Mailbox Mixup!

(Elder Mumford finally receives his long awaited package.)

Below is Elder Mumford's e-mail dated May 25th, 2010:

Dear Everyone,

We are doing great out here in Koiwa. We have some very exciting things happening!

First of all, we just found out that we have been checking the wrong mailbox this whole time! Instead of 302, we have been checking the 301 mailbox, which now makes so much more sense why there hasn't been any mail at all for 2 weeks! So we opened up the correct one, and there were about 6 letters and 2 package slips. Well, at least it will be fun to get it all at once :) I just hope there was nothing too immediately perishable in the boxes :)

(Click on any image to enlarge)

Thank you for all the miracle pictures of everyone. It was especially cool because I could get a huge bundle of them at once due to the mail mixup. I loved seeing how everyone is doing. (everyone has really grown up since I left). Also Billy has a really cool jump picture. That's so cool to hear about Billy's mission! I'm sure his spanish will be mucho guapo! I remember when I saw the picture of the elevator going to Blair's office, it took me a while to figure it out. The reason being is that quite a few members actually live on the 13-20th floors of a huge tower, so I think I just ended up getting used to it. :)

Speaking of which.... We went to a 4-story Costco today.

It had everything the same as an American Costco, except that it was seperated into the different floors, and between floors were these really long 'cart' escalators. All the carts have intense magnetic wheels that lock on to the escalator, so no matter how much stuff is in the cart, it wont slide back when you're going up. Very fun. We went with Elder Lloyd (our district leader), and Elder Tangren, as well as 'Rocky' the famous english class student from the mission who has been coming for too many years to count.

(Costco in Japan)

We bought muffins, bagels, and butter, and a giant massive bag of pancake mix. That should last us quite a while.

With that aside, we have some fun things happening this week: All that hard work we did for the first 2 weeks is finally coming to fruition. This week, every single day we have an appointment to meet someone. I dont think I have ever had that happen durring any point of my stay in Japan. We are thanking God for the huge progress that has been happening here recently.

(Elder Mumford is ready to run with the fast paced missionary efforts.)

Some highlights:

Tuesday(today) - Meeting with 'Naoki' who we met with on the street and talked about real happiness. We're going to give him a Book of Mormon tonight.

Wednesday - Oyo, a chinese college student who has finally got some time to meet us.

Thursday - Hayashi, someone who has met with missionaries in the past, but now can meet us again after a several-month break.

Friday - Iwazaki, a 350lbd professional sumo wrestler, and college student. We're going out to eat, where we will also give him a Book of Mormon. Just imagine if he gets baptized. :)

Saturday - Ko, another chinese college student.

Other than these really cool people, we need your help in praying for,

1. Sho - our main man. He loves the church and the Book of Mormon, is trying to give up smoking, but this last week he completely dropped contact. We cant get a hold of him at all.

2. Inoue - likewise, we cant get a hold of him, he too wanted to meet with us, but its a matter of simply a really long game of phone tag. He can never pick up when we call, and we can never pick up when he calls.

(Elder Mumford dressed for showers! -rain showers, that is.)

But we're really starting to see miracles. In the pouring rain on Saturday, we were still able to talk to tons of people and even exchange several phone numbers. Who's to say that rain makes it harder to do missionary work? :) I honestly didnt think it was going to turn out that well, bt we just kept meeting one awesome person after another, and we had a nice long, really meaningful talk with this one person who asked us, 'If you could only tell these people one thing, what would you tell them? What is the most important part of your message?' Which I have never been asked before, but we were more than happy to answer. Really cool guy.

(Elder Matias drinks from the sacred pool, while the resident monk glances with disapproval.)

You'd also be surprised about how many computer programmers there are in Japan. It seems like over 40% of every working person in Japan does some sort of computer or IT job, which really is nice for me because I can tell them that that's what I want to do.

Also, just yesterday we had a Zone Conference. It was one of the best ever, and Ill have to summarize my notes and see if I can make a little list of things I learned for next week. But the coolest part was that on the way home, we accidentally messed up the trains and had to switch lines a few times. But on the way back I started talking to this really nice college student who turned out to be part of Happy Science, a new religion in Japan based on Self-Esteem. Kind of weird, but he offered me a book, which is like their scripture, and was happy to take a Book of Mormon in exchange. I really dont know much about it, but he was a nice guy and we both explained a little about our religions. turns out that Happy Science believes that their leader is reincarnated Buddah, and writes self-help books to bring peace to the world. (sounds kind of wacky, but we're alwasy happy to exchange materials, and It will be a fun read once I get back to America).

Anyways, Im sure there's more but I simply cant remember it all. The bagles and muffins are pretty heavy and the butter is starting to melt in my backpack, so we need to go so we can put them in the fridge as soon as possible :) I really think that things are just going to take off this transfer and the next, and that I'll be able to finish off my mission with a real bang here. Im so excited to see what will happen with all the people we are working with.

Thanks everyone! I love you all so much, have a great week!

-Elder Martin Mumford,

TOKYO, JAPAN.