08 April 2011

Email from Matlock – 21 March 2011



Dear Family,

I can honestly say that last week I did not expect to be here in the Nagoya Mission! My new address is
Japan Nagoya Mission
1-304 Itakadai  Meito-ku
Nagoya-shi Aichi-ken
Japan 465-0028
I’m in an area called Suzuka which is near the southwest part of the mission. My new companion is Japanese and was actually in the Tokyo mission. We are in a 4 man apartment with two Elders who are both from Brazil.
         There’s been so much going on I don’t know how I feel right now. President Baird is our new president. He’s very different from President Albrecht, but I like him a lot. Some of the Tokyo missionaries are excited about the change, some are bitter and angry. President Baird told us to all get 10 hours of sleep for the next two nights and one elder later told us he wasn't about to sleep in that’s breaking rules yadda yadda. Heck. If someone gives me permission to sleep in I'm taking every second of it! Oh I'm district leader by the way. I thought I'd escape having responsibility since I'm in a completely new mission but apparently I was mistaken.
       The two Brazilians in our apartment are cool, but they don't really worry about the rules at all. They listen to Lewy Armstrong and sleep in until they like. I'm thinking really hard about how much of that is my problem and what I can do if it is. From my experience if someone’s going to break rules there's not much you can do to stop them.
        My bikes still in Oyama. We had such a sudden exodus that we couldn't bring everything with us. My old ward mission leader should be sending it, but I still haven't heard from him.
        The branch we're serving in is really cool. It's also quadralingual; Japanese, English, Portuguese and Spanish. I've got two out of four down, and I hope it’s enough. The other two elders serving in this ward can speak all of them. Can you imagine? Is it possible to know too many languages? Maybe at 6 or 7 they'll hit their limit.
        At times I feel this excited energy. It’s almost like the beginning of my mission except I have some command over the language and have some experience. The feeling comes and goes but I hope I can keep a hold of it for as long as I can.
      In our orientation president Baird told us that he was in the same boat that we are in. He was serving in Japan Tokyo when his call got changed to Japan Nagoya. How crazy is that? Then he told us that we were going to love serving here in Nagoya. With the skills that we acquired in Tokyo we would feel like we are cheating out here it will be so easy. I don't know if it will actually be that way but on the way to my new area I was able to give a Book of Mormon to a high school student. It happened so fast I didn't get any contact information or anything. In other words it's in God’s hands now. Then while we were buying stuff for the apartment we made friends with a lady from Robinah, Africa. I'm starting to buy into what Pres. Baird was saying.
       And I miss my last companion a little. We had so much fun, and we were both working hard on being 100% obedient. My new companion is the nicest guy but he's also the quietest. Any communication problem we have does not stem from the language. He just doesn't talk. We'll be doing something and without a word he'll just get up and dart out of the room. This is especially annoying when we're not in the apartment and I have to chase after him. We could be in the same area with the same companion until Tokyo opens up and we're allowed to go back, so we'll see how this turns out. Supposedly they are holding the missionaries in the MTC for a while to see if things change, and I've heard that maybe we'll be where we are until July. Could just be hearsay. I really hope it's just hearsay...
       As I said, I don't know how I feel. Maybe I can just get back to you on that next week.

Love you all,
Elder Wyman


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