Have Sawzall, Will Prune

They talk a lot about deforestation in the rain forests.  Sure, but what about closer to home?

Steve decided it was time to tackle the aspen tree that is too close to the house.  It rubs against the roof when the wind blows, and we lost a couple of shingles over the past winter. 

Safety first!  Steve has a lovely purple rope tied around his mid-section - I think the other end was tied to the ladder on the back deck.  Let's just say I'm glad he didn't need to rely on it.  Alex is up on the roof with no rope.  Hmm...I'm happy to say they both survived this round with the tree.

Tunnel of Love

I asked Danny what kind of cake he wanted for his birthday.  His answer?  "Tunnel of Love".  Yup.  That's officially going to be our family name for the Tunnel of Fudge cake recipe.  (btw - even though the recipe calls for nuts, it worked fine without...since Danny doesn't care for nuts in cakes)

Our Man in Japan

Dear Family and Friends,

How are all of you? We`re doing good over here. Yesterday I guess there was a Tsunami, though if no one had told me I wouldn`t of ever known. I think there were 3 waves probably all under one meter in height. Not enough to do anything here. Though it sounds like maybe some city in the Hiroshima mission (To the west) got a little flooded and up in Hiroshima (The north island of Japan) there was some trouble. As for Shingu everyone just went about life as normal. There was an announcement to stay off the beach but that was pretty much it. There were also people watching the beach to make sure no one went on it. We went inside in the afternoon when President McIntyre told us to.

Now my companion has a bike problem. His pedal fell off. Unfortunately it was on our way to Katsura, a 45 minute bike ride from Shingu. We were about 30 minutes out when it fell off so we had to turn around and come back. My companion did his best pedaling with one pedal but it looks pretty uncomfortable and exhausting.The bar that the pedal screws into went bad and the threading is gone so he needs a new one. We went to a few different places and the only place in Shingu that has the tool for taking the part off was closed the first time we looked. Thankfully when we came to do email we rode by and it was open. We`ll go back later in the day to get it fixed.

`Dear Andrew:
Congratulations! We are pleased to offer you admission to Brigham Young University-Idaho. We look forward to having you on campus and feel that you will be an asset to this university.`

I don`t know about Provo yet, but I`m not too worried either way with that. If I get in it would be nice but if I don`t I`m fine with that too.

I think that`s it for this week. We`re heading up for Zone conference again this week. We`ll leave early Wednesday morning, spend the day with the Elders in Wakayama, head up for conference early Thursday morning make it back down to Tanabe in the evening, and head back to Shingu Friday morning. I bought a shougi board I haven`t ever played it before but I studied the rules. I`ll see if anyone will play shougi with me on the train. There`s definitely time.

Sincerely,

Elder West.

Texting, ah, Texting.

Rebekah seems determined to get me to learn how to text.  I submit that if you're going to pick up the phone anyway, why not just talk?
 
I don't think I have the kind of coordination it takes to be awesome (like Rebekah) at texting.  I'd probably fall down an open manhole or something....

Our Man in Japan

Here's a link to some pictures taken in Shingu.

Dear family,

How are all of you doing? Still good I hope.

No I didn`t transfer last week but my companion did. He went to Hanayashiki, my second area. My new companion, Elder Mizuguchi (Japanese) came from Toyooka, the opposite corner of the mission from Shingu. He`s from around Tokyo.

My bike woes are hopefully over for the time being. I mentioned before I was riding an old bike right? Well a week and a half ago while I was just riding along I switched gears and the chain just randomnly broke and fell off, fortunately we weren`t too far from the apartment. As a result when Elder Mizuguchi was putting his bike together I decided to see about fixing mine. I went to take my bad back wheel off, it came off pretty easily, too easy. The slot on the bike frame that the wheel axle slips into was broken. When I took the wheel off half of the slot thing came off too. At least it wasn`t while I was riding it. As a result after a lot of fiddling I finally ended up taking a different old bike to Jusco (A supermarket with a bike section) to get it fixed. It cost about $50 which is alright I guess. I`m just hoping this bike doesn`t have any other problems pop up because it`s so old.

On Saturday night the assistants came over and spent the night with us while President McIntyre went over to stay at a hotel. Sunday morning came and we had branch conference. Including everyone there were 11 people there. It went pretty well and everyone felt the Spirit I think. One brother who doesn`t normally come came with his son, he had to leave after sacrament meeting but stopped by after church with his wife and son again just before they headed north to Osaka. After church we all sat down and ate some refreshments together and talked. After that we had our transfer interviews (So we wouldn`t have to spend a day of travel going up and back). Then we spoke with President Iwaki about the branch finances, they`re a little out-of-date and we need to update them. I also ended up calling Elder Andrews and Elder Honda who were here last year so I could type up an annual history for the branch.

It took a little bit of time this morning setting up the account but now I`m using the new missionary email service. It`s actually pretty much just gmail, but I`m happy with that. Maybe I can send more pictures now that I don`t have a 50 MB limit on my mailbox. And I don`t have to worry about losing the email I`m writing.

I`m happy to be in Shingu for another transfer. I did send all the stuff I need to for college already so now it`s just waiting.

I finally made myself sashimi from scratch. (Okay that doesn`t involve much more than cutting a fish) You can buy fish at the store but I haven`t done it because I wasn`t sure if any fish was okay or if I might get parasites. I ended up asking a Japanese Elder and he said that as long as it says 刺身用 then it should be fine. Also I guess if you put wasabi in your soy sauce it kills bacteria. I bought some fish Saturday night and ate it with rice.

Take care,

Elder West

Cake Decorating?

It's been a little crazy here this week.  School, seminary, Olympics and cake decorating.

It's probably not fair to real cake decorators to call what the beehive class did on Tuesday night "decorating".  It did involve cake and frosting, decorating tips and piping bags.  That's about where the similarity ends. 

I'm not sure how I became the go-to-girl for cake decorating classes in my ward.  I happen to have the supplies and I don't mind sharing them - that could possibly be the reason.   Whatever the reason once you've agreed to teach in Young Women's, the YW leaders will see you as fair game. This was my 3rd time...I first taught the Mia Maids about 3 years ago, then a couple of years later I was asked to teach the Laurel class (same kids...just older).  I agreed, and then, before I taught, I broke my wrist.  I ended up teaching that class with my arm still in the splint - I hadn't even gotten my cast on yet.  Oh well, a good time was had by all.  I think the Beehives had a good time this week - and who knows, maybe in a couple of years they will be desperate for an activity again.

Our Man in Japan

Dear Family and Friends,
How are you all doing? Good I hope.

Apparently the missionary email system is going to change from the ancient Novell system it`s using right now to a newer one. I`m happy about that because I don`t really like this one.

Yes one of the missions in Japan, the Hiroshima mission is being consolidated into the Fukuoka mission and Kobe mission. The change actually will happen around July 1st. I don`t think it will really affect me too much. I don`t think there`s even a chance of me transferring over there because it`ll be after the last time I transfer. It shouldn`t affect my departure date.

This past week was a little busy with Elder Oaks coming. There was a conference for the members on February 10th way up in Ibaraki, about 4 hours from here by car I think and $100 worth of tolls each way. The members here were planning on carpooling and driving up, but the only member of our branch who can drive long distances got sick a couple days before. What resulted was a couple hours of phone calls for me. I called and arranged for the other 2 members to take a train to the next area over and carpool from there. The members canceled that Wednesday night but then wanted to go Thursday morning so I had to help rearrange it. It was a mess but in the end they made it up to Ibaraki for the conference so it was all worth it.

On Wednesday night we headed up to Wakayama (4.5 hours away) and stayed for the night. In the morning we woke up and took a train at 6:13 AM and made our way over to Kobe for the conference.

The conference was from 10 AM to 12 PM and was really good. Sister McIntyre shared her testimony followed by President McIntyre. President Stevenson (The Asia North Area President) spoke next. Sister Oaks than spoke about how important the small and simple things we do are. We then sang and Elder Oaks got up to speak. He said how there`s hundreds of different things he could speak about but as he was pondering what to speak about he felt prompted that the first thing he should say was `We would now like to hear from Elder Ishi` and then sat down. Elder Ishi (An Area general authority) got up and spoke about his mission a little bit, during his talk he said something that Elder Oaks then spoke about afterwards.

Elder Oaks spoke a lot about how we don`t move up and down in the church through our various callings, just forward when we accept and fulfill callings, and back when we don`t. Elder Oaks spoke about a lot of important things but I`m not going to write them all in an email. But overall it was definitely worth the 2 and a half days worth of travel for the 2 hours of talks at the conference.

Something I`ve been focusing a lot more on since the conference is exact obedience to the promptings of the Holy Ghost. This transfer we`ve been working on obedience and I`ve been focusing on more exact obedience to the rules. However what I really felt at the conference is exactly how important being led by the Spirit is.

I think that`s about it for this email. Tomorrow is transfer calls. I think Elder Slater is going to transfer and I`ll have an opportunity for more travel this week :P.