Uniquely Japan

More and more, Japan is feeling like home. As it does, we begin to appreciate some of the little things that we don't see in the United States.

For example, note the blind street coming in from the right. This is a very typical thing because they build their houses right to the edge of the street.

You can notice that there is a large convex mirror across the street from the intersection but at this distance, we're still to far away to see much.

As you get closer the view changes and you can see aproaching dogs, motor scooters, and other vehicles as they come in from the side. This time it's all clear and we can proceed to the next one that is down the street next to the white building.

Japanese drives are excellent backers who would rather back into a parking space than pull in forward. When you come to a parking lot, the cars almost always face out. In our parking lot we are assigned a specific space and I don't think that we could get into it without great difficulty if we didn't back in. I'll never be good at it, but by turning down the side mirror and having my companion give directions, we can get into our assigned space with about 18 inches left on each side.

The first time I drove, I think that I missed one or two of these red triangles. Evan may be the only one in the family who know what it is, but take a guess. We told our English class to describe the red triangle and they looked at us like we were crazy. Instead they described the red circle with the blue center, which limits parking and the sign below it that says only motor scooters can park here. At least that's what the English class said. Neither of us can read it yet.

This week's blog is a little bit early since the next 10 or 12 days will be much busier than usual. President and Sister Miyashita had the moving van come today and will leave on Monday morning. President Miyashita needs to sign the month-end reports before he goes and two of the wards in Sendai are planning big farewell programs for them on the weekend. They are highly appreciated and loved by the people here. President and Sister Tateoka arrive about 5 p.m. on Saturday by shinkonsin (bullet train) from Tokyo. They are currently spending a couple days with the area presidency in Tokyo before they come here. They'll try to get settled and then visit all 3 districts next Wednesday, Thursday, and Friday. Hotel week is the following week with 12 missionaries going home and 10 new ones arriving. Ruth and Sister Tateoka will need to buy the food for all of them and get it prepared after we get back from the zone conferences. We're having a great time, but there is always something to do.

Love Mom and Dad

North Rim Grand Canyon Pictures

Hi, all. Mom and Dad wanted some canyon pictures for their English class. I e-mailed, but wasn't sure the mail servers could handle them, so I'm uploading a couple. Cindy took the one of me. It's a nice picture (despite the fact I'm in it).

Eric

Sendai Mission after one month

We helped the sisters with a discussion this morning and the girl that we taught talked about baptism. It seemed to go well. She just needs to get more commited and give up some of her habits. Late this afternoon we went to down-town Sendai for the Saturday session of stake conference. Pres. Onuma, the stake president, challenged the missionaries and members to work hard enough that we can have a temple here in two decades.

Here is a photo of the down-town area of Sendai. The stake center is out of this picture on the left.




President and Sister Miyashita have done an outstanding job of taking care of the missionaries and running the mission. They will only be here through next weekend and then their tenure is finished as they return to their home down by Tokyo.

They've been having their final round of Zone conferences and it has been hard for the missionaries to tell them goodbye. Sister Miyashita has really loved them and has fed them, given them gifts in the Japanese fashion, and encouraged them when they're down. The Tateokas arrive 1 week from today. By the way, Miyashita is pronounced (Me-osh-ta)


We wouldn't be missionaries if we didn't send pictures of other missionaries. Here's Elder Bradley from Sugar House. He's one of the APs and has about 6 months left as a missionary. He's a very hard working Elder and has mastered Japanese marvelously. He is always the one that President Miyashita uses as his translator.

This is Sister Hansen's desk in the mission office sitting next to Sister Karlinsey. The Karlinsey's are the ones that we replaced.


Needless to say, we haven't mastered the language.
We've both started to clip addresses and names so that we can compare the ones that we know with the new ones as they show up. It's hard to pay a bill or complete the end-of-month balancing when you can't read what is written.

We hold a devotional each morning at 9 and when I gave the prayer in Japanese at the last one, the missionaries laughed and said, I bet you learned that at the MTC. They were then kind enough to help me change it so that it matched grammar currently used in Japan.

Finally, here's a picture of the mountain about a 5 minute walk above our house. The two structures in the background are water tanks. We tried to hike up to them on Pday last week, but we went up the wrong side of the ravine and ended up above them on the other side to the right. As you can see, the foliage is very dense. We got on Google today to make a map to the church and there were too many trees in one part of the trip. Google couldn't even see the road that went through there.
I send my love to all of you. We love you and appreciate the great people that you are. Keep sharing the gospel at every chance you get. It is too precious to keep to ourselves.

Love, Dad & Mom

Hi everyone! This post is coming from Racquel and Ashley, who decided to tell about Ashley's arm.
Racquel: Warning, the text below from Ashley may set off your stomache if it is weak, so READ WITH CAUTION!!!!! (just kidding, it's not really gross, but still. READ WITH CAUTION, IT IS STILL GROSS!!!!)
Ashley: On Tuesday June 17, I got my cast off. They took off the pink cast, and replaced it with a new, shorter blue one. I can stick a paint brush inside and make piles of dead skin on the table. When I got the pink cast off, my arm looked so skinny and dead. It felt dead too. My fingers were tan, but the rest of my arm was white. It kind of looked like there were scratches and gunky stuff on my arm. The cast had lots of cotton and dead skin all over. The dead skin was sweaty too. The cotton under the pink part was really dirty, and my whole arm smelled bad too. I have to go back in three weeks.
Racquel: The new cast, like Ashley said, is shorter and this time it is blue, and Ashley wants you to know, that right now she is itching it. The cotton is a lot whiter than last time, and she still can't straighten her elbow all the way. Ashley still has to use a pencil or a paintbrush to itch her arm. The cast is also iritating her skin, especially the opposite side of her elbow (really, it's all red with red polka dots).
Ashley: My new cast is fun, and I can reach stuff now. It hurts though, because it jams into my elbow when I bend it. It's so itchy!!!!
Ashley and Racquel: Okay, well thanks for letting us share these gross details with you. Write back and let us know what you think. Bye! :)

Japanese Language Characters

Here is a chart for the grandkids on the Japanese language. The Japanese language uses three types of characters for making its words. This one is called Hiragana. It has 46 basic characters and is the one most used for Church words--especially the hymns. For example, Shimai means Sister (as in Sister Hansen) and it is made by combining the hiragana characters for "shi" and "ma" and "i." Can you learn all of these? If you want, we can tell you some other words to make. If you are really interested, we'll send the 2nd type of characters. It also contains 46 characters and is called Katakana.

The third type is very hard. It contains 1945 Chinese characters and it is called Kanji. Try writing "shiawase." That word means happy and is made by using the characters "shi, a, wa, se."

Let us know what you think.

I also wanted to include the picture of our shower that I wished Grandpa had put in last time. This shows how it looks. The tub is tiny and those things standing up on the end can be used to close it. The shower door is folded back on the left side of the picture. You go in, close the door, and then turn on the water. The sprayer is teh white thing on the front edge of the tub. What do you think of that?!

It actually works quite well. We like it just fine.

Love from Grandma H.

Earthquake in Japan, June 14, 2008

Well, today we had our first taste of an earthquake! I was standing in the kitchen
and Dad was out on our veranda cleaning out his electric razor. It was around 8:00 a.m. and all of a sudden it felt like we were on a skate board or in a moving motor home. It just kept going from side to side. It knocked a bed side rail off the top of a window sill where it had been stored and the metal end hit our little china cupboard--just missing the glass in the door but gouging the wood around it. It also knocked over 2 fans that were on top of the wardrobe and knocked over a radiator-type heater. It also knocked over our radio in the bedroom--but we didn't discover any of this until we came back this afternoon from Eikaiwa (our English class). These are just a couple of pictures we got off the internet. If you want to see some live footage, you can go to: http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/asia-pacific/4155026.stm
The earthquake measured 7.2 and the epicenter was about 50 miles north of us. It lasted about 30+ seconds, but it seemed a lot longer than that. We have missionaries in the area--Ishinomaki, but the office elders called and everyone is okay. There were three reported deaths but several people have been reported missing. We have a Japanese sister missionary in our ward, Naganuma Shimai, who remembered a very bad earthquake they had in Kobe when she was very little girl. 6400 people were killed in that one, so she was scared to death. She and Sister Larson left their apartment and went over to the church.

We promised the next blog would be on mission life and on the Japanese language, but I guess that we needed a little excitement first.
Love, Mom and Dad

Benjamin Update

We went back to the ENT on Monday for Benjamin and they did a CT scan and he had a small fracture. We had the option of waiting until he was 16 to see how things would turn out or we could go ahead and have it fixed now. The ENT advised us to get it fixed now because he will have growth and most likely his nose would not end up straight, which could cause breathing problems. So, today they put him out and fixed his nose (I am sure Eric will get on and give you the exact terminology of what they did). He was amazingly brave, but a little disoriented when he was waking up. He is doing great and did not take long to recover. He does not seem to be in much pain at all. We are having a hard time getting him to take it easy. The hard part is going to be in the next month to make sure his nose does not get hit. I wish they could put a cast on it somehow. I would love to attach pictures, but my computer isn't working, Eric's doesn't have a card reader, and we don't know where the cable is to the camera. As soon as we solve all of those problems we will put pictures on.

June 8, 2008 in Sendai

We've had a busy Sunday: study, eat, pray, dress and be out by 9:00. Our Ward meets at 10:00 with about 160 members in attendance. When the meetings finished at 1 p.m., there was a 45 minute interlude while they filled the font and we had a baptismal service for a family of 4 people. The whole ward stayed for the service that included many parts on the program including thoughts and music from the ones being baptized. When it was over, the ward gave the family flowers and other items and everyone greeted them over an extended period of time.

Missionaries from other areas near by brought their investigators so that they could witness the baptism.

We have a district missionary meeting each week so when the building emptied enough that we could, our meeting was held for another 90 minutes with the 7 young elders and sisters in attendance. We're now home so it is time to send some additional pictures that I didn't get sent before.

Interesting part first! This is our shower and tub. The tub is about 20 inches square and 20 inches tall. The hot water heater sits at the end with the shower head attached. To take a shower, you light the water heater, stand on the floor next to the tub, hold the shower head and lather up. Neither of us has had enough courage to get into the tiny deep tub. When finished, the hot water is turned off since it's expensive to leave it on all the time.

By Japanese standards, our apartment is spacious. It's about the size of the apartment that we had in Rexburg. We have two bedrooms so you can come to stay with us. We have a queen bed that is almost a large as the room. There is a spare bed tipped up against the wall in the other bedroom so that we can use the second bedroom for hanging our clothes.

The kitchen has its own water heater that sits above the sink. When you push the large white button at the bottom, it sends warm water into the sink. By pushing the button again it turns off both the water and the heater. You will note that our stove does not have an oven so when you come - no cake! We do have a small toaster oven and a microwave.

The living room is big enough for a couch, chair, oil stove, bookcase, and table for the computer. The printer sits in the corner on the fuel tank for the oil stove. The outside view shows our apartment on the front left corner of the first floor. We like our apartment. It's very comfortable this time of year but we may have other thoughts when winter comes. There is no insulation and we were told by the Karlinsey's that on a winter night the bedrooms have little heat and the shower water systm can freeze. We're not complaining and if Evan told stories about living conditions during his mission, this would be a palace; at least we don't have rodents.

We are really enjoying our time here, but are ready for sleep each evening. In the next blog I'll talk about the mission office and life here. I'll also send one about the language and how we're progressing. We love you and hope that all is going well.

Love, Mom and Dad

Senda Mission 6-7-08

We've been here 2 weeks and are starting to feel more comfortable. This is the view of the street in front of the mission home and office. It's wide and not heavily traveled since it dead-ends in about 4 blocks. We've been out for a few morning walks to get acquainted with the neighborhood.

In the distance is the Pacific Ocean, with this view overlooking the south east side of Sendai. We are about 1000 feet above sea level.

This is the rainy season, so I took these pictures on one of few sunny days that we've seen.

We are greatly enjoying our experiences here, trying to get to know the 80 missionaries, the Japanese languare, our office assignments, and our way around town. We've been hopelessly lost on two different occasions.

Here's the vehicle that gets us lost. You'll note that the steering wheel is on the wrong side. This car "likes" narrow roads, streets without any signs (which is almost all of the ones in Sendai), and foreign drivers who don't know what they are doing.

The mission home is the white building on the left, the mission office is the next one behind the hedge. The back of our apartment is on the right. There is a concrete block wall behind the shrubs that is 4 blocks high. I can go over it without difficulty, making it about 50 or 60 steps to the mission office. Hansen Shimai can't do it in a skirt so going around triples the distance. That's still not far except when it's raining. Our lunch break is over. I'll put more pictures in the next blog. Love Dad and Mom.

Hey guys. Benjamin and I were jumping on the trampoline on Monday night, and my knee hit his nose very hard. There was a little blood, but we didn't think anything was wrong. My mom took him to the doctor on Monday, and the doctor told them to go see a specialist because it was broken. Now he has to go back on Monday to see if he needs to have surgery for them to set it. If you look at the picture (I couldn't figure out how to turn it the right way) his nose is swollen.

From Sendai, Sunday, June 1, 2008

We have been trying to send you some pictures on the blog, but apparently the website from the office doesn't allow that. So, we'll send them as soon as we can
get on our own computer. We still haven't been able to get it connected. Hopefully we'll be able to sometime this week.
We are doing well. We shared our testimonies in Sacrament Meeting today in Japanese. They were very simple, but several people thanked us for doing it in Japanese. The ward is warm and friendly and we really love being here.
Eric, thanks very much for your kind comments and spiritual thought. It means a lot to us. We are small and simple, but hopefully we'll be able to do what the Lord would have us do here.
We had a very busy week. This past week was transfer week and here they call it "hotel week." That's because we have missionaries coming in from the MTC in Provo, the JMTC in Tokyo, and the missionaries who are going home. There are lots of transfers, so I spent much of the week helping to process all the paper work and helping Sister Miyashita with the food. It was exciting to see the missionaries. In Japan, there are alot more sisters who go on missions than in the States. We got two new sister missionaries and three elders. The sisters and one of the elders are from Japan and the other two new elders were from Utah and Colorado. We also got a new AP, so there are three right now. That is because Elder Ijichi (AP) will be going home next transfer, so they are training Elder Gross.
We enjoyed a neat testimony meeting--as we are two of the new missionaries--and we also get to have a devotional with Pres. & Sister Miyashita and the APs and office elders about 3 days a week. Most of it is in Japanese, so Elder Bradley sort of translates for us. I think he doesn't realize that we don't understand much!
We'll close for now. Know that we know that this is the work of the Lord and His hand in very much in it. He can make much out of little and it is a great work! WE love you all and look forward to hearing from you.
Love,
Mom & Dad (Grandpa & Grandma--Elder and Sister Hansen)