Happy Birthday Elder Mumford!

Twenty-one years ago, a noble spirit began his earthly experience. Today he celebrates his 21st birthday in Japan, by wholeheartedly serving God, and the wonderful people of Tokyo.

Happy Birthday Elder Martin D Mumford!

The Chronicles of Koiwa

Japan is somewhat famous for their highly sophisticated toilets. Here are some interesting pictures of some of the bathrooms, taken by a fellow Tokyo missionary, Elder Wyman:

This is above the toilet in one of the nicer Tokyo meetinghouses. The buttons say (from left to right) "Stop"; "Rear end"; "softly"; "???"; and "Dry".

Squater style toilet, common in public restrooms, in the park or city.

Which one is the boy's and which one is the girls?

Yup, you can wash your hands immediately after using the bathroom. (Dont worry, the water goes FIRST through the hand wash, and THEN into the bowl :) It's actually quite an efficient use of water!

Now for Elder Mumford's E-mail dated 6-30-10:

Dear Everyone,

This week the rain has been a bit off and on, and the humitidy has been through the roof. Today we had a great P-day. While we were out on the streets the other day, we were looking for an address, and we stumbled across a little park with a lake. Then the lake turned into a river, with really cool looking Japanese-style gardens to either side. So we decided that on P-day we would come back and explore the park. So we woke up bright and early, and booked it over to the river. It turned out that the river was actually really long, and the park extended for quite some time, but we went the entire way by foot and took tons of pictures.

So this was a very fun P-day so far. :)

Also a few things happened durring the week that you should know about;

1. Many of our investigators decided to stop meeting with us. Unfortunate, but they didnt have much more interest, and so we had to say goodbye. Right now we are only really working with 2 people left:

1. Yoshida, who is going to read and pray, and wants to build his faith in Jesus Christ.

2. Shinobu, who is less active, and cuts our hair. We're going to get Elder Merrell's haircut on Friday, so we should talk more then.

And that's it. We could really use your help and your prayers for these people. They are in percarious circumstances, they both want to come closer to Christ but don't really know how to find that answer for themselves. That is both of their challenges, to know for themselves. If you have any advice we could share (especially with Shinobu) about how to know thast this church is true for yourself, I would love to hear it next week. He has read the entire Book of Mormon, and is working on the Bible, but still has not found a difinitive 'answer' that has proved to him that the church is true. We told him that the answer is not going to be found on a single, hidden page in the scriptures somewhere, but the answer will come depending on sincere prayer, study, and the timetable of God. Alright, that is the situation right now.

Thanks for all of your wonderful support on my mission so far. I have loved hearing from all of you. Im sorry I coudn't really give much of a reply, but Im sure that Ill be able to thank each of you personally when I return.

Ok, some interesting stories;

A. We were planning for our week together in the apartment, when suddenly the doorbell rings, and to our great suprise, there is a huge package containing... and Ice Cream Cake! We both opened it up, and it said 'Happy Birthday Elders!'. So Elder Merrell's parents had sent this cake, we were way happy. But we had a bit of a problem, in that our fridge is only so big, and it's already pretty cluttered. So what we ended up having to do was cut the cake into several squares, and individually wrap them in seranwrap, then freeze them. We have been trying to eat as many as we can each day, but it's actually very filling.

(Thank goodness the Merrells sent an ice cream birthday cake! This is what happened the last time the Elders tried baking a birthday cake.)

So we gave another slice to Yoshida, our investigator, and we're going to have to give several more to the Sister Missionaries, because Im not sure we can eat all of it ourselves. Very fun though! And it is so extremely good, after all this time of no sweet it actually overwhelmed me at first. Im not used to that much sugar at once :) Probably some foreshadowing for when I get home

Don't be too discouraged if Im not able to eat super sweet things, or even a lot of anything. I think my ability to eat a lot has gone down a bunch. But no worries, Ill try my best to regain all that :)

(This really was a SAD "Happy Birthday" cake)

B. We were returning home one night, and on the way the last person that we talked to was a nice Japanese man, maybe in his 50's. As the conversation progressed, we were building more and more of our hopes, because the longer he talked, the more he seemed to know about the church. He knew about every book and teaching, and he knew the history of the church in the city where we live, how it used to be a Branch. We were wondering 'who is this guy!? Was he studying a long time ago?' But then he told us that he was a member, and had joined the church 30 years ago. And from that point on it went downhill... He didnt want to ever come back again, but he was so extremely appreciative of us talking to him, but he said that we should probably spend our efforts and time on someone else. It was unfortunate, but he was really set on not coming back to church. He loves the Book of Mormon and everything about us and the church, but just doesnt want to continue I guess.

(Elders with the Higuchi Family)

But the real miracle is that on the way back, walking with him back to our apartment, there was this guy from Nepal who was handing out flyers for his curry restraunt. We were about to pass him, but then this member decided to take one of the flyers. And so we also took one, and started talking to him. It turns out that he has been in Japan for a while, and his name is Mohan. We gave him one of our flyers as well. That was all good and well, but then the NEXT day we saw another miracle.

He Called us at night, and told us that he had read our flyer. He said, maybe we can help each other out, because he had some friends who might be interested in our message, and we could help him by coming to his curry restraunt sometime. :) Well, we do like curry, so maybe we'll go sometime and check up on his friends :)

(Curry- Made by the Elders)

Anyways, Im going to send this letter off, and if there is anything that needs adding, Ill do so.

For now, thank you everyone. I love to hear from you. I love Japan, and I love the experiences Im having here. Ill try to share more and more of them with you each week. I hope that everyone has a good week and has fun! Thanks!

Keep 'em coming! Letters make a missionary's day!

Love,

Elder Martin Mumford

-TOKYO, JAPAN

The Last Transfer!

Excerpts from Elder Mumford's e-mail, dated June 21, 2010:

Dear Everyone,

Happy Fathers Day!

First of all, the transfer information;

1. I will be staying in Koiwa.

2. Elder Williams went to Kisarazu with Elder Bryant.

3. My new companion is Elder Merrell, from California. He also spent a little bit of time at BYU before his mission. He is on his 2nd transfer right now.

So this is it! Just me and Elder Merrell in Koiwa. It should be a great one!

(Mount Fuji on a clear day, as seen from the window of the Shonan, Japan Apartment)

So far so good, the rain hasn't really started yet. Im really suprised, we are supposed to be getting buckets of rain every day, and although it has been cloudy and very humid, nothing's really happened yet. So fortunately, we are still enjoying being out on the streets without getting wet. :)

Elder Merrell is also planning on going into media/games after his mission, so I think that we will get along very well.

Also, some other random news, I now have completed package installment 1 of 2. (It's a smaller one). I will send part 2 in a few weeks, which will contain some more of the heavier items (including Nicholas the bear!). So you can expect a lot of fun things coming your way. In terms of a package coming to Japan, we will always welcome cheese, but in fact at the moment we already have a lot of peanut butter. Thank you though. If I had to think of a request, maybe reese's bits or cups. Elder Merrell is actually allregic to nuts, so anything without nuts should be fine :)

(Nicholas The Bear- an ancient Ainu relic, inherited by Elder Mumford, will soon make his way home to America)

(This bear has made an appearance in every set of pictures that Elder Mumford has sent home. Each time he is sporting a different look. Here, he is shown wearing one of the "stick-on" mustaches that have been so popular with the Japan missionaries.)

Alright, so on to the best part---

Some highlights of the past week;

1. We met with a few people last week, one of which was a little late. So we were just waiting for him at the station, next to the big Sumo statue (where most people meet in Koiwa). As we were waiting, this old, bearded homeless man comes over to us, and asked us for some money. Unfortunately, as missionaries we (1) don't even have much money, and (2) aren't allowed to give money to anyone (It's not even ours). So we had to explain that to him. He saw that we weren't going to give him anything so he was about to leave. Then he reached over, and grabbed my hand and kissed it, which was really wierd, but then he went over to Elder Williams as well, did the same, then dived over and gave him a big wet smacker right on the cheek! Then he laughed and walked away. And while we were just sitting there in shock, our investigator showed up (probably only 2-3 seconds later), and we didnt even have time to laugh about it or figure out what just happened. So that was a rather suprising experience. :)

(This Sumo statue is a popular meeting place in the Koiwa train station. It is common to hear someone say "Just meet me at the Sumo!")

2. We met with Yoshida, our main investigator. We taught him about the plan of salvation, which he thought was nice. And from now on he will try to read and pray to know that it is true. He really does want to know.

VIDEO:

Click "Play" to view Elder Mumford and Elder Williams on a recent Homemade Taco Night.

3. Me and Elder Williams were getting seriously Taco-ed out after a while (w were having them nearly every day), and so we bought tons of vegetables and figured out how to make a really good stir fry to put on rice. So now we have all those ingredients and are doing pretty good. We still have yet to try out the steel-cut oats, but I want to do it soon.

(Jiru Ramen Shop in Tokyo. This is where the locals eat!)

4. Speaking of food, we have the best Ramen in the entire mission in Koiwa (I know everyone says that, but I've tried a LOT of different ramens, and this one is the best one so far!). It's called 'Jiro', and there's a LOT of food that they give you. If we visit Japan agian as a family, that would be a very good place to come.

(Famous garlic, pork ramen dish, served at the Jiru Ramen Shop)

5. This transfer, we are going to stop trying to focus on EVERYONE at once. That just hasn't worked really all that well. We are going to prayerfully select only a few of the top people in the Ward, our Investigators, people that we really can help right now if we focus on them.

At the moment, we have;

a. Yoshida (our investigator)

b. Sekino (another investigator)

c. Shinobu (a less active who has been considering coming back, but still doesnt know if it is true)

There are others, but that is our primary concern right now. Im sure that they would benefit from your prayers.

(Activity at the Shonan Ward Campout)

I just wanted to leave you with a quick thought. Got will never allow us to be tempted beyond what we are able. Our choices are always in our power. He will never allow us to be forced to chose wrong, nor will he force us to make the right choice, but He will always ensure that we are capable of making a choice. One thing that we have been speaking about recently is how God is our heavenly father. He really is in every way. Like a father, he doesnt want his kids to hang around the house and just live purely off of his guidance and help for their entire lives, he desires their independance. We are still weak, unsure, like children, but he is preparing us to become independant, to be able more and more to survive on our own. As we get stronger, we understand more about how to recognize the spirit. We have a long way to go, but we all decide to progress or degress baced on our choices. It's a very simple plan that he has for us, but a powerful one, because our eventual goal is to become like Him. And what an incredible goal that is!

When you think about life with that goal in mind, it becomes very clear what is important and what is not important.

(Scenery from the Shonan Ward Campout)

One quote (I forgot who said this), is 'When you put the Lord first, all other things will fall into place, or drop out of our lives.'

When we truly dedicate ourselves to what is best for us (the plan that he gave us), I think our priorities will become less grey. It is difficult to keep an eternal perspective, but if we do we can make the right decisions, for the right reasons! Anyways, just a thought for today.

I love you all, I will see you soon. good luck and have fun,

Elder Martin D Mumford,

TOKYO, JAPAN.

Expect the Unexpected!

For some reason, this video really made me laugh!

What do you think?

VIDEO:

Click on the "PLAY" arrow to view.

And now for Elder Mumford's e-mail, dated June 14th, 2010:

Dear Everyone,

Some new news,

We have officially entered the perpetual rainstorm that is June-July. Im really glad though, because up till now we have had perfect weather every single day this transfer, and the rain is only just now starting to come down. However, Koiwa is such an awewsome area that even in the hardest rain durring the most deserted time of day we can still meet lots of cool people out on the street who are willing to listen to us. I don't really understand it, because there is just such a huge noticable difference between everywhere I've been before, and Koiwa, in that everyone we talk to will listen to us and try to understand what we are saying. Maybe it's the conditions here, or the area, or the kind of people that live around here, maybe it's our attitude (Elder Williams is the man, he has the best attitude of anyone I've ever met so far on my mission). Maybe it's just our outrageously good looks, or skillfull intelligent Japanese, or maybe our exceptionally great humility (we're probably the most humble companionship in the mission, if I do say so myself).

(Elder Mumford and Elder Williams- Dashingly Handsome!)

Or maybe the Lord just sees fit to show us miracles every day, because in the grand scheme of his great plan (of which we are only a tiny little piece), the timing is just right, in this place, that we should see them.

But whatever the reason, we are working hard and we are happy here in Koiwa. I really hope that I get to stay here, it's been an awesome experience. I think the coolest thing that could possibly happen is if me and Elder Williams get to stay here in Koiwa, but I dont know yet what's going to happen. Whatever does happen, we'll both do great wherever we end up, Im sure.

It sounds like you've been having some cool miracles at home recently as well. I really think that God is willing to give you opportunities to help others, only to the extent that you want to have them, and when you take that step, the chance to follow through and help someone will be given.

Recently we have had some nice things happen;

We have 4 investigators right now, and 1 Less active we're focusing on;

1. Yoshida - met on the street, taught him about the restoration, and he had interest but didnt want to give us any contact info. He showed up to English Class on Wednesday, and signed up for a 30 minute introductory lesson. After the lesson he said he had interest in religions and would like to hear about the restoration, which we are going ot teach him today. We thought that that would be that, and that the next time we would see him would be today, but on Sunday, he just showed up to church, all by himself without us even inviting him, and he stayed for all 3 hours. We gave him a Book of Mormon, and were able to explain just a little bit about it. So today should be really interesting.

(Elder Mumford and the Sumo Wrestler. They meet him at a restaurant, so he can eat, while they teach him.)

2. Higuchi - a genki nice grandpa who has been coming to English class for a long time, but recenetly he would like to hear more about the Purpose of Life, so we are meeting him on Weednesday to discuss more about the plan of Slavation. He is very nice, and has read a little of the book of mormon before.

3. Sekino - The miracle man from a few weeks ago, who just invited us to come to his house and teach a lesson. He cant meet until the 21st of June, so we just dropped off a lesson pamphlet in the mean time. But when that day comes he should ha ve lots of questions.

(Elder WIlliams with the Sumo.)

4. Taiun - a 20's ish Chinese student who we met on the street. He also came to all 3 hours of church, and also a Family Home Evening at a member's house afterwards. Unfortunately, he doesnt really speak Japanese, or even English, and so we are having a very hard time explainign what it is that we do exactly. He wants to meet, but we can't really effectively explain much, only when we write the Kanji whe will understand it. So we are waiting a little bit more until one of the Chinese members in the ward has a little bit of time to come to a lesson and help us out. Both Taiun and Yoshida want to come to Stake Conferecen next week.

(5) Also, Shinobu, a less active, who was baptized when he was 8, but ever since then never came to church. He doesnt know much about the church, but he recently read the entire book of mormon in 1 week. He also cuts the missionaries hair for free, so he has lots of experience with missionaries. Recently he has nwanted to get an answer or a confirmation about the church really bad, but even reading the book of mormon didnt seem to give him what he was looking for. He is going to try to read the whole bible too, but our concern is that reading the entire bible is nice, but much like reading the entire book of mormon, the answer is not information. The answer is not hidden on page ?? somewhere, and knowing more information won't really help you with Faith. So from now we are trying to help him get an answer by building faith, rather than knowledge.

If you could pray for these 5 people, I think that God will assist them in their persuit of happiness.

(Jo (from Brazil) Elder King, Elder Mumford, and Manabu-san.)

Anyways, thanks for everything that you do for me, thanks for the great letters, and packages, and everything else. This is a great time to be in Japan!

Have a great week!

-Elder Martin Mumford

TOKYO JAPAN.

Miracles

E-mail dated 6/6/10:

Dear Everyone,

First of all, the non-spiritual stuff :)

I put the SD card in an envelope last week... and we never sent it. Unfortunately (or maybe fortunately) we have been blessed with a lot of teaching/finding opportunites, and we have not had a spare moment to hit up the post office. But to day is finally P-day, and I will send it right away.

Ok, now for this week's experiences:

Miracle #1- About a month ago, Elder Williams and his trainer Elder Macdonald met a sumo on the train ride home. It turns out he lives really close to us and to the church, and so they exchanged phone numbers. Then, two weeks ago, we called and were able to set up an appointment to meet him over Udon (thick Japanese noodle soup) to talk about what we do here in Japan. We met him in the restraunt, and asked him a lot about what kind of training it takes to become a Sumo, which there is a lot. (bad english, sorry)

(2 Nephi 4:34)

(click on scripture reference to view)

I thought there might be some sort of diet or special perscribed food, but he just said that they can eat anything at all, as long as they eat a lot of it. (He's a very, very huge guy. He's only 20, and he's dual majoring with economics and sumo wrestling). So then we asked him if there was any mental training involved, and there was, a lot like meditation. And so we connected it to how in life of course we train our bodies, but in a very similar way we are here to train our spirit as well, and the more we work at it the stronger it gets. And God has shown us the way, but like the coach and the sensei give directions on the best way to improve. We may think that we know best, but in reality if we follow exactly what the sensei and coaches say, we will improve more than we could by ourselves.

So that turned out to be a great meeting, and he wants to meet us agian sometime for a legitimate lesson. Of course, we had to take pictures after :)

(More "old Japanese arms")

Miracle #2 - We met a chinese college student on the street on sunday, and then on monday we had an appointment with some members for dinner. Right outside their house, we were 5 minutes early, so we crossed the street to see if we could talk to maybe one more person. And right there we met the same guy again! His name is Taiun, and he just barely came to Japan 2 months ago. He was going home to make dinner for himself, so we invited him to come with us to the dinner with the members which actually turned out great! We happened to have a Chinese book of mormon on us, which we could give to him. So we basically all just explained what the book is about and why it is importnat to us.

And now we are going to meet today too, to talk more about it.

Miracle #3 - MAPLE SYRUP... THANK YOU!!!! that is so precious and valuable. I think with the bottle, and the make-it-yourself bottle we now have enough for the rest of this transfer and the next. Thanks so much.

(Precious "maple" syrup- A real treat in Japan.)

Miracle #4 - On sunday, we met with 3 other chinese college students. (there are actually a LOT of chiense people living in our area), who we were also able to give 3 more book of mormons to. One of them had studied religions of the world pretty thuroughly, and the other two were very interested. So that was a miracle as well.

Miracle #5,6,7,8,9... etc... This week was nothing but miracles, this coming week is also lined up to be amazing. Im sure I forgot most of them, but Ill try to de better at remembering next week. I actually have a little less time now, because we have started getting some peoples emails on the street, and Im using a part of my email time to talk to them and see if we can meet. But I think it will just be a temporary thing. but thank you everyone for the great support, I really can feel the love of everyone praying for me and supporting me half-way across the world.

This is the best time ever,

Thanks, Have Fun!

Elder Martin Mumford,

Tokyo, JAPAN.

Koiwa Continues

(Ginsu Mumford slices and dices vegetables for Mabudoufu)

Here is Elder Mumford's e-mail from Japan, dated June 1, 2010:

Dear Everyone,

It's good to hear from you all :) And no worries, the package(s) and letters all arrived safely. The cheese was just fine. Even better, we made tacos again. We actually were having lunch one day, and we had made Mabodofu (a chinese food with tofu, meat, veggies, and rice). We decided to just finish off all the taco meat from the last time and throw it into the mabodofu. It ended up completely overpowering the chinese flavor, and just ended up ttasting like mexican food anyways. So we brought out the tortillas and wraped it up!

VIDEO:

Click the "Play" arrow to view.

Also we've been trying a lot of new things, with the materials we've got. We've been having a lot of breakfast for dinner recently, with various kinds of pancakes. So a few days ago we threw in the reces pieces bits into the batter and fried it up. It was very peanut buttery.

(Frog Shaped pancake, created by Elder Mumford)

Also in the package, I was excited to see the pop rocks! Wow it's been a long time since Ive seen those. I had some, but then we had to go and so I left the open package on my desk. When we came back that night, I went to finish off the pop rocks, and to my suprise the humidity in the air had actually fried them all into a kind of goo that had fused into the package. Kind of cool I guess. They were always more of an 'entertainment' food than for actually eating anyways :)

Today before we came to email we had a mini-cleaning of the apartment (halfway through a transfer it gets really dusty and junk starts to pile up everywhere). So that was 'fun'. But I've really come to realize that I cannot live, I just can't survive without a garbage disposal. That is the one thing Ill never be able to give up in my life. You know everything that goes down a normal sink? Bits of food, crumbs, every scrap of crusty stuff on each bowl/dish? All of that goes down the drain and is caught by a handy little net/baggie thing. Which then fills up slowly with all the food bits and eventually turns into a putrid light brown goo. The sinks literally do not accept anything except for 100% liquid, so we have to use the nets or else the sinks will eventually clog. The hard part is changing the nets, but we pulled through it ok. Its just that that will be one of those simple gifts that Ill be happy to embrace once Im back. :)

VIDEO:

Click the "Play" arrow to view.

But this week we have seen so many miracles. Let me tell you about a few of them;

1. We were walking along the street, and Elder Williams talked to this guy who was just leaving a convenience store. He asked him 'why do you think people die? What is the purpose of it?', and the guy thought about it for a while, and said, 'I dont know, but come to my house and you can tell me all about it'. So we followid him to his house, we sat down and taught him about the Restoration. Which just blew his mind. He's kind of busy at the moment, but we're going to meet with him in a week or two to talk more about it. We was very interested in the Book of Mormon. His name is Sekino. He has a pet turtle named Leonardo (just thought that was funny).

(Turtles in the park, in Japan)

2. Elder Williams stopped this really old nice grampa walking dow the street. When he heard that we were voulenteers for 2 years here, he wanted to buy us coffee for some reason. Unfortunately we cant drink coffee, but he insisted on getting us somehting, so he bought us both strawberry parfaits. Way funny guy, but after a few minutes we could tell he really only had interest in talking to gaijin (americans) than really hearing about the gospel so we had to leave him with some information and say goodbye. Very nice person. He talked a lot about how in Japan no one ever hugs eachother or holds hands or expresses love in any way.

I wanted to show him that our Heavenly Father loves us, and so I asked him,

'you have a daughter, so do you love her?'

and he said, 'yes'

'so how much do you love her?'

and he said along the lines of 'maybe a little bit. kind of.'

which really blew me away because most people will usually say 'a lot' or something like that. So I wansnt really sure what to say to that, but we still told him more about God and how he really does love us because we are his children. It was just a very interesting experience

3. A few weeks ago (I forgot to tell you, maybe?) We were walking down towards the train station, and we stopped someone, who turned around. And he turned out to be from England, which took me by suprise because he looked completely Japanese from the back :) But we ended up talking to him all the way back to the train station, about what we're doing in Japan and what kind of message we share. He was curious about Mormons, because he had heard that we cant drink coffe. And he asked why we dont... if there was some sort of a reason. We told him that of course there are things like that that we follow, no alcohol, coffe, tea, smoking... but just by looking at that you might get the impression that we follow it for health reasons. But we explained that really, no one needs religion to tell them what is good or bad for thier health. You dont need God to tell you that smoking is bad for your body. You can get that information without believing in God.

But the real reason that we follow the word of wisdom, as with any commandment, is because it is just that... a commandment. We do whatever God asks us to do because it is a test of our willingness to follow him. And he wants to see if we are responsible enough to recieve the belessings that he has to give us. In reality, it comes down to 'did God really ask me to follow this, or did someone make this up? Is this a true principle, or just someone's opinion? If it comes from God we follow it, and we can all know, individually if it is true or not. Quite literally we can recieve an individual answer to our prayers, which will prove to us what is true. Because if this church is not true, there is absolutely no purpose in following its teachings.

So we explained that the most important thing in this church is for everyone to know for themselves whether it is true or not. We dont want anyone at all to be blindly obeying because their parents told them too, or because it sounds like a good idea, we want each person to know 100% with that assurance from God (not from other people, but from God Himself) that this is the best path we could be taking in life. Nothing short of that will cut it. And if you really want to know, and ask him, and are willing to follow whatever answer you may get God will tell you, guaranteed.

He thought that was pretty cool. Of course this was all in English so it was way easy to explain (I somehow doubt that I could say all of that in Japanese), but I htink he rocgnized that there was something important about what we were doing here. That we're not here to try and convince or trick or persuade someone to join our church. We're not here to promote 'good morals'. We're not here to make the church bigger. We are here to tell people how they can know (for THEMSELVES!) that it is true. That is the best part of being in Japan for me.

Anyways there was some other cool miracles this week, but I think I forgot them already. I hope that everyone is having a great time, enjoying themselves and working hard. Thanks for the great letters! I got so many at once due to the mailbox misunderstanding, but it was WAY fun!

Thanks for everything, I love you all!

-Elder Martin Mumford,

TOKYO JAPAN.

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.

Japanese Graffiti

(In America, we publicly profess our love for someone by carving our initials in a heart on a tree. They do a similar thing in Japan, only rather than hurting a tree, they write their names on a padlock.)

(Then they "lock" it onto a designated public place, such as this observation tower.)

(Click on any image to enlarge)

Now here is Elder Mumford's e-mail, dated May 18th:

Dear Everyone,

We are having the best time ever in Koiwa!

Let me tell you some of the exciting things that have been happening.

1. We have this really cool guy named 'Sho'. He's from China and is here studying politics. And he's the most awesome person I've ever met. We were trying to see if we could meet him sometime, and so the missionaries before me invited him to a Music Festival which was at the church on Saturday. We called and called but couldnt really ever get ahold of him to see if he was coming. And then the night before he called us back, and said that he was coming. But not just that, he had come to the church already on tuesday for practice - because he was going to be singing IN the music festival. It was really cool, he went up there with all the young single adults and sung that 'Sisters in Zion' EFY theme song. (Click here to see this song sung in Japanese by a group of Japanese Young Single Adults.) AND... he brought his entire family with him to watch it (6 people). And he went around afterwards introducing himself and his family to all the ward members. He hasn't heard any official lessons yet (there hasnt been time), but he heard about the Word of Wisdom from us and decided he wanted to follow it. He also saw a baptism last week and decided that he would also like to be baptized. So I think that if you could pray for him, that he would continue on at that great pace, it would be amazing.

(The Missionaries prepare for a recent music night.)

2. Koiwa is the best! We have a massive 180-200 person ward, the second largest in all of Japan I think. And it's just full of people who are willing to help each other and us. I think that after the music night, Sho introduced himself to, and became great friends with all of the young members of the ward. Everyone helps us out a lot, and we're doing our best to help them. Since Koiwa is right in the middle of the big city, (but slghtly less populated then shibuya), there are people everywhere at all times of the day. We can simply go outside of our apartment and talk to people all the day long.

(Busy Train Station in Japan)

In fact I have been very suprised, but there are actually a lot of Chinese people living in Koiwa. We have met som many Chinese couples and families here already, and they are always fun to talk to. From what I have heard, Christianity is actually getting very popular in China, so everyone that we talk to from China says they have a relative or two who is Christian and that tghey really respect that. But so far we have been working extremely hard, talking to every single person possible. There's simply so manhy people in our area that we could bnever possibly meet a decent portion of them. We ask each person we meet if they have ever seen us before, and pretty much 100% of the time they never have. There's just so many people. Its a bit of a shock actually, Im not quite used to it because it has been so long sincew Shibuya. But Im very impressed with just how many of the people we talk to actually listen to us. I thought it would be hard, because its a big city and everyone is so busy, but in fact the majority of those we talk to are willing to listen.

(List of missionary contacts)

3. We meet a lot of fun, interesting, and sometimes crazy people here. It is the BEST for cool stories.

-We ran into this genki old fellow who started talking to us about this crazy book he had just bought, about life and how people are spirits and can dream... just interesting things. But he was talking and talking, and woudn't even give us a break to get a word in. But then he offered us these little seaweed cracker things he had, and shuffled off. Wierd, but fun.

(Interesting Book)

-This man was just about to get into his car, and so we complimented how nice a car it was. He said, 'come here' and he turned on the engine and showed us the inside of the very very expensive looking car. The he talked for a while about how he races sometimes, and how fast he can gol. We didnt know anything about cars, but it was still fun to talk to him.

(That's a lot of headlights)

-We were talking to this older man about true happiness, and he went off about how there is nothing to be grateful for. I offered that becsause we have all our senses, we can see and that is something to be grateful for. He agreed, but then started off on how blind people cant possibly be happy. They might pretend to be happy, but they cant ever feel real happiness because they cant see. I think we talked to him for a while, but he was rather stuck on being depressed and 'woe is me' that day, but I think we were able to bring a ittle more happiness to him that day though that conversation.

Anyways, things are great here. Technicaly it's supposed to be entering the rainy part of the year, but so far so good! Not a drop! And today its still sunny :) I think that Im going to have asome serious 'tie tan' when I get back though. Where its so hot thatyou get a permanent tie-shaped white stripe on you :)

(Elder Mumford shows off his "Missionary Tan")

Alright, Im running out of things to say, I hope everyone is doing well, good luck and have fun! Ill see you soon! Also I have to apologize for the lack of letters/contact outside of email. We have been so busy. Ive never been this busy before as a missioanry, because every second we're really working to the MAX. But its so much fun. And tiring. Mostly fun.

K, love you all!

See you,

-Elder Martin D Mumford

-TOKYO,JAPAN