Kunitachi Times!

Trainers In Training: (Elder Mumford is standing far left)

The missionary trainers take a quick snapshot, prior to meeting their new "green beans" (new missionaries, fresh from the MTC)

(Click on picture to enlarge)

Here are excerpts from Martin's e-mail dated November 12, 2009:

Dear everyone,

It's a nice cold day in Kunitachi. It finally cooled off (just last week we had some blisteringly hot days) to its rightful temperature. Cold. Or at least that's what I feel, coming from Washington. I love the cold. Ill take the winter anyday over the summer :) Maybe I should have gone to Sapporo :)

Also, we recieved in our Fruit Basket this month, a huge box of 75 swiss miss American Hot Chocolate packets! So we are warming our icy hands each night upon our return. Right after we recieved it I got the package containing all that hot chocolate from home. Never fear, we will find some way to use it all. Im confident in our ability. :) It's always welcome.

(Elder Mumford prepares for the cold, rainy season ahead.)

(And at any moment, Elder Mumford will open the trench coat, revealing a secret stash of Books of Mormon)

Second of all, I knew this day would come, but I didnt think it would come for a while. Its the day when every single person that I ever knew got married. It is strange, but also really fun to see all these invitations and all these people I knew now married. That's going to be a whole different world when I get back. Oh well, it had to happen sometime! Congradulations to everyone that has been married in the intervening time of my departure and return. Sound like a blast.

A Japanese Marriage Procession (See video below)

VIDEO:

Click "PLAY" to view.

Questions:

Do you ever get any treats from the members in Japan?

In answer to your question, yes the members in Japan tend to spoil the missionaries. See the above mentioned fruit basket. Every month the members collect this huge pile of delicious food and put it in a box so big we actually need someone to help us take it home. We are very well stocked on food. In fact we are having to think of clever ways to eat all of it, especially all the fruit (since that expires eventually).

Also, thank you for sending the pictures of events at home. They are a constant joy!!

Tell us about the carved wooden bear that we keep seeing in photos you send home:

Here is the story of Nicholas the bear;

So there was once a missionary named Elder Neilson. Elder Nicholas Neilson. He was very tall. He had this huge, carved-wood bear on his desk. One day on companionship exchanges I asked him about it. He said he had recieved it from someone who had died in a previous ward. I think they were distributing all the man's posessions and the ward members decided to let the missionaries pick something, so he chose this bear.

However Elder Neilson was going back to America in a few weeks, and this bear was exceptionally large, bulky, and heavy, and thus inconvenient. So he gave it to me. And I have transfered with it wherever I went from then on. And in honor of the late Elder Neilson, I named him Nicholas the Bear.

(Nicholas the bear, keeps making an appearance in each batch of photos sent home by Elder Mumford)

But the story gets better: In Kunitachi a member came to our apartment to do a cleaning check. While there he saw Nicholas on my desk and got really exited. He asked, where did you get this bear? Apparently it is an authentic Ainu relic of some sort. (Ainu tribes were the original inhabitants of japan, sort of like Native Americans). So this bear suddenly became a lot more interesting. And now you know... ... ... the rest of the story!

Im probably going to send it home some time BEFORE flying back. It will be far easier to get it out in a package than a suitcase ;) Anywasy thats the story behind Nicholas the Bear.

Ok, investigators...

1. Oobayashi. Still not an investigator we set up a lesson, but he cancelled it last minute :(. We will try again sometime.

2. Recently - Sister Kusakabe. She has been coming to church every week without fail for 7 years, and even has a visiting teaching assignment and a testimony. She has heard all the missionary lessons twice, and been interviewed for baptism twice but every time she says the last question is hard. 'are you willing to make this covenant?' No other concerns that we can see besides that one part. Very wierd.

We dont know why she hasnt been baptized yet, but we're going to try and meet sometime to hear what's going on.

And thats it.

Thank you all for your loving support and prayers. Kunitachi is a smashing area. I would love to stay here for the rest of my mission if possible. I know great things will happen here.

Anyways, good luck, have fun, enjoy life wherever you may be.

-Love,

Elder Mumford,

TOKYO JAPAN.