Exciting Sunday in Sendai

Today was a special day for all of us. Duc has been taking the lessons for a couple of months now. We have had the opportunity to help with his lessons because he doesn't speak much Japanese and preferred the lessons in English. Hamamoto kyodai (who has helped us with our Japanese for most of the time we've been here) was asked to baptize Duc. It was his first time to baptize anyone. He has just been a member himself for about 2 years. He was nervous but did fine. It took three tries to get Duc under because he kept putting his foot behind him when he went down and the font wasn't big enough for him to do that. Dad gave the talk on the first principles of the gospel and I introduced Duc to the ward and told about him.

We have been assigned to teach him the "after baptism" lessons and to be his home teachers. He has also asked that Dad confirm him next Sunday. This is a very special treat for us! He is a bright young man with lots of questions but one who has promised Heavenly Father that he'll follow Him and serve him.

This is Dad when we were on Kinkasan with the Uchiyamas and the Tateokas. He's wearing the Hawaiian shirt that Brother and Sister Furukawa brought him from Hawaii. As you can see below, there are beautiful flowers in Japan. Every week we see a new one we haven't seen
before. I'd like to bring some of the seeds for the beautiful plants home with us but we can't.

We had a very busy day yesterday. We left at 7:00 a.m. to drive to Aomori on the north end of the mission. We stopped in Ichinoseki on our way there to take some new futons to our elders. It was fun to see their area as we had not been there before. We then drove an additional 3+ hours to Aomori. We helped our elders there take up some ugly, dirty carpet squares from their kitchen and study area and hauled away some old desks and things they needed to get rid of. Then we went to the sisters' apartment and helped them get rid of some things. It was a long day. We returned home at 8 p.m. and worked on our lessons and talks for today. We certainly haven't been lacking for things to do. It is wonderful to keep busy in the service of the Lord. We do hope that we are doing what He sent us here to do.

The members of our ward are so loving and kind. Today, one of the sisters brought a bag with a few treats for Dad. She told me they didn't have any sugar so she wanted him to have them. They are very giving and so appreciative of everything we do.

We love hearing from all of you and hope you know how much we appreciate your thoughts and prayers. We know that this is the work of the Lord and we are so grateful we can serve.

Ruth's Surgery, Kinkasan, and more

Everyone is probably wondering how Ruth's surgery went and how her face is healing. I talked her into a picture which is not flattering and would not normally be posted, but one that shows how her incision is progressing. After her 5 day whirlwind trip home, she's been back a week and is already caught up. Her stitches were removed 3 days ago. Her carcinoma was bigger that we had though that it would be and the incision is about 1 1/2 inchs long. Fortunately it did not get into her eye lid muscles, eye socket, or down far enough that it will affect the muscles of her upper lip. It still must heal a lot, but we are grateful to all who helped: the Japanese doctor, the Daynes, the doctor in Provo, and our children. We say a big "thank you" and are glad to be living at a time when miracles still occur, when technology advances have solutions for such problems, and for a great support team.

We have had a busy and productive week that ended with being able to see some very interesting parts of Japan that are less than 50 miles away. First, the month of July has been a great month for missionary work. In that one month we had one-third as many baptisms as we had for the entire year of 2008. We currently have 33 baptismal commitments for August and that is outstanding for our mission. Having said that, you probably wonder what this picture of an old sailing ship has to do with our current discussion. Well, the mission president went with us to spend a little time with a couple where the wife is a strong member of our ward but her husband has not shown much interest. We've had a gospel discussion and he agreed to serve as host for an outing. Above is a picture of the restored San Juan Bautista, a 400 year old sailing ship that made a round-trip from Japan to Mexico starting in October of 1613. It is 55.3 meters long and 48.8 meters high with the main mast rising 32.4 meters. There were more that 180 people from northern Honshu on board, with most being businessmen. It is located in a bay at Ishinomaki about 40 miles north of Sendai.

It's an amazing ship for that period of time and is complete with a dragon on the bow.

The other thing that we did was visit an Island called Kinkasan which has been a protected island for many years--where the trees cannot be cut nor the animals disturbed. It is out in the Pacific Ocean just a short ferry ride from the coast of Japan. These deer had no fear of people and you can even pet them if you have food that they like.

The island rises about 1000 feet and in the summer the summit is covered with fog and clouds. This photo of the Uchiyamas was taken on the summit.

As you look into the distance, this if how cloudy and foggy it is. We saw places where visibility was even worse. If we could have seen into the distance, we'd have been looking at the Pacific Ocean eastward toward the U.S. What an adventure! It wasn't raining but the humidity had to be 100%. Water dripped from the vegetation as it condensed from the air. One down-side was the presence of aggressive leaches about 1 inch long that quickly latched on as you walked through the grass or near a bush. We all came back with a few bloody spots.

In spite of the fog and leaches, this was a great other-world experience. The locals call it God's Island and we'd have to agree that it is a special place. We stopped under a Zekova tree that was about 800 years old. That's impressive! The above photo is a picture of the ferry that we rode. You can sit in the mesh enclosed area on the roof or there are indoor seats for about 30 people.

This photo was taken of Kinkasan as it rises into the mist in the far distance. We are enjoying our last few weeks here and are trying to squeeze as much as possible into a short period of time. We changed our accounting system for the mission last week and also had a zone conference on Thursday of this week.

We send our love and will post again soon.

Sado, Tsuruoka, and One Companion

A lot has happened during the last 7 days. We've seen much of the southern end of the mission, have given our testimonies in Japanese, and have seen Ruth safely back to our home in Utah. First lets talk about the mission. The above picture is of the chapel in Aizuwakamatsu. Many of the chapels in Japan are two-story like this one. The parking is underneath the building and in a small lot behind. The Chapel is on Second floor and most of the class rooms are on third floor.

When there are fewer members, as with this chapel in Tsuruoka, the church is only one story.

We really enjoy meeting the missionaries and helping them with their apartments. We especially like the happy ones who work hard and keep their apartments clean. We visited several apartments and came home with a lot of "stuff" that needed to be repaired or discarded. Since it's almost impossible to throw anything away in Japan, I spend quite a lot of time making repairs - like chairs. Ruth and Sis. Tateoka clean the drapes, then rehang them with new drapery hooks and in many cases they also tailor them to fit the windows. These young missionaries keep us young and it is a pleasure to assist them when possible.

Last Sunday we caught the 6:00 a.m. ferry for a two hour ride across the Sea of Japan to Sado Island where we attended church with the 7 or 8 faithful members who come each week. We had our first bus ride as you can see here and in the following picture. These faithful saints really appreciate visitors since we no longer have enough missionaries to put a set on Sado Island. Ruth and I were asked to bear our testimonies in Japanese which was a first for us. Our speach is slow and disjointed but the kind members told us that they understood.

The front end of a Japanese bus - The small black sign above the windshield displays the amount that you pay when you get off. A 30 minute ride was about $10 each or about 1,000 yen.

We've had a very rainy week and I couldn't resist a picture of the neighbor's flowers with a clear umbrella protecting them from the hard driving rain that we've had. Today, the humidity has been above 90% and the temperature has been close to 90 degrees F.

Here you see only one missionary. My companion had a biopsy of the spot on her cheek bone. The results came back on Thursday and the doctors informed Ruth that it was cancer and that it needed to be removed soon since it was fast-growing and had already penetrated through the epidermal layers into the tissues beneath. The doctors didn't want to do it here since they felt that she would need medical attention beyond the remaining 3 months that we will be in Japan. As a result, President Tateoka called the missionary department and Ruth left for home about 36 hours later. Hopefully the spot can be taken care of quickly so that she can come back. We greatly appreciate our children and the Daynes who are taking care of her until the sugury is complete.

Our mission is changing accounting systems this coming week so I'll be very busy, but lost without a companion. I had invited a couple to come this Wednesday evening for dinner and gospel discussion. The husband is not a member but I really like him. Br. Uchiyama is a cabinet and furniture maker who does outstanding work. President Tateoka suggested that we meet at the mission home and then the President asked me to do my part in Japanese. That will take some work for me and a lot of kindness on the part of our guests as we meet with them. When members of the Nagamachi Ward learned that Ruth would leave for medical treatment, we had a constant stream of phone calls and visitors until she left. Today at church, everyone wanted to know how she is doing. What wonderful, caring people! We will miss them a lot when these last few weeks are gone and it's time to return home.

Where will we find Daniel next?

One day I was doing laundry and had taken a basket of clothes to put away. From inside my closet, I heard a little voice yelling "Mom, help me out! Mom, help me out!" When I got back to the laundry room, the only thing I could see was a pair of little legs sticking out of the dryer. Don't worry, after I took these pictures, I lectured him on the dangers of climbing in the dryer. Really, where will we find him next?

Hanging with GG

GG Interview #2

"Katie Couric" Interviews Life Legend Ruth Hansen

Ryan & Kristi spent over an hour interviewing Grandma Hansen. I will post a couple of short edits from the entire interview. I was very impressed with the life experiences shared by Grandma Hansen. We had a lot of fun visiting GG (great grandma)! We had a picnic, discussed covered wagons & pioneers, saw pictures from the farm, enjoyed a performance from the Starlight Dancers, ate blue popcorn, walked through the cemetery, golfed, went out for lunch, laughed, cried (mostly Daniel) and picked up pine cones.