We met with a mami-san again the other day and had dinner at her house. She is really nice and same with her family. They always treat us really nicely (like children or strange aliens) so they freak out with ever little thing we do since were are not Japanese. It’s pretty funny.

We met with so much less actives this week and members. One in particular was W________again. I don’t remember if i talked about her before, how she is currently hospitalized with Parkinson’s. We make her a cake as took some other gifts over to her. She was really happy and seemed fully of energy.

Though one of the most heartbreaking things happened yesterday. We went to go visit this one member named M_______, we went to her house but it looked like she moved. After discerning her whereabouts we went over to her new apartment. She asked us to help bring her turtle from her old house to the new house. So we went back over to her house and entered. It was so small and old, everything was old and coming apart. Concrete was showing everywhere. The house looked like it was used back in the 1800’s. We could not believe she was living in that place. It made me count my blessings that we have such a nice home.

That’s my week! Have a wonderful week everyone!

This week started out with us doing service again with R_______ at his mountain and second house. We went on top of his roof and cleaned off the dead leaves and then went to his third house on his mountain and had Somen again. It was nice. Last Friday we did companionship exchanges with the Zone Leaders in our zone. I split with Elder Stump. He was a very nice hardworking guy. During our exchange we went to the hospital again. Which is always a wonderful time.

This week we also had a quite somber visit to a “less active”. I put it in quotes because I think she would come to church if she could but she has Parkinson’s and is hospitalized at the moment. We visited her and she is alone. Her husband has Alzheimer’s and doesn’t even remember her. Her children also rarely come to visit. She kept saying that she just wants to yell at God. It is pretty sad. So we decided we are going to visit her at the hospital every week and bring her some treats.

Lastly we have seen General Conference. Which was so nice. It was great to finally have a break from the missionary stuff and just have a day of sitting and watching conference. I really enjoyed Elder Hollands talk on mothers. (It made me miss my wonderful loving mother though lol) and I also enjoyed Pres. Uchtdorf’s talk in the first session. Was a pretty great conference! Yesterday we watched the last two sessions with R________ and her family while helping her decorate her house for Halloween. It was pretty fun and relaxing.

That’s about it for the week been really good and quick. have a great week!

Elder Bryce

Other than that we met with a lot of other members throughout the week giving service and such. Service is in such great abundance here. There always opportunities to help members and such. Even though our branch is small there people here are so cool to be around (even if some of them are a little crazy). They are always so generous filling our fruit basket (basket for donations to the missionaries) all the time. It is great to see their love and appreciation for us. Throughout these experiences I have realized how important missionaries are. If us elders were not here in Omuta, they would not have enough worthy priesthood holders to pass and bless the sacrament and among many other things. Missionaries are really relied on to strengthen a small branch. In our home ward and singles ward I never really saw the missionaries and their effects. So it is great to see the effects here firsthand.

I think one of my favorite things this week was having donkotsu ramen (famous Fukuoka ramen) for the first time. it was sooo good. Probably in the top 5 foods I have ever had. Why don’t they have that in America?! Another food I enjoy here is their Indian curry. There is this really good (but a little expensive) curry I get here which is called Panner Butter Curry. Its like this tomato-y curry with this cheese stuff in it. Its so delicious. Soooo good. Anyway that was my week, have a wonderful week!

Elder Bryce

On last p-day, a friend called us, who isn’t a member and wanted to make a meal for us. This girl’s name is M_____. We had dinner with her and her family. They were so nice, they kept saying “eat more, eat more!” and they gave us so much to eat. M_____ has lived in Utah quite a bit and she is so fluent in English. She helps me in my English class. Which is very helpful.

On another day we had a sports night activity at a nearby park. Unfortunately no one really showed up. So my companion went around trying to find people to play with while I sat beside my bike. I was saying hello to the people that were walking by when one guy I said Hi too, stopped his bike and looked at me. He was like “where are you from?” I told him and that sparked a great conversation. We spoke about a lot of things. We spoke for a long time about the plan of salvation and the three kingdoms and how because of Jesus Christ we can all be forgiven. It was a great talk. We then talked about Japanese society and how he was concerned about them. I gave him some things and he left after a while of talking. My Japanese was still not that great but when I was speaking about the Plan of Salvation it felt like I was remembering all sorts of vocab and grammar structures. I caught myself a couple times thinking, “Whoa I am actually speaking Japanese”.

It’s been a great week filled with ups and downs like any normal week. But I will never forget that experience we had at sports night. Even though he didn’t seem too interested I sure felt the Spirit during it. I know that this work is a special work and bringing people back to Him is a great task. Sometimes hard when you’re around a people that never want to change because they are so peaceful and don’t like change. But I will try my best for my Savior

With love,
Elder Bryce

The first service opportunity we had was at a less active members house. She unfortunately has no interest in coming back so for now we are just being her friend and helping her with her English class. Her English sounds funny. Think of a really high nasally voice with a Japanese accent who is trying to speak English. I bet I sound just as funny. We had a lot of fun. She gave us Dr. Pepper as a reward at the end. I nearly shed a tear. Dr. Pepper is so hard to find here, you have to go to Costco which is very far in Okinawa. It tasted magnificent.

The next day we started a sports night activity at a nearby park. Unfortunately that didn’t pan out too well. But we were able to grab some kids that were around to play soccer with. Those kids (around jr. high age) had so much energy it was funny. After that event we taught a young men in our ward seminary at a nearby mall. The mall here is really nice. I have some pictures that I will show later.

The day after that we went to a members house (she is the one that is American, I think I talked about her in a separate letter) and helped her with trimming her grass and helping her around the house since she was sick and her baby was sick. We went to go eat out and ate oden, It was soooo good. Oden is probably my new favorite Japanese food. All it is are these oden noodles, broth, green onions and some meat. It sounds simple but it is sooooo good here.

Yesterday we met with the one guy that we teach English with at the hospital and he showed us his mountains. Yep. This guy own some mountains here. He has like 3 small Japanese houses around here and we visited all three of them. All of them were very old. We went to his house by his mountain and we helped with gathering chestnuts. It was tough because we both forgot our mosquito sprays and we were being eaten alive by mosquitoes. There were so many! I was killing them left and right. We then had somen in his backyard, chilled and ate chestnuts. They were sooo good!

That was my week

A couple days ago we taught English at the hospital again. That has always got to be the highlight of my week. The spirit in that place is always so strong. I always wish I can do something for those kids. They are so sweet

I’ll tell you a little bit more about my current comp. He is a little crazy. Crazy in a good way. His name is Elder Oliveria from Brazil. He apparently was baptized just like three years ago! Which is crazy. He loves cooking and likes things clean. He is a proud Brazilian lol. I have to reign him in a little bit, but we work well together.

We taught this less active this week named S_______. He is 75 years old and still working if you can believe it. He has an artificial leg from an accident when he was young. He talked our ears off at his little old apartment. It was so hard to understand him. He speaks Old Man Japanese (as us missionaries call it) that means you can only understand about like 1/4 of what he is saying. We got him to come to church! He was really nice.

Anyway that’s the update from me this week. Hope everyone has a great week!

– Elder Bryce (the older)

On Wednesday we went to Kumamoto again for a conference with the mission president and Elder Choi of the Area Seventy. It was pretty interesting and spiritual. I got to shake his hand and talk with him for a little bit. Their testimonies are pretty great. We had this great feast during it, provided by the relief society of the Kumamoto ward. Japanese curry, fried chicken etc. It was cool. After the conference we went on companionship exchanges with the Nagamine elders. I went to Eikaiwa (our weekly English class) with Elder Harman (my previous comp) and I had fun getting to know some new people. The next day I split with Elder Takita from Provo, Utah. We had a good time. He and I were quite a bit alike so we got along well. He is much older than me though mission wise.

The rest of the week went by fast as we hardly had anytime to talk to people in our own area. With cleaning checks coming today we have to make sure our apartment is clean. We met with our investigator but we discovered that her boyfriend is married and she knows but still loves him. He won’t get divorced too. Big problem hope she will choose the right thing.

It feels like a great long time, and also short time since I first headed into the MTC. Long long time ago in what seems like a galaxy far far away (lol) but it is interesting when you look back and see where the time has gone and how much I have tried to change. At the first of my mission in the MTC it was a fun ride of learning a language that was fun and exciting while learning other things about the gospel. Then I got into the field and struggled a lot, over and over again. It was hard—real hard.

Then things got better gradually, the light came back and things became bearable again. I have recently been listening to almost every day President Eyring’s talk titled Mountains to Climb from April 2012.

He talks about how we all struggle with adversity and it always feels like we are climbing mountains. But through believing in Christ and having faith we can get through these trials. At some point I forgot about all of that and just focused on the bad things about the mission. Now I am gradually changing, remembering the better things.

The atonement is a really great thing that helps us gradually change to become those better tools. Elder Choi told us in the conference that we are all pushing a big rock. It may not seem like its moving at all but when our time for pushing is over and we realize that we have gained much more strength. It may be hard now but it will pay off later

Anyway, I wish I had some pictures to send but there I can’t take the pictures off my card. I need an adapter thing. Will try to get one this week so I can send some pictures next week.

Thanks everyone for all your letters see you next week!

Elder Bryce

This week this is going to be there area seventy coming over to Kumamoto for a devotional like thing for the missionaries. We are going to go over there on Wednesday. I think his name was Elder Choi. Its should be a cool devotional and afterwords we will be doing companion splits with the Nagamine elders. So that will be fun, I will get to be with Elder Harman again who if you remember was my last companion. Anyway, should be an interesting week. Should have more to say next week and I will send some pictures too.

Oh yeah! I also survived my first hurricane the other day. We were ordered to stay inside for almost the whole day. The wind was blowing like crazy and there was so much rain. Neat experience!

-Elder Bryce

The rest of the week has been good but very long. My companion like to work super hard since he is the district leader and such so I am just following him around and stuff. Other interesting things was that we had some fun with a member’s son. We taught him seminary and ate at one of my favorite restaurants, Hamakatsu, then afterwords we went to a less active’s house to this member that has Parkinson’s disease. She was super nice and it was relaxing being in her home.

Anyway that is my small update from japan. I hope everyone has a good week

Elder Bryce

Well Omuta is a nice place. It was really sad leaving Tokuyama and I’m not gonna lie, I miss them quite a bit. I hope one day I will get to see them again. Omuta is a pretty small down, this area consists of two major cities, Omuta and Arao. We are on the border between Kumamoto prefecture and Fukuoka prefecture. The branch here is quite small and is kinda on life support. There are not many priesthood holders here (about 3) so we do a lot of stuff on our own.  The branch president is actually a couple missionary assigned to this area. It’s a little crazy because they will get released in January and there is no one to fill his shoes. So we have been working hard to find another priesthood holder.

The past couple days we met with some of our investigators. We have one really solid girl who seems like she can get baptized at any time. She is super prepared and knows it is true. She struggles a little with coming to church because of some illness she has but she is reading and praying everyday! She actually was going to get baptized but on the day of her baptism she could not make it because she had to go to the hospital. So we are working with her right now to make another baptism date.

One cool thing we did this week was on the day after I came here (Friday). We went to this hospital to teach English to some of the disabled children there—the ones who are always stuck in a wheelchair and can’t really move without help. They were so skinny and it was heartbreaking, Though it was so much fun that we were able to do that.

That’s some of the things that have been happening over here. This seems like an interesting area. I should be here for a while probably. Love you all and I can’t wait to hear from you all next week.

Elder Bryce