Weekly Nobeoka Mail

Last week you were left on a cliffhanger! Well I have been transfered (for the first time) from Ishigaki to Nobeoka, Miyazaki, which is on Kyushu (the big south island of Japan) in the East.

I flew from Ishigaki to Naha, Okinawa (the main land), then to Fukuoka (the mission headquarters), stayed the night at the Zone Leaders apartment, then the next day caught a four and a half hour bus through mountains in to a whole new world in Nobeoka. Seriously, this is literally in the middle of no where which means less people.. which means no crowds! Before my mission I was with Jen in Melbourne, freaking out cause there was this huge sea of asians we had to swim through to get to the other side of the street, and she was all "this is what Japan will be like," but actually, so far so good!

Leaving Ishigaki was so hard! For a whole day we just rode around to a heap of different people's places to take photos and say goodbye, and we had the best Eikaiwa ever! Our branch president bought us some Ishigaki beef, one of the older sisters cried as we left, and a member and the legendary Yonaha couple came to see me off at the airport, along with the Missionary couple! Feels pretty surreal leaving the only place you've known your whole mission, but the members here are really nice and welcoming!

We have about 20 active members in the branch here, including a number of Priesthood holders. From what I have heard Nobeoka is a city (more like a town that is spread out, really) of about 140,000 - it reminds me of a bigger version of Deloraine for those in Tasmania.

My new companion is Elder Culverwell from Nevada and he is really fun and a hard worker! We have made some awesome goals for this transfer so we are both really pumped and excited.

We drove to Kummamoto city yesterday for stake conference (almost 3 hours down, and 3 back) which was pretty great, but the highlight was that I was reunited with my Dad, Elder Rogers, who is in the same zone.

This letter is pretty dry, so here are some stupid photos to make up for how lame this is.

Arigatou!

Also, if anyone wants to write to me, the mission home address is:

Elder Jayme Thomas Wheeler

9-16 Hirao-josuimachi

Chuo-ku

Fukuoka-Shi, Fukuoka

810-0029

Japan