Celebrating 22 Years of Fun

This past Thursday was my wonderful sister Amber’s birthday! So today when she came down to visit (because she’s nice and comes to me since I don’t have a car) we had a fantastic excuse to eat a special lunch at nearby Gourmandise.

Because it was a special occasion we treated ourselves to tasty white chocolate & fresh strawberry frappes…

and delicious sandwiches. I highly recommend it!

It was kinda funny though because since it is so close we decided to walk and while on the way there it was a beautiful perfect fall morning…

On the way back it was a little different!

A good rainstorm can always be refreshing though. Overall, a beautiful day! And it isn’t even over yet.

Thanks for being born, Amber!

*song of the day = Ghosts by The National Parks, Amber’s friend’s band!

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!

A birthday in Japan!

Today is Natalie's birthday! Her first birthday in Japan. Her mission president sent us pictures from her first day too, so enjoy!

President and Sister Evans and her companion.

All the missionaries who flew into Japan together!

Birthday Post!

Hey look, I’m posting about my birthday in a timely manner! I think that’s a first. It’s just going to be pictures though, since I’m lazy. It was an excellent 22nd birthday.

First, after class, I went to lunch with my lovely Sam to Tucanos! I forgot to get a pic there (my bad), so here’s a pic of us later:

Then, I went to work, where I celebrated my third birthday at The Daily Universe. Which is always magical. And included a banana birthday cake made by the ever wonderful Kaye!

After work and another class the fabulous Andrea took me out to Costa Vida for some more tasty food and happy chatter:

And then there was a little get together at my place with lovely friends (the rest of the pics will be on facebook, don’t you fret):

There were also lots of delicious cupcakes involved:

Song = Make Me Smile by Chicago

Belated Birthday Post x2

Apparently I am just unable to blog about birthdays when they actually happen. This time it isn’t for me though, it’s for my sister Amber. She had her 19th birthday two weeks ago tomorrow, and it was a lot of fun for me because it’s the first time in four years that we’ve been in the same state on her special day. So I appeared at her door bearing gifts after regional conference (which I feel must have been a birthday present in itself, because a bunch of general authorities including Elder Packer, Elder Holland and Sister Beck were there).

Pictures:

Amber and her friends.

Sneak peak at some of the cupcakes I picked up for her from The Sweet Tooth Fairy (in above box). I’ve never bought so many cupcakes at one time before in my life. It was exhilarating.

In other exciting Amber news, she blogged for the first time in forevers yesterday. I may have been bugging her about it. I never had a blog as a freshman, but I get bored sometimes and I’m pretty sure she’s supposed to be providing me entertainment.

Can I also just say one of the best things about having my sister at BYU (other than the obvious reasons, of course) is that she will come to the newsroom where I work with her magic money card (a.k.a. student dining plan) and buy me treats from the vending machine? Yeeesssssss.

The Belated Birthday Post

Since it’s been almost a month since my 21st birthday, I figured I’d post some pictures of it on here because I can. It was a lot of fun. My sister was in town, and after school and work and such I got to go to Communal (which was delicious) with a lot of cool friends.

Birthday at work at the Daily Universe. Always fun.

Birthday on the way home from work. Also important.

Birthday with sister.

Birthday at Communal. Delicious.

Birthday cake with Sam.

The end.

The Glorious 23rd Day

The 23rd day of the month has always been my favorite, and these next few months are going to provide some especially great ones.

Here’s the rundown:

• February 23 = My mom’s birthday.
• March 23 = My birthday (21).
• April 23 = The day I leave for Washington D.C. (at 11 a.m., arrive their at 4:30).
• May, June and July 23 = Existing in D.C.

So enjoy tomorrow and appreciate it for the wonderful day that it is! Something cool is bound to happen.