November 9, 2015

Well, I'm going to try and remember all that happened in these last 5 days and get it in this email.  頑張っている。The last few days at the MTC were kind of a bitter sweet couple of days.  However, in the end it was just, I'm ready to get out of this place and move on to Japan.  The MTC is definitely only a 9 weeks experience and not a 12 week experience.  I was joking with Elder Brooks while I was at the MTC saying that I'll be in the MTC twice as long as he will be! Heaven forbidding that he breaks his foot or something. lol  Again the MTC was a really good/Strange experience but I kept feeling it was time to move on to Japan and bigger and better things.

The flights over were a little bit strange and a little bit awkward as well.  I had three flights, first SLC to LAX then from LAX to 成田 (Narita) in Tokyo then to 仙台 (Sendai).  I slept like a baby on the first flight, I couldn't stay awake even though I had plans to study some words on the plane.  It's probably from the fact that I had been up since 1o'clock in the morning running around the residence in the MTC trying to pack for when the bus left at 3:30.  But really the weirdest thing was the flight to Tokyo.  I board the plane trying to go to my seat and the only non 日本人 were all the missionaries boarding the plane.  I go over to sit in my seat and this lady stops me and starts trying to tell me in broken english that she doesn't want me to sit by her because her friend is coming down from the back of the plane.  So I have to switch with her and I go to the very back of the plane.   It was the most uncomfortable seat I have ever sat in in my life.  I don't know how I slept that plane ride cause it seems like it was going to last forever.  Never going to end!!

Really the funniest thing that happened was while I was in the Tokyo Airport.  I had become good friends with some of the missionaries going to Fukuoka and Kobe that were on my flight.  I was talking with a bunch of them in the Tokyo airport and a few of them are tall and especially one that is about 6'9".  We are talking and looking around and we notice that all of the Japanese people are looking at the two of us and the best thing was that this guy with a camera is trying to be discrete when we aren't looking he is taking pictures of us and when we look over at him he drops his camera and looks away.  It's the funniest thing.  He would just walk up, snap a quick picture, drop the camera, look away and then walk away.

About 85 attending members in the ward

I finally made it to the Sendai airport, where Pres. Smith and his wife greeted me and gave me tons of food and such.  We talked all the way back to the Honbu and I meet my trainer there.  His name is Elder MacNab.  He is from Payson Arizona.  He seriously is the coolest guy!  He is more than happy to help me with Japanese and such.  We both don't know much about cooking so we have had curry like 3 nights in a row.    I am serving in a place called 泉 Izumi.  It's a suburb of Sendai and I love it here.  It's really the coolest place and all the people here are amazing and so nice.  The ward that I am in is the biggest one in the Sendai mission for Japanese people.  There is another one in Misawa which is an American branch, also there is a military base there.  It's really cool.

Idk what else to write because its been a really busy couple days.

I have taken a lot of pictures but they are all on my camera and I don't have an adapter to the iPad.  If and when I can transfer them over I will send them home.

Remember I love you all and wish you a happy Thanksgiving.  I am loving Japan and the Japanese people.  I have been blessed to be sent here.

Elder Halverson

View of Izumi - out on our bikes on the way to the park



Pizza....so much better than another bowl of curry.

NOTES:

Excited for the BHS Volleyball team...they won the State Championship over the weekend.

 

Disappointed for BHS Football that lost a close one on Friday night.  Great year though.

 

Spoke in Sacrament Meeting and introduced himself.  "I told everyone how tall I was and everyone went oooohhhh and aahhhh like wow."

 

Is he able to understand the language.  "I can understand every now and then and am able to piece together what a lot of people are saying and a lot of times my comp has to translate for me.  For example he had to during sacrament and the other meetings."

 

"Remind Mike that the Settebello stock is plummeting since I left the company."