There Seto N of Fun Stuff Here (Translation: There’s a Ton of Fun Stuff Here)

 I'm living in Seto, so, I tried to make my title work. Anyways, Japan is pretty awesome, the people are amazing and the weather is weathery! My cool experience of the week was meeting a lady at her door, she turned out to be Christian! She even had a favorite scripture (Romans 5). We talked a bit and she figured out we were Mormons and she goes in and gets her son. She says she doesn't want anything to do with us, but her son doesn't believe in Christ, so she wanted us to teach him. Well, we testified to him and his mom and shared our beliefs and things. The mom started tearing up and we could feel the spirit. We then we were able to give the son a Book of Mormon and his mom told him to read the whole thing (she wouldn't even read a verse though). It was pretty cool. Even though they didn't say we could come back, it was nice to have someone listen. Life's good, and God just wants us to be happier. I hope everyone has the greatest week. God lives.

Elder Frisch

This is Elder Reis from Brazil & Hiro.

This is with Hiro.

He hiked with us so I pretty much told him everything from the creation of the earth until the first vision. It was cool.

I love you guys.

Love,

Eli

Hey mom!

I'm trying. I'm only speaking Japanese to Elder Reis to help both of us out so that should be good. I'll buy lots of veggies. I woke up at four on the dot this morning without an alarm which was weird. I studied at 5am. President Ishi is pushing public works stuff, so I have to be able to talk with managers of businesses well enough to not think I'm just some crazy American. Elder Reis is pretty young still, so I will talk to the business people, so I've got to get better at Japanese. We have two companionships in the ward and the other guys are both Japanese. It's kind of tough because we pretty much get ignored, and I guess I get it, but I'll just keep doing my job.

I love you, too!

Love

Eli

Thanks! We can buy everything we need and the butter did good, the vanilla bag just broke. Then I was sort of dumb and just put the bag straight in the microwave to soften it a bit but forgot about it and it exploded, it's ok though. The batch made 16 of that size. It was perfect. We can get cheese. It just 7 dollars for a bag of shredded stuff. I am set for my birthday but thanks for asking! If anything some Japanese study books, but I can probably just buy those here. I do love quotes and poems and using them for district trainings, so maybe an awesome book of them. I don't think they don't like me, they just assume because I don't speak Japanese I can't do anything. They have a weird sense of humor that I'm still trying to figure out (they don't get sarcasm at all, unless they are ballers). And they like when you say thanks infinity times. I read the pop-up book, and I think they liked it. I just had to keep them from ripping it.

Thanks for everything mom! I love you!

Love,

Eli

The cookies were yummy! I made them for a planning meeting with the sisters.

I also made taco rice

Life is Good!

Elder Frisch & Elder Porter

Hello everybody!

Life is good! We taught our first lesson of the past six weeks yesterday and now I'm saying bye to my companion as he heads home to America. This week I learned a cool lesson about the Lords time in our lives and how it isn't always what we expect. One night we are knocking on doors and get a random phone call from a guy who wants to quit smoking and take the lessons. No work or effort on our part but just a blessing from God. After 5 and  a half weeks of relying too much on ourselves God blessed us. It was a pretty happy thing. Other than that the week went by quickly and I'm getting ready for my new companion. He's from Brazil and I'm excited to work with him. Missionary work is the best and you are all awesome.

Elder Frisch

Here are some adventure pictures.

Good morning mom!!!

Thanks for the email! I got your package this week! It was awesome. I felt cool because we missed it and I had to call the post office to get a redelivery. It all worked out. This past week was pretty cool.

We got a call out of nowhere from a guy who said that he wanted to quit smoking and to join the church. It was crazy! We went to visit and both had a pretty weird feeling, his mom was looking at us pretty weird and when we went to his room to talk there was so much smoke that you could barely breathe and we had to change out clothes when we got home. He said he'd smoke 5 less cigarettes a day and we'll meet him again next week. He might be a little crazy in the head so we will watch out. Some cherry blossoms are coming out, I don't have pictures yet but I'll get some. Life is good. Here are some pictures from last week. I love you!

Love,

Eli

Everything can be taken from a man but one thing: the last of human freedoms--to choose one’s attitude in any given set of circumstances, to choose one’s own way.” -Viktor Frankl

Good morning!

I'm actually typing this up on train to Nakatsugawa for district activity! We are going to this little mountain village that's supposed to be like a mini Kyoto. Thanks for sending all of the emails and letters! I'm sending one your way today. How's everyone doing? Is Savanah's adaptation going well? Does she have a boyfriend yet? My companion goes home in a week so that's pretty funny.  We had burritos

at a members house the other night and she made homemade tortillas! It was like ichinenburi. 

Bad news... my bike pretty much exploded. I took it into the shop because I had a broken spoke and when I would crank up hills my tire would touch the arm supports. Well, it turns out, I had actually broken my back axle! Bummer..... they gave me a loaner bike while they fix it for me. 

Well, we are on our way back from our adventure and waiting for the train. It was pretty cool. Different from what I was expecting, but it was pretty cool. I'll attach pictures. The two guys who said they'd come to church this past week didn't show up and we still haven't taught any lessons, so that's tough, but there's this one Japanese guy named Mack, who we set up an appointment with us, but he called to cancel. The cool thing was that he called and didn't just bail out on us, we will probably be able to meet him some other time. Other than that, lots of talking to people and trying to visit less actives. Oh, I did get to do my exchange with the zone leaders and before that at Zone Conference I got to see sister Sato! It was fun to be able to understand some of what she is saying now, and she was impressed at how much I have improved. She's also seemed happy that her son has been going to church with her. My zone

leader Kokan was pretty cool. We went to ramen with this awesome member named Hisaka, who actually got some American sarcasm. I ripped a paper pretty badly to write a note for some one he was like, "what is this?" So I said I'm an artist and it's supposed to be Mount Fuji. He then proceeded to write about how well I ripped the paper on the note and had me sign it. It was pretty funny. Hahaha, I just realized I turn 19 in a month. I'm an old man. Oh ya, so we were riding down the street on another exchange but with Elder Souza and I see a guy walking with his kid on a tricycle but then I think hmmmm... that looks like a baboon, I must be going blind, but guess what..... it was a baboon! The guy had worked at the zoo for six years and then had adopted the monkey. In human age it was 85 or something (25 in legit real years). We also went to the Yamaguchis for dinner and my bike broke right before then, so I ended up needing to run/walk for 2 miles to get there on time. Also a random japan picture. I love you guys! Say hi to everyone for me!

Love,

Eli

Hi mom!

Thanks for the letter! We went on an adventure today! Lately I've been reading the conference talks from before you were born and they are pretty sweet. Lots of poems and stories.

Everything can be taken from a man but one thing: the last of human freedoms--to choose one’s attitude in any given set of circumstances, to choose one’s own way.”

-Viktor Frankl

Cool quote.

I love you.

Love,

Eli