First Week of New Companionship!

Hello everyone!

First, I shall send some pictures. Because I know you all like pictures. Or at least my mom likes them enough for everybody. And since I just talked to my family on the phone yesterday, I don`t know what else to say! It was so great to be able to hear everyone`s voices yesterday. Amber joined in on the call using conference call and it was so great! I was totally surprised. Since she is in Utah for school and my parents are in Oregon I didn`t think I would be able to talk to her. So it was so fun to have everyone on the phone! I can`t believe it has already been practically five months! Time is so crazy. Even though the weather here is getting nice in my imagination since I don`t get to talk to people from home very often everyone is still stuck at the end of December doing the same thing. I even still get Christmas songs stuck in my head, haha.

So the biggest thing that happened this past week is that we picked up a new companion, Kito Shimai, last Monday. I talked about it in my last email, but since then it has been a lot of fun! Of course it has been a little hard to adjust too, and moving her in has been an adventure (we only have two desks, so for the first few days she used a desk she made for herself out of a cabinet door and milk cartons. Now she has been upgraded to a filling cabinet), but she always has all sorts of entertaining stories and is great. I can`t remember how to spell her hometown... so I will attempt that later. But she lived in the Tokyo mission before coming here, and was working in a juice factory, Which sounds delicious. She has been on her mission for almost a year.

Ok, pictures! The first one is the view of the sunset from our apartment. It was super pretty and this picture doesn`t do it justice, but I thought I would share anyways.

And then the next one is of Masuda Shimai and I in front of my desk, just before we went to pick Kito Shimai up.

We decided to go on a short boat ride.

I think I have mentioned this briefly before, but every week on Thursdays we teach a free English conversation class. We met Nakandakari San and her kids, who might be the cutest kids in the world, last transfer and they have been coming to class the past few weeks and it has been a ton of fun! They have a lot of interest in English, and American movies, and it is super entertaining. During one of our visits they just wanted me to say things like `Angelina Jolie` and `vampire` with an American accent, and then when I did they`d say `kakkoi!` (cool in Japanese) and get all excited and it was really entertaining. Basically, they are a lot of fun.

Next is a picture of me and Masuda Shimai outside of the church! We go to the church a lot for activities and meetings, so it feels like a second home here.

Last night we went and had dinner at the Ono family`s house with all of the missionaries and the Bishop`s family too and it was just a ton of fun. There was a lot of delicious food and kids everywhere doing all sorts of funny things. The second picture is my favorite, haha. Love the kids in it. (In case you are curious, Yamada Bishop is the one in the blue. Both of the Bishops here have been really young! And super entertaining)

Things is Atsubetsu are going well! I always feel so privileged to be able to do this work and help other people be happy. Sharing the gospel is really the best kind of service there is! I hope all of you at home are having an awesome time too. I miss you all, but a year and a half is really quite short so let`s keep in touch and I will see you soon!