What? 2 Tranfsers, 3 months?

I didn't post Alex's letter last week so I'll post it along with his letter from yesterday.

July 17 to Everyone:
We once again find ourselves at the time when Elder Mendoza has no
time to write back home because of a district p-day. Things are great
here. We are seeing miracles daily, and I am truly glad to be on a
mission serving my Savior, Jesus Christ.

Kanji of the week is: 歯磨き pronounced "ha-mi-ga-key" and means brushing
your teeth.

I hope you all have a fun time, and I will send emails to individuals
if I find the time. If not, know that I love you all, and that I am
praying for your well being.

Love,

Elder

I spy something that shouldn't exist in this picture. Do you see it? 

Okonomiyaki, a very Japanese food. It tastes good. 

Tonkatau (deep fried pork) with chocolate in the middle. It's actually really good.

July 25 to Everyone:
This week was really tough and tiring, but I was able to find strength
through relying on the enabling power of the Atonement of Jesus
Christ, and was able to bless other people's lives because of it.

I would like to get back into ponderizing scriptures, but since I
haven't picked one out for this week, I'll begin again next week.

Kanji of the week is: 電波 pronounced "den-pa" and means electric wave(s).

Monday was crazy, because the district all tried to climb a mountain,
and ended up climbing the wrong one! It was a good view still, but not
the one we meant to climb. We got a picture with the one we meant to
climb behind us, so I'll include that in the bottom.

Tuesday was splits, and we did a lot of walking around, because we all
four did splits in Odate, but only two bikes to work with. We got some
good conversations in, and even found a really nice family!

Wednesday we did our usual routine of going to a less active's house,
followed by an investigator's house where we had a really good lesson,
and then went to Brother Hasebe's house for family home evening with
him. Then we had English class, where we talked about the body. It was
great, because there is a guy who comes who is a surgeon and is good
at English, so we were able to get into some deep talk about the body.
Elder Sato didn't seem to like it too much though.

Thursday was mostly planning, and a lesson at night with a member's
grandson. Not much but that.

Friday was Zone Conference, and it was great as always! We were able
to learn a lot, and my companion was so great by translating for 7
hours almost straight! And he still had a voice the next day!

Saturday was a normal day. That being said, I don't remember too much
about it. We had fun, and were able to have some interesting
conversations with people. At night, no one came to English class,
despite hoping that some of them would just be late.

Sunday was a good day filled with finding and an awesome lesson with
an investigator. He has a lot of knowledge of the church, and the
doctrine, but he's starting to piece it all together to make sense of
it, and he's seeing the need to become a member through baptism for
the remission of sins. He's so close, and I hope that he can start
coming to church on Sunday's.

That's my week, and what a long time it's been since I've written this
much!  I hope you all have a great week! I love you all and pray that
you will be safe.

Love,

Elder
長老

This place has two doors! I wonder if that means this place gets a lot of snow.

Utah Local: Hair by Angela Hess

My cousin Angela used to live in Southern California and worked as a hair stylist. She was in such high demand that people had to make appointments months in advance. She has done hair for photo shoots and runways and all kinds of cool stuff that I can't imagine being a part of. She has 16 years of experience and has kept up with education. She has brought all that awesome knowledge and skill to Utah where she is cutting, coloring, styling and beautifying.

Like her Facebook page for updates and upcoming giveaways.

Elisa wanted to totally change her hair so we drove to her salon and now Elisa's hair is a pastel pink and she really likes it. It's quite a process to go from brown to pink and it was fun to have the time to talk to my cousin. She's quite a bit younger than I am and we grew up across the country from each other so I liked getting to know her better.

Call today and schedule an appointment. 801 455-8755 Sorry no walk-ins. She just barely started here in Utah and is already filling up her schedule. 

Some more of Angela's work

 

Her salon is in North Salt Lake City -- 445 N. 700 W.
From the south, take I-15 to exit 312. Merge onto US-89 N/Beck St.
Take a left on Main Street (It's not a complete left turn. It's more like a slight left onto Main Street, but it's easy to miss. I think it's the first street on the left side.)
Turn left onto Center St. at the stop sign.
Continue down Center St. It's an industrial area. You're in the right place. Don't worry.
Turn right onto 700 W (before the street light at Redwood Road) where there is this sign for a restaurant.

Keep doing down 700 W until you see a long building on the left with a sign for Groove Academy.
The door to her salon is right below that sign.

Finding Energy

Alex told me in his letter to me that he'd try to write more in the group email, but he didn't, as you can see. So I added a little of his email to me here. 

I think that you will get more information on the itinerary when I am about one month from coming home. I got a letter about it, and I think that's when it said that parents get notified.

When I come back home, I definitely want to keep up the habits that I have made. I have really found the blessings from living the lifestyle I live as a missionary. I can't say that everything will stay the exact same, but the principles I want to keep. The same goes with finding an eternal companion. Since coming on my mission, I have really found the importance of making church and religion the center of relationships from the beginning. If someone doesn't have the same values as I do, or the same devotion to God and His church, then I wouldn't want to break my covenants and promises with God just for temporal satisfaction.

To say that missionary work is all play and no work would be lying.
And with all real work, it's more often than not really hard. But as
we thrust in our sickles with our might, we often find that we have
lost all our energy when the sun has yet to reach its peak. At times
like this, we can, through prayer, plead to our Father in Heaven to
give us the energy we need. And before we know it, as we lift our
sickle, we are surprised to find that we have that energy. I know that
this is not real just for missionaries, but for all of us. Please,
rely on God's power, and find what you may lack in God's unquenchable
source of love and life.

Kanji of the week is: 管理 pronounced "kan-ri" and means management.

This week was again full of amazing miracles and lots of work. I am so
grateful to be a missionary seeing the gospel change others for the
better. Once again, I don't know exactly what I want to share from
what day, but this week was great. Time really seems slow as you are
going from minute to minute, hour to hour, but once you look back, you
are surprised to see how fast you've traveled! I hope you all make the
most of the time you have on the Earth!

Love,
Elder
長老

Travel Log: Brisbane Day 1

Tony the taxi driver (from the first post about the trip) dropped us off at our hotel around noon. Since it was early to get into our room, I had planned to just check in and leave our bags with the hotel, roam around the CBD (Central Business District, which is what they call downtown), and then go back and get into our room. But there was good news. Our hotel room was ready when we got there. Tears of happiness were close to being shed. We desperately wanted a shower after so many hours after checking out of the LA hotel and sleeping, eating and watching movies on the airplane.

We stayed at Novotel Brisbane on Creek Street

That white on the headboard lit up if you turn it on.

We couldn't figure out how to turn on the lights or air conditioner. You have to insert your key card into a slot in the front of the room (inside) in order for lights to work.

That shower "door" was super annoying There is a small part of glass that's folded back into the shower in this pic. You unfold it and it's barely bigger so water got all over the floor the first day. I figured out that you have to point the shower head completely down and barely move and then most of the water stays in the shower.

Notice that to flush the toilet, you push the button on the top, which is common all over there. And you can see the outlet which is different than the U.S. so we bought adapters before we got there.

That mini-fridge was stocked with stuff they wanted us to buy. We didn't touch any of it, but then didn't have a whole lot of room for our own stuff.

View from our window

So it took a while for everyone to shower and get ready to go out, but we finally did. We set out on foot a few blocks away to the Queen Street Mall, Queens Plaza and Meyer Centre to check out the city and to find food. It was about 3 pm, but some of the restaurants in the shopping centers looked like they were closing. We finally found something open that Sabrina would eat. We are in a different country and what do we eat? Snag Stand hamburgers and chips (French fries) at a food court.

The hamburgers were pretty good, but I really liked the chips. I'm pretty picky about French fries and don't eat them often. Elisa and I often share food, but this time we had our own hamburgers.

The 3 hamburgers and 2 chips plus 3 botles of water was $46 AUD (Australian dollars), which currently is about $35 American Dollars.

I asked what time they close. She said everything closes by 5:00 or 5:30. What??? Yep, it was true. Restaurants and stores in the malls all closed that early every day of the week and many of the stores and restaurants outside the malls did too. It's a normal thing in Australia, but it was sad for us because we wanted to be out and about longer. Since it was winter there, it got dark before 5:30 so that limited what we could do.

These birds are everywhere and get kind of aggressive if you have food.

 

It seems that most schools require uniforms there. My girls were in awe. They kept saying how fancy they are there and how they wish they went to a school with uniforms. I don't think they would actually enjoy it though.

Burger King is called Hungry Jack's, where you can still get a Whopper, but they'll pronounce it Whoppa.

McDonald's is called Macca's. They have many of the same things, but they have chocolate pies and these loaded fries. We saw loaded fries with gravy or guacamole and salsa in many restaurants.

At a food court. If you zoom in, you can see some prices.

I wanted to try a meat pie from here before we left, but we were never near it at the right time.

But that first day we were there, we felt kinda tired at 5:30 pm since it was late in Utah. After it got dark that first day, we walked back to the hotel.

I turned on the TV because I wanted to see some Australian TV, but what was on? Ellen, Grey's Anatomy, American movies, The Nanny, and The Big Bang Theory. Finally I found some Australian news and later some Australian music videos. That was entertaining. They enjoy a lot of music from the U.S. and other countries in addition to their own. Here are a few Aussie videos, but don't ask me how popular they are since I have no idea.