Well, here goes probably nothing. Dad says it's my turn to write the blog. I thought I'd send you a close up of the chapel in Koriyama. Dad included one showing more of the church last time. The building is nice, but quite different than most of ours. In their chapels they may have only 4 benches on either side. The rest is folding chairs that they set up. They have really neat dividers that run in tracks on the floors and in the ceiling and they make them into rooms. There are actual doors in them, etc. We'll have to show you a picture of them some time. It's kind of awkward to take your camera to church.

We went for a long walk the other night and climbed up a hill at the end of the road. There was a cemetery up there with no way into it. I talked Dad into climbing down the other side of the hill to the road down below. We walk about half a block down the road and turned a corner. Right in front of us was some kind of Buddhist shrine. This guy was on one side and another like him on the other side of the entrance. The cemetery that was on top of the hill was right behind this shrine place. We walked up there and took some pictures and then came back down and went on around to the back of the cemetery and found a paved road that took us back up to where we had started. So, we've discovered a way to walk to the grocery store if we ever need to. It was just a few blocks farther than the shrine.

This has been a hard week or two for the missionaries in our mission. They have been asked by Elder L. Tom Perry (via our mission president) to give 20 gospel discussions per week. Some of the areas are having a very difficult time doing that so are discouraged. President and Sister Tateoka are going to the different areas to meet with the missionaries and do regular zone conferences to try to buoy them up. They are great missionaries and if they can just have the faith, I know Father in Heaven is preparing people to receive the message of the restoration.

Dad has done some photographing of the flowers around our neighborhood. There are so many beautiful ones. Here is a pretty one. This is just around the corner from our apartment by the side of a little shop on the way to the office. We have passed retaining walls that have literally dozens of these blooms.

We went to the Sendai City Wild Plants Garden with the Tateokas on Pday. Unfortunately, we forgot to take our camera. President Tateoka took some amazing pictures.

I am preparing for Eikaiwa for tomorrow. Dad usually teaches so he said it's my turn. The elders and sisters won't be there tomorrow so we'll have beginner and advanced. I'm doing some idioms and riddles for them. I will throw in a few to see if some of you grandkids know the answers.

How do you go on a Japanese diet?

Why is a baseball game like a cake?

Which is richer, a cow or a bull?

There were two ducks in front of a duck and two ducks behind a duck, and one duck in the middle. How many ducks were there in total?