General Conference!! (4/10/17)

Hey everyone! This week has been crazy busy! We have had our schedules almost so packed that we had nothing but appointments! Though we did have some time to go around talking to complete strangers this week.

Mon: One of the few days for finding! We went near a collage to go around and find NA's (non-active members) and just do some regular housing. We found a place with a bunch of really cool houses and found some new people who were interested! I also got to see a kendo hall because the back wall was a huge window!

Tue: We had DTM (district training meeting) which always eats up our time to dendo. Though we were able to talk with Katayama San and a new investigator. This day really was just a lot of walking.

Wednesday: This day was awesome! We went to Bibai (town north of Iwamizawa) to have a lesson with a NA which was really good. She seemed to really gain a better perspective of why we have commandments from God. We also met with a member referral for our Free family English program. It was really great! The person we are teaching has actually been coming to church since before I got to Iwamizawa and wanted to take the lessons because of our BRT with her. It's actually her first time taking the lessons even though she has been coming to church for I don't even know how long. But because of that the lesson went really smoothly and she seemed to understand a lot of things a lot better.

Thurs: We met with a member to start of this day. It was really good and I think it was really good preparation for the member to listen to General Conference. Then we had our weekly planning and then FFE with the same member referral! It was actually so good she wanted to meet again this day. This time we also had her church friend as a team-up for both English and the lesson. Once again it went really well and I think it helped her a lot. We taught about the plan of salvation and everyone was really surprised when I pulled up my family tree that led all the way back to Adam and Eve. Then our Eikawa (English class) was the biggest yet since I have gotten to Iwamizawa. We also heard from an investigator that he decided to quit smoking!!

Fri: We had a lesson with another really good investigator named koukai-San. Then we had some time for some finding around that area.  We found 2 new PI's (investigators) and came really close to a service opportunity but maybe the next time we meet him. :) Then we had Kid's Eikaiwa which is and probably always will be a blast! We had a member family and their nonmember friend family. It was SO much fun! I love teaching little kid's English. It's really funny to hear a bunch of Japanese little kid's say "She sells sea shells on the sea shore" really fast. XD

Sat: pretty much our entire day was eaten up by general conference (satellite broadcast of Church leaders speaking to everyone in the world from Salt Lake City).  Our dendo time was taken up strengthening members and phone calls to investigators and NA's. Though General Conference was really awesome!!  I learned a ton from the various talks.

Sun: Other than GC (General Conference) we had time to find in Horomui. We went because that is where the member we visited felt as we asked her to pray as to where we should go. The wind was SOO strong this day. It was chilling down to the bone. We knew that Satan did not want us to work in this area. We ended up finding someone towards the end who literally said I have no idea what you are talking about but you can come back again to talk. It was really cool!

Anyway I hope you all had a great week and for those who watched General Conference I hope you learned a lot and felt the spirit as much as I did.

Love you!!!

Elder Harvey

"BUSY BUSY BUSY!" (4/3/17)

This week has been a very full week! It feels like I have done so much that I cannot even remember what happened this week because some of it feels like 2 weeks ago! BUT, that is a really good thing in my opinion! :) Being busy is one of the ways to happiness as a missionary. Otherwise you spend 8 hours knocking on doors which nobody enjoys :3

Tue:  This was a really good day. We had DTM (District Training Meeting) in the morning which was awesome! It was a really good spiritual boost and also went really well with my personal study. It's almost weird just how well these DTM's have gone so perfectly hand in hand with my personal study. Then back to Iwamizawa to DENDO!!! We finally met with Iidzuka San. We haven't met him for the past 3-4 weeks so we were getting pretty worried but, we had a really good talk with him. He even wants to come to church and almost came on his own but then thought it might be rude or weird to walk in uninvited. To which we told him that was completely false and that we will welcome him with open arms and that we wanted him to come next next Sunday. We also set up an appointment with him which was awesome. Then we visited some NA's (nonactive members) and PI's (potential investigators?) and then off to a members house for some home teaching. It was really great and these members had a great time and opened up a lot to us.

Wednesday: We met with an NA member named Niiyama kyodai again. It was pretty good, we talked shared our favorite scriptures and shared a general conference talk. At the end he even gave us some handmade frogs from a friend. We also met with a investigator couple. Their church has some really interesting doctrine. We talked about the plan of salvation with them and they learned a lot of things that they didn't know.

Thursday: We visited another NA who we just picked up. We did a lesson invite and he said he would really like to talk about church stuff with us. Then we did DKK (planning meeting) which is always kind of boring but was really good. We even had a chocolate eating punishment game. SOO MUCH CHOCOLATE! Our Eikawa (English class) was also really weird. We started off with 2 people but ended with 6. We also somehow got asked to sing a hymn during the class in English. I quickly chose "O My Father" (Shout out to Mom) which was really good. One student asked us to teach them how to get to Motab (Mormon Tabernacle Choir) and the rest of the hymns. We also were told "Next week you are singing it in Japanese so PRACTICE!". Needless to say I have already begun. It's really hard in Japanese :S

Fri: This day was splits!!! I was senpai to a transfer 3 elder (i.e. a senior companion to a missionary that has been out for about 4 months). It was really fun working with him and this day was AWESOME! We visited an NA, a member, and did some housing. Then we had an amazing lesson with Masaki-San. He progressed so much in this one lesson it was crazy. We taught a lot of things but he really gained an understanding of who the Holy Ghost is and how he talks to us. It was so amazing! He has problems with tobacco and alcohol. Though once his faith is a bit stronger he will be ready to tackle those things.

Sat: This day we went to Bibai (city north of Iwamizawa). We had a lesson with another different NA (we meet a lot of NA's haha). It was really awesome. We taught about the power of fasting to find out that even though she doesn't go to church she still fasts every 1st Sunday of the Month. That was until her Granchild started living with her. She felt the need to fast the next day to which we agreed (as that was going to be our commitment). Then housing and visiting PI"s.

Sun: Another super busy day. At church we ended up making three new appointments, taught a referral in gospel principles class, and talked with a bunch of members. Then we met with ANOTHER NA! He used to be the Branch President but right now he just doesn't have faith that God exists anymore. He is very knowledgable on doctrine and loves to read the Book of Mormon. All that is next is really building some faith.  Then off to another investigator which was a really long walk. And then off to a KINJIN ("golden" investigator, i.e lots of promise) which was an even longer walk. Along the way we felt much tribulation in our legs and backs. We took this as a sign that Satan really did not want us to go to this investigator. The lesson was absolutely amazing! It was his first lesson but he already has such a great interest in learning more. We both felt strongly on a baptismal invite as he asked about it a lot but the rug got pulled from under us on timing. Next lesson for sure he is gonna have a date!

Anyway that is a bit of how my week went. It was a really hard working really fun week. Everyday was super tiring but to me that is a really good thing. I love seeing the fruits of our laboratory and also knowing there are also many unseen fruits to boot! I hope all of you find as much joy in the everyday chocolate bar as I do. I also hope you find great joy in the every so often golden ticket. (President Uchtdorf; Forget Me Not October 2011)

Love Elder Harvey

A message from Harvey Choro.  (You'll see that spring is finally arriving if you make it to the end of the video.)

Through small and simple things.... (3/27/17)

This has been a really weird week of dendo. It feels as if I had almost no time to dendo yet so much has happened this week! There was a lot of running with large backpacks and running in general. Everyday was amazing yet really tiring, which is a good thing in my eyes.

Luckily I can kick things off with a miracle! Monday was an amazing day for Elder Seki and I. To start we actually had a Pday (preparation day) for once!  We got everything done really fast and ended up listening to MoTab (Mormon Tabernacle Choir) for a long time! It was really great how much MoTab brings in the spirit.

Then right before dendo we talked about where to go and found out we both thought the same area! We took the long walk over, knocked on a bunch of houses and the 5th to last person was an old investigator who wasn't in the record. She was just about to leave but told us to come back! Then, the last door we knocked on was a KINJIN!!! (golden investigator)  He was super excited about our message and told us to come back!

Tuesday we started the day by having a referral from a member! She wanted us to go visit her NA (nonactive) son so we went over, got lost for a while, but felt the spirit leading us away from the house. Little confusing but a little while later we understood why. Then we got to the house and the son did not want to listen at all .:( BUT, as we were walking back we saw this Old man out on the street so we went up and talked to him.  We had a pretty good talk and he told us we could come back to talk!  Then we also had a lesson with an old referral named kakizaki-San! We had 2 sisters there and we started the lesson off with a song (shout out to my mom!). It went really well!

Wednesday: We went to an area to house and met an NA there and invited him to meet with us which he accepted! Then off to Asahikawa for interviews with the mission president. That night we had a takoyaki (little octopus dough ball things) party and did a Russian roulette with a hot sauce named death sauce. I chose to eat 3 in addition to eating one of the roulettes. HMMM gotta love spicy food!

Thursday: We had Zone conference which was really awesome! Then we had to run over to the train station with these huge backpacks to make our train. AND, then run to the church to still be 2 minutes late to Eikawa. :( Though Eikawa was awesome this week because we had 4 members there!!! It is always so much more fun with members.

Fri: We had our DKK (planning meeting) and Kid's Eikawa. This week the one non-member kid came with his whole family which was AWESOME!! It was SO much fun and they had a blast. This non-member family came because our awesome 9 year-old member is a boss and invited his friend to come to Eikawa!

Sat: We officially closed our old apartment. That was a bit of a pain but what needs to be done needs to be done. Then we went to Bibai and had an awesome lesson with an NA. We thought she wasn't too knowledgeable about the gospel but we asked her what she knew about the restoration and she basically taught the lesson to us. It was awesome and we were able to invite the spirit so strongly through our testimonies.

SUNDAY!!! This day was awesome! Ueno shimai brought her mother to church and after invited us over for dinner so we can teach her family again. We also got a NA referral from another member and another invited us over for genghis Kahn (sheep). Then we also got a referral from another member to teach the daughter the lessons and Eikaiwa too.

It was an amazing day!

Anyway I Love you all and hope and pray that you are all doing well!

Love,

Elder Harvey

(Separately, Zach told us of an important sign of spring where he is - the sighting of pavement!  Here is a link to a video showing snow removal at the temple.)

https://www.facebook.com/naoko.m.nakatsuka/videos/10207174787003005/

Zone Conference - great people and great food

Scribbled Message

This is something Zach wrote to me (his dad).  He said it took him 3-4 minutes to write it.  I don't know if that is because he is getting good at the language or if it is because it is nothing but nonsense.

やった！ジョエルのでんど紙についてきこえなっかた。スペイン語か。まばちりじゃない？ナサンの紙ははやいですよね？もちろん、おとうさんのはなしのりょくはゆうめだ。トムはぜたいそんあ、ああじかんがあるのきもちはふつでわないでしょ。たぶんそんおいゆうでかれはOTできました。はい、ジャスタンにまいるします。カイルのマイルからかれは元気そうですよねう？美味しそう！！！わたしも食べたいです！あらら、リサの状態は元気についてもっと学ぶとき出羽tしにまいるしてください！ええええ、それはちょっとやばいですよね。かんぜんいわんぱくです。
あいしてるよ！

息子さん

He's only half dead (3/20/17)

It finally came. I killed a companion. ;(  Elder Yamaoka is now officially Danny-chan again. (His middle name is Daniel). It was really sad to see him leave, especially since I learned so much from him.

What's even sadder is that his last day was moving our apartment.

Anyway, this has been a very full week. Starting from Tuesday's DTM (District Training Meeting), my study has been focused on looking up towards heaven and thinking about hope and good things to come. It has been kinda strange how everything in my study has connected to this point. I learned a lot about true hope and faith in God's timing and blessings. I especially learned a lot from BofM (Book of Mormon) Jacob chapter 3 and "It is better to look up" from General Conference, a talk given to us by our ZL's (Zone Leaders). It was also weird timing with Elder Yamaoka leaving and a new dendo chapter starting that I was focusing on looking to the future and trusting in blessings to come. We also met with a bunch of people this week, being fed a lot to boot.

On Tuesday we met with the husband of the Miyoshi couple. The wife was at work but he wanted to say good-bye to Elder Yamaoka. Then we went to a members manju store. We were there for a while talking about missionary stuff as she is a ward missionary. Then we had to do some stuff to prepare for moving on Thursday.

Wednesday was also chock full of things. We had an amazing lesson with a less-active member named Niiyama kyoudai. He fed us pizza and soba which was delicious (but was really greasy ;) ) and then watched the talk "Like a Broken Vessel". It was amazing how strong the spirit was there in our lesson. I feel like that was one of those really special lessons that you only have a few times on your mission but it was amazing to see how much it meant to him. We then visited an investigator named Iidzuka San but he wasn't home so we just talked with his grandmother instead, really nice lady. Then onto a lesson with an investigator who we finally met since I got to Iwamizawa. She is an English tutor named Watanabe-San. It was really good and she has really studied the BoM which is AWESOME! Then we took a train to meet another investigator that I met for the first time,,, Adachi-San. This family absolutely loves missionaries and they fed us a huge meal. It kinda felt like I was at a member's house.

And then, Thursday came. It took a while and moving fridges and desks was a pain. But we managed to get it all done, though the new apartment was a mess. As soon as we were done moving it was time to say goodbye to Elder Yamaoka. It was really sad to see him leave because of the effect he had on me. I have learned so much being his companion (as expected of one of the strictest missionaries and a prior AP [Assistant to the President]). I am already looking forward to seeing him some time in the future. Then It was just me and Elder Seki which felt a lot more normal. Oh, and we did Eikaiwa (English class).

Friday, Kind of a slow day as we spent the day doing Weekly planning and Kid's Eikaiwa (which is SO FUN and a lot easier than normal Eikaiwa.) We also went to sushi but it was full of people so we forewent the pleasure.

Saturday: We went to Bibai (a town just north of Iwamizawa) and met a LA (less active member) there which was really nice.  Her granddaughter is the cutest thing in the world! She is half Japanese half Philippine and is always dressed up as a Disney princess. She also really loves to explore and take things which is really cute. Though kinda of hard to deal with when teaching a lesson.  We also did housing and went to visit some other LA's in the area.

SUNDAY: Also a chock full day. First Church which is always kind of hard when everyone is talking about church stuff which uses really hard Japanese. But, it's always a blast talking with the members.

After Church we had a "pot-luck" to congratulate our only young woman on graduating middle school. I love these parties as it provides us a much greater chance to talk with the members. Then off to dendo and a NA member's house who used to be the branch president. We taught about faith and he fed us some delicious homemade ramen.

Anyway out of time.

Love you all

Elder Harvey

MY COMPANION IS DYING!! (3/13/17)

(Note - for those not familiar with the term, a missionary "dying" simply means his or her time is up and he or she is getting ready to go home.  Harvey Choro's companion is just fine!)

So this was the last full week of dendo (missionary work) for Elder Yamaoka. It has been a very busy week and also a week with a lot of miracles. We have had a lot of bye-bye lessons this week and all of them were amazing! We also had a lot of Eikawa (English class) this week. Well, we always have a lot of Eikawa which is always a blast for me. I also learned a lot of culture things about Japan! Usually being in a 3nin companionship is supposed to be kind of hard but we are having an absolute blast together. Having a lot more Japanese being spoken is a little hard but I have learned soooo much being in this companionship. Our relationship with the members is getting so strong! We had a "pot luck" after church for Elder Yamaoka's bye-bye party. We had an LA (less active member) and a Eikaiwa student there too. We were able to show the ward members a lot of love, and show them some fruits of our labor. Then today we went bowling for a district activity. I got the high score for the first game with a score of 169. Not bad for the 3rd time bowling in my life. :3 Look forward to next week's email too.  Our schedule is pretty much already full with appointments and dinners....and MOVING!!! Sadly Elder Yamaoka's last day will be moving our apartment.

Love you ALL,

Elder Harvey

When two or three gather in my name. (3/6/17)

*DRUM ROLL* TRANSFERS HAPPENED! I am now in my 5th transfer in Japan!!! Time flies so FAST! It feels like 2 months ago when I was in the MTC but reality says 7. :3   Anyway the area I am in.....is still Iwamizawa! BUT, the number of missionaries increased to 3! It's weird how Sister Harvey became a 3nin a week before me. My new companion IS..... A NIHONJIN!!! (native Japanese)  And also one of my first companions. ELDER SEKI!  Not sure if I mentioned this but Elder Seki, Larson and I were companions my first day in Japan. However, we will only be a 3nin for another week and a half before Elder Yamaoka goes home. Though, I am ecstatic to be with these 2. :) It's really weird though finally knowing how Nihonjin feel in an apartment with more than 1 gaijin (foreigner). OK, onto how this week went.

Tue: DTM (District Training Meeting).  Got our transfer calls, did some finding, and had a lesson with Masaki San. It went pretty well and we committed him to pray more often.

Wed: We did a bunch of finding, tried to meet with 2 investigators and left them both food. We made cookies for our investigators and our new companion and district members.

Thursday: We deep cleaned the Ebetsu apartment (Ebetsu is another area not too far away). We found hand warmers that expired back in 1999. We filled 3 garbage bags full of various trash. Then we picked up our new companion and our new DL (district leader). Our new DL is actually one of Elder Yamaoka's sons (missionary who he trained).  Then back to Iwamizawa and did some Eikaiwa (English class).

Fri: We met with the Oono kazoku for the first time. (They are investigators since before I got to Iwamizawa.)  We did a mogie (role playing) lesson with a less active member (our reason is that I am gaijin so I need practice :> ) which went pretty well. Then Kids Eikaiwa which is always a blast! Somehow it's easier than normal Eikaiwa. Then went off to the Katayama's for another Eikaiwa. We are improving how this goes each time we go.

Sat: We want to Bibai, met with an NA, found some new Investigators and had a good time. Then back to the apartment for DKK (Doryo (companion) Keikaku (plan(ning)) Kai (meeting)). And we made notes for the branch members

Sun:  THIS DAY WAS AMAZING! The notes were a hit and everyone felt that the whole day was one of the best day's they had at church because they started the day with such a high spiritual note. Made better relationships with the members too. :) Then off to another NA and did a mogie lesson and he decided to feed us pizza on the 15th :).  Met a referral, and walked a lot. Then we had a Nabe (refers to a variety of Japanese hot pot dishes, also known as one pot dishes and "things in a pot") party with Masaki San and taught a really good lesson over dinner.

Mon: Today was Zone activity. LOTS of fun.

Anyway out of time... :(

LOVE YOU ALL SO MUCH!

Harvey Choro.