Good Morning!

Good morning!

Thanks for the pictures! Those are awesome! It looks like Andrew is doing a great job!

I hope he is staying healthy and injury free!

Our grandpa investigator ended up not being baptized this week because our Bishop thinks that he might have dementia and we need President Ishii to interview him. That’s ok. Yamauchi is still one of the coolest old guys ever. 

We have also been teaching an 18 year old kid who is super prepared. He took a 1 hour bus ride to come and talk to us and he read 9 chapters of the Book of Mormon all by himself! He believes it is true and wants to keep learning. 

We also met a Mom named Junko who is 45 and her brother died a few years back and she is the artist. We just learned that she is going through a divorce and she has three kids at the house and her job is teaching art classes so I hope we can help her. After we visited the first time she posted on Facebook about us and how we were polite and nice and said all of her friends should talk to us if we happened on their doorstep. 

We had dinner at a lady named Charlene’s house and she is from Chicago and she made us Tacos! They were delicious.

Here’s a random panorama of the apartment!

Love you Mom and Dad!

Eli

May 2018

Turning 20 Videos

20

 Hey dad! Thanks for all of the cool updates.

It will especially be good for Japan to combine because the quorums are tiny anyways. It’s nothing too special. What’s funny is that my kids won’t know about home teaching like I didn’t know about primary not on Sundays or the not 3 hour block. I’m excited to talk to you all on Mother’s Day! That’s not too far away is it. The work is going well. Always talking to everyone. Some people listen more than others. I’m really excited for the guy Yamauchi because he will be the first

one I have been able to find and teach and see the baptism of if he gets baptized in the next little bit. He always gets us things to drink like hot chocolate when we go over and he always has to put his powder stuff in his drinks because of his throat problem but that doesn’t stop him from getting us snacks and things. I wonder what I’ll end up doing for work. Being a missionary really makes me want to be in the CIA fbi or be a farmer. Who knows. Thanks again!

Have a great week. Love you! Eli

Katsuyama Dinosaur Museum

Katsuyama

We went, as a district, to the biggest dinosaur museum in all of Japan! It is in Katsuyama which is just a 1 hour train ride outside of Fukui. It was pretty awesome. We just got back and I’ll send you some videos. Thanks for sending all of the pictures and things!

Love you mom!

Oh ya.

We got transfer calls and Elder Gentry will be going to Nagano and I will be staying in Fukui and becoming a trainer! I will go to pick up my new companion from the mission home tomorrow morning. I’m excited!

Love,

Eli

Mission Experiences in Fukui

 Hey Mom and Dad!

Here’s to both of you.

This is late for you, but thanks for all of the pictures! It’s good to see that everybody is happy. That’s cool to see Andrew in his football gear! Is this spring football for 8th graders? What position is he playing?

My companion and I just got back from an adventure totaling 52km. We went to a place called Tojinbo and saw some cool cliffs and the ocean and Shinto Temples. Pretty good adventure. We got home and ate a TON of gyudon. It is like beef on rice, but not just that, like the beef is cooked and the rice, too. And onions be on it. I’ll send pictures.

We met a cool lady last week who was a Christian when she was littlee, but she doesn’t know what church to go to and she started crying when we talked about Jesus and said “I’ve been saved! I’ve been saved!” We gave her a Book of Mormon and she said “I’m going to church. I’m going to church. Is that ok?” It was so perfect we both thought she was drunk afterwards, but she wasn’t.

We then had a crazy experience, where we went to visit our schizophrenic friends, Yu and Ko, and they are always super nice, and Ko is aspiring to live exactly like mother Teresa and Yu hasn’t real smiled since her little sister had a baby. Well, we get there and Ko keeps saying “I Knew you guys would come today. I knew it.” And so we said, “ok that’s cool”. But the creepy part was my companion saw his planner and it had written down. “The Mormon people are coming”. We don’t even have his phone number, and didn’t set anything up, so it was a little spooky. Well, they are reading the Book of Mormon, and asked if they should be baptized and I said, yes, but didn’t go any further because of their mental diseases and wasn’t sure if they could or needed to be baptized. Next time we will bring a member to the lesson.

We met a crazy guy last night as we were walking around late at night at the train station for the last 15 minutes of the day. My companion and I were split up, so we could talk to more people, and as the people thinned down and it was time to go, I saw my companion talking to a guy and I could only see the back of the guy but he was waving his finger in my comp’s face, so I went over and this guy was grumpy that “we hadn’t even lived 10,000 days” and were telling him what he should do. He said “I’m 30,000 some odd days old. I know stuff”. I said “I’m sorry sir. That’s sad that you’ve lived that long and haven’t learned about true God and Jesus. Let us teach about them to you”. Maybe I shouldn’t have said that, he got grumpy and wanted to know where God was and where heaven was and kept saying “This is Japan!” So, I told him to repent and walked away. It was cool.

I love you both!

Love Eli

Elder Frisch

Video: Old Man Gave Elder Eli Frisch and Elder Gentry a $100

Video of the Dinosaurs at the Fukui Train Station & Gruffy Voiced Grandma

Hey Mom!

Things are going great! It’s half way through this transfer and we’ve talked to 906 people so far and found lots of people willing to listen. We also found another guy named Takashima who wants to be baptized. His date is April 22nd. He came to church yesterday and had a lesson and asked a bunch of good questions about the Godhead and baptism and he is on target! We will meet him today, again. We met one of the craziest grandmas that I have ever met yesterday! We knocked on the door of this pretty sketchy apartment and heard a grumbling gruffly sound and expected a grandpa or some grumpy person. The door inches open slowly only to reveal a small glowing object contrasted to the pitch dark interior. This 4 foot grandma speaks with the voice of a chain smoker/pirate only tuned down an octave, who has been in a dungeon for a year. She started telling us how she was a member of Sokagakkai, until they started to ask too much of her and she stopped going. She then went on a crazy talk about how robbers keep coming and trying to break into her house, so she has tried a few security measures including lining up 2 liter bottles in front of the door and setting alarms that would let her know if someone came in. Honestly, she was the hardest person to understand that I’ve ever heard and maybe understood 25%. In the end, she said she couldn’t come to church because she didn’t have a car, but would go if someone gave her a ride. We exchanged numbers and took off. (She is 83). It was awesome.

I love you mom!

Love,

Eli

Elder Frisch & Elder Gentry "took some pictures this week. Many feature cool grandpas!"

I took some pictures this week. Many feature cool grandpas!

Preparation Day in Mission Office

Here’s my most recent picture (February 9, 2018)

Eli desu!

How’s everybody doing? I’m doing pretty good. We went on three exchanges this past week and had some other cool things happen. Let’s start with last Sunday.

Well, a few weeks ago we were invited over to a member’s house to have lunch and he invited over his Chinese friend Gabriel to tag along. We talked with him and it turns out he is Christian so we invited him to church. He couldn’t make it the first time but we kept in touch with him and he came to church last week. He sat through the first two hours and the third hour we went into a separate room and had a lesson with him. We talked about Joseph Smith and the restoration with a focus on modern prophets and the Book of Mormon. We had Chinese materials and he speaks great English, so it was awesome. We then brought up baptism and told him “hey, we know you were baptized in your church but you need to be baptized like Jesus was by someone with the priesthood and he said I want to do that. So, we committed him to be baptized February 18th (my last Sunday in Meito). He said yes. Now we just need to teach him all of the lessons. He is so prepared.

On Tuesday I went out with a young missionary (he has been out for almost three months) and it was fun to be able to work with him. He didn’t understand “We are going to go visit a member” in Japanese so I spoke English for a full day for the first time in 40 days. He is a cool kid from Oklahoma who likes motorcycles and cars so it was fun to talk with him about that. We also met one of the coolest guys ever on the street who kept asking us a bunch of questions and in no way like he was attacking us. So cool. He wanted to know why we knew the Book of Mormon was true, our favorite parts, how long it took to know it was true, why we came to Japan and so many other things. At night we went to visit less actives with a super funny old grandpa (Shinobu) who is actually super good at ping pong. (He’s going to a tournament this week). We couldn’t find anybody because the Japanese address system is crazy, but we had a good time and bonded with Shinobu.

On Wednesday we finished our office work and went to visit one of our investigators named Takagi. He kept trying to give us things like, money and food because he couldn’t figure out why we would be volunteering to teach about Christ without some hidden motive. He lives a little one room apartment by himself. He likes to steal and has some pretty rough addictions, but nothing that Jesus can’t help. We shared the Jesus “because of him” video and he just made goofy comments the whole time. I think it’s because he felt the spirit which he hasn’t felt before and he didn’t know how to react to it.

On Thursday I think, I took part in the most lessons in a single day than I have on any other one day in my mission. We had six planned and four actually took place. We taught about good and evil and Satan, the restoration and the Book of Mormon, a review of the plan of salvation and the Godhead focusing on the spirit and prayer. It was nice to be able to testify so much in a reverent environment.  Something fun from their day that wasn’t spiritual was talking to a guy on a $4000 bike who worked at a bike shop and was riding a brand new special mountain bike around. It had big fat tires, an assisting motor and other cool gadgets. He then let us ride it down the street a couple of times. Pretty fun.

One of my first photos from my mission in Japan with Elder Porter

On Friday we went to a different city and prefecture. Mie prefecture, Yokkaichi city. We went with the Zone Leaders. We met a nice lady while knocking on doors and sang “I am a child of God” to her. Her 4 and 6 year old daughters came out and we played Rock Paper Scissors with them and talked with the mom. She said she’ll have to talk with her husband but said we could come back sometime.

Happy Valentine’s Day next week! And it’s almost Dad’s birthday! When I meet people as old as you guys I say “my parents are the same age as you” and then they are super surprised.

Love you both,

Love,

Eli

February is Here!

This is cause we don't take pictures.

February is here!

But you already knew that, so here's some good news from this week!

We went to see our friend Mr. Hirano who lives by himself in his pretty sad little apartment. He gets happy when we come and visit so that's good. We prayed with him and wrote go to church on every Sunday of his calendar so maybe he will remember.

Second, we had a crepe party in place of English class and a bunch of new people came! Maybe we should just do that every week. A Japanese guy who played American football in college in Japan came so it was cool to talk to him. He will come have a church tour with us and check out the place.

Well, I'm grateful for my opportunity to be a missionary and for my companion (who I will send this to).

Elder Frisch

Hey Mom and Dad!

I hope you are having a nice Saturday morning as you read this. Maybe waffles or pancakes you are eating. Is it warm enough to have just a tee shirt on out side yet? In Meito it's still pretty cold. I think it'll start warming up somewhere in March. The sky is perfectly clear today and it's a great day to be alive.

It was fun to see pictures of you at conveyor belt Sushi (kaiten Zushi in Japanese). The Japanese ones look way more how you would imagine Japan. All high tech and lots of noises. Kind of. Japanese Sushi is super basic if you compare it to American Sushi. Most of the menu is just a sashimi slice of fish on the rice. They also have tempura, stuff with avocados, and lots of other stuff. Today we went to an Indian restaurant and got honey and cheese nan with Keema curry. Also tandoori chicken. Yum.

Elder Lyman and I also went to a recycle shop with old stuff and I got two more wall scrolls. 1 was ¥500 so that was good. They are cool Japanese landscapes. Maybe we can go to a cool antique store when you are in Japan and get a cool souvenir.

This past week went by quick but there were good points. First on Monday we got an investigator to come to church and have a lesson! His name is Kohara and it was his first time. We did a tour and he looked terrified the whole time but we sat down and starting telling him about what we are all about. He wasn't terribly interested but he didn't say he would never meet us again so that's a relief.

On Tuesday we got out and knocked on some doors. We found some crazy old guy who had met Elder Lyman and another elder on a companion exchange and he said he would come to church. We then had to get home quick for a phone conference with all of the Zone and sister training leaders about how the transfer was going. We have been focusing a lot lately on simplifying and getting back to the basics. Also everyone is talking to a ton more people than before which is helping the work to progress.

Wednesday was a good day. We had a transfer meeting and I learned I'll probably be going to Fukui which is on the opposite side of the island and is probably snowing right now. Woohoo! President Ishii said that'll I'll probably have one transfer with a young elder there and then get a fresh from America companion. I'm excited to be able to be outside all day. At night we had a crepe party in place of English class and about 30 people came with a bunch who hadn't been before. Our world champ arm wrestler friend also came which was fun. He will become an investigator soon.

Thursday was with a zone leader exchange so I took him to knock doors from 2:30 to 8:30 and then talk to people on the street. We had a couple of people say we could come back which was good.

Friday was kind of like a run errands day. We drove out to a couple of areas to drop off packages and get signatures for government paperwork. The night time was fun. We went around with a funny 74 year old member to visit less active members. He was super prepared and proud of using his smart phone to navigate us so it was awesome. We then went and had a lesson with another 70 year old guy and so they bonded well and we studied the iron rod story.

God is so patient with his children. I wish I could be as patient with them as He is. There are so many good people in Japan and I wish more of them would listen to God's word. Well, just got to talk to more of them.

I love you both!

Love,

Eli

Old man party

Old man party

Miracles!

Hello!

Miracles! Life is full of Miracles!

God blessed us this week with a bunch of people interested in the church and Jesus Christ. We even had a guy tell us straight up that he liked religion! Then, we were meeting with a member for lunch on our preparation day and he brought a Chinese kid with him who was a Christian! The guy had a super good dad who taught him about Christ
and a ton of other good things. We will for sure be teaching him soon about the Restored church of Jesus Christ.

We have been giving lots of Zone training lately (talking to lots of missionaries about missionary work) and we've been talking a lot about bearing testimony and how it can make a difference, even one minute. I invite you all to share a one minute testimony with someone everyday whether it be your friend, sibling, wife, someone you don't know, whoever. It'll grow stronger and you'll help to strengthen others' faith.

Thanks!

Elder Frisch

Hello!

Life is great. 
I got to go on a companionship exchange twice this last week, which means I got to do normal missionary stuff for two whole days! It was so good. The first was was over in Shizuoka and it was raining cats and dogs and was crazy. We were talking to people on the streets, but nobody was really talking.  (You can't really blame them, it
was raining like crazy.)  We had a goal to talk to 100 people and it wasn't going, so, we changed plans. We found a cool spot to knock on doors and started knocking and running from house to house. We found some awesome people! One family was a mom with three little boys, and she came to the door with all of her boys, and listened to our short message about families. She then said we could come back again and teach them more (it was funny cause the kids were also saying we could come back.) There was also another family of 6 kids who had some
potential. It was a good thing we ran because we talked to our 100th person at 8:55pm and had to get home at 9pm. 
We were speeding back to the apartment, and I heard a crash, and turned and my companion had
wiped out. I went back, and he was just laying on the side of the road with his bike 15 feet from him and I yelled at him, but he didn't respond, so I shook him, and then he was like, "wooh". I think maybe he was out for 3 seconds, but then I realized he probably had the wind knocked out of him. A good day. 
Then yesterday, I went with my old companion, Elder Henriksen, and we went hard core at the nearby train station and knocking doors and talked to 134 people in a day. We got around 15 peoples' contact information and met a ton of cool people.
Today we have some stuff going on like a Family Home Evening music thing and so on. It should be good.

I love you both!

Love,
Eli

Japanese

I've been keeping up my talk Japanese goal so it's been good for 13 days. I just do English to the old missionary couple who doesn't speak English and trainings. How is the back to school routine? Is Zach going to cut his hair soon? We had a pretty cool experience. This last fast Sunday we fasted so that by the end of the transfer two people could get baptized. One of our investigators or so we thought came to church and the same morning we learned that he was actually a baptized member and everyone just forgot about him. We were guided to him and now he will keep coming to church. I think for five years he was going to the Jehovah's Witness church because he was confused about which was which. He's a super kind 70 old guy.

I love you mom!

Love,

Eli

Poem

Good morning!

I hope you all did something awesome this past week to start off the new year!

Here's a poem I like:

New year, new life, new mountains to scale,

Goals made meant to be kept but to no avail.

How can I do it, achieve my dreams you see,

What does it take to become a better me?

Back to the drawing board, lots of planning and scheming,

But alas, time passes and I've just been day dreaming

Of what could be, of what could have been had,

How to I change when still just a lad?

I've got it! It came to me out of the blue!

What I need my friends is to go out and do!

Go out and get it. Take on troubles with a smile.

Do what you gotta do and go the extra mile.

The dreams are there, memories waiting to be.

Don't let them fly away as leaves of a tree.

Snatch it, take it, make it your best.

Give your heart, all you've got

 God will make up the rest.

Thanks for reading!

Good luck this week on accomplishing your goals and making memories.

God lives and He wants you to know He loves you. Just ask Him.

Elder Frisch

Eli Speaking Japanese Video

Here's a video!

I'm going to try to speak Japanese till the end of my mission.

This Week's Summary

Ok,

I am going to try to summarize everything I did past week!:)

First off, last Saturday after Preparation day ended, we went out to knock doors and found some pretty cool people. One family was a Filipino mom who was catholic and her boy who spoke Japanese because he grew up here and he wanted to learn English. We then met a funny drunk guy outside of a convenience store who was a prosecutor attorney and said we could

come to his house some time.

Sunday was the 31st, so we had our normal church meeting with a lot of visitors of families and then we went home and did our scripture reading assignment from president Ishii about the atonement. My

favorite was probably Mosiah 3-4.

Monday was the 1st! 2018! I made a goal to speak only Japanese as much as I can until June and so far it's going good. It feels a little awkward to speak English. We went and visited a nice little family

called the Yamadas and they made us some awesome food and I did my napkin trick to the kids for the message.

Tuesday some paperwork and emails in the office and then we got out to visit a member whose less-active son had come home for the New Years. (We got fed almost everyday his last week!)

It was fun little visit. We shared a message about making goals and improving ourselves. I also made some goals for myself this transfer and I'll send you a picture of them.

Wednesday was interesting. A young missionary in our area caught the flu so I took him to the doctor while my companion went and studied with the sick Elders companion. I realized I've been in the Japanese hospitals a bunch and as a result know random doctor words. As I was in the waiting room, a dad came in with his young daughter and sat right in front of me. The girl had some crazy face rash and after a few moments realized why. Every two seconds she would spit into her hand and rub it all over her face. She would make a face like she was super uncomfortable and then do it again. The dad was super patient and would wipe her face with a rag. When they finally got into the waiting room I could hear her screening like crazy and I felt super bad for her cause it felt like she had some weird disease or something in her making do those strange things. I prayed for her and we left. 

We then went to a nice old couple called the Yuaasas for lunch and had some old people talk and played some tradition games like using toothpicks as chopsticks and picking up beans (we did a race and my companion and I were a team and won.) nighttime was English class and at the end we taught Ryou our investigator the word of wisdom and told him that if he keeps it we wouldn't eat chocolate for a week.

On Thursday we had a review meeting for all current trainers and trainees. We talked a lot about how they need to have good communication. Afterwards we had the last transfer meeting and finalized

where everyone will go next transfer. We then had some good time to knock on doors and not many super interested people but we had a funny old guy yell at us and call us a funny word "Boke" but otherwise that was about it. Except the last kid of the day who we told about the Book of Mormon and he said he'd try to read it.

Friday, we drove to another districts training meeting because our DL has the flu. We learned about faith and it was fun because it was elder Henriksen my old companion. They made a cool obstacle course and I went for blind folded with the "spirit" to guide me and "Satan" to be annoying. It was the most legit one I've ever seen/done. We came back and talked to a referral with Jewels a cool Filipino member. Night time was the Imoto family and then quick back to the Honbu to send out transfer calls.

I love you all!

Sorry, a lot of that was vague but it's what happened. Please ask any questions if you have.

Love,

Eli

  

I cut my own hair.