Week #34

Excerpt from Dad's letter this week that explains Connor's comments:
[OK the blond joke of the week
WANTED FOR ATTEMPTED MURDER (actual AP headline) Linda Burnett, 23, a resident of San Diego, was visiting her inlaws. While there, she went to a nearby supermarket to pick up some groceries. Several people noticed her sitting in her car with the windows rolled up and with her eyes closed, with both hands behind the back of her head. One customer who had been at the store for a while became concerned and walked over to the car. He noticed that Linda's eyes were now open, and she looked very strange. He asked her if she was okay, and Linda replied that she'd been shot in the back of the head, and had been holding her brains in for over an hour. The man called the paramedics, who broke into the car because the doors were locked and Linda refused to remove her hands from her head. When they finally got in, they found that Linda had a wad of bread dough on the back of her head. A Pillsbury biscuit canister had exploded from the heat, making a loud noise that sounded like a gunshot, and the wad of dough hit her in the back of her head. When she reached back to find out what it was, she felt the dough and thought it was her brains. She initially passed out, but quickly recovered and tried to hold her brains in for over an hour until someone noticed and came to her aid. And yes, Linda is a blonde.]

where is the world going to when people are like that, i mean all are the children of our heavenly father, but isn't part of this life's purpose to learn, especially common sense,

ya i don't really have any thing to be unhappy bout at the moment accept that i didn't eat breakfast this morning, but that was my fault, the elders i live with now are great, we have good laughs every day, and the work is coming along thus far, plus i really loved pres. ukdorfs talk about being happy and grateful in your circumstances and despite your circumstances, its just so much more fun to be happy than sad so why look at the bad when there is still so much good, the world may be going to crap but the church is growing every day, more people receive the wonderful message of Jesus Christ's true gospel every day, as missionaries we are told to be in the world but not of it, i feel like i understand that so much more now, there may be bad stuff going on every day, but there are also good things, its our choice to either press forward look for the good things and see them, or stand still and let the world envelope us.

  for example the Japanese language, sure I'm not as proficient as id like to be, but I'm way better than i ever could have been in such a short time on my own, and i know from experience and as a witness that if i just study some every day than i will continue to progress, its up to me to progress or regress, I've experienced both and i think i know which is more fun and satisfying.

  to kind of answer  your question about the weather, its the rainy season, nuff said, but i guess its a good thing that i like rain, 

our investigator furugen shimai is continuing to progress towards baptism, she really is awesome. 

the transfer is almost up, i feel like i just got here, this was the fastest one yet, and I've herd that it just gets faster, there 2 years really go by really fast.

if any body has any ideas to be more effective, to magnify my calling, i am open to here.

love you guys always 

stay strong stay faithful stay diligent, just keep swimming.

elder connor kemp    

Week #33

konnichiwa all parental, siblingle and friendly units, how are you doing in our little city of twin,

   today here in shuri as per the rainy season its super grey out side, thus i fear for rain, but thats fine however it does spike the humidity.

we currently have two progressing investigators as i may have mention, yamashiro san and furugen san, as per cool things, furugen shimai who is 85 years old and cant here or see well and we can understand her well, HAS A BAPTISMAL DATE!, set for the 10th of may, but really she has such a desire to fallow Christ, more or less her wording was, i don't understand it all yet but i really want to fallow Christ, and she's always eager to learn what heavenly father wants for her ahh, i love obaachan dendo. yamashiro san is also great she really wants to learn but especially lately she is very busy, we are trying to help her currently.

on other news, 

we found 3 new investigators while housing recently and intend to visit them this week, 2 families and an old man and a few other potential investigators so were exited for the coming week, the language is coming along as usual I'm pretty off and on with understanding but at least speech feels natural and i have a big list I'm compiling of grammar stuff from my books, of things i want to include in my vocab more, its just taking a while to do so at the moment, but ill get it set up soon, 

other than that stuff the week wasn't all that eventful, we teach eikaiwa or English classes twice a week now, one a kids class that's allot of fun and one of the little girls is totally crushing on my comp. its hilarious, he just say's shut up when we tease him about it, in normal class one of the newer students is jacked out of his mind and he's a painter, like a really freak-in good one too I've only seen pics on a phone of his stuff but it looks really good, i want know his ways! 

I've been bad about pics lately so sorry for that i need to get my camera charged, I've just been busy lately but thats no excuse. ill send some pics of all my wonderful surroundings for you guys next week. 

this is all you get for now.

love you all soooooooo much your the best 

stay strong stay faithful stay diligent, just keep swimming.

Connor/elder kemp

 

Week #32

I always love hearing from you guys, always serves to brighten the week even when its rainy. Good week this week, we had mensetsu(interviews ) with kaicho(president) and had conference the two days after that. mensetusu was on my b-day so when they found out they went and got ice cream and sang, that night the DL stayed at are place and the snuck a cake past me and a bunch of other stuff, needless to say it was a great b-day the guys here are great. 

Conference was awesome lots of really good talks; I need to make sure i make my notes a big part of my study for a wile. Area’s doing great accepted we’ve been pretty busy lately so doesn’t feel like allot of time for finding, but I’m hopeful to go back out this week for real.

Allergies have been hitting my comp and i a bit lately, not supper bad but enough that I cant comfortably wear contacts, so I went and picked up a pare of glasses, turns out now I actually like the glasses and may just keep the contacts in reserve for like spurts and stuff, we’ll see I guess, anyway that would be were all my personal money ended up in the end that and a new back pack. so ill say thank you so much since it came from you guys really.

I have been loosing weight but i also feel like I’m becoming a puny little girl, i have no weights to lift aside from my self, and wile pushups are great, some of the weight I’ve lost, i fear is from muscle.

but ill try my best to stay strong, my comp. Happened to, before his mission be a health fanatic for lack of a better term), so we have had some good health related talks, he going to be helping me be healthier from now on, from those talks I feel I have to send a voice of warning, diet soda is really bad, sorry mom, it my be absent in calories but it messes with you body systems, drastically accelerates cancer growth and possibility and messes with insulin levels which can lead to diabetes. While it’s better to stop drinking soda all to gather, if you must drink it drink non diet, I know the feeling however I may give in to an a and w now and then but not even once a week I think, I would suggest the same, gomen.

I’ll try to draw stuff when the opportunity presents itself, I really have wanted to, it just hasn’t been happening.

Any way today should be fun were headed to the big city of Naha Wich we are a few suburbs of, and will see some shops and stuff, so ya.

I’ll send a pic of me with glasses which in Japanese is (megane)

Anyway that’s all for now 

stay strong stay faithful stay diligent  just keep swimming and bring those who don’t have the gospel to the life the do not yet know, they will love you for it.

I love you all and pray that you will have success in your missionary efforts, and that you will start feeling better, 

Aishitemasuyo!

Ganbatekudasai!

Connor

Week #31

wow, lots of cool things going on all over it seems, there are so many foreign missionaries in the ward no its crazy, tell jordan gambate kudasai for me, I'm sure she's going to love it over there. so, yes we are in a four man apartment which is really fun, however it dose bring up the challenge of not falling into to many tangents, but things are pretty good so far the kanke in the apartment is good we all get along great.

   as far as the cooking situation i don't think we have the bags your talking about but we have pasta and canned stuff, some good italian recipes would be great, we all like that stuff, 

    i Haven't seen conference yet cuz we get it a week later, so ill see it next sunday. 

 so to tell you a little about who I'm working with right now, yamashiro san is our current progressing investigator she loves learning and really wants to find the truth, the on problem thats holding her back right now is that she takes care of her 85 year old mother and her whole family is opposed to religion, so we will keep working with her and see how things go.

the next, is onaga kiyodai a less active member loves video games was baptized 5 years ago but never really felt he understood the Book of Mormon all that well he's really willing to listen, and really wants to understand better, so were currently trying to help him with that, we had to explain to him pretty straight forward that his understanding the gospel and daily study needs to come first before video games, he took it well and agreed. we hope to help him a lot from here out.

the last really cool thing is a recent reactivated member nakamura shimai and by reactivated i mean the after years of inactivity and some missionary visits she got up and came to church 3 weeks ago with her non member friend. yeah for obachan dendo (grandma proslighting) and she's come every week since she's great, a little crazy but great,

   the ward here is awesome as well its the biggest ward i've been in yet and there all super nice, one is a return missionary from this mission who had been in this aria on his mission and married one of the members in the ward after going back to america, he now lives here again, thats brenen kyodai he's awesome. 

   the language is coming along for me here i feel like i can understand the majority of what people mean when they speak but i still have a long way to go, on that note, if any one knows any good fun language learning methods, oshiete kudasai (pleas teach me) 

any way that all for now love you guys

stay strong stay faithful stay diligent 

just keep swimming 

Connor