Ichinoseki

This was a more normal week, but we still seemed to be busy enough.  We were watching conference when we could fit it in.  We are starting to make the first arrangements for the returning missionaries going home in the spring and to finalize the travel for those going home next month.  They keep coming and going!

This week was Mission Leadership Council again.

These are the Zone Leaders and Sister Training Leaders.  It is always fun to have them around the office for a little while.

Then on Wednesday, we were back to Tagajo for Eikaiwa.

The game this week was 20 Questions.  She did finally guess "Hello Kitty"

Thursday we made it back to Kakuda for our English group out there.  I've been asking them to give short reports about people they admire.  It's been interesting to hear their responses.  One of the men talked about Soichiro Honda who founded Honda Motor Company.  Some of the other people were Elvis, Michael J. Fox, Steve Jobs, Ichiro Suzuki (a Japanese baseball player).  I learned about Chiune Sugihara who was a Japanese diplomat during WWII that wrote visas for thousands of Jews so they could escape Lithuania.  I also told them about Ben Carson and how his mother encouraged him to become successful.

On Saturday, we went out to Furukawa and picked up the Hills.  Then we went out to Ichinoseki to meet the Mowers.  There was a festival planned for Sunday.  The Hills tell us that last year the festival started on Saturday, so we thought there might be something going on, but what was going on is the setting up for Sunday.

The temple site next door was a nice place to visit.

This group of Buddhist prists were posing for a photo

A lovely little stream flowing into the pond

Many of the locations here were destroyed hundreds of years ago but have not yet been restored.  But you can imagine what a beautiful site it must have been.

Scarecrows watching over the harvested rice hanging out to dry

Then we visited a place with a temple built into a cave

This bamboo is amazing

The buildings are built on stilts with stones for the foundations.

A lovely terraced field was across the road

Then we went to see a river

On the far side of the river, they serve dumplings from the restaurant.  They send it across the river in a basket.  Quite a good tourist attraction.

We went across this hanging bridge

And a glass factory.  We watched a man blow glass and make a bud vase, but no photography was allowed inside the factory.

And Elder H wanted us to see the waterfall.  You could see it in the spring before all the leaves grew on the trees.  They walked down to get a good view.  I decided to take his word for it.

It was a lovely country home location.

It was nice that we had such good weather because they say a typhoon is headed our way.  It was fun to spend some time with the other senior couples and Sister Shitami

On Sunday, we took our laptop to Tagajo so the missionaries could watch conference in English.  They only have one TV at the ward, and they were using it for Japanese.  In between sessions, the bishop had a snack especially for the Americans.  Bread and jam and milk!

Transfer Week Again!

We knew going in to this week that it would be a busy one and we were right!  By Monday afternoon, we thought we had it all in order, but we got a surprise on Tuesday morning.  We found out that one of the elders we expected to arrive Tuesday evening was not coming.  He was going to stay in Provo for a few more weeks to work on Japanese and will come the next time.  So, a few changes were made to the plan and we were set again.

Just as we were heading off to the airport, another issue surfaced.  One of our senior couples was not able to get their Japanese driver's license in time.  The international license was expiring in a few days, so, President Smith decided to change the assignments for our new couple, and the other couple would move to the other location which is nearer to their church location since they will be walking or riding bikes now.

But the missionaries arrived safely and on time.  It is always an exciting time to greet the new missionaries!

Here is our new senior couple, Elder and Sister Mower.  Elder Mower served in Japan back in the day.  One of his former companions is our stake patriarch, so they were happy to get reacquainted.

These four elders have all served as Assistant to the President.  It was fun to have them all together.

Everyone looked a bit more refreshed the next morning.  After their training, they were off to their areas.  Here are the new missionaries with their trainers and the APs.

We had new missionaries assigned to Tagajo.  We have one new elder and two new sisters.  We met them when we went to English that evening.  Some of our missionaries needed rides to the station  after English to prepare to go home, or into the office for training.

The next morning, we loaded up the Mowers and their bags and took them to their area.  

The Hills gave us a quick tour of the meeting place in Ichinoseki.  It is a former 7 11 building.

They even have a pay phone outside.

And a persimmon tree near by that's showing signs that fall is coming upon us.

We helped the Mowers get moved in and took them to a grocery store and left them to try and recover from the jet lag.

Then, back to Furukawa to help the Hills get settled.  We went back to the second hand store for a couple of items.  The Hills had some great snacks to share!

Dehydrated fish anyone?  It was nasty!

Elder H showing off his dollar store purchase.

So, we made it back to Sendai in time to help get the returning missionaries checked out and ready to go the next morning.  We had to cancel our trip out to Kakuda, just couldn't make that one happen.  I think we went to sleep about 8 pm!

Early the next morning, it was time to take some of the missionaries to the airport.

We had a variety of travel plans this time.  Three of the missionaries were being picked up by their parents, (two of those went to the train station with their parents) one traveled alone by train, and three left by plane.  So it was a little bit complicated.  We drove into the train station two times.  It was fun to get to meet the parents that came.  And a little bit sad to say good bye to our missionaries.

Sayonara Sis H!

On Saturday, we had to do a little R & R.  Alan worked on some bikes and got caught up on office work.  

We were able to watch some conference on Sunday.  We still had our regular meetings at Tagajo Ward though.  We think we're ready for another week ahead.  It should be a little more calm!