Week 63! Beauty and the Beast

IHello everyone!

This week was so full of lots of busy stuff, but ended with an amazing
miracle!  Maybe a month and a half ago, I emailed you all about the
amazing miracle we had through facebook!  We had been playing soccer
at a college near the church, and I had made a friend with a kid named
C____, and we had been talking through facebook on my wall!  This girl
named J_____, who is friends with C____ saw that we were talking and
decided to click on my name.  She saw that I was a missionary for the
church and had been looking for a church to go to in japan!  So, she
messaged me and I was able to message her back and just help her know
where the church was and when it was and invited her to come, and she
came the next day!  We talked to her through out church and she had a
really great time.  We introduced her the sisters, and they set a date
to meet!  Over the last month, they have been meeting, and she has
been coming to church, and this week she was able to be baptized!  It
was amazing to be a part of such an amazing baptism!  She asked me to
speak at her baptism, and so I was able to give a little talk and just
talk about the miracle of her finding the church and it was just such
a great baptism!  She talked about how she was searching for a church,
and when she came to church that first day she just felt like it was
right.  She was so prepared, and she is going to be an amazing member
here, and when she moves back  to mexico!

Besides that, this week was so busy with transfers, but we all made it
safe and I am so excited to work with Elder Wheatley!  He is a way
good missionary, and I think we are going to have so much fun!  He is
a way funny guy, and we get along great already so it's going to just
be getting right into it!

I'm really sorry but I have no time today...But hopefully the pictures
I sent all made it, and the videos!  I will try and take more this
week!  I love you all, and I really love being a missionary!  It's the
biggest blessing I have had in my life!  I find myself everyday
thinking how blessed I have been to come to this amazing country, and
serve these people.  It is such a blessing.  Thank you for all the
amazing support I have from home!  Love you I will talk to you soon!

Love,
Logan

Sent from my iPad

Elder Wheatley and Elder Cottle

Getting some lunch on P-Day

Week 62! Transfer week again?

It's been another fast one.  I really don't know what makes it just
get faster and faster.  We are really busy, and working really hard
but I feel like I have been busy my whole mission, but this transfer
just absolutely flew by. We got the call this morning and it looks
like I will be staying in Nagaoka for atleast one more transfer!
Elder Killpack however will be leaving...and it is super sad!  Before
we were companions we were obviously soccer bro's, but it has been
super fun to get to know each other a lot better while we have been
together for the past couple of months!  Elder Killpack is such an
amazing missionary.  I have been so impressed by his dedication to the
work, and his desire to see success.  I feel like I have learned so
much from him, and it is going to be way sad to say goodbye!  But we
are definitely going to be life long friends, so doubt about it so
it's not a big deal.  I will be getting a new companion and his name
is Elder Wheatley!  I actually have known Elder Wheatley since the MTC
because his room was right next to mine!  So I have another missionary
who is my same age in the mission!  He is a super good missionary, and
a way chill guy.  He is actually from Heber, and took state at Wasatch
in soccer!  So I am going to be able to give those futsal shoes a good
work out mom;) It will be his first time being a Zone Leader so it
will be fun to work with him!  The Japanese Elder, Elder Kuwana will
be staying here as well, which means Elder Clark will also be
transferring out.  It is kinda sad to have the apartment split up, but
I think this next transfer is going to just be a blast.

So because it is transfers, today has been crazy.  We didn't really
get much time to do anything too fun on our last P-day together cause
we had to do planning and stuff like that but this last week was
really good!  Elder Killpack and I were able to meet with a lot of our
friends, one of those being H______! We met H_____ a few
weeks ago, and he has a great desire to learn about God.  He used to
live in Seattle, so his english is AMAZING. But we went out to where
he lives this last week which is in a little city on the ocean called
Kashiwazaki and we were able to meet up with him.  We went out and had
out lesson on the beach which was unreal, but the best part is that
the lesson went really well.  He really wants to follow God, and
receieve help and strength from him.  We taught him the Restoration
and how this church came to be and he loved it all.  We talked a lot
about baptism with him and at the end of the lesson invited him to be
baptized and he said that he would!  We set a date for the 31st which
is pretty soon, but we think he is really prepared and should be able
to hit that date no problem!  Really exciting to see all of the people
in this area that God is working with!  Right now we have about 4
people who are looking really promising to be baptized and have had
baptismal dates on and off for a while now, so we just need to lock
those dates down and see them happen!  Elder Killpack and I really saw
so many miracles with people, and I think that in the end we will see
a few people be baptized here because we were together which is great!
H______ also took us out to this way cool view of the ocean that I
will send after this, but he is such a good guy!  I am really excited
for him, because I really think he could be a leader here in the
church pretty soon because he is just such a good guy!  Please keep
praying for him to be able to continue to meet and work towards that
date.  I know that prayer is essential to missionary work, and the
power of prayer amazes me every day!

Other than that, the week was really good but just really normal!  Oh
we did meet one kid named N_____from Vietnam.  We play soccer
with him and his friends at a college maybe 30 minutes by bike from
our apartment and it is way fun.  The vietnamese guys are way chill
and N___has a really great desire to learn more about God and other
religion which is great!  Its super funny, but every Wednesday we play
Futsal with them all, and we are kind of teaching them all about Jesus
Christ right now but when they are all together we call them the "N___
Squad." I think it's pretty sweet.  They are all way cool guys though
and N____might come to church next week if he doesn't have class so
thats way cool.

This week was really good, and I really feel like I learned how
important the Savior is to each one of us.  It's interesting teaching
people about Jesus Christ, when the people your teaching know
absolutely nothing about him, and yet he still has suffered for every
single pain, trial, and sickness they have ever experienced.  It's
cool that that is my job.  I literally just get to help people
understand why Jesus Christ is so important for them personally, and I
really love being able to see people change as they begin to accept
Christ as their Savior.  It really is an amazing experience!  I love
all of you so much!  I hope you are getting ready for school to start
this week, I really can't believe the summer is already over!  Way too
fast of a summer.  I'm excited to hear about how everyone's first week
back was.  Hope everything goes great!  Talk to you all again soon!

Love,
Logan

Sent from my iPad

Week 61 No time!

No big email this week but he sent me my small one with answered questions. 

mom!

I hope you had a beautiful sabbath, and wake up to this email with a smile on your face:)

YOUR PACKAGE HAS BEEN SENT. I HOPE THE SIZE 10 ISN'T TOO SMALL. I KNOW YOU LIKE THEM TIGHT. 

1. You are too goood to me!  thank you so much they will be perfect i promise! yess i love when the soccer shoes fit tight you know me too well:)  thank you so much i will let you know when i get them!

HOW IS YOUR INVESTIGATOR DOING? I HAVEN'T HEARD ABOUT HIM RECENTLY. 

2. yeah so unfortunately he has kind of dropped off the map...every so often we are able to talk to him on the phone and we set appointments and he really wants to come but he never does...really sad but we are praying that we will be able to meet him soon...but we will see!

I LOVE ALL THE PICS YOU ARE SENDING. THE FIREWORK VIDEO WAS AWESOME. AMY TIME YOU WANT TO SEND A QUICK VIDEO CLIP WE WOULD LOVE IT. :)

3. I am glad that you are liking the pictures!  i am using the camera a lot so it is great thank you so much!  yeah i actually have some more that i will send you this week from the fireworks and stuff, but i will try and take more videos through out the week for you! there are plenty of funny things that go on in the apartment and stuff, i can definitely send you some videos:)

ANY FUN DINNER APPOINTMENTS THIS WEEK? IS THE RAINING LETTING UP AT ALL? ARE YOU DOING ANY TRAININGS SOON?

4. yeah actually we had a dinner with the branch president and his wife this week at their house and it was really nice!  we had okonomiaki, and yakisoba which are both REALLY good so it was way fun!  yeah raining a little bit today, actuallly we are supposed to be getting a typhoon soon, but not sure when that will come...we will see!  yeah we will have a training this saturday that we will be giving to the zone, around 16 missionaries on saturday that we are preparing a lot for this week it should be super good!  i will let you know how it goes!

thank you for the amazing email! i was so happy to hear about your new calling! you will do amazing there.  have you served in the stake primary presidency before? you will do amazing things I am sure of it. so proud!  let me know how it is going!  by the way how are all my little primary kids doing? if you could tell them all that I love them and i miss them that would be amazing!  i have wanted to send them a little something, but i haven't gotten around to it..but maybe i can find something this week and i can have you give it to them for me!  they are such good kids i loved that calling!

i love you i will talk to you sooon!  have a great last week of summer!

log

These were the guys that Logan watched the fireworks with. 

Week 60 長岡花火！

This was one of the coolest weeks of my mission!  This was just one of
those weeks where you are finally feeling like your kind of getting
things?  I guess I have had plenty of those weeks already in my
mission, but it was just one of those weeks where I really felt like
Elder Killpack and I were doing our part here, and then The Lord was
literally just taking care of the rest.  It's definitely nice to know
that it all isn't weighing on me to get it all done, because if that
were the case I don't know how things would go!  It's nice to know we
have someone to lean on.

One of the highlights of this week was definitely the weekend.  I
don't know if I really told you all very much about the fireworks
here, but I guess they are pretty famous, some people say even the
most famous in the world.  They do them for 2 nights, and that was
this last weekend!  Over 600,000 people come from all over Japan,
literally from EVERYWHERE.  We had people from Tokyo, even all the way
from Osaka!  It was crazy, but they all come to watch this huge
firework show right on the river.  We had the chance to go, because
trying to dendo during the fireworks just doesn't work haha.  We were
able to go with one of our friends with a baptismal date K___, and his
friend from school!  We went and met up with some members who saved us
seats from 11 in the morning!  It was way nice of them to save us the
seats, and it was a way awesome chance to spend time with K___ outside
of church and just have a good time with him.  The fireworks really
were just amazing though.  I have a video that I will send, I think I
can only send it in like 45 second segments through the ipad, but I
have the big finale video'd and so you will kind of be able to see, or
atleast get an idea, but they were pretty amazing!  While I was
watching them, it was hard to think that before we know it, summer
will be over, and that will be the last full summer that I spend here
in Japan!  Elder Killpack and I talked about it a little bit, and we
both just feel so blessed to have the chance to serve in such an
amazing country, and have such amazing experiences here!  It is always
fun to talk with Elder Killpack about that stuff because we came to
Japan the same time, and so he gets exactly what I am feeling!  It was
seriously so much fun to watch the fireworks though and is definitely
something I will never forget!

The next day was church, and we had an awesome miracle there.  This
week, we met a man named H______who has amazing faith in God, and

feels like him being able to meet with us is a sign from God that he
is on the right path!  He is a way cool guy and we were able to meet
him at the station to help him find the church!  After we arrived in
his car at the church, K___was just waiting outside!  He had told us
he was coming, so it wasn't too big of a surprise, but when I went
over and started talking to him, he told me that his friend that he
had brought to fireworks was coming to church as well!  He told me she
just said she wanted to come, and so she came and it was way awesome!
These two, I think are a couple? I don't know, but I'm ok with it if
they are cause they are way good together!  I'm fine if they both just
get baptized together;)  haha they are both 17, and really like church
a lot!  K___wants to come to America next year over the summer, so I
told him that he could stay with us in Utah!  Hope thats ok mom...:)
haha but he is a way cool kid and is making really great progress
towards his baptismal date of the 17th!  Keep him in your prayers
please?:)

This week we really did see some awesome success!  It was a good week,
and I feel like I am really starting to like Nagaoka a lot which is
kinda scary because transfers are coming up in only a couple of weeks!
Elder Killpack has already been here for a while, so he is most
likely to leave, but you really never know with President Budge! We
will see what happens, but I would love to stay and just make sure
that all these awesome people we have here get baptized!  We have been
able to build up a really good pool of people here who are looking
really good for baptism soon so I really want to help them, but we
will see how much time I have!  Something really cool that I noticed
this week was just how much God does care for each an every single one
of his children.  I watched this video this week called "The hope of
God's Light," which I am sure some of you have already heard about,
but it is a super good video! Watch it if you haven't, but it talks
about how this guy comes to know that God is there.  The answer did
not come instantly, but it did come.  God didn't come down and make
all of his problems go away, or reveal himself or anything, but there
were things in this man's life that changed and he began to notice
them.  When I watched it, it really helped me realize some of the
amazing things that God is doing for me right now as a missionary,
that maybe I take for granted or don't notice.  God is ALWAYS helping
us along the way.  He shows his love to his children constantly
through small and simple things, and those small and simple things
really do add up to a lot!  I'm so grateful for the things that he is
doing for me, and for all the people back home that I love while I am
gone!

I love you all so much!  Thank you for always being so supportive to
me you really make me such a better missionary!  Have an amazing week
and I will talk to you soon!

Love,
Logan

Sent from my iPad

Fireworks Tokyo style

Sato