Back to Work

As you know, Mom and Dad are headed off again.  I've tried to get this blog up and running again so that they will be able to share their experiences with us.  I'm sure they would love to have everyone post things that are happening back home as well.  I can add family members as contributors if you will get me their info.  If you have any suggestions or comments, please let me know.  Good luck Mom and Dad, we love you!

Idea

Hello everyone!
I know that Grandma and Grandpa are coming home on Friday, but I was thinking that we should still have a family blog to let each other know what's up. Just a thought for you.
Love,
Racquel

The Last Post of Marvelous Work in Japan

We're racing though a series of lasts as we end our mission and like the rice harvest that you see in progress here, we to are trying to put everything in place preparatory to leaving.

We've told Kayo san, our tutor, goodby--are completing our last transfer this week, and have held our last gospel discussion with Br. Uchiyama with a promise from him to come to church next Sunday.

We've seen the sites of Sendai, with these two pictures being of the burial site of Date Matsamune, his son, and grandson located in a quite grove of trees just below his castle site

This past week we've experience Typhoon Melor but because we're in the northern part of Japan it was mostly heavy rain and gusty winds of about 40 miles per hour. We helped the elders in Joetsu move in the middle of it, so we wore rain suits and hurried through the rain to keep the apartment furnishings as dry as possible.

We have enjoyed the many tunnels of northern Japan as we've crisscrossed the mountains. As you can see here they are sometimes so close that you leave one tunnel only to enter another.

The Sudweeks arrived last night and we will spend the next few days helping them get started before we board the plane heading back to Utah.

We can truly say that this has been a marvelous work for us. We just hope that it has been of some value to members here and to the missionary effort. It has reduced our age as we have associated with so many wonderful missionaries and local people who are so much younger than we are. We've increased our spirituality as we have constantly tried to be of service in addition to spending more time studying the gospel. We have made many wonderful friends through this experience. It will be hard to leave. We have come to enjoy the politeness of the Japanses people, the safety that we feel when we have a pocket full of money or make trips alone after dark, and we have felt the love of the Nagamachi ward. In spite of being illiterate in the Japanese language, we've been able to communicate and create wonderful bonds of friendship. We hope you are all doing well and we'll see you soon.

another injury thanks to the monkey bars

Here is Isaac's cast. He really wanted a camouflage cast, but the office was out of it, so he settled for green, hoping maybe we could color it to look like camouflage (that is what the dr. suggested). Isaac couldn't wait to get back to school and insisted that I take him there on the way home from the doctor. He has already learned how frustrating it is to have an itchy spot under the cast and not be able to scratch it. The cast may be annoying to him, but I have a feeling that it won't stop him from doing anything he really wants to do.

Northeast Coast of Honshu

Japan is a beautiful place with lots of hidden spots to stop and snap a photo. Here are a few that we took along the rugged coast of northern Honshu where the rocks meet the Pacific Ocean. A short time ago, we cleaned and repaired missionary apartments in Hachinohe and Miyako. We did what we've been doing for at least 25 apartments before these - cleaning windows, floors, curtains, and bedding as well as repairing whatever is broken. Our pictures were taken between these two isolated cities where the road runs along the edge of the island high above the sea. The Pacific is a big ocean and the bottom drops away quickly as it dives to the place where the ocean floor is spreading. We've experienced quite a few earthquakes as the Pacific Plate slides below the Asian Plate.

The shallow water here is very clear and the blue color makes for a spectacular view. We came to places where the road was high above the surrounding terrain and spanned deep canyons on narrow bridges that made you wonder if it was safe to venture across these narrow ribbons of road. We just hoped that we didn't meet too many cars and that this Saturday was an earthquake-free day.

As we approached Miyako, we found a spot where we could reach the shore along the rocky coast adjacent to the inlet that served as the harbor for a large fishing fleet. There were some white rocks that jutted from the ocean and served as anchors for a few tenacious trees. The ocean flowed between the rocks in many places.

This was a peaceful brief interlude before going on to clean the last apartment of the day and then get home by 11:00 p.m. so that we could be ready for another busy Sunday. I had the opportunity to confirm Duc a member of the church on Sunday after we returned and since then, we've learned what a sacrifice it was for him to be baptized. He will finish his Ph.D. in electrical engineering and then he will return to Hanoi, Vietnam, to face a less than certain future. Christians are looked on with disfavor in this communist nation where you can be arrested and jailed for no apparent reason. His wife and small daughter are home with family while he makes the final push to finish his degree by April or May of next year. He is a voracious reader and is quickly learning about the Savior and His teachings, as well as how the church is organized at present.

As we stood on the rocky beach (no sand here, just lots of small to medium sized rocks), we could even see the likeness of animals in some of them. Does this one remind you of a camel?

The President is doing an amazing job with the missionaries. We've had 50% more people join the church this year than we did last year. The gray that has appreared in his hair has all appeared since they arrived last summer. They start every day at 6 a.m. and are still going strong until at least midnight almost every night. He teaches the missionaries by example and is often found studying with them in the morning, out finding new people to teach, and going to discussions with them. He attends their baptismal services, goes to district and zone meetings, and helps them when they have problems. They have worked with us in doing the cleaning and repairs that are hard for missionaries to do. It has been a joy for us to work together and learn from them.

We are now down to only 4 short weeks until we return home and are busy trying to squeze in more activities before we fly home on the 23rd of October. Our tutor came today and asked if we could please go to a Japanese restaurant with her and her sons before we leave. She said she couldn't cook for us at her home because she is not a good cook. I doubt that is true, but as a whole, the Japanese people are very humble. We have loved studying with her. She is really a gem.

We pray that all of you are doing well and that the Lord's tender mercies will continue to be showered upon you. We love you very much.

A look back

I was in Wisconsin this past week so I stopped by our old house. Took a couple pictures. Things have changed a bit... The trees were so big it was tough to get the photo of the house. Also took one of the pond down the street. Can't believe you only have a month left!

Yonezawa

In the mountains of northern Japan about 2 1/2 to 3 hours drive southwest of Sendai is a beautiful isolated city of about 94,000 people called Yonezawa. We have a set of elders there who were having difficulty installing a new clothes dryer so we went with the Tateokas to see what we could do. While there we took a few pictures of this secluded spot.

Just as we arrived a the local park, a wedding celebration was in progress so we stopped to snap a photo or two.

This park is the site of a famous castle that was ruled by Kamisugi several hundred years ago. It's a beautiful spot, but the castle is long gone.

Not all of the chapels in northern Japan are beautiful modern church-designed facilities. This one is a typical small store that has been turned into a chapel. In spite of looking like a store, it seems quite functional and the church is growing here. Missionaries have had good success
recently.

We found a delicious lunch about midafternoon when we were finished working with the elders and then as we passed through the mountains on the way home we stopped at a fruit stand to buy large delicious white peaches.

As you can see by this photo, we succeeded in installing the dryer! The elders were glad that we came. We washed the drapes, cleaned the windows, eliminated the mold, relpaced the burned-out lights, and hauled away a van load of garbage. They had 3 quart-sized containers that contained used cooking oil. We had fun saponifying it so that it turned solid and could be thrown away. Out of the 30 plus apartments, we have cleaned all of them except 3 or 4.

President Tateoka is doing a great job and the number of people who are joining the church is about double of what it was last year. We've had more baptisms in our ward since we last posted and we are keeping very busy in all aspects of our assignment. It's hard to realize that we are down to the last 5 weeks before we come home. We're trying to get everything done, but assignments seem to pop up faster that we can dispatch them. I guess that we will finally just turn the work over to those who come to replace us. We will do one more post before we finish our mission.

This has been a great experience and we're very glad that we came. We've met a lot of very wonderful people, have experienced a new culture, and we've come to greatly admire the hardworking young missionaries that are the heart and soul of the mission. We've learned to get around in Japan, but are far from being fluent. In fact, we are more reluctant to speak Japanese than when we first came because we now know how easy it is to make mistakes.

We send our love and hope things are going well for you.

Love Mom and Dad