Back to the blog…two good letters, and you need to read them both.

Readers: Brad asked us not to do the blog for a while, but now has asked to start it up again. Here are his last two letters. You need to read the first one to understand the context of the second one, so I've posted them both here. I'm sure he'd love to hear from you!

24 November 2014

Hey mum and dad,

Well another week has past in Shonan. This past week I had an

interview with President Wada. It was really interesting. Half way

through he just looks at me and says, "Do you know what you need Elder Davies....a mikan gari"

"A mikan gari?"

"Yes, a mikan gari. Are you telling me you don't know what a mikan gari is?"

"I know what a mikan is."

"A mikan gari is orange harvesting, here enjoy the fruit of our labor."

He then goes and grabs two mikans from behind his bag and hands me one, and starts peeling his. I'm kinda sitting there confused with a

mikan in my hand. And he continues, "Go on and eat, they're just a

little tart. It's actually the perfect season for mikans right now."

He then pulls out some pictures of him, his wife, our area seventy and

his wife picking mikans. And tells me how fun it was and how it would

be a great activity to do with the ward and our investigators. At the

end he said "well I may not have broken bread with you, but it was

great to break mikan with you Elder Davies. I'll close us with a

prayer." Weird how inspiration comes to some people. But you don't

ignore advice from your mission president so I've started organizing a

mikan gari, hope it turns out well.

After that we still don't have any investigators so we haven't done

much teaching. We found a referral for the sisters this week who wants

to hear the first lesson. Her name’s Miki and is the same age as the

sisters so I think that's gonna work out really well. We also found 2

high schoolers that we had a really good conversation about how the

Book of Mormon can help us in our day to day lives that we might be

able to meet again.

I did have one really cool experience this week. I met a really hard

core atheist from America and for the most part we had a nice

conversation. He didn't understand how I could consider myself a

scientist and believe in religion. But we did get to a point were he

was bringing up a lot of unfair things. And for the most part I didn't

really care about the things he brought up because it all had to do

with a lack of faith. But he did say one thing that kind of bothered

me and after our conversation was over. And it was just kinda sitting

inside of me really bothering me. And the next day during language

study, I was studying random scriptures and explains the context of

them. And the first one I did when I went and read the rest of the

scripture so I could explain context, explained the very thing the man

brought up. And this was about slavery in the Old Testament, not a

very general topic. And the answer was very specific. To me this was

an example of God taking care of his servants, he knew I didn't need

that moop on my mind and provided just what I needed.

Love you tons,

Elder Davies

1 December 2014

Hey Mum and Dad!!!

Just got my transfer calls. I'm staying with Elder Pettit in Shonan! This will be my second companion that's lasted longer than one transfer. I also got the Halloween package today. That's a really long story about why I'm only getting it now. But let's just say getting it from my old area to my new area was a challenge. But thanks so much for the package. I'm just running out of stuff from the last box, so came just in time.

Christmas is just around the corner! I love Christmas. It's a really good opportunity especially in Japan because no one know the Christmas

story. I think Elder Pettit and I are going to try and make a short 10 minute presentation to be able to share with people with pictures and songs. If you have any suggested pictures or hymns let me know or send them to me.

And speaking of Hymns. I would love to hear dads project. I don't know if you can find a way that I can just open it in my mail app. I think that's gonna be the best way.

This week wasn't super eventful. Highlights were we did a small service project for one of our English students. He moved to a new house recently and needed some landscaping done. Mostly transplanting some bushes. So after being delayed by the rain for a bit we got out and did the job in like two hours. Moved 7 bushes I think, it was fun.

Then to prepare for the mikan gari we bought 2 mikans for every family in the ward. Then we made a little slip of paper on each. On one, the members that shared Lehi’s experience so the members invite their friends. The other an invitation for a friend. I think it went overreally well.

Love you two,

Elder Davies