Our Man in Japan

Dear Family and Friends,

I hope everyone is doing well. Thanks everyone who sent birthday cards and packages. The package from Flyingpig and Amazon both made it to me without any problems. Thanks :).

I`m copying all my pictures onto a spare SD card to send home, so expect that in the mail in a couple weeks.

Alright now as for this past week. On Tuesday after E-Mail we went to Diamond City in Itami and ate at an all-you-can-eat restaraunt. They had lots of skewered pieces of meat and other things set out that you put on a tray and took back to your table. At the table you could bread it first if you wanted and then fry it. Unfortunately there was only 60 minutes to it was pretty rushed. Trying to fry and eat lots of very hot just fried food is a little abunai, or dangerous. Between the four of us who were there we ate 201 skewers worth of stuff. Not as much as it actually sounds though, the skewered pieces of meat aren`t that big. It was fun and good though.

Wednesday was mostly spent packing. After I was done packing and thought nothing else would fit the cheerios and pretzels came. Somehow I managed to squeeze everything in though. I`m starting to feel like I have too much random stuff... Fortunately as time passes I`ll be able to start getting rid of clothes so there`ll be less time, but that time hasn`t come yet.

Thursday we got up early and went over to Tennoji. Pretty much any companionship who has someone transferring goes there. My new companion is Elder Goodey. He`s from Washington, around the Tri-cities I think. It seems like a more than usual number of missionaries here are from Washington. Also I think a disproportionate amount of Japanese missionaries tend to go to Washington. It`s interesting. By the way, I feel stupid for not knowing this but which mission is Marysville in? Is it in the Everett mission or the more northern one?

The living quarters for the Elders here is pretty big. This area used to be the Osaka Mission Headquarters. There`s an empty house where the Mission President`s family stayed, a house where the missionaries serving here stay, and the church building for the ward. There`s a University nearby, Kansai University I think, where a lot of foriegners go to study English. It was pretty rare to see foriegners in my other areas but not uncommon here. There`s a few students and teachers in the ward as well.

Well I just got a couple emails thanks. I don`t know why P-day got changed to Mondays but it is a permanent thing. I haven`t seen too much have rural Japan yet but I`ve seen some. Really the rural parts aren`t far from the urban. To the south of my last area was a small mountain waterfall place that had wild monkeys. Apparently they`re a little dangerous. I heard what Elder was taking pictures of them and got his coat ripped by one. My areas so far have been Urban for the most part.

I did get the flashcards, thanks :). I wasn`t even at the living quarters when the package arrived so they called and we told them to come back in the afternoon. I was wondering how they had figured out our phone number. My new area is about as big as my last one but I think I`ll have to ride around this one farther more often. Our house is on the top of a hill not as steep but probably as tall as the steep hill by Grove street. We get to ride up it 2-3 times a day. It`ll take a while to get used to riding up it I think.

Well I think I`ll go now. This email place is nicer than the library in my last area but still costs money. Until next week I guess.

Sincerely,

Elder Andrew West.