Halloween Part 2; Transfer Week!

First things first, here are the rest of our little angels.  Nolan & Keree's cuties.

On Monday, Sister U. asked me to come to her home for her English Class' Halloween Party.  The children had memorized some verses to recite.  (I was supposed to judge them.)  Then, we went out Trick or Treating to the neighbors, who had been warned to watch for and be prepared for them.

It was a lot of fun!

Since this was transfer week, we had to make a few arrangements for the missionaries.  We left Sendai early in the morning on Tuesday to make our rounds.  We drove down to Aizu and picked up a couple of bikes, then took them to Iwaki for the new elders being assigned there.  It was a beautiful morning as the sun came up and lit up the colorful mountains.  We even saw snow on the tops of the big mountains and a couple of rainbows in the Fukushima Valley.

It looked better than the photo.

Anyone recognize this place?

It's not the Big Boy you may remember, but the little man looks the same.

And we got to spend a little time with some of our favorite missionaries!

We made it back to Sendai in time to go out to the airport to pick up the new missionaries just arriving from Provo.

And our missionary that went home for surgery has returned!

They all looked a little more rested the next morning

The Smith's and the assistants

After a morning of training, the missionaries were sent off to their areas, just in time for Eikaiwa.

Thursday there was training for the new Zone and Sister Training Leaders.

We got to go to the clinic for our flu shots with the Nagamachi missionaries.  This is what we get for having a doctor for our mission president.

It took three of them to hold me down.  Most of us were pretty brave.

At our English group in Kakuda Thursday, we were talking about different places we've visited.  One guy told about driving down to Disney Tokyo, spending the day with his family, and then driving home that night.  Everyone else in the car got to sleep, but he kept on driving.  He said the next time they go, they're going to stop and sleep someplace!

I told them we had been to Aizu to get bikes and then took them to Iwaki.  They said, "You rode a bike all the way to Iwaki??!!"  Well, NO! We had them in the van!  Do I look like I could ride a bike 150 kilometers??  Funny guys!

The returning missionaries arrived at the mission home to prepare for their farewell dinner and travel home.  They were traveling to Honolulu, Portland, Idaho Falls, Denver and San Diego besides four  places in Japan.

Here are most of our returning sisters.  Didn't get a photo of all 13 sisters together.  (I'm missing the four Japanese sisters.)  I told them if they leave, we'll just have to pick some new favorites!

We had different travel arrangements this time.  Five sisters went to the airport with President and Sister Smith at 6 am.  Three went to the airport with the Assistants at 10 am, two were picked up by their parents, and we took the last three.  Two left by train, and one is not going home until next week when her mother comes to pick her up.

So, we had a little time to spend with these two

They helped us find this place:

She's huge!  She's standing on a dragon.  Apparently she is the goddess of mercy.  I put her on our blog thinking she represents Sendai, but hardly anyone visits her.  You can see her from far away, but she's a little bit hard to get to.

There are hundreds of statues inside.  The big dark ones are the Asian Zodiac characters.

Photos are OK!

One of the Asian zodiac creatures

These two are often at the gates.  Elder Whiting explained about them.  One has his mouth open and the other closed.  Like the first and last letters of the Japanese language, or Alpha and Omega.  All things testify of Christ.

There are about 12 floors that we got to climb up.

Each floor has 12 of these statues.  It is the 108 buddahs.  They are all different and all amazing.

This is how high we were able to go.

They love the happy buddah.

And the view from the top.

When we went to the Izumi chapel, look what we found!  Looks familiar, only with Japanese instead of Russian writing on the back.

Saturday morning we got to go deliver a couple more bikes.  This time to Yamagata.  It's about an hour away from Sendai.

Some more beautiful color on the mountains.  One of these times, I'm going to make my DH stop for a real photo.

Can you see what they're warning us of??  Luckily we did not see any baboons!

The elders have a pretty nice place in Yamagata.  We may have to visit them again.  They're building a COSTCO(!!) in Yamagata!  It should be open next summer.

And when we got back to Sendai, there was a new car waiting for us!  Only 17 km on it. 

Another great week in the Japan Sendai Mission is behind us.