Dec. 14, 2009

It's been a while since I updated this thing, so I'll put a couple excerpts from his latest emails.

Nov. 30, 2009

"...elevators here are small first of all, so that makes them scary. im pretty sure they're held up by tiny strings, they make noises, and they dont even have comfortable elevator music to hide it. but they're an experience.

next i'll talk about somethings that i likes from this week. a lot of things stood out to me this week. we just had zone conference and it was awesome. one of the things said was the best missionaries are found in the hardest missions. the comment was made towards us saying that we were those best missionaries. which made me feel really good, but on top of that i had a reassurance that this is a hard mission and that im not doing a bad job for not having baptisms let alone investigators. i know that i will continue to search for those that are ready but it made me feel better with all the non success we've been having. We had a great dinner. we went to the Uptagraft's, a family in the branch here. they work in the embassy and are from america so they made a wonderful dinner. they are a half asian family as well so it felt like home being in that atmosphere again. especially playing with their kids. they are gavin, who is 5; bailey, who just turned 4; and audrey who is 1 about to turn 2. they are the cutest kids and all the other missionaries here made fun and told them all to call me uncle nitta because im asian. but i loved it. it was honestly the first time i felt a little home sick. but its all good now so no worries about that. We went to a concert on friday. it was a philharmonic orchestra and they were amazing. i absolutely loved it. what a great experience. I passed my 100 day mark without even realizing it. and after next transfer i'll be a fourth done, its gone by crazy fast..."

Dec. 7, 2009

"...we meet oppostion when we are trying to make the world better. keep that in mind and know that even the savior was rejected and hated by many. As I go through my day and remember that I can say that I am a representative of the Lord in every way. We must all carry our own portion of the cross and walk a little bit of the road he did. Oh you found a BOM in croatian, thats exciting that you found one. One thing about it is that it's written in old Croatian, which no one really uses anymore. but a cool thing is that it was translated from english to croation by Krešimir Ćosić. He's a hero here and he very much deserves it. He is one of the greatest men that ever lived. I'm sure you've heard a little of him since you have been up at BYU but you should look into his history. Another thing is they are currently translating the BOM and D&C over again into a easier to read book. There is a group that meets and workes on that. They are currently done with the BOM and are on about section 20 in D&C. I'm excited for that to come out. I think you would be amazed at how involved we are in the establishment of the church here. I recently had the opportunity sit in while they were recording the Croatian voices for the restoration movie. Elder Mason and I were able to go into the studio and watch as the recorded and dubbed the voices into the movie. That was a lot of fun. It's amazing how the church is getting started and its great to be a part of that.

I'll be sure that I teach you a little croatian. I'll give you a lesson right now. Ok so nouns in the croatian language have a gender they are assigned to. Those genders are Masculine, Feminine, Neuter, and what we call Feminine 4th. The way you can tell the gender of a word is by the letter it ends with. Feminine words end in "a", Neuter words end in "o" or "e", and Masculine words end in a consonant. Feminine 4th words also end in a consonant and you have to learn which of those are Feminine 4th. This is important because there are cases in the croatian language. When speaking you have to put words into these cases depending on their possition in the sentence or on what you want to say. So lets take our last name, Nitta. Nitta is a Feminine word because of its "a" ending. If I'm the subject of the sentence it's just Nitta. If I'm the thing that is being acted upon then it becomes Nittu. notice the "u" ending. if you wanted to say "that's the house of Nitta" or like making it possesive you say Nitte, "e" ending. If you said "I'm giving this to Nitta", its Nitti, "i" ending. If you said "I'm going with Nitta" its Nittom "om" ending. and if you were calling out to me you'd say Nitto "o" ending. and on top of that there are different endings that you use for plural. so the Nittas as in more than one of us has a completely different set of endings. the trick is just learning all the case endings and then talking just comes. well that's enough for today. I hope I didnt fry your brain. oh and remember that was just for the Feminine Gender. there are still 3 others..."

This morning's letter:

"...Weather here is getting colder. It's about -1°C today and snowing pretty hard. Not as cold as P-town though. I am very excited for this Christmas. President Hill has said that Christmas on the mission will be the best ones for the rest of your life. I can see that, like you said the spirit of Christmas is truly of Christ. I know that if I didn't get it before that I will this year. I know that I have already...

So you looked up a little about Krešo. He truly is a hero. I respect so much of what he did for the church. He is one of the greatest of any men. Hugh Nibley and him were actually really good friends, or so I hear. Hugh was the one to convert him. He converted him because he knew a little Croatian. Krešo ask him what our church has that he doesn't. What Hugh said was "Radost", which means joy. The other cool thing about radost is the root word, which is "rad", or work. And as you know we find joy through service and work. I know that I'm the happiest when I'm working the hardest. The Book of Mormon right now in Croatian is written in old Croatian, which is needless to say very difficult to read with different verb forms and enclitics and so on. Some missionaries that have served here have a hard time reading it. So they decided to retranslate it into modern Croatian...

I would love to be able to have a normal sit down lesson with someone in their home. I feel that I took that kind of thing for granted when I was at home. I know now that I will never slam the door on someone, I will never be rude to anyone that talks to me on the streets. I don't think I ever realized how rude people were until I came out on a mission. I can't come back after two years and be that kind of person...

I did hear something that I loved this week at Zone Conference. The quote was "I'm not going to wait for rain, I'm going to dig for water." That hit me, I realized that in this mission especially we aren't given anything, and that we work for everything. I am very grateful for the experience of this transfer. Like I said this mission is hard. But its not going to stop me, it can't. I won't allow myself to lose my positivity. I know that if that happens then this mission will become impossible. I know and have realized that people rejected even the savior and his apostles. If that happend to them then it has to happen to us too. I'd like to invite you to strive to never be rude to anyone. Truly treat others as Christ would and if we do that then maybe we can change the way people are...

P.S. Cases are very hard to explain. There isn't anything like them in english and they are difficult to understand. the first is the Nominative Case. Which is the basic case and used for the subject of sentences. Like in "Chelsea is pretty" Chelsea is in nominative. The next is the Accusative Case. Used for indirect objects or the thing being acted upon. In "I love you" you is in accusative. Next is the Genetive Case, most often used as the "of case". This has many prepositions and has to follow them or when you want to say of. In "The Church of Jesus Christ" Jesus Christ is in genetive. We combine the Dative and Locative Cases (Dat/Loc). used a lot when your in a location or doing something to someone. In "We give this to you" you is in Dat/Loc case, or "I'm in the tram" tram is also in Dat/Loc. Then there is the Instrumental Case which is used for when its with or by means of something. In "I'm meeting with Gavin" Gavin is in instrumental case or when in "bless us with (by means of) the Holy Ghost" Holy Ghost is in instrumental as well. the last case is the Vocative Case. Used when calling out to someone or something like that. "hey Chelsea" Chelsea would be in Vocative. well thats enough for today."

Address

Hey everyone,

The address for the mission home that I gave you all before is correct. However, I guess that if you include "Slovenia/Croatia Mission" he is charged a fee. So, the address is the same, just don't include that part. Thus:

Elder Logan Nitta

Molekova Ulica 3

SI-1211 Ljubljana-Smartno

Slovenia

This address is the mission home. Send packages and letters here! Thanks and HAVE A GREAT THANKSGIVING! :)

Skinny, Croatian Diet, and Being Japanese

His email to me:
(I asked him how he lost 15 pounds!)
"yeah i lost 15 pounds. the secret is to eat less than you do now and to work harder during the day. take stairs instead of elevators, walk everywhere, and if you can walk faster than you do normally. just take in less food and use more energy. also every morning do a little workout and eat a light breakfast. you know just like all the health people say. its really not that hard you just have to be focused and actually do it.
Everything is going good. still working hard and trying to work hard. we actually do have some investigators now, so the work has paid off. we have 3 right now. Saša, Boris, and Zlatko. all great guys and they are awesome.
the food is good. everything is a little lighter here. not as much of everything and a lot more fresh vegetables and fruits. I'm eating a lot of what i would never eat at home. like peppers and olives and other veggies. i'm trying to get over being a picky eater. which is hard but i need to do it. i still hate olives though. nasty little things. they do have pizza, though it is very different from the u.s. pizza. a lot different actually but sometimes very good. i love the pekarna(bakery) so good. So much better than US bread and stuff. I love it."

Another email to the fam:
"the mission is very obedient and we dont have nearly any worthiness or obedience issues. I just realized that this mission is really amazing and that its different that most others around the world. I found out that when you become a senior companion you are automatically either a district leader, trainer, or a branch president. its a crazy mission. but its awesome. next transfer at least two of our group will be companions, that means that two brand new missionaries will be a senior comp, that could be me! i dont even know the language let alone be a district leader or something like that. its a little weird knowing that. our transfer is still going and ends in December. our transfers are two months not just 6 weeks. Jesus the Christ by Elder Talmage is one of the greatest books I've ever read. As I read it with the Bible it explains all the questions I have and its just a wonderful way to come to know Christ better. I've also read Our Search for Happines by Elder M. Russel Ballard. I love reading it. it helps me deepen my understanding of the gospel. I do enjoy reading the Bible and the Book of Mormon, and also all the religion books i have. The biggest thing that hit me lately is that we shouldn't read the Book of Mormon to know the book better, but we should read it to know Christ better. Doing that has helped my reading a lot.
Just a few more things. Being Japanese here is so different. People stare at me not only for the fact that im dressed us and have a name tag but also that I'm not white. the other day a kid in the tramvaj leaned his head out the window and yelled "konichiwa" to me. i just couldnt help but laugh and my companion was so confused on what just happened. i get asked all the time what I am and where i came from and all that jazz. its fun being the only one in the mission thats not all white. I stand out like a sore thumb."

Haha oh he makes me laugh.

Zagreb

Park near his apartment

Theater

Cathedral near his apartment

All Saint's Day

Lake Bled

Emails

Here are some of the recent emails we've received:

"i'm going to send you some pics from all saints day (day of the dead) where all the graves are decorated and there are millions of candles everywhere. it was amazing.
not much has changed, k.c. got deported but we met with him before he left so that was good. he says he's going to get baptized in africa, so we're excited. he even apologized to us for it we were just really happy for him. other than that we're working really hard to get a new investigator and just find people. we contacted over 200 people in 4 days so we're really working. there's a few potentials. Nada is one, she's a student in our english class. she went to general conference, she asks about our spiritual thoughts and last week she even came to sacrament meeting and she finally said she wants to meet with us. so theres hope there. another is a man we contacted on the street. we gave him a book of mormon and he gave us his number. we called him just the other night and he said he absolutely loves the book of mormon and loves how much there is in it about Christ. he said he deffinitely wants to meet with us and he even has a friend that he might bring a long. so thats the other. other than that our zagrb district is kicking trash. we have about 4 or 5 investigators at church every week and we're looking for 15 baptisms this transfer. we have a lot of work out in front of us but its totally possible and we're working hard to get it."

"so ive been out and about around 3 weeks and i love it. croatia is amazing. My companion is elder Anderson. he's from canada, and he's been in the country for 2 transfers, so about 4 months. zagreb has a lot of history, there are a couple cobblestone paths and some alleyways, but for the most part you only run into that when youre in old zagreb. zagreb has a ton of parks and also Mirogoj, which are huge cemeteries. we went there for all saints day (day of the dead) and I took a lot of pics. I'll be sure to send some soon. we walk everywhere. i've already dropped 10 pounds and hope to keep doing so for a little bit. the food is pretty good for the most part. I enjoy a lot of it but there are some things that just arent that good. there's only one or two areas where they ride bikes. Pekarne (bakery) are the best. I absolutely love the smell of fresh bread around every corner and love eating the sandwiches. so good. I think one of our hard days was when we tracted and contacted about 80 people and none of them even gave us a chance. all of them said no within the first 5 seconds and we even got yelled at a couple of times. but thats ok, we've been having a lot of that. we contacted over 200 people in 4 days which was hard work but we were excited to get it. its just kinda normal now to get declined all day and not get any success, but that doesn't stop us from trying. we're really looking hard for new investigators right now. hopefully they'll come soon."

This one was to my dad answering some questions-

"To answer your questions. I do love my area. Its big and there are a lot of people. They say its the biggest area in croatia. we've got the north half of the city of zagreb and the mountains to the north. a lot of people. But we love it. transfers are every 2 months so theres a chance that I move or stay. usually one companion will stay and the other will move. Elder Anderson has been here for a transfer before I got here already so he thinks that I'll stay and he will go. but we'll see. our appartment is right next to an awesome park and the cathedral. so its nice. We eat rather well. we cook for ourselves and sometimes go out to eat. I've lost 7 kilos since I got out here which is around 15 pounds. I think its because we eat a lot and very healthy and then we are always walking. Being in constant motion all day just kinda has a way of slimming you down. In all of Croatia there are 21 elders, 6 sisters and 4 senior couples. our group of 8 elders made up almost half of the mission here. In zagreb there are 4 elders, 2 sisters and a senior couple. our branch in zagreb has about 30 active members that come every week. so its a pretty big branch. well, the biggest in croatia. so you asked for number of missionaries in our zone. our zone is croatia, so the numbers I gave you for croatia are the numbers for our zone and our district is zagreb so those are the same as the numbers for the city. Its getting kinda cold. it snowed last tuesday but it was about 3°C so it didnt stick."

"News update not only 10 pounds but about 15 now. dont worry I'm eating a lot and good. just eating a lot more healthy and doing a lot of work and walking a lot. You can tell mrs Eisel that I teach the intermediate english class, which is mostly a conversation class. the beginning class is taught by the sisters and they go over grammer and stuff like that. We just teach give them more vocab and talk with them. the way we are learning a new language is by speaking it every day, so thats what we have them do. they mostly just talk about their weeks and ask us questions. and if they make mistakes then we just fix it right there and they love it. Nada came to church last sunday but missed this week. I hope we'll be able to talk with her some time soon. We met a man named Saša. he is amazing. he's been in contact with the elders for a long time but for some reason just lost contact. so we found him and hes awesome. he's been taugh a lot so we're just reviewing everything with him. he says he knows that the Book of Mormon is true and that Joseph Smith was a prophet, thats awesome. we're working with him to get him going. Its totally fine to give my email to anyone and everyone. I dont really have time to send letters, its just faster and cheaper this way. well we're still working hard and after this week I'll be half way done with this transfer. it flew by and everyone says they get faster. so i'm sure I'll be trying to savor every last second."

Sorry I've been a little behind on keeping you all updated! Send me an email and I'll actually be glad to forward his emails to you! My address is nittad8@gmail.com

In Zagreb

Logan just emailed the family today and told us how things are going. He's been out in Croatia for two weeks now! Crazy!

"so I'm in zagreb, the capital. as you probably know im super busy but its a lot of fun.
the work is hard but its not going to get me down. we're working really hard to find new investigators right now. we have about 3 investigators, soon to be none. our first investigator is K.C. from Nigeria. he doesnt speak croatian so we teach him in english, which is good for me. he's ready for baptism and really wants to receive the gift of the holy ghost. we reviewed with him the baptismal interview Q's and he is doing great with all of those. he knows that Joseph Smith was a true prophet and is working to keep all the commandments. the only problem is that he cant get work papers here and cant get a visa either, so he has to go back to africa. it kinda feels like crap but i know he'll get baptized. to make sure that happens we're giving his info to the elders in africa. I'm kinda bummed that he won't get baptized here but I'm just really excited for him to get baptized and it doesnt matter who or where its done. he's amazing.
our other two investigators are a mother and son named Izdenka and Sandro. they're interested but theyre in a bad situation with her huband. he's abusive and everytime we meet with them they wont let us teach them because they just cry to us about how bad it is. we listen but there's not much we can do. luckily they're moving out, so we're just waiting until that happens. the people here are kind of cold and stubborn, but every once and a while we find someone great and they will listen to us. its hard but we're both dedicated to this work and will do anything to see it progress. other then that im doing great. there's been a few hard days so far but its worth it. my language is progressing and i'm excited to continue to work on it. so yeah right now i'm just getting used to croatia. still cant understand anything really, but people say i speak well, so i guess that's a good thing. My trainer is elder anderson, he's amazing and works me hard. he's determined to make me the best speaker croatia has ever seen. so we'll see how that goes."

Peace Out MTC.

After a VERY quick 9 weeks (from my perspective at least), he's gone! Elder Nitta left this morning, flew from SLC to NYC, from NYC to Austria, and then Austria to Slovenia. The mission home is in Ljubljana, Slovenia. He will start tracting there and then receive his assignment after a few days and likely head to Croatia by train. While he was waiting for his flight to Vienna he was able to call the family from the airport! It was so great to talk to him! He sounds absolutely great. It's still our Logan, but he's changed a bit. It's for the better though. It was good to hear his voice and not have to wait about a week for a response! He cannot wait to get to Croatia and start preaching. He is still a little uncomfortable with the language, but that's to be expected I think. He'll get it in no time. He was able to ride to the airport with a missionary that we know from home, Elder Wise, who is heading to Japan. There were also about 20 missionaries going to his area of Europe. They are all on the same flight together. He told us how they tried contacting people in the Salt Lake airport, but didn't really have any luck. Haha. I wonder why. He did tell us a cool story of how he found a guy with earrings and thought that he might have some luck with him. Not too far into the conversation, however, the man told Logan how he had served a mission in Germany and it was the best experience of his life. At first, all Logan could think about was how that "wasn't cool". He was referring to the earrings and how the man had fallen away from the church. Logan realized that it was really neat that even though that man wasn't active in the church any longer that his mission was still the highlight of his life. Pretty cool story. Then he left...for his 10+ hour plane ride. And we (me and Logan) thought the 5 hour flight to Hawaii was bad. Ouch, he's going to have FUN. We can't wait to talk to the kid during Christmas. He's going to be a GREAT missionary.

Here's his address in the field. It's the mission home, so it shouldn't change. He said that they would forward letters to wherever he is at, but not packages. I'll let you know where to send those as soon as I find out!

Elder Logan Nitta

Molekova Ulica 3

SI-1211 Ljubljana-Smartno

Slovenia

He also sent some pics with his last letter. Here's some of the pictures :)

Chelsea