Golden Birthday in Japan!!

Hello again everyone!

I figured out how to attach pictures! Victory! They are of my birthday,

We will talk about that first since it only happens once a year... And this one was extra special because since I turned 23 on the 23rd it was my golden birthday. I never thought I would celebrate my golden birthday in Japan! It was fantastic.

Um, I have like negative time so we shall just do highlights:

• So, it started out like a normal day, except when I went to go to the bathroom I discoveed that Masuda Shimai had decorated the inside of the door with cute little messages. It was super adorable. Oh and I opened Amber`s present! Thanks! I love it! And it`s still snowing here so I will definitely have plenty of opportunities to wear it.
• When we went housing, proselyting door to door, the very first person`s door we knocked on was a cute grandma who let us right in and talked to us for 40 minutes. She probably isn`t going to become an investigator, but it was still fun and she was really nice.
• We had Pizza Hut for dinner! I`ve been craving pizza forver, so it was wonderful. It was like a little feast. But kind of funny, because even though it was Pizza Hut I couldn`t even find a pepperoni or cheese pizza on their menu...
• I opened my awesome package of presents from my parents... that were all wrapped in gold! Thank you so much!!!
• On friday nights we have sports night where ward members and investigators can get to know each other and just hang out. We had a mini lesson with a really cool recent convert who is the same age as us right before it started at the church, so we all walked across the hall to the gym and when we got there the Elders who were already there excitedly handed her a little map of the gym with stars on it, and a message for me on the back that said something like find the treasures and receive a secret message. At each of the places where the stars were, there was a delicious cookie with a note. The three of us, Masuda Shimai, Sarasa San and I found the first two pretty easily, but the Elders are super good at hiding things so they had us practically crawling around the stage and jumping up to look on shelves to try and find them, It was fun! But we may have ended up needing to get some tips, haha. Oh and at the end all of the pieces together spelled happy birthday and had the Elder`s favorite scriptures written on the back of them. Then I got surprised again a while later, after going to the bathroom with Masuda Shimai. I opened the door to the gym to find that all of the lights had been turned off, and then a big spotlight was put on me and everyone sang happy birthday and we ate a cake and delicious jello mold that the members had made for me! I felt so loved that they would do all of that, espcially when I have only been here for like a week and a half. I think Masuda Shimai made sure something would happen, because she`s awesome. But she couldn`t ever surprise me with me standing next to her all of the time! Haha.

Super quick fun things from today -- I bought my bike! It`s an awesome purpley-blue, in case you were wondering. And it has a bell and basket. Win. And then after buying the bike we went bowling because it is two of the Elders in Atsubetsu`s last p-day.

We do lots and lots of missionary work and have fun doing that, but we`ve definitely been able to do a lot of other fun things too! And the ward members here are seriously so amazing. I think we have seen them every day so far this week, and they`re always giving us things. All six Atsubetsu missionaries even went to one member`s house this week where we had this huge Japanese BBQ feast. It was great.

Oh and another fun mission activity that we did that Masuda Shimai had the brilliance to come up with is that we went to the Mission Home with one of our investigators for a music activity with the mission president`s wife, because she loves music and so does our awesome invesigator, who is 18. We sang some beautiful church songs before teaching the first lesson. And when we asked if she would prepare to be baptized she said yes! There`s definitely still a lot to do before then, and in Japan you still need parental permission to be baptized before age 21 and her parent`s are really strict, but it`s so cool to be starting down a path that can bring so much happiness.

Well that`s all I have time for right now! I want to try and read some emails and maybe send more pictures, but the Elders have been waiting here for a while... The pictures should be self explanatory?

Love you so much!