Earthquake!

well, yeah pretty sure you all know about the earthquake. so it hit friday, but the story actually starts on thursday for me. We went with a eikaiwa student and an investigator (Both named suzuki san) to this ocean museum thing, and this beach, then we took a hike to this cliff that looked over the ocean, way beautiful. i put on a few pictures of it, way fun, but then the next day the place was obliterated. we woke up early friday morning to take the train into tokyo because we had a zone conference at the mission home. it was a good conference and all, but i kinda don:t really remember what we were taught honestly. the meeting ended at about 2:30, and i was with president when the earthquake started. everyone was still in the church, and it started kinda small, nothing out of the ordinary, we`ve felt dozens of earthquakes before here, but this one didn`t stop like the rest, it just got stronger. We all filed outside of he church, and president was holding my arm, really tight acually, kinda suprising. but once we got outside, we saw cars bouncing all over the place, and the 20 story apartment building next to the mission home wobbling back and forth, while the tv antennas on top just shook vilolently, I`m really suprised none of them broke off. the quake lasted for about 2 minutes, then we all waited in a kinda field like thing, (There:s not very many open spaces in downtown tokyo) and we were there for a while. The trains were 100 percent stopped everywhere, so there was no getting home. president talked to us a few times, we ended up having to go out to dinner, and on the way found a tv store and all huddled around watching the videos of sendai. it was just insanity. with the trains stopped, thousands of people flooded the streets just walking somewhere, not really knowing where to go. we ate at mcdonads, then went back to the church, watched the otherside of heaven, then half of us slept in the ap`s apartment, and the other half and the sisters slept in the mission home. (in different rooms of course.) it was a crazy night, aftershocks every hour, our phones have this stupid earthquake warning thing that goes of randomly,and it:s a pretty scary sound, that went off twice in the night, i think i slept a total of maybe an hour.

when we woke up, some of the trains were moving, but since we live right on the eastern coast of japan, in this place called chiba. so most of the elders and shimai could get home, but we chilled at the mission home for a while, then the AP`s decided to take me andmy comp, and two sister missionaries who live kinda close to us home by car!!! the ap`s are my old companion, elder guy, (the englishman) and elder sainsbury from payson who is actually jenna sainsbury`s cousin! so we had a road trip! it was supposed to be a 2 hour ride, but the roads were so jam packed that it took us 7 hours to get to the sister`s apartment! pretty fun acually! we tried to stop for food at this one resturaunt, but they were completely out of food! so was all of the convinience stores, grocery stores, and everything! we were lucky to find a place to fill up on gas! i was helpin elder guy put gas in the van, he told me to hit unleaded, so i did, we filled up and kept going. we eventualy found a place to eat, and when we started going again the van almost didn:t start, kinda freaky, but we were moving. we got the the sister`s apartment, got them home and made sure everything was safe at about 6 pm. then the van wouldn:t start, we tried jumping it,but it wasn:t working. so after about an hour of trying to fix things elder guy said to me "that`s weird, we just filled it full of gas" then I asked "is this thing a diesel?" then guy replied with "oh blimie" classic englishman! but we had to stay in a hotel overnight, pretty fun actually.

the next morning, there was one train working, so we barley got home with our stock of bottled water and what little food we could find at the store. we got to church at 9:59, one minute before it started, it was perfect timing. actually my companion had t give a talk, so he got up, and in the middle there was a pretty big aftershock, everyones phone got the earthquake warning, and a few people even ran out, it was pretty funny, then as soon as it calmed back down my companion (over the pulpit) kinda laughed and in japanese just said "earthquake" unfortunatly not many people thought that itwas as funny as i did.

monday we had to stay in our apartment for most the day because they thought that there was going to be radiation problems from the blown up nuclear plants up in fukushima ken, but it`s ok now. I used the time to write a very detailed account of everything in my journal, what i wrote here wasn:t even a fourth of what happened, i`ll have to either copy it and mail it to you, or just tell you in person, i figure there`s going to be enough time once i get back, so i`ll go with that one.

they`re doing scheduled blackouts now, we haven:t been hit yet, they keep telling us that we will though, working is really weird right now, there`s not really any destruction here luckily, but everybody is still freaking out, so housing is not very effective, and no one is on the streets because the trains aren:t moving, they can`t get to work! well, i`ve gotta go, it`s after 9, i`ve gotta go home!

see ya, i love you all, and hopefully i`ll email next week too!

-Elder Olsen

Unbelievable!!!

so, this was most likely my wierdest week yet on my mission. both really good, and really bad. so first, we taught a lesson to kondo, our awesome investigator who has a baptismal date for this sunday!!! That was on wednesday, and it was about the spirit. I asked him if he'd ever felt the spirit, and we get into a really good conversation about that, then he gets quiet, leans back in his chair which means he's thinking deeply, then he comes back and says how he quit smoking 2 weeks ago, and he's not really sure why, he just stopped, and it was really easy, no withdrawls, no nothin! i almost jumped out of my chair and just screamed at him "THATS THE SPIRIT!!!" but, i managed to restrain myself. and we haven't even committed him to keep the word of wisdom yet! (That lesson happened on sunday, and I taught it by myself with a joint, one of the most spiritual lessons ever!)
Then on friday we were biking home from a members house, and this scooter man pulled me over, asking me if i was a missionary for the mormon church. he said that he had lots of interest and that he wanted to meet with us again! way cool! we set up an appointment for tonight with him, but he called and canceled because he had school come up suddenly, but we'll be meeting him on friday! but of course, because it's a miracle that means that he's not japanese, he's from malasia. and his name is Anlsem or something, not sure how to pronunce his name though, so we call him Amslam.
Now, saturday was the bad part. all new beans go on splits with the zone leaders their first transfer, so elder fukushima my bean went with elder guy my last companion, and i went with elder mckarns, the elder who replaced me as zl down here. it was about 2 in the afternoon when i get a call from elder guy. He said that elder fukushima had gotten in a bike accident, and was coughing up blood. that was all the information I got. I called president and let him know what little I knew, then we went to cover an appointment that the other 2 elders had but couldn't go to due to the accident. The rest of the day was me trying to get as much information as possible. Here's the story. Elder guy was infront on the bikes, and they were going down a hill, a really big one actually, so elder fukushima was going really fast. he was on the street, but tried to get up onto the sidewalk, but hit the curb at a bad angle or something, and he was thrown over his handlebars. Still not exactly sure what happened, but we know that there was a metal barrier somewhere along the way that he clipped, then he ran head first into a cement wall which was right next to the sidewalk. He fractured his skull, and broke his Jaw in a few places from the sound of it. cut his lip, and had to get stiches, and just tore his face to peices. Elder guy heard the crash and came running, some other people called and ambulance, and a member just happened to drive by and see them and came to help. There was blood all over the place, I still haven't seen my companion since saturday morning, (It's now tuesday night) but I have seen some of his things, and elder guy's stuff was all covered in blood too. His mom came down yesterday, and she's working out what's going to happen with him with prez right now. He'll most likely go home for a month or two to recover. He was in the ICU for a day, but he's ok now, going into surgery on his jaw thursday. it's pretty intense. And I haven't seen him yet! it's driving me crazy! we should have some time to go see him tomorrow though, we're making time. I'm in a 3 way with the ZL's now, so we're covering both areas right now, just mass insanity. That's why I taught the lesson on sunday alone with kondo, because my companion is in the hospital, and the other two missionaries had to be at church, so I split with a member to teach it. Other than my companion, things are going awesome. so, I have two things for you to pray for this week,

1 my companion will be ok, and be able to continue his mission,

2 That kondo will be able to be baptized this week!

Things are crazy right now, but the lord is still pouring out his blessings on us. just not in the form of safety for the time being! but I love you all, don't worry mom, I'll be carefull on the bikes, and have a great week. Make sure you tell me the baby info, and I'll tell you the comp situation next week! even though I'll be getting a new comp next monday, this is the last week of the transfer...

love you all!

Elder Olsen

Servius Snipe on Campus?????

OK, this week was an eventfull one! first off, thanks for the package! thebag's way nice, and the Doctor pepper barbeque sauce was amazing! I'll senda picture of the dinner we made with it, so delicious! So My companion, isafraid of new things, so he actually won't eat any of the candy you gave me,I put a bunch on his desk, and told him that I wasn't going to take it back,so he actually threw some of it away! yeah, he's not normal, but we'regetting along. And I took the beef jerky to a ward lunch on sunday, andeverybody loved it! They don't really have beef jerky here for some sadreason, just dried nasty fish...

So for about the past month, our water heater has been going crazy, it just turns off whenever it feels like it, which is really bad when you are in the shower. Recently though, it's been getting alot worse, in one shower it'll turn off like 3-5 times, so you have to get out, and go push this button toturn it back on, the hard part though, is to get all the soap on you, thenyou feel it go colder, so you have to hurry and get all the soap off beforeit turns freezing cold, so you can get out of the shower to push the button, such a pain! we're gonna call the mission office to get it fixed now...that will not work in the winter.

Then on friday, i was on companion splits, me and Willmore Choro, a newerkid from idaho. Since he's american, I decided to go check out the nearby college to see if we could talk to some kids there. There's a trick about colleges though, we're not allowed to proselyte, we can only talk to people, and even then, some people know who the missionaries are, so they don't like us there. But colleges are an awesome and really effective way to meet coolkids. So the two of us go onto the campus, and just say hello in english to everyone we see, we get a few people to stop and talk for a second, but then finally I said hello to this one kid, and he said "Hi" back. and no japanese person says hi, so i asked if he speaks english, then we got the conversation going. He actually lived in illinois with a baptist minister as an exchange student for 10 months, so he had really good english. He recognized us as missionaries, so the entire convo was him asking us questions about church and what we do and stuff, which was kinda scary, because we are not supposed to do that at all on campuses, but he was asking the questions, so Ilet it roll. he was actually a way cool kid, and towards the end, I asked if we could change phone numbers, so as we start to exchange numbers, I see out of the corner of my eye, a teacher (who actuallylooked alot like Severus Snape from Harry Potter) walking directly at us.I've been kicked off of colleges before, so I knew what was coming, he was going to make us leave. Before we could fully change numbers, the man came up.

Him; "What are you doing here"me: "we're just walking around looking at the campus" him "Why are you talking to this student?" me: "he speaks english, so we were just talking to eachother."*He looks at our badges* Him: "You're not allowed to be here"Me: "Yes I am"Student: "Yes they are, they're my friends, we wern't doing anything,there's no problem, you can go away."Him: "Can You come to my office with me, I want to ask you what they weretalking to you about."Student "No, I've got a class to go to"Him "May I see your ID?"Student No, you don't need that. you can go away now.at this point, I was loving this kid. The teacher kept telling us that wecouldn't talk to students, so we politely said thank you, and gave him the que to leave. He simply stood there, folded his arms, and waited. then the student said in english to us "Man I hate some japanese people, lets go" I laughed as the three of us walked off the campus, with this creepy manwalking 10 feet behind us the entire time. When he started following us, I turned to him and said "What are you doing?" he answered "Escorting you off the campus" then in the most sarcastic voice I could get i said "Oh thank you! you're so kind!" so the pictures I attached, are what my companion took, as we walked off the campus, that creepy dude was followingus for about 10 minutes. the last picture we took when we were in the trainstation, about 100 yards away from the school campus, and across a highway!he was still staring at the three of us! well, eventually, we got Kiichiro's information, and he's way interested! and he stood up for us atthe college! way cool! the entire way off the campus he was just apologizing to us, "sorry guys, some japanese people are just crazy," way fun day.

Then this last weekend we had general conference, and our really good investigator, Kondo, came to all 4 sessions of conference! he's progressing really well towards his baptismal date on the 24th of october!anyway, have a great week, hope you enjoyed the email this week, and peaceout!-Elder Olsen

Oct. 4, 2010 Yummy Yakiniku

so, you probably don't know, but Yakiniku is this japanese food. There's these resturants where there's a grill in the middle of your table, and they just bring you all this raw meat and stuff, and you get to grill it and eat it right there, way fun, one of my most favorite foods here, but this last friday, this RM from Japan came here, and he took me and my comp, my last comp and his new comp, then the sisters in our same area out to this yakiniku. he's a pilot, and wow, he's gotta be loaded. We thought he was just going to take us to some ramen shop or something, but he took us to the nicest resturant I've ever been to in my life! The waiters and waitresses were all in traditional clothes, (Kimonos) and we had our own room which we ate in, they bring you plates with like 5-6 pieces of meat on it at a time (which you order) but each plate was anywhere from 20-30 bucks. and he ordered pretty much all the food because we wern't going to make him spend that much money. In the end, we spent most likely somewhere around 800 bucks between the 8 of us who ate. the funny thing was though, is that right next to where we ate there was another really expensive place, but it was a bar. So the entire time we got to watch all the stone cold drunk buisness men getting helped out by their friends, falling all over the place.

anyway, yeah, this week was pretty good. we found a pakastan guy the week before, so we met him this week, he only speaks english unfortunately so my comp can't help out at all, but i gave him a book of mormon, and ran through a lesson one with him. He took it really well, he's not sure what god is, he used to be Muslim, but now he says that he found out that that was wack, so he's trying to find the truth. We've got general conference this weekend, and they have the sessions in english too, so maybe we can get him to come up there with us! oh yeah, and to answer some of your questions, i get to watch all of general conference, it's just a week later. and not in the comfortable basement on a beanbag unfortunatley...

That about sums it all up. I'm still trying to get my bean to speak up, he's slowly doing better on the street and in lessons which is nice. We're working hard, and starting to see all the miracles that god held back from me in my last area!

see yall next week.

-ps, Boozer went to the bulls?? what the heck?
-and BYU lost to USU? that's pitiful! pretty sure someone on the team needs to repent of something they did or somethin.

-Brady

Friend Newsletter Entry - Oct. 4, 2010

Hey guys,
Man I can't believe some of you are already home! I'm still cruizin along out here, haven't even gotten my 6 month death letter yet! (but that's only next transfer!) I'm in Yokohama right now, but I acutally just transfered. I'm livin in a four man, my last area was also Yokohama, I was ZL there, but I had been there for a while, so prez transfered me to the same apartment, but different ward, (who still goes to the same church building) so it wasn't much of a transfer except for the new companion. I'm now training a little Japanese kid named Fukushima. He's the quietest person I've ever met! Its really funny streeting people because The me, the foreigner does all the talking, and the actuall japanese person won't say more that his name, so there's alot of people that ask him if he's even japanese. but we're working it. Cool experience the other day though, I found a guy from pakistan who has tons of interest! we've taught him twice, and he said that he used to be Muslim, till he decided that it was wack, (actual wording) then he decided to find the truth! We gave him a book of mormon, and he was like, wow, this is kinda hard to understand, could we study this together a few times a week? I had to keep myself from falling off my chair, but I said yes, and boom, a new way awesome investigator! It's funny, but in japan, if we ever see a foreigner, we usually go talk to those people, because chances are, they are interested in Jesus Christ. dang Japanese. anyway, Keep on keepin on everybody!

I am now officially on transfer 11, and the better news,,, I'm not Zone Leader anymore! I'm a trainer! I still don't know who my companion is though, i figure that out tomorrow. So here's what happened. I was in Kanagawa area, in a four man apartment, the other missionaries were in Kohoku area. Same church, just different wards. So Since i was zone leader, I knew every area pretty well, especially kohoku. And recently Kohoku hasn't been doing very good, kinda some weird missionaries, and just not much going on. So I kinda asked president to send me there after I was done ZLing, so I got whitewashed into Kohoku, which is still in my same apartment, all that changes is where I work! I gave my leaving talk on sunday to the ward, and it was weird, cause i was saying goodbye, but I'm still going to see them all next sunday anyway, kinda funny, but i'm glad I'm not leaving yet.
So yeah, my bean came to japan today, I'm going to be going to the mission home tomorrow to pick him up, and bring him back on home to Yokohama! I'm really excited, but i hope I get a non-japanese bean, I think getting a japanese bean just itsn't the same as a trainer. I can only help him so much, and i would need to depend on him all the time for when I can't under stand what the crazy old people are trying to say to me.

anyway, today for p-day we went to this place called Zama, It's got an American Army base, so the four of us, (me, my old comp elder guy, his new comp (my replacement) elder McKarns, and my temporary companion, elder bishop, who's dad is in the military, so he got us on. It was so cool though! It was a mini america! we went and ate at burger king, got a giant size for a normal price, then we went bowling, ran in to a few of elder bishop's old high school friends from when he used to live there, then we went to the grocery store there, and got some gatorade, and just spoke a lot of english... it felt so good. The weird part though was just seeing so many white people, well, and black people for that matter. All I've been seeing for the past like year and a half is japanese people, and now seeing americans is kinda a weird feeling... I'm not sure how it's gonna go down when i return home...

anyway, dad, way to go on the Lotoja, I'm crazy proud of you, everyone else, i'm proud of you too, just not quite as much as dad. have fun this week, and I'll let you all know how it is when i get my little bean chan!!

see ya!

Elder Olsen

Hi everybody!
It's nice to hear from you all again! All I can say is that I am so glad that I don't have to go back to school yet!!! I still have one more year until i have to face that reality again! But it's coming horribly fast though, I'm now wrapping up my 10th transfer out of only 16, so it's coming quickly! I have no idea what's going to be happining for this next transfer, but I'm excited to find out. I've found out that I really like moving around in the mission, the change keeps me sane I think. As much as I love all the people and stuff, I like getting around. The work is still going kinda slowly here in kanagawa, we've been finding alot of new people lately, but pretty much none of them are japanese. I love how I'm here in japan as a missionary, and we always get excited when we find a foreigner because they are much more receptive to us. But we've been having some good fun, and meeting alot of really cool people, (and alot of really not cool people) along the way.
Last week was our last time teaching the Kids English class, which is a major weight off the shoulders, but it was alot of fun. And now all the little kids in the ward know and love us! it's the best! This ward has a huge primary, maybe like 30 kids, and there are some way cute kids... I don't know, but japanese kids are just so much cuter than normal american babies...... hhhmmm.

We've been focusing alot on streeting lately in the mission, because most of the mission is a bunch of newbs who can't do it, so lately I've been doing alot of training on it, and going on comp splits and focusing on finding. It's amazing how the lord times some things. For example yesterday. I was on my bike, and I stopped this guy, all i could really say was that my name was olsen, he saw my nametag, then ignored us and kept walking, which didn't feel too good. (Because it had happened alot yesterday) But in that short amount of time, from a sidestreet, a 20's looking kid came out infront of us, and we stopped him, and had a great conversation. Turns out he was in nebraska the same time cam was, and he speaks perfect english because he studied over there! he also wanted to know some good places to tour in oregon, but i couldn't remember where we went when we went there, (Mom if you could give me the names of the cool places we went, that'd be awesome!) but the best thing was, that if i hadn't tried to stop that angry old man, and gotten horribly rejected, we wouldn't have met this way cool kid named Kenji! we're gonna be meeting with him later this week. Way cool!

anyway, that's my spiritual uplifter for the day. have a great week family!

-Brady