Letter #14: Memories of Miyakonojo

Hey family! Been a while, well just a couple of minutes for some of you since we were able to talk on Skype for Mother’s Day! Things of gotten a little better out here. I actually got transferred early. The mission president called me again and said I am going to Tokuyama. Tokuyama is in the Yamaguchi prefecture. He said he would move me to a bigger city so I won’t be traveling such large distances on bike. I also got a new companion, Elder Martin. He is really nice and caring. He said we’d be going slow from here on to help me. I won’t deny that this past week has been so difficult. But enough on that.

The city of Miyakonojo was really great, the members were so very nice and always seemed to turn my day from bad to good. I will miss them. A couple days ago we biked for a very long time probably about 4-5 miles to a school out in the countryside. It was so pretty out there I wish I could of took a picture. But my companion forgot to stop and zoomed ahead. At the school we played with the kids there for about an hour. Playing like dodge ball and soccer. We were supposed to teach English but they wanted to play instead. Japanese people are funny, they are always either shocked or excited to see gaijin (foreigners). The kids are more excited so they are always jumping around you asking questions. The experience was fun even though my energy reserves were all depleted.

On my last day in Miyakonojo it was very busy. We visited two members, a couple called the Nakajou’s and a sister called Sakamoto. The Nakajou’s fed us hamburgers, though its not the hamburger you get in America. Think of just the meat on a place with sauce and cheese on top. No bun. It was really good, and their pot stickers (gyoza) we so so so good. Never had homemade ones before. They fed us a lot. I shared the message with them afterwords, not sure how well it went though. Sakamoto-shimai fed us cake and we talked for a long time.

Tokuyama has been interesting so far, its a little denser city with a lot of tall buildings, more compact, but more hilly. Sunday was really stressful and overwhelming meeting new members trying to speak etc. They had me introduce myself, that was a little hard they actually have a ward here and not a small little branch. Everyone seems nice. I hope I made a good impression. I know that the Lord is happy that I have been trying to give my all even though it has been so hard.

Elder Bryce