Hello from the Animals of Ebetsu!

Hello everyone!!

I hope that you all had a lovely conference weekend. We don`t watch it here until next week since the time difference is too funky, but I did hear the big news that the age requirement for missionaries has changed! (In case you didn`t know, before it was 19 for boys and 21 for girls, but as of Saturday it is now 18 for boys and 19 for girls) We actually just found out from some of the sisters talking about it in church on Sunday morning because they had seen the news online. None of the missionaries had any clue since we`re not hooked up to the internet, haha.

But I think it will be awesome, especially for girls. I think I would still be here at the same time in my life no matter what, but I think that now a lot more girls will come on missions and it will be great! It is such a wonderful experience and sets a great foundation for the rest of life and will strengthen a lot of futures and families. Cool stuff. It will be interesting to see if more sister missionaries start showing up here after a few months!

Um, I shall proceed on to pictures because that tends to be the safest plan.

Last week we went to Tonden farm, a cute little place where they have animals you can play with petting zoo style. It`s an Ebetsu attraction. While we were there we ran into Rin Chan, who I think I have mentioned before because she was baptised with her dad last month, and her family and it was super cute to see her run around and feed all of the animals.

all of the stuff in the gift shop was from New Mexico, which was kind of random.

more animal friends

there were lots of animals. haha

We have 30 minutes of sports every morning first thing at 6:30, and this transfer has been great because we have gone running almost every day. LOVE it. But one day this past week we decided to do a little jumping instead...

 

We also went to a super delicious soup curry shop for lunch one day. I definitely want to learn how to make it myself at home when I get back! It is warm and magical.

 

I also got to make some pumpkin cookies this past week! For a full understanding of my undying love for pumpkin cookies, refer to my blog entries from around this time last year. And probably the year before that, and before that... I kind of like them. So anyways, I had resigned myself to the fact that I wouldn`t be able to eat them this year but then I got a surprise package from my mom with all of the ingredients in it (surprisingly hard thing to find here -- chocolate chips! You just have to break up bars of chocolate or else spend a lot of money for a super tiny bag of them)! Thank you mom! The Elders appreciated it too.

And then when we were out one day we discovered a Gresham, Oregon (review: Gresham is Ebetsu`s sister city) park! Taking pictures became necessary.

We also ate delicious parfaits at a cafe called Santa Cream. I know that you all are just dying to know everything I eat in a week, so you`re welcome.

I took way more pictures than I thought, so now I am all out of time!! Oops. But most people think pictures are more fun anyways, so I guess it is ok... We had a great week of missionary work though, and were able to teach some really fun lessons and learn a lot more about the gospel ourselves at the same time.

The weather here is just starting to get chilly and the leaves are starting to turn colors and fall and it is so gorgeous! I love the crisp air, and am so glad to be able to be here with these people right now. Thank you so much as always for all of your support!!

Scripture of the Week:

Proverbs 3:5-6 (Bible, Old Testament)

Trust in the Lord with all thine heart, and lean not unto thine own understanding. In all thy ways acknowledge him, and he shall direct thy paths.

Fun Japanese word of the Week:

Necojita = cat`s tongue, or `I can`t eat/drink hot food.` They always drink things so ridiculously hot here! I am way too weak. I can`t do it. I just have to sit and wait, haha.



Come Listen to the Living Prophets

The LDS semi-annual conference is this weekend!

The Half Way Mark

I officially hit 9 months of being on my mission this past week, meaning that I have now entered into the world of having less time left on my mission than what I have already completed. So that is weird.

I`m still a little behind, so I will just start by sending pics and describing them and go from there! This past week went ridiculously fast. It`s crazy.

[This paragraph is repeated from last week for these two pics that didn't send due to an email problem]

They are really big on business cards here, so every time a missionary goes to a different area they write on the back of them to give to all of the members and people they worked with. It is pretty cool and fun. So since the music concert was in Atsubetsu I wanted to finish before then so I wrote seriously like every single day. When I finally finished I had written 47!

Last week we had a pizza party! Stilson Choro channeled his former little ceasars pizza making past and we all made little personal pizzas. Imanishi Shimai has made the dough in the morning because she is awesome. The most interesting pizza was created by O San, who is one of the Elder`s investigators from China. He put white chocolate lemon cookies in the middle, then cheese and all that, and then on top an intense amount of salt and pepper and crunched up cheese potato chips. Everyone ate a slice... I got part of the cookies so it wasn`t too bad. But it was super funny.

More pizza pics!

And I have tried out all of the banana bread recipes my mom sent me in the past few weeks and had fun both eating them and giving them out to investigators and people in the ward -- they don`t have banana bread here! The Elders were super stoked when I gave them some. The winner is the banana chocolate chip muffins. But the sour cream here is different and kind of expensive, so I`ll only be able to make it once in a while.

Also, you may have noticed that I cut my hair. It was just getting way too annoying, as much as I wanted to help the children. Getting my hair cut was a totally terrifying experience though, haha. I don`t know how to express the subtleties of hair cut desires in Japanese! It is definitely way shorter than what I said, but I`m still alive so it is ok. Maybe if I think really hard my hair will grow super fast again and I will have enough to donate to locks of love when I get home.

This past week we got to take a little field trip away from Ebetsu, going to Asahikawa! It is a two hour bus ride away, and the first time I have left the Sapporo area. We went there for a zone conference and went up and came back the same day, meaning we had to catch a 6:15 train to the Sapporo train station, where we took a 7 a.m. bus to Asahikawa, so it was super early but we survived. And it was fun to see everyone and do some training together!

Bah I am way out of time. But this week has been great, with some great lessons with investigators and such too. Hopefully I will be able to catch you up on that soon!!!

Love you all so much!!! This week has been a fabulous one for mail :)

Scripture of the week:

Alma 7:24 (Book of Mormon)

And see that ye have faith, hope and charity, and then ye will always abound in good works.

Japanese word of the week:

katatsumuri = snail

Take me out to the ball game... in Japan!!

Sorry I didn`t get to write anything last week, but it was for a good cause -- all of the missionaries close by got to go to a professional baseball game together!! It was a super rare treat. The mission concert`s grand finale performance was on the Saturday before, so I think it was our reward for having to spend so many p-days at the mission home all day practicing. I guess I should talk about the concert a little first, since it was such a big part of our lives.

The concert: If you`ve been keeping up with the blog periodically you should probably know that we actually did the same concert before a couple of months ago. Basically it was a huge concert where all of the songs were performed by the missionaries -- about 50 of us who were working close to Sapporo. Evan`s Shimai, the mission president`s wife, is like a music professional so that whole thing was her grand idea, with help from Nishimura Shimai, a Japanese sister who studied music and is super skilled. She arranged most of the songs herself! So we did the first concert and it was great, and then the other Sapporo Stake (there are two in Sapporo) wanted to have a concert too, so we got to do an encore. All of the music was pretty much the same except for a couple of songs. It was way fun to do it in Atsubestu this time because it meant I got to see lots of my Atsubetsu friends and it is closer to Ebetsu so a couple of our investigators were able to come and a lot of members too. There was one non-attending member who we visit occasionally who came and said it was the first event at church he had been to in ten years! It took a lot of time and effort, but I think it was a really great opportunity.

Agh, way too much stuff to catch up on and way too little time! Ok, baseball. And then I will try to send pics to fill in the gaps?

So the call that we were all going to be able to go to a baseball game was a total surprise! It was a fantastic experience -- I totally wanted to be able to experience the culture of sports here and didn`t think I would be able to during the mission. I LOVE sports, so I love things like that. For example, when I was in England we all went to a soccer game and it was so cool to see all of the different cheers and cultural things. Baseball is actually huge here, so being able to go support the Sapporo Nippon-Ham Fighters (they were playing the Buffaloes. I feel like there aren`t actually any buffaloes in Japan... haha) was fantastic. Their cheers were so organized! It was impressive. A lot of it seemed super American though, which was also really interesting. They definitley played YMCA for everyone to dance to. Oooh another fun part was that before the game we all met at the mission home for a BBQ! It was perfectly American, with hamburgers, hotdogs and ice cream from Costco. So great. Thank you President Evans!

Before I run out of time, some pictures! I will start with the baseball ones, just to be safe.

The BBQ fun, and then everyone heading to the subway to go to the game! There were 52 missionaries who went... we kind of stood out.

More baseball! The stadium is actually inside a cool dome, which is kind of funny but entirely necessary in Hokkaido with all of the snow for so long!

One of the missionaries caught a ball, so he had everyone sign it!

They also had this cool balloon release in the middle of the 8th inning.

They are really big on business cards here, so every time a missionary goes to a different area they write on the back of them to give to all of the members and people they worked with. It is pretty cool and fun. So since the music concert was in Atsubetsu I wanted to finish before then so I wrote seriously like every single day. When I finally finished I had written 47!

Ahh lots more pics and such, but no time! LOVE YOU ALL!!!

I`ll catch up on everything next week, I`m sure. Famous last words.

Scripture of the Week:

1 John 3:11 (Bible, New Testament)

For this is the message that ye heard from the beginning, that we should love one another.

Japanese word of the week:

katto base = Japanese cheer for when people are at bat

can't email this week...

Because we're going to a professional baseball game today!!! I literally only have time to send this and print out the others. LOVE YOU ALL!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

I will send send pics next week and answer email q's next week. Sorry! But I am super stoked!!! BASEBALL!!!!

6 Months in Japan!

Craziness -- this week, on my sister Amber's birthday, actually, will mark six months since I left America for Japan. I can't believe that it has been so long! Especially when I compare it to like study abroad in London, which was around 4 months but seemed longer somehow (maybe because it was filled with so many magical memories). Time is cruising pretty quick. At the end of the month I will be halfway done with the mission.

Things in Ebetsu are going really well! This week was actually especially filled with good people and fun activities. I'll share a couple of highlights. If I can focus, which I am not guaranteeing at this point.

The first you can see in the pictures. We met a super nice grandpa while we were housing, and surprised to find that his genkan (like the door entryway area of the house) filled with all sorts of awesome wood carvings of people and squirrels and such. When we asked about it it turned out that he started it as a hobby after he retired, and then since we were from far away he brought us two handcarved Hokkaido bears to take home with us! They are so cool, and super professional. He told us to give them names, so mine is Kuma Tarou, and Imanishi Shimai's is Kuma Kichi (Kuma means bear). We went back a second time during the week and had a lot of fun talking to him and his daughter too.

We also had a fun surprise this week when we got a text message from an old investigator out of the blue on Saturday night saying that he wanted to come to church the next day. He came for all three hours and it was a lot of fun to talk to him. He is a college student right now and really cool. Hopefully he will come back next week!

A lot of the good things from this week are kind of hard to formulate in an email, because they are just small little things that maybe to the outside viewer wouldn't seem to be all that big, but that we have really been able to see God's love and help in. Like on Saturday after praying with a member we were able to make two appointments (during the whole week we had only been able to make one other one). On Friday when we met with a longtime investigator, her friend, who is a member, came and joined us and shared a powerful testimony of church attendance and how the investigator will be able to meet again her beloved father who passed away. We were able to meet someone who had met the missionaries earlier in life and then lost contact.  It's really in the small things of mission life, and in regular life too, that add up to something beautiful I think. This past week we have been making a list at night of all those positive things and I highly recommend it.

Thank you so incredibly much for all of your support!!! I really appreciate it. So much. I'm sorry I haven't been able to write much lately, in emails or letters! Hopefully I will be able to step it back up again soon.

Scripture of the Week:
Matthew 11:28 (Bible, New Testament)
Come unto me, all ye that labour and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest.

Japanese Word of the Week:
(ok, this one is actually a phrase)

Kuchi ga Sabishii = literally, my mouth is lonely. But you can use it for those times when you aren't hungry, but want to eat something anyways!

Transfer 5!

And for transfer five... I will still be in Ebetsu! With Imanishi Shimai!

I'm actually super excited, because I feel like we work really well together and have a good foundation from the last transfer so we will be able to do awesome things this one. It was actually pretty surprising though, because Imanishi Shimai has been in Ebetsu since February, so by the time the transfer ends she will be going on like 8 months.

Also, another fun thing of this transfer -- we got a new Gaijin! (Review: gaijin = non-Japanese person). That makes four gaijin sister missionaries now. She is from Utah (well, kind of. She spent most of her life in Tokyo), and her parents are actually the Tokyo mission presidents right now so she is only 19! (If someone wants to go on a mission when their parents are serving they can go two years early). But it is fun. She is Obihiro right now though, which is like 3 hours away so I probably won't be seeing her for a while.

Other fun mission stats: right now there are 82 missionaries in The Sapporo Mission, and 19 are sister missionaries. Apparently it is one of our bigger times for the mission, but if you compare us to other missions we are pretty small! For example, Tokyo has around 180 missionaries, and Kobe has around 140. So there you go. Fun fact of the day.

Now for pictures!!  They are all from the Winter Sports Museum. It was a lot of fun! Most of the missionaries who are in the Sapporo area all carpooled up together. They had the Olympics here in like 1972, and so they had all sorts of fun sports simulators inside and we also got to ride to the top of the ski lift (the ski jump is so ridiculously steep!) where we could see all of Sapporo. It was perfect! Enjoy the view :)

more!

The district. Oh, I forgot to mention that Stilson Choro and Kakishita Choro are staying too, so the district is pretty much the same, haha. Shibata Choro went home, and Inumaki Choro became AP, so now Ebetsu is 4 missionaries instead of 6.

The big ski jump simulator. I got like 139, beating almost all of the Elders. Clearly this means I should become a professional ski jumper when I get home.

Our last district meeting -- since Shibata Choro and Inumaki Choro weren't there (they had training at the mission home) Yasuda Shimai, an awesome member from the ward, joined us!

Also, me and a dragonfly. They are all over here during the summer and I LOVE them. They are my best friends, I'm sure.

Ok, that's it!

Scripture of the week:

Alma 46:39 (Book of Mormon)

And it came to pass that there were many who died, firmly believing their souls were redeemed by the Lord Jesus Christ; thus they went out of the world rejoicing.

Fun Japanese word of the week:

Kieru = disappear