Our Man in Japan

Dear family,

Happy Father's Day. I thought I had missed it, but it's still Father's Day over there for you.

I found a Dr.Seuss tree as well as a Ramen bus. The first one to figure out what the other picture is gets a cookie.

Yesterday we went to Stake Conference. This time it was one of the broadcasts from Salt Lake to all of Japan. Before they started the broadcast they mentioned there was a room to watch it in English. Figuring I'd rather here it direct without a translation in English we went to that room. Unfortunately it was full and we missed most of the first talk before they got another room set up. Elder Evans, the former North Asia Area President, was one of the speakers. He spoke in Japanese so we ended up hearing a translation to English... He spoke about the importance of deciding to serve a mission and shared some personal experiences. He also showed a video of a group of Japanese missionaries in the MTC right now. It was pretty interesting. One of the Japanese Elders said 'The best thing about the cafeteria is that you can drink all you want... And you can eat all you want... And you eat all the ice cream you want on Sunday and Wednesday. I really like ice cream. I love ice cream.' I think that made everyone laugh.

This morning I was writing down the words to the hymn 'Love at Home' in my planner so I could memorize it. I was just about done when I thought I saw something move out of the corner of my eye on my desk. I dismissed it but imagined how bad it would be if there were a cockroach on my desk... A moment later a cockroach skirted out from under my hymn book and down the side of my desk.. It got out of my sight and I couldn't find it. After study I cleaned my whole desk out and wiped it all down but didn't find it. Still I imagine it's less likely to come back to a clean desk than one that's covered with dust bunnies along the back.

I went on an exchange to Awaji, the island in our mission, again. When we got there on the way to the apartment I saw a big snake crawl into some bushes by the sidewalk, I got the feeling it wasn't a friendly snake. This time I was with Elder Matsuoka, a Japanese Elder. We had a pretty good exchange together and were able to see some success. They're doing well down there.

Well I hope you have a great week,

Elder Andrew West.