Elder Watkins Japan Nagoya Mission: This Season's Halloween Special

Our party crew!

Trick or Treat!

My cowboy look.

Laumatia playing with Beck's panda head and looking like a DJ.

Hello everyone!

In Japan, most folks know what Halloween is, but maybe not quite how to celebrate it. The 4 of us missionaries were asked to put together and throw a Halloween party for our English conversation classes on Wednesday night. It was wayyy tekito (thrown together) but lots of members came and helped out and lots of crazy children came. It was way fun. And with it being the end of the month, we were all broke by the end. We also made the mistake of buying 80 bucks worth of candy, we had to return over half of it! haha

   We also took bean chan, Elder Klein, to Shyabu Shyabu resteraunt for his first time. And we went in the rain! It was kinda far out too, it was a great adventure. Then on Monday (not pday) we had a surprise visit from my buddy in Toyota, Elder Bills and his bean chan. They were looking all over for a bike for his bean but couldn't find one in Toyota or Okazaki, so they came here (with special permission). Turns out they had also never had shyabu shyabu before so, we went there again. Haha. It was a nice visit with them.

Bills choro is my doki of course, and we are coming close to our year mark next month. Crazy how time flies and now we are older, more experienced missionaries. We talked about all the things we have learned and the things that have happened. Strange to think it has been a year since I was about to celebrate my birthday with friends. It feels like I still just got to Japan.

   This week is crazy. We have pday on a different day, DTM on a different day, a kokan in Nakatsugawa, and my birthday. In between we have a bunch of lessons and investigators popping out of thin air. It is very exciting. Today even, we are having a lesson at a member's home with some friends that they invited to hear the gospel. That is VERY RARE in Japan. Elder Laumatia and I are a little nervous, but we have sought Heaven's help on this one. Please pray that we will have a good lesson with this family tonight.

   Well for my birthday I will celebrate with a round of pizza. Other than that, I will dendo, and invite, and give that time to the Lord. It will be a great birthday.

   I pray for you all to have a great week too.

Much love,
Elder Cullen E. Watkins