Monday was Family Home Evening again. We had a smaller turn out this time, but it was nice.
Our Nagamachi sisters sang the musical number. It is a beautiful song that was written after the tsunami.
We divided up the puzzles and the people and let them go at it.
We tried to discuss the fact that it helps to know your goal and to see the "big picture" and relate that to making decisions in our lives. It was challenging because they were really enjoying doing the puzzles! (Locked on target!)
It has been a pretty busy week with bike repairs, and some changes at the office.
Good bye old printer!
The delivery men brought in some floor protection for the moving in and out.
The new printer is quite a bit smaller.
Happily, the control screen is in English!
The children at Eikaiwa enjoyed the puzzles too!
On our way to English on Thursday, we spotted this egret wading in the rice fields.
The real fun came on Friday when the Tsuruoka elders moved into a new apartment.
It is good that this van is big. We made a few trips back and forth, but it would have been more trips with the old van.
I think they'll be very comfortable here!
This rice field is near the elder's new apartment.
We found these starts for the rice plants. It is started in a green house and then it is like a big sheet of sod. They have a planting machine that breaks it up into smaller pieces to plant the field.
A closer look revealed hundreds of tadpoles (or pollywogs if you're from Spanish Fork). Now we know why the egrets like to hang out in the rice paddies!
Then, on Saturday morning, there was a huge service project in Sendai. I have borrowed this photo from President Smith.
Many of our missionaries attended to help plant trees in the tsunami zone. About 5000 people came from all over Japan to help. We missed out on this one, but we saw lots of sunburned faces at Stake Conference this weekend! It's always so nice to see those yellow shirts at work!
At the Saturday session, the theme was about ward councils. Sunday's messages focused on keeping the Sabbath day holy.
We recently discovered that Elder Hamilton is a grandson of my mother's friend Carol Sorensen from when we lived in Glendale and Tempe. Elder B and Elder H have been assigned to the Nagamachi area, so we get to see quite a lot of them. Elder H's mother posted a photo of her mother for Mother's Day and it kept nagging at me to ask what her name was! I remember Sister Sorensen being involved with Primary all the years I was growing up. What a fun thing to make connections over the miles and over the years!
Our Bryan made a new friend this week too! They were at a Comic Convention in Phoenix. When I showed Elder H, he said he worked at the convention every year!
We were sorry to hear of Elder Perry's passing.
We lived in Logan 9th Ward with the Perrys when I was a child. We have always enjoyed his messages. My brother was able to meet Elder Perry a few years ago at a stake conference. He reminded him that we had been in the same ward back in the 1950s. Elder Perry said "Oh yes, I remember Foster Allen. I was Foster's counselor when he was the Ward Young Men's President"!
