More snow

18 Feb 2014  

So today is the first P-day that we are relaxing in the apartment for. I'm taking the chance to make some pasta sauce because it takes like 5 hours to simmer. I'm making the sauce for a variety of reasons one is that one of our friend’s grandfather died and I thought it might be nice to take his grandmother some pasta and sauce. The other is that Japan doesn't make  good pasta sauce apparently and with two xc runners in the house we really want some good pasta.

This week has been slow. Things kinda get jumbled during transfer week due to a lot of preparation for leaving. Also we had another snow storm and that was kinda crazy. It rained right after and made the snow really heavy; we've been walking past a lot of collapsed sheds and garages lately. This weather is really unusual for Tokyo. Usually they'll have a big snow storm about every 20 years. They've had two the past two weeks and another forecasted for Wednesday. It's really hard on the city, and there have been sirens nonstop the day during and day after the storm. So lately we've been shoveling a lot of snow for people. It's really weird to see how some people take care of the snow since they aren't really used to it. A lot of people hose down the snow, you also see a lot of people throwing their snow in the middle of the road. 

Needless to say this week me and my companion are pretty sore from shoveling :D Speaking of companions, my new companion Elder Huntsman is awesome. He is a way cool guy and a way hard worker. I'm looking forward to this week and see how well we can work with each other. Anyway I need to get back to cooking.  Hope everyone is having an awesome week.  Elder Davies  

Shoveling snow

11 Feb 14

Well I didn't get transferred. It's a little weird that I'm staying in my first area this long but I like it here so I'm not complaining. What is really weird though is my current companion Elder Crain is getting transferred. But not only is he getting transferred but he's going to be with companions with Elder Quilter my MTC companion! My new companion’s name is Elder Huntsman. I don't think I've ever met him but he will get here Thursday so that's fairly soon.

So he had something special happen last week we got a referral from Mormon.org. Someone in Washington asked us to go visit their friend who lives in our area. I thought I would be lucky if I received one of these kinds of referrals my entire mission. It's awesome that I got one so early. So we went to go visit him on Saturday. Little did we know that Saturday would be the biggest snow storm that Tokyo’s received in 40 years. To us it didn't feel that big, but Tokyo definitely wasn't prepared for it. We got all the way to the apartment though, but no one was home. We guessed that the family was out making a snowman. We are going to try and visit them again today though. Also, Sunday turned into one huge service day. We spent almost the entire day shoveling snow for people. It was a lot of fun and we also met a lot of really good people. Including one person that I handed a free English flyer earlier that week, it was a bit of a coincidence.

Well that was kinda the big thing of the week. Love all of you a lot,

Elder Davies

Now I'm working with an iPad

This week was an awesome week. The start was really slow but by the end of the week we really picked up progress again. We had quite a few good lessons, and a few that got moved to this week. We also have a lot of follow up lessons for this week. So last week I didn't answer the question how we used technology in the mission. That is because this week we had a very big event, we received iPads. I knew before the mission that my mission was a pilot mission and we would have a couple of special things. I never imagined every missionary owning an iPad though. The iPads are really useful there is an app that looks after all of our investigators, area book, and stats. It's also going to be used a lot for communication. We can't use it now but within the next couple of weeks we should also have the ability to use Facebook. I think the best thing though is that it's really made our bags a lot lighter. All of our missionary resources have been but onto the iPads. Also we have a lot of the church media so we can show people on the street really good things the church has put out.

This coming week is the last week of the transfer. So this Saturday I might get the call that I'm moving to a new area. I hope that is not the case. These last few weeks we have met a lot of really good people and I really want the opportunity to teach them. If I do get put into a new area I'm sure I will like it but I think it might feel a little weird.

I hope everyone has a fantastic week,

Love Elder Davies

Had to do this in a separate message sorry. 

1. How would you compare the clothing styles of people your age to what you’re used to seeing in the US?

 Honestly can't say. School is in right now so most guys are in uniform. College guys dress about the same I think. And I don't talk to many girls but it semis high heels are in. 

2. It’s winter when people tend to dress in darker clothing, is that the case there?

 Yea I think so. I think for the most part winter clothes are thicker. There's a lot of brown/tan clothing right now. 

3. Do you see anything unique or unusual?

 Well it's japan so yea. But I can't really explain it. Other than weird. 

4. Have you noticed how the prices compare to the US (I know you’re not doing a lot of clothes shopping, but just in case…)

 No idea. I would think the same though. 

5. Have you seen anything that you’d like to wear?

Yea there are these really nice jackets I like with more kinda toggles instead of buttons.