Snowy, windy February in Sendai

February has been the cold and snowy month in Sendai. It makes us appreciate our winter boots and kerosene heater. This is a photo of the hedge between our apartment building and the mission home and office. We continue to have a few small earthquakes, not enought to do any harm, but enough to rattle the windows.














I've done more snow shoveling than I'd planned, but the exercise is great. February has shown us the windy side of Sendai. We've had quite a few days of winds of about 30 miles per hour. We didn't know that it could blow so hard until just the past 2 or 3 weeks. However, the locals in our English class tell us that spring is coming soon. Some of the bulbs are up about 3 or 4 inches so maybe they're right.

We greatly enjoy working with the young missionaries who live in the honbu for a few transfers. We just get to know them well and then they are transferred or they finish their missions. This is Elder Fukuda, a delightful missionary who speaks enough English that we have a good time together. He translates our documents and makes the phone calls to people who don't speak english. He's our newest assistant to the president.

These are Ruth's Valentine flowers and I wish they had come from me, but they came from a ward member. The chocolates came from a family who came for dinner and a gospel discussion. Both gifts made a great valentine day for Ruth. By the way, in Japan it's the girls who give the valentine gifts.

This is Kaori Kusaka and her daughters who came and had lunch with us. They speak English! We have about a dozen families in the Nagamachi Ward who can speak English and we enjoy to visit with them at church and have them come to our home. After the beginning of the year, we applied for a tutor at the local community center and we've now had two Japanese lessons from a very kind and polite lady who comes to our home for a 90 minute Nihongo lesson each week. It is very helpful to have a tutor and maybe we'll learn to communicate better before our mission is finished. We continue to teach 2 English classes each week and to help the young missionaries with teaching discussions when possible.

We are anxious to get back into our building (the Nagamachi Ward). We have been driving to Kamisugi twice each week--once to Eikaiwa (English class) and once for church. We only have two more Sundays and then our building will be finished and we can move back in. We are counting the days. We'll have to take a picture (when they take down the protective screen they've had up) of our pretty remodeled building and post it next time.

We love and appreciate all of you. For those of you who don't know, Lori and Michael have moved back to Idaho. They are just a few minutes from Nate, Leslie, and their girls and fairly close to Ann and Glen. We are excited for all of them, and for us when we get home.

Please post and share your news with all of us. It really is a nice way to tell us all.

Snow in Sendai

Yesterday was our first real blizzard since we've been here. The snow went sideways in the wind and we received about 5 inches. This morning we woke to clear skys, but a liberal dusting of snow. Here are a few pictures










Our parking lot was icy as was everything else around.

The water tanks above us on the hill were highlighted in the bright morning sun.

This is what the roads looked like after the snow plow had cleared the way. It wasn't like that yesterday afternoon when we went down the hill to Kamisugi to teach our English class. Cars were slipping in all directions as they tried coming up the hills.

There are traditions for snow just like other activities. Before going in at night, they lift the windshield wipers into the air. This keeps them from being stuck to the window and allows them to clean the windows without the wipers being in the way.

Homes in our neighborhood took on a clean neat appearance as this dusting of snow highlighted them.

I've talked about this before, but never cease to be amazed. This street marker identifies several blocks in the neighborhood. They don't use street names when writing addresses. Instead, it is like cutting a flat cake and naming and numbering each piece as you go. The largest piece has a name, the next smaller ones have names, then several blocks have a number and finally your house has a number. We're slowly getting used to the system and are beginning to be able to find the location of a house.

There is flowering beauty even after a snow storm. The cyclamen plants are surviving the winter weather and are still producing flowers. When the snow is gone, they'll bounce back up and look beautiful, if past history repeats itself.

Even the geranium that we've watched all winter is still hanging on, though losing a little ground with each cold spell or snow storm. We're watching it to see if it produces new leaves when the weather begins to warm. We're at the cold point of our winter and the average daily temperatures now begin to climb.

We've had another busy, but productive week. Elder Gary Stevenson came to visit our mission and meet the missionaries. On Wednesday evening when he arrived, he interviewed all of the elders that work in the office, then we were priviledged to enjoy dinner as Tateokas hosted him and Sis. Stevenson. Elder Stevenson was a mission president in Nagoya a few years ago and is well acquainted with Japan. He gave some outstanding messages on Thursday and Friday as he met with the missionaries. We ended up with many pages of notes as we met with him on Thursday.

One of the young men that we met as Shun's home on New Years Day, came to a ward activity on Saturday evening where the the missionaries were able to teach him a discussion and then he came to church today. We met a family last evening who both speak English. She's a member but he isn't. He teaches and does research at Tohoku University, the largest university in this part of Japan. His research is on fluid mechanics and I doubt that I'd understand much of what he's doing if we got into a serious discussion. He was very friendly and easy to talk with so hopefully he will let us join the young missionaries to teach him the gospel.

We were delighted that Emma was baptized on Saturday and congratulate her. We wish her well as she gets the cast off her arm in the next few weeks.

Dad thinks I need to put my two cents in. We start transfer week "again" tomorrow. Those 6 weeks go by like lightening. It will be a busy week as we have eight missionaries going home and 5 coming in. There will be lots of changes and some of them will be in the office. We dread that as we've loved serving with these fine elders. They are a joy to work with and are so diligent--yet full of fun. This will be our 7th transfer since coming to Japan. Time really flies when you are having fun. We definitely love being missionaries. It's the greatest thing since sliced bread!

The gospel is wonderful (subarashii) and Iesu Kirisuto is our Savior and Elder Brother.

Love,

Mom & Dad, Grandpa and Grandma, etc., etc.