Week 76! All I could write in a few minutes!

Hello everyone!

This was the week here in Nagaoka Zone! We were really needing a week like this one, and it was amazing to see the Lord helping all of the missionaries all over the zone see miracles that they needed to see! Almost every night on all of the calls this week we hear amazing miracles from the district leaders, and the faith in the zone has really jumped up to a new level and everyone is getting more and more excited. Right now every area has atleast one baptismal date before Christmas and all the dates look really strong! Yesterday there was a good number of the top ten that came to church, and things are really starting to heat up.  This week you could really just feel the Lord's hand pushing us along and guiding us all in the things that we needed to be doing, it was amazing.  We are excited to push forward into this next week!

Elder Wheatley and I are doing really good, and I feel like the area has some of the most potential it has ever had.  We are teaching a lot of people right now, but we are really working to be finding on the way so that we can keep our pool fresh and keep things moving forward and that has been really good.  The last couple of weeks we have just been extremely busy, and have been struggling to find time to find, but we put more focus on really trying to talk to as many people as we can each day and this week we were able to find 2 new solid investigators!  I really like this new thing we are doing called Meaningful Contacts, and Lessons to a PI because it has helped us see personally how many people we really are trying to talk to each day.  Basically a meaningful contact just is someone you gave a chance to hear your message, and lesson to a PI is to someone who might meet you again.  But as we have been using those stats to help our area, we have been able to find more people and become more effective.  Right now we have a couple of investigators who are very close to baptism, and it is just the point where we have to just hit that last solid lesson and they will be there, so we are working really hard for that.  As we look at our own teaching pool, there really are probably 3-4 people who really have a huge chance of being baptized before Christmas, so we are just going to work and focus on those people this week!

This week there really wasn't anything crazy exciting, but it was just a really solid week! I feel like everyone in the zone and this mission are just super excited for the season, and things are just rolling so smoothly I am really excited to see all the miracles this Christmas season! Thank you for your  support and all your prayers! I love you and I'll talk to you soon!

Love,

Logan

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Playing a little ping pong. 

Working the baking skills, and making no bake cookies. 

A new Japanese restaurant they found. "Way good!"

Week 75! また風を引きました！

Hello!

Another great week here in Nagaoka Zone! It was a good week up here, and it is exciting to be a part of so many good things that are happening! Right now things in Elder Wheatley and I's companionship are going really well. It's now our 3rd transfer together and it's amazing how effective we can be after being together so long! We really have come to know each other really well, and how to work with each other! We are really fulfilling all of our responsibilities as leaders effectively and allowing ourselves to continue to see success in our area. There is a great balance in the companionship and I feel really lucky to be serving with Elder Wheatley!  

This Friday we had our Zone Meeting and it went really well. It's always exciting to have everyone gathered together as a Zone and to have the chance to learn from each other. The meeting went really well, and we put all of our focus on the Christmas goal, but more than that we focused on how we can accomplish it. I've really felt recently like everyone knows that we have this big goal, but the trick is helping the missionaries internalize the goal and then know what to do to accomplish it. We put a lot of focus on church and baptismal dates, as well as what happens once we set the baptismal date. We talked with everyone about how we can't just set the date, but we need to know that individual person's Road to Baptism, and get them working in that direction. I felt like the meeting went really well and he missionaries left excited to make some adjustments in their own Dendo and in their own areas!

After Zone meeting we went on exchanges with the Joetsu Elders A companionship Elder Hardin and Elder Hutchings. I had the chance to work with Elder Hutchings down in Joetsu and it was a great exchange. I while ago when I was back in Mito I had the chance to go on exchanges with Elder Hutchings when he was in Ushiku when we were younger missionaries, so it was great to get to go out with him again! Elder Hutchings is an amazing missionary and I really learned a lot from him. Something I noticed was just how hard of a worker he is. We were actually out in the pouring rain for the entire exchange, but it was great to have the chance to be working with a missionary who was dedicated to fulfilling his purpose! I got to hear about how Joetsu is going and it sounds like there are amazing things going on down there.  I feel like as far as the Christmas Miracle, Joetsu has more people that can  be there before Christmas, but those people need just a little more, and I think the missionaries are working hard to find and solve those problems.  

Right now Elder Wheatley and I's big focus is to get the people that we are working with ready for baptism for this Christmas season.  The Lord has given us a lot of people to work with, and we know that there are many of them prepared for baptism, so we really want to help them get there as soon as possible. We really think by showing that example and having baptisms here in Nagaoka, the Zone will continue to increase in faith and we will all be able to rejoice together in each others baptisms.  Things are going way good right now and even though it's starting to get cold and thats not the funnest, I really feel like over the rest of this transfer there are going to be some amazing baptisms here in the Zone!  Thank you all for all the amazing support you give me each week! You are amazing and I love each of you!

Talk to you soon!

Logan

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Week 74! 新潟大会！

Hello hello!

We had a great week here in Nagaoka this week and it has been a great week to start off the transfer!  Elder Wheatley and I are extremely excited to have the chance to work together again and we recognize that this is an awesome opportunity to work together as a companionship for 3 transfers, and that it's an awesome opportunity to see a lot of miracles.  This transfer was also really special because we only had one person out of the whole zone transfer, so we are excited that we get to work together for one more!  I am really excited about all the things that are happening in the Nagaoka Zone right now, and I am extremely excited to see what happens this transfer!

On Wednesday we had two new missionaries come to Nagaoka!  There is a couple that has been assigned to work here and we are way excited!  So the Makise Couple made it to Nagaoka and Elder Wheatley and I were able to go and meet them!  It was a great to get to welcome them to their new apartment, and help them bring up some of the things they had in the car.  We were able to get to know them a little bit, and just share with them our excitement to work with them and kind of fill them in on some of the miracles that are happening in the Zone.  They seem really excited to be here, and really seem to know how to dendo!  I was really impressed when they had been home for only a few minutes after taking a long car ride up here, and just started talking about all the activities and things that they want to do with us here in Nagaoka.  They were excited to hear about all the missionaries that are here, and were really excited to meet everyone at the Chihobu Takai.  I really think that this couple is going to be a huge help here in Nagaoka, and up in Niigata as well because they have so much fire and are excited and ready to work.

So this week was really solid for the zone, and everyone seems to be excited for this next transfer.  Everyone in the zone has set some really good goals, and this week was good for everyone to just kind of re settle in.  We will be having our Zone meeting this next Friday and we are excited to put lots of focus on this Christmas goal and to get everyone excited to get their people ready for baptism.  Right now in the Zone there are a good number of people that we already have who are really close to baptism, and some who are fairly new and are working their way up to it, so we are going to be talking a lot about the path to baptism and helping our friends be able to get to that point.  We also want to put a big focus on baptismal dates in the zone and really get those up, because we know that our friends have to have baptismal dates before they can be baptized!  It should be a great meeting and we are excited to meet together as a zone and learn from each other.

This weekend at the chihobu takai was great, and I really think it was good for the members.  That love and forgiveness are so important, especially in small groups and branches here where you are always talking to every member often, if there are problems they will come up easily!  I think that it was a great weekend for everyone and we all learned a lot! This week really has been a really good way to start off the transfer, and it was fun and exciting with everyone together over the weekend! We have some good things planned for this week, so I'm sure it's going to be a great week!  I hope you all have an amazing week as well!  I love you all and pray for you daily!  You all are such a great support to me I'm so lucky.  Talk to you soon!

Love,

Logan

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皆さん! Week 73!

This week was crazy, but it was a fun week. The first big thing that
happened was that we took a trip down to Tokyo! It was great what
happened was we had a big meeting with all of the zone leaders and
sister training leaders in Tokyo, but this time it was really special
because we got to have a tour of a really famous shrine in Japan
called the Meijijingu Shrine, which is located in downtown Tokyo.
President budge is actually good friends with one of the Shinto
priests there, and so he took us on a tour that most people never get
to go on! So on Wednesday we hopped on the bus and took a 5 hr ride
down to Tokyo, spent the night in the Honbu, and then got up and had
an amazing day at the shrine as a leadership group. I'll send
pictures, but it really was just an amazing day, and it is something
that I will remember forever. It was great because we were able to
learn more about Shinto, and what they believe, and so it really
helped me personally as a missionary on how I can better teach to the
japanese people. It was an amazing, short 2 day trip to Tokyo!

Then we had some amazing church miracles this week. There is a man
named K_____who we have been meeting with for a long time, and he has
never really made much progress, however this week we were able to get
a really good commitment from him that he would try and come, and that
we were going to meet him at a nearby grocery store in the morning and
then walk with him to church. We went to the grocery store in the
morning and he wasn't there, so we headed to the general location of
his house and started housing everyone. While we are housing we get a
call from a pay phone and it was him! He was at the grocery store but
had gotten there late! So we cruised back on our bikes and met him at
the grocery store, walked with him to the church and got to sit in
sacrament meeting with him! It was seriously amazing! He loved church
and really felt like it was a special place. He made huge progress
because of that and today in our lesson we started talking a lot more
seriously about baptism. Cool how the Lord really knows his children
and their needs and how to help them!

The last kind of important thing about this week was we had transfer
calls this morning...I have been here for 4 transfers which is a good
amount of time, and all though I didn't know for sure, I was pretty
positive that I was going to. However, God had different plans for me
because I am going to stay one more here in nagaoka! This will be
number 5 here which is actually really rare as a missionary to stay in
one area that long, at least in this mission, but I am way excited to
have the chance to continue to work with the people here! We were all
really shocked but actually in our entire zone, only one sister
transferred out! I think what is happening is president Budge is
really liking the way that nagaoka zone is looking right now, and
doesn't want to change much, especially during the Christmas season. I
think we are going to see some amazing things here in the zone this
transfer, I'm just way excited to be a part!

I love you all! I am so grateful for this church and the joy that it
brings me every day. This really is Gods true church on the earth
today! It's a blessing to be a part of the most important work this
world has ever seen. Thank you for your support, love, and prayers! I
will talk to you soon!
Love
Logan

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Week 72! Busy busy McGuu

Dear family!

Another great week!  Things are going amazing here in Nagaoka and you can really feel the fire picking up.  I know that we are going to see an amazing Christmas season here in Nagaoka with a lot of baptisms!  We are already looking like we will be going "white" and I think that there are even more people ready to be baptized than just one in each area!  Exciting.  Things are happening all over the Tokyo Japan mission right now and it's so fun to see.  With this big goal that we have, every single missionary in the mission is working every day to see miracles in their own areas, and we are seeing them!  President Budge is helping the mission a lot by being engaged with all the missionaries and really inspiring everyone.  I feel so lucky to be a missionary here!  It is crazy to me how much President and Sister Budge do for us and how much they are always helping.  It is definitely a huge blessing being able to serve with them!  Actually this week we had the chance to have President Interviews here in Nagaoka and it was way good!  We were able to have an interview with President Budge, as well as have a little talk with Sister Budge while we were waiting for our interviews which was way good!  I really feel like every time I have an interview with President Budge I come out of it so much wiser!  Haha but really he always gives such good advice and is just way relaxed about things.  It's never a stress to have to talk to him but just something that we get to look forward to!  It's a blessing to have such an amazing mission president!

So church this week in the Zone was really good!  Right now we have a goal that is focusing on church, but not only investigators, but focuses on all of the work of salvation including Recent Converts and Less actives. This is a fun way to look at ALL of the people that God is working with, and to see all of the work that the missionaries are doing every day, because we get to hear about all the less actives and recent converts coming.  This week there were tons of people at church, and all the missionaries were just really excited!  I think that was probably the best part of the week was not only did we help a lot of people by helping them come to church this week, but the missionaries were all able to really feel the joy, and experience that happiness that comes when we help lots of people come to church.  It was a great Sunday yesterday, and I think that everyone is really excited to work even harder this week and have an even better week next week.  To be honest, church wasn't great here in Nagaoka, we didn't have very many people come which wasn't very fun..but we have awesome plans for next week and so we will be working really hard all week to have a huge week next Sunday!  This week was a little bit frustrating when we didn't have a very good Sunday, and I was kind of sitting there thinking about why we weren't able to have very many people come and a thought came to my mind that was something one of my soccer coaches told me forever ago when I was super young, and something I have kind of kept my whole life and heard my whole life playing sports, but it was that when we lose a game we learn a lot more than when we win a game.  It hit me pretty hard that maybe we didn't work as well as we should have this last week, and God was helping us learn so that we can be better missionaries and work better every week to get people to church.  It was something that I don't think that I will be forgetting any time soon!

Something else we had this week was exchanges in Sanjo and I had the opportunity to work with a new missionary Elder Fryzel, and he is doing really really well.  I am extremely impressed by the missionary that he is becoming.  It's way fun to work with the new missionaries in the mission!  It was also really really fun to work in Sanjo again and have the chance to be back in my first area!  It's always really nostalgic and crazy, but it's fun to be back there.  We also had another exchange this week and I got to go with another brand new missionary Elder Richards!  Way fun to have that chance to learn from them, and really just grow from their faith!  These new missionaries have such strong faith and really know that they can do anything with God's help which is so good.  I am always trying to increase that faith, and it's nice to have younger missionaries help me out with that;) 

This week was a learning week!  I felt at times like we might not be able to get every thing that we had to get done done, but we did and it was because God was helping us!  I'm really lucky to have Elder Wheatley with me working way hard and having fun while we do it.  Something I have realized is that God needs us not only to be obedient and working hard, but that he needs us to do that with a smile on our face.  If we don't have that, we can't fully show these people the blessing that the church is in our lives.  Thank you all for always being so good to me!  I have to give a special shout out to my amazing mother Mom I love you!  Thank you again for the amazing birthday package!  It was perfect thank you.  I have an amazing family! Love you all so much have a great week I'll talk to you soon!  

Love,

Logan

ps - this next week is transfer calls, so I will let you know whats going on!

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Splits in Sanjo!

Companion selfies!

Sweet view on the riverside. 

Made some homemade cookies!

Yummy!!!

Week 71! Can I get a hello with that?

Dear Everyone!

This has been a great week up here in Nagaoka Zone and great things are happening that are really exciting!  It is so fun to see how the Lord is hastening his work, and how we are being blessed to just be a part of it!  Things here in Nagaoka are going really well, and as a district here we have great unity and desire to improve and see many more baptisms here! Right now our district leader is doing a great job and is helping the district stay united and always trying to improve.  It's fun to be in this District, because I really feel like there are no limits to what we can do!  We have the Zone leaders, the Sister Training Leaders, and the District Leader and his companion all in one area, in one district and so it is just fun to see everyone doing so many amazing things!  I think that President Budge really wants Nagaoka to be doing amazing things, so he has really put some amazing missionaries up here!  It's fun to be able to work with such amazing missionaries so that I can improve and do better!

S this week was a thing called a "Daigaku Blitz," which daigaku in english is college!  This week we decided as a mission that we would all go on last Friday to the college's around our area and just talk to everyone and try to find really prepared college students!  It was a way fun idea, and it was a great way too make everyone in the mission excited!  So we had the Daigaku blitz and we saw amazing things here in Nagaoka Zone!  There are a couple of daigaku's here in Nagaoka, and then in Joetsu and Sanjo there were only fairly small ones, but it still worked out and we still saw tons of miracles.  Here in Nagaoka, we didn't really have any huge miracles with daigakusei (college students)  probably because there weren't any huge colleges around here to dendo very hard, but there were TONS of miracles on the way to the daigaku's and just because we had the blitz.  I feel like that was the best part about the blitz was that it gave everyone here in Nagaoka something exciting to work really hard for.  I know that I certainly felt like I was a part of something a lot bigger than just Elder Wheatley and I in Nagaoka.  It was fun to think about all the missionaries in the mission working hard just like we were to see miracles, and with all that faith and excitement, we saw amazing things!  I think that the blitz went extremely well and we are excited for the next one!

Right now in Elder Wheatley and I's companionship we are seeing a lot of exciting things.  We have three investigators right now that are really progressing to baptism, H_____, Y____, and L____. We really want to try and see them baptized by the end of this transfer, and really believe that they are ready and can do it.  Two of them have dates right now, and the other knows that he would be baptized if he found out that this church was right for him. I really have never seen another area this on fire before.  Nagaoka is just seeing absolutely amazing things.  There are people in every companionship who should be ready for baptism at least by next month and we know that there are more to come.  Everyone is finding, inviting, and teaching, and when we can we are teaching with members and getting people to church.  Everything is going so well right now.  The missionaries here are all striving daily to be exactly obedient, and striving to be better personally so that they can see the miracles that they know God wants them to see.  This Christmas season is exciting!  You really can feel it in the air that there is something special coming.  Right now we know that the mission has been a little slow getting off to this baptismal goal of 100, but I know that there is a reason that we as leaders felt the spirit in that meeting when we prayed together.  The Lord wants this goal to happen, and He is going to strengthen and lift us up to be able to accomplish it!

This week was way good!  Things are going good out here in Nagaoka and it's crazy that it is getting cold again!  The transfer is coming to an end quickly! Thank you all for always being such a SUPER support to me and backing me up every step of the way as I'm out here.  I love you all so much!  Have a great week, and I'll talk to you soon!

Love,

Logan

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Week 70!

Hello!

Today before I say anything I just have to say THANK YOU to everyone who wished me a happy birthday!! It was so nice to hear from all of you and feel the love all the way from America! Thank you for you love, support, and prayers! It was one of the best birthdays I have ever had, and it was crazy that it was my second birthday in Japan! It was great to spend the birthday here in Nagaoka, in an area where I have been for a long time where I have so many great friends and so many people that I love! It was also a huge blessing to spend the weekend listening to the living prophet and apostles, and having the chance to be spiritually recharged! We were able to have a party after the last session on Sunday with some of the branch members, and a Sister from the branch who is one of my favorite members in the branch bought and brought me a cake! I took some pictures so I will send those but it was so great! I really couldn't have had a better birthday, it was so soo good! Thank you again for a great birthday wishes they all meant so much!

So it was another great week here in Nagaoka!  We are being so blessed here in the Zone, and in this area that it really is hard to put it all into an email!  But, I am so grateful for the things that we are seeing.  We know that we are all up here for a reason and it has been great to hear about each of the miracles that each companionship is having.  

This week was a great week because we had General Conference, and so it was a great chance to have lots of people be able to come, and see what the conference was like.  It was really great because we were able to just put a huge focus on General Conference all through out the week in our zone and in our own area and because of that we were able to help a lot of people come to the conference and experience that special spirit that is there!  It was also really great because we had a great opportunity here in Nagaoka to watch it here!  Usually, all of the members here go up to Niigata to watch the Conference which is always really great, but it is very difficult to get less active members or investigators too be able to go and so this Conference Elder Wheatley and I really thought about it a lot, and shot the idea to N ______and he thought that it was a good idea!  So we were able to get one of the dvd's here and were able to watch it with investigators and members who weren't going to be able to make it all the way up to Niigata.  The turn out was great! We ended up having 7 Less active members come to the conference over the weekend, and for every single one of them it was a great experience.  We also were able to have a good amount of investigators come as well, and the turn out for the weekend was a huge success!  We were really blessed to be able to watch it this weekend in Nagaoka.

Something else this week was Elder Wheatley and I were able to go on exchanges with the Joetsu Elders!  We went to their district meeting, and Elder Hardin did a really great job with the meeting.  I had the chance to work with Elder Hardin in Joetsu, and we were able to have a great day!  We had time to get out and find, as well as time to teach investigators.  It was really good to be working with Elder Hardin and it was a really great exchange with him!  Great exchange!  It's so fun to have the opportunity to work with so many missionaries on you mission!  Really before my mission, I never really thought about that aspect of missionary work, but it has been such a blessing for me to work with so many amazing missionaries and learn so much from each of them.  Excited to continue to learn from them as I continue to have those opportunities.

Things are going great.  The Zone is excited about this goal of 100 baptisms in the mission by the end of the year, and everyone is working extremely hard to accomplish it!  Their amazing faith and desire strengthens my faith and desire.  I am so grateful for the opportunity and blessing that I have to serve here in this mission! I love japan, I love President and Sister Budge, and just feel so blessed to be working here. There are miracles happening all over, and it is a huge blessing to be a missionary at this time! Thank you again for the birthday wishes, and for always supporting me! I love you and I'll talk to you all soon!

Love,

Logan

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Birthday love with a birthday cake a member got him!

Done with bikes, moving to scooters. 

After General Conference with Y____

Lunch with a less active and Elder Wheatley

Eating with a less active and her friend.