nihonjin (native Japanese) named Elder Yamazaki. It was tons of fun! He also likes anime and what not so we had some cool discussions about that, missionary work, life, and gospel stuff. I love how I can always continue to learn new things about the gospel of Jesus Christ and progress as a person. I also learned a ton of cool things about Japan and dancing. 

Saturday was super weird. We had interviews with President Nakatuska which was super awesome, but that wrecked us time wise because splits plus interview travel took forever. Though we did have an awesome lesson with an investigator. We watched "Hope of God's Light", one of my favorite Mormon messages, and helped him put away some fears and really start to learn for himself.

Sunday was also awesome and the Ward is great! We had 2 members invite us over for dinner/lunch this week which was so sweet of them. I am looking forward to the last few days of the transfer. By the next time I mail I may be in a new area so look forward to see what happens!

Love

Elder Harvey

Pics from the past 2 weeks

I'm 20! (6/7/17)

Whoops sorry I forgot to mention that this week was temple p-day (meaning he wrote on Wednesday instead of Monday).  Haha. Though I legit have no time cuz I was sending replies to personal emails.

Quick rundown. This week has been awesome. This last Sunday was my birthday and we got fed by a member because it was Fast Sunday. It was also the member's b-day on June 1st so we had cake. Right when we were about to sing happy birthday, the member's wife who is also a member asked if there were any other b-days in June. Timidly I said that today was my b-day and the members were like WHAT! and the sisters had forgotten and their faces just looked so sad and almost guilty. It was kinda awkward. We also got an appointment for next Sunday with a less active which has turned into a dinner. We found a new investigator, had a huge Eikaiwa (English class) and lots of stuff happened. Sorry this is short, Next week I will write on Monday and maybe put more information in.

Love you all,

Elder Harvey