This week...

This week Trevor didn't really write an email... maybe he forgot to hit "send". He responded to our individual emails, but no summary of his week. So, I'll include what he wrote to me...



haha you know I celebrated my 11/12ths birthday! haha. I had cake. ^^

Yeah it was a crazy week! haha. My new area is the middle of no where! But pretty fun.

Oh yeah, my new companion is Brazilian, his name is Elder Tores. and Omihachiman has a lot of Brazilians in it..... haha. Should be interesting.

2 Nephi 2 is pretty awesome! One of my favorites! This morning I read D&C 76.... A pretty epic vision given to Joseph Smith. Have you ever read D&C? This is my first time all the way through.

Love you mom!
Elder Me.

View from Sennan apartment
(where he was for a few nights last week before his transfer)

...and at night

日本の冒険！Week 40: ....what? ・・・えええ？何？

So...... this week Elder Duke goes home to America....... Tomorrow. The new missionaries are coming early and the leaving missionaries are leaving early. Transfers is on Friday. I`m...... Transferring.  They are closing Senboku! I was pretty shocked! I`m going back to Kyoto, an area called Omihachiman. I`ve been there before, on a companion exchange. Pretty crazy, right?

Well, kind of crazy week up ahead. With my companion leaving, I will ship my stuff to omihachiman today, go to Sennan for 3 days until tranfers, and then go to Omihachiman. woah.

So yeah, It`ll be a pretty crazy week. It`s pretty sad that Senboku is closing, but for some reason we lost contact with all our investigators this week. And 3 of them didn`t show up to their lessons, which were all scheduled for last Friday. ( yeah, it was kind of a rough day, haha) but I suppose the Lord knows what he`s doing, that`s why the area`s closing for about 6 weeks.

Well yeah, we had a lot of finding time this week, as all of our investigators seemed to magically disappear.... then we had another Curry party on Sunday at the stake presidents place. It was great! they even had a fish that Brother Nishi from the branch had caught yesterday! President Ozaki cut it up right in front of us and then put it out raw, to eat as sashimi. wooooaaahhh. It was SO good. man. Pretty fresh, and very high quality stuff.

Well, packing today! haha. Still quite surprised. I thought they were kidding when they called. haha.

Oh yeah, my new companion is Brazilian  his name is Elder Tores and Omihachiman has a lot of Brazilians in it..... haha. Should be interesting.

Love you all!
Elder O`Reilly

These are everywhere! pretty cool giant fish things.

日本の冒険！Week 39 Earth-shaking power 地上を動くほど強さ

(We received this email from Trevor's mission president on Friday night)

"We were awakened by an earthquake this morning at about 5:30.  Everyone is fine and there seems to be no damage of any significance.  It was centered about 25 miles south of Kobe and has been reported as 5.8.

We have a couple of Japanese sister missionaries just a few miles from the epicenter serving in the Sumoto Branch.  They called within a few minutes of the quake.  They reported that they were fine and that some church members were with them already.  They were nervously laughing with the members.  A lot of things in their apartment had fallen off shelves but nothing was broken. The sisters were a little shaken and began running to the mountains in their PJs in case of a tsunami. After a bit of clean-up they dressed and went to assist some members at their homes.

Today and tomorrow the saints here gather to see General Conference broadcast at the stake centers, wards and branches."

Here is Trevor's letter:

Hello World. I would like to inform you that I survived the earthquake. The apartment survived as well. We were called upon to see if the church still stands. It still stands. all is well. Although the earthquake was intense, all is well. It all started when I was sleeping on my futon. The room started to shake. I thought my companion was just shaking me or something! haha. But then I realized the whole room was shaking. Then the phone started vibrating and my companion looks at it and says `the phone says we`re in an earthquake!` haha. I rocked back and forth about an inch or so for about 30 seconds. It was pretty scary, but somehow I survived. Miraculously, the church still stands, and no missionaries died. It was, however, pretty fun.

So yeah, a better week. We set some goals and thought realistically about what we needed to do to see some success. The goals missionaries usually set aren`t all that encouraging if you can`t find any people to teach. So we set some smaller goals, such as talk to a certain number of people in a day. Extend this many contacts in one day. It was easier to put faith in simpler goals like these.

So, we did that. And that same day we went out, talked to tons of people, and in a matter of 3 hours we set up 4 new investigator appointments, one of which we already met with and set up a return appointment. Pretty sweet.

We had a great general conference.  We had to get a signature from the district leader for the baptismal record we finally got a hold of (for brother Akiyama) so we biked to Sakai Church Saturday, and watched it with them. Then we watched Sunday in the kitchen of Senboku church on the branch president`s laptop. So all in English. They use hard words in conference, so it would have been rough in Japanese. haha.

I particularly liked Holland`s talk on faith. Specifically about receiving help from both sides of the veil the moment we seek it. Reminds me of the time Peter walked on water, and as soon as he called out for help, Christ immediately reached out and saved him. I`ve felt help like that come immediately before, and I`ll probably need it again and again. The great thing is that it comes every time.

Well I love you all and please know that I am doing great! and earthquakes are fun! as long as they don`t destroy anything. haha.

Elder O`Reilly

We made some pretty good fried rice! haha.

The district minus us. We were at the table across from them.

Lunch after district meeting. It was good, but I like sushi more. haha. ^^

日本の冒険！Week 38

So yeah. Another week went by. doesn`t feel like it!

Spring break ended in Japan last week. The Sakura trees are all turning green. People were busy. uhhh...... yeah. We talked to a ton of busy people. Not much happened other than a few kind of cool contacts. One resulted in a return appointment, for tomorrow.

We did have interviews with president this week. It was in the area north of ours, so we just biked up. He is a really inspiring guy. I`m looking forward to seeing some change in our area.

Well I`m just glad God knows whats going on in our area, because I don`t. There are people prepared to hear the message, I know, but this week we weren`t able to talk to very many of them. I trust that God knows what he`s doing though. Things will work out.

Love you all!
Elder O`Reilly

SAKURA (cherry blossoms)

So Osaka castle is pretty cool...... but doesn`t have a lot of sakura. This is like all of it. haha. I Don`t know why it`s so popular. Fukuyama castle was almost just as cool, and Nojo castle was cooler. haha. But it was fun anyway.
Way too many people though.

We went to the castle with a few other missionaries and members. You can only see 2 in this picture though, haha.
 Sorry, they are all covered up.

So in Japan this weird thing happens that we call `no weather`. There is no rain or wind. doesn`t even look like clouds. No sun, even though it is middle of the afternoon. Room temperature. feels like you`re inside!....
and yes, the whole area of senboku is covered in parks like this.

Needless to say, the sakura in Senboku is cooler then the sakura at Osaka castle.

The trees are just everywhere!

日本の冒険！Week 37: Easter 復活祭

Easter in Japan is like nothing. Nobody knew it was Easter. So that was kind of unfortunate. I should probably tell everyone in Japan about Christ, so they can celebrate next year. haha ^^

So we taught some new investigator lessons! One to Anna, who showed up to church last week. She`s a really great investigator, and even brought her little brother to the second lesson! She`s pretty great and believes everything we say. I told her she may not be able to believe us on our words alone, so we`d ask her to do some homework to know the truth. But she interrupted me and said できるよ！ which is something to the effect of yes I can! haha.

The other new investigator is a business man of a rather large company, (son of the president). He speaks way good English, so the lesson was actually in English. The lesson went pretty well, he told us we should tell it to everyone, because it made him feel really warm inside! We were like.... That is the love of God. It was a pretty cool lesson. He`s really busy though, so we might not meet for 2 weeks.....

Brother Akiyama was confirmed yesterday. It was way cool. The Branch president gave a beautiful blessing, and I was a part of the circle. Way neat experience.

The branch had an Easter meal, and it was way good. Tons of food and not a lot of people..... yeah, I definitely need to baptize a lot of people to fill up this church building. It`s a huge building, but the smallest congregation I`ve seen yet! Yesterday was about 18ish people when Sacrament meeting started.

We went out to 回転寿司 (conveyor belt sushi ) a few times. The members took us out this week and we went with the district after the last 2 District meetings. Man I love sushi. haha. The place is way cool too. You can order anything through this little screen, and it comes out to you above the conveyor belt on a mini bullet train. Way cool!

Well, I love you all and I`m so grateful for the resurrection of Christ. The Moment of Triumph over death. The Victory of the Son over all wickedness. Its time people knew about it!

Elder O`Reilly

So we found this across the street from the church we teach English at. Turns out we just looked at the GPS and there is one right next door to the E-mail place too. Emperor tombs or something?

桜 Sakura. Its beautiful! and its everywhere! I snapped this on the way to church. More pics next week ^^

There was a freak rain storm after we got to the church. Conveniently, we weren`t rained on, the storm didn`t last long.

hahaha. This is on the outside of a mall where there are tons of people outside.
 We work nearby this sign fairly often. Isn`t it great??