Family Home Evening

Sister Yamagishi from the Nagamachi Ward

Monday was our Family Night once again.  President & Sister Smith planned a special "Talent Night."  We watched the LDS video of the Parable of the Talents in English and Japanese.  We were pleased to enjoy some lovely talents of a few people.

Sister Yamagishi played the traditional instrument the koto.  It is a very interesting instrument.  To change the pitches, the frets under the strings can be moved.  The strings are plucked like a harp.

This is the sheet music!

We also had Sister L play her violin

And, the Smiths invited our dentist's wife to come and bring one of her puppets.

And, Sister Smith and I have a talent for choosing the same colors!

We made a quick trip up to Ishinomaki for some bicycle issues.  It was a beautiful day.

It looks like they have reinforced this hill to keep it standing.  There is a shrine at the top.  We could see the red gate up there.

The river was quite high after all the rain we had recently.

This corner lot is being prepared for a new house (we think).  The workers have been there for several weeks.  And they always have someone to direct traffic.

He noticed that I was taking his photo and gave me a good smile!

We had our regular meetings on Sunday.  Saturday's first session of Conference started at 1 am Sunday morning our time, so we will watch a recording of the broadcast at church next week.  Some of our members will have watched conference already next week, so after our meetings, we had a little farewell for Elder H who is going home next week.  No food this time since it was Fast Sunday, but everyone got a chance to thank him for his service.

Michinoku Park, Matsushima, Mascots and Misawa

On Monday afternoon we took Grandma and Craig out to Michinoku Park.  It was very crowded since it was "Silver Days" to show respect to the elderly.  But, we were late enough in the day that a lot of people were starting to leave to go home.

When we were entering the park, the ticket lady asked how old we are.  Come to find out that Grandma got in for free because she's over 65!

They had some groups playing music

The weather was lovely

And nice flowers.

This man was amused that we were so interested in his shirt.  Go Aggies!

These cute boys had Tucson shirts!  One of them chased after us to say "Bye Bye!"

Not really sure what this is, but he's big and made of rice stalks.

Later we went across the street and got some fruit at the farmer's market and some pineapple ice cream from our friend.  He gave us a discount on the ice cream too, plus an extra bag of popcorn!

On Tuesday, President & Sister Smith came over to the office to say hello

We had lunch at the noodle shop

Then went out to visit Matsushima

It was about an hour ride around some of the islands

And the seagulls followed us back.

Across the road are some caves

And someone taking their dog for a stroll.  It was also crowded, but a beautiful day.

Wednesday, we were invited to the Sakomoto's for a pizza barbeque

Then before you know it, it's Thursday and time to take them to the airport.

As we left the airport, they were ringing the chimes outside.

As we were driving out to Kakuda for English, one of us realized that we were low on gas.  At that very moment, we saw some super heroes waving us into the gas station.  I thought I'd sneak over and take their photo, but they lined up and posed and then told me to pose with them.

My friend at English said that they are the mascots for the oil company.

And we got a free box of Kleenex and they checked our tires for us besides the normal amazing service we get at the gas station.  (Window washing and collect our trash.)

That evening, we had dinner with Elder and Sister Harmon before they returned home Friday morning.  We have now sent about 6 couples home and have had two couples arrive.

The Harmons were serving as Military Relations Missionaries.

Saturday, we drove up to Misawa to check on their house.  The President has decided to keep it in the hopes that we'll have a new couple called soon.  Anyone know a retired military couple?  It is in an English speaking ward.

We also stopped by the Misawa Elder's apartment to pick up some of their trash.  The weather turned rainy again once Grandma and Craig went home.

We had lunch at this cute Japanese Tex-Mex Restaurant.

It was a pretty long day on the road, but it was beautiful to see the fall colors starting to come on and the rice fields being harvested.

After church Sunday, we had a little "Tako Yaki" party

Alan loves to "supervise" (assist)

When we got home, we enjoyed watching the Women's Conference.  It began at 9 am Sunday morning here, just as we're leaving for church.  It was great!

We were sorry to hear of Elder Scott's passing this week.  I enjoyed reviewing some of his messages and always appreciated how kindly he spoke about his sweet wife.