Elder Travis John Bloomfield in Fukuoka, Japan: 4 June 2013

Well hello there my missionary fan club. This week has been neat. It's getting harder but a fun time always. I guess I'll start with today. Let me fill you in on a neat story. Soooo apparently they like don't want us exercising on our p days (I think because the food they feed us is all fake and fattens us, so by us not working out on p day we can get extra extra fat) but my district.. we love to bond together and play basketball. So we were playing basketball for a bit and then all the sudden I go up for a neat rebound and get a big WHOP to the noggin. So I got two bloody noses and a bloody lip. Moral of the story.. "obedience brings success... strict obedience brings miracles"-Elder Scott. So I suppose next week I won't play basketball or something. But on the contrary to this story it can also be told for a neat sports motivational story. Lets start that story. Andddd here we are folks the series all tied up 1-1 who will win the final game of the series today? Getting pretty heated here, Bloomfield goes up for a rebound OHH! and Bloomfield takes a bloody one to the face. That didn't look good folks not good at all. He seems to be bleeding on the court that will sure be a mess (5 minutes later) and here is Bloomfield returning to the court, a plug in each nostril and wide grin on his face- folks I think he's up to something.. Can Bloomfield rally his team to a comeback win in the final series game? Bloomfield's team is down 10-14. Oh now they're down 14-19 (the games are to 21). Can Bloomfield's team make a stunning comeback even with his bloody face?? Oh and he hits a three. Ohhh and he breaks his opponents ankle with a fierce cut and hits a lay up! His companion Hanohano then hits a three and they win it! They have rallied back and won yahooo! Yeah so there's that if you ever wanna like motivate your Priest Quorum dad or Kyle if you wanna motivate Erin to play you in b-ball or Kyoshi if you wanna rally Kara to play you in some fifa or Mason if you wanna rally yourself to become good at basketball or Olivia if you wanna rally yourself to exercise sometime or Cassi if you wanna rally yourself well.. Never mind. Mom you seem to usually be rallied.

Anyways, the devotional on Sunday was really cool. It was a guy who role played Willard (I think that was his name, the doctor who was with Joseph Smith when he died in Carthage Jail) and told of the whole story from first person view about the saints in Navuoo and all of the prophecies Joseph Smith made before he died in Carthage and about Porter Rockwell (reminded me of Stevo and Mason) and about Dan Jones and how he was a fearless man. He told about how he prophesied that he would die in Carthage and how Dan Jones wouldn't die because he still had a mission to serve in Wales and how the governor broke many promises that he would protect Joseph if he came to Carthage. He told how when they were in Carthage Jail before they died he told John Taylor to sing "a poor man's warrying grief" and how John Taylor then understood what was going to happen and how it was such a prophecy and such. It was really really cool. The guy was a good actor too. He reminded me of Mr. Ellerbrock. I wonder if they record those and others can see those devotionals cause that would make a great family home evening for you guys.

I gave one of the nihonjin missionaries a butterfinger (guess he's never had one) and he started freaking out and was like ohhh ohhh Lehi Lehi Lehi! and was calling me Lehi like I had just given him the delicious fruit from the tree of life or something. I like the nihonjins.

My lessons with the "investigators" are getting better. At first we had to write down sentences and read them during the lesson and such but I am getting better now at just remembering the vocab and new grammar lessons we're taught and teach as much as I can that way. It's still a struggle but much better than 2 weeks ago. It is sometimes frustrating though because my companion won't want to like prepare exactly what we wanna teach, He likes it better to just go in and see what the investigator wants to hear and then start teaching but its rough cause if we prepared before we could whip out a solid lesson and such but its all in the learning process so that's okay.

I was practicing my ninja star throwing skills and I like to throw my mtc card (the credit card we use for meals and such) around and lately I've been getting really good, so good that I broke the corner of my card. I whipped that bad boy all the way down the hallway and then it hit the side of a door and chipped off. I was so proud ;) I have since relaxed on the card throwing though.I think I am now good enough to protect myself from any danger from the Japanese Mafia.

I still see Hilari everyday so that's real nice.

The button on my pants broke off. and its the metal kind so I can't just sew it back together so I'm not quite sure what I'll do about that. It won't snap back together so that's unfortunate.maybe just safety pin it for the rest of my mission who knows. I also played soccer for the first time a couple of days ago and man might I say.... the competition in the MTC ain't very high. I'm not sure if I broke a sweat. We have some serious work to do.

Word on the street is there are over 1,000 missionaries entering the mtc tomorrow. Most ever on one day. but most of them are going to y view and raintree I hear. Wednesdays are always so fun though with all the new people. Sometimes I like to put my orange sticker back on my name tag and pretend I'm a new guy. People are just oh so friendly to you its just great. Well not much else I can think of. Hil said she emailed a couple of pictures of me to Darci today. One of me doing my laundry and one with me hil and tucker. I'll send some other pics later as well. that's all I can think of for now though. Everyday is pretty much the same. Just classroom and language studies. Its hard but I love it - love learning the language and speaking it and converting myself more everyday while throwing some fun in there as well. One of the Elders in my district told me the other day (think I may have told you this but I don't remember) that's hes real glad I'm in the district cause I'm real funny and if it weren't for me he would probably be depressed all the time. That was nice of him. This kid is literally hilarious though. he makes me laugh so much he is one of those kids that is so funny but doesn't mean to be. hahaha like yesterday Elder Lewis was saying how he only ever wore skinny jeans and then in all complete seriousness Elder Wood goes "dude how do you even get those on? Do you have to like put mayo on your legs or something?" hahah It was so funny. Today we found drawings on his bed sheets (and I thought they were from someone else but never came off) and teasingly sarcastic I was like Wood why are you drawing on your sheets man? and then he was like oh that? yeah I just got bored so I started drawing on them. It should come out though its fine. haha I was like wait what? That was actually from you? It was real funny. but not to worry it will come out he says. He just got bored. Well this was a long email. It's all good in the hood though. and my hood I mean the brother hood. The kyodaihood.

All is well in the MTC. Love you all. keep up the good work. Every test is only a lesson to make you stronger.

Oh also, in the morning devotional on Sunday one of the guys was talking about Satan and how God put limits on him. He can only tempt us so much as we can handle. We have more power than he does. Anything in life that is thrown at us we can learn from and show it who's boss. So have at it.

dai sukidesu

ai shittemasu

Elder Bloomfield