Our Man in Japan

Dear Family,

I trust you are all still doing well. This past week was good. Though thinking back I can`t remember much. After zone conference last week I accidentally left my grammar book on a bus. The Tanabe Elders went to the bus station for me and reported the missing book. Fortunately it was found the next day so I should be getting it tonight.

It was raining really hard on Thursday morning, fortunately by the time we finished weekly planning the rain had stopped. Elder Cutler and Elder Andrews came down from Wakayama for an exchange. On Thursday evening Elder Andrews and I went out, while we were walking on the road we came across an old man walking towards us. We talked with him and he ended up taking us to a nice house/shack place he had built for fun. He ended up giving us frozen squid and fish to take home and grill.

On Friday afternoon I was with Elder Cutler and pointed out the concealed staircase where the man who gave us hamburger a couple weeks ago was staying. As we were walking away the door slid up and there he was. We talked with him and mentioned we were heading up to the castle ruins right by there. He was pretty excited about that and decided to go with us and show us the real/original entrance and stuff. He was a lot more serious this time without Elder Slater for some reason. (I think he likes teasing Elder Slater with Japanese he doesn`t understand.) We went around the ruins a little with him and ended up teaching a little bit of lesson 1 and inviting him to church on Sunday just to check it out. He did come yesterday for Sacrament meeting.

On Saturday as we were riding around we were stopped at a crosswalk next to a guy who had just bought a big bag of mandarin oranges. Elder Slater said to the guy, `Oranges are delicious aren`t they?`. The next thing he knew the guy held open the bag for him and said to take some and not hold back, as Elder Slater was hesitating the guy said he`d just dump some in his bike basket if he didn`t take some. Elder Slater took a couple and the guy said `You`re holding back` and dumped about 20 in his bike basket. It was pretty funny, and nice of the him. We spread the joy by giving oranges to people we talked to or passed by.

In the evening we had a Branch Family Home Evening. We played a couple games, shared a message, and everyone ate crepes (With fruit and ice cream). It was pretty fun but the preparation and stuff was a little 大変.

Yesterday 2 nonmembers came to church bringing our Sacrament attendance up to 8. Elder Slater and one of the members gave talks yesterday while I taught Gospel Principles. I really hope I can get my hands on an English copy of the new Gospel Principles book soon. I can read the Japanese one for the most part but I can`t just glance at the book and point at a little part for everyone to read that explains what we`re talking about.

After church we met with the members and discussed them attending a Devotional Elder Oaks is giving on February 10th up in Ibaraki. It`s pretty far, a 5-7 hour drive probably and maybe $100 worth of tolls round trip. It looks likes 4 of them might take a day off work and go. I hope that works out, it would be really good.

We`re taking the train over to Tanabe again this evening. We have zone interviews up in Iwade, probably a 5-6 hour trip. So we don`t have to get up really early tomorrow we`re making the 3 hour train ride this evening and will do the rest tomorrow. We should be able to get all the way back by tomorrow night so it won`t take up too much time.

I plan on finishing my college application next week if I can so if there`s anything you can do I`ll let you know then. The weekend of August 5-8 is still my last.

I hope everything goes well for you. Things are going well here and I`m happy to be here, even when I`m hoping the rain outside will stop. I know the Lord guides this work and leads us when we trust in him. I pray for your safety and happiness.

Love,

Elder Andrew West

One Year Anniversary.

January 30th, 2009, 2pm.  Full use of wrist.  January 30th, 2009,3pm.  My wrist will never be the same again.

Mischief Managed.

Here's my cheese souffle.  Except for the taste, it was "Uncrushable".  So to speak.  Not too bad for a first try.  Not quite a family favorite yet.  Alex did manage to polish off three servings, despite not liking it overly much.

Adventures in Cooking

If I'm lucky, my souffle will look something like this.

I've been doing a lot of experimental cooking lately.  Some has been good (meaning that I might make it again), some a little less impressive.  Tonight I am going for the gold.  Souffle.  Cheese Souffle.  I've never even eaten cheese souffle (I've only ever had dessert souffles).  Wish me luck.  I'm a little nervous - it really doesn't look that hard, but the recipe does say "difficult".  Hopefully "difficult" is a relative term.

Going Postal

I've been needing to go to the post office for about a week.  I don't know why I kept putting it off.  It could have something to do with the fact that I knew I would have to fill out a custom's form for Andrew's package...okay, okay, I was just being lazy.  And saving some money.  I sent 3 packages today...and spent over $50.  Mostly on the package for Andrew.  The flat rate priority mail packages that cost about $10 to send domestic, are over $40 to send to Japan.  The value of the contents of his package came to about $11. 

The postage works out to be about 4 times the value of the contents.  Oh well, it's his birthday...the last one he'll be having on his mission. 

Was it bad of me to pad the inside with the Sunday comics?

Our Man in Japan

Dear Family and Friends,

I hope you`re still doing well. This past week felt really short. I spent a lot of time traveling again. Tuesday morning we left Shingu and went to Tanabe. We went on exchanges with the Tanabe Elders for a few hours before heading up by bus to Wakayama and spending the night at their apartment. It was good to see Elder Andrews (My MTC companion) again.

Wednesday morning we took the train up to Mikunigaoka (A previous area of mine) where we had zone conference. Zone conference was really good and worth the trip. After zone conference was over we took the train back down to Wakayama. On the train we talked with some 23 year-old guy who had some interest, we offered to call the Sennan Elders for him and he gave us his phone number right before he had to dart of the train. We also talked with a guy from Taiwan who was here on vacation. Afterwards we grabbed some food from McDonalds and hopped on the bus to Tanabe where we spent the night.

The next morning we woke up a little early and got ready to go and catch our 7:53 train. Unfortunately we weren`t paying enough attention to the time and we got distracted by a couple things making sure Elder Slater hadn`t forgotten his wallet and taking the wheels off a bike. We missed the train by a couple minutes. The next train wasn`t until 10:51, which just happened to be about the time the other train would`ve gotten to Shingu. We were a little disappointed. I`ve been used to being in areas where if you miss the train it`s a 10 minute wait. A 3 hour wait is a lot longer. Fortunately I was able to take an old bike from Tanabe back home to Shingu.

I was planning on fixing my bike by just swapping the back wheel with the other bike but then discovered a problem. My back wheel has 7 gears and the other bike`s wheel has 8 gears. I`ll either have to swap the front gear switcher as well or swap the inside axles of the wheels where the broken part is. I haven`t decided which to do yet. Swapping the axles would be easier probably. But if I could do it swapping the wheels and front gear switcher would give my 8 usable gears in the back instead of my current 5. Either way it should work out probably.

On Friday we went out to deliver a Book of Mormon to someone who had ordered one. It turned out to be farther than we thought. It took us over and hour to bike out to the small community where the person lived. The bike ride was on a street that ran along a river. There were mountains/hills on both sides. When we got to the community we had no idea where the person lived so we went to the local police station. We told the police man the name of the person we were looking for and he went to the back to look it up but came back after a minute and said he couldn`t find it. He then looked for the address on a map and couldn`t find it. He then went to the back and pulled out some really old looking city records where he found the name, it had some other information on it that clarified where it was on the map and he was able to point it out to us. The police station/post office maps have the names of the families on the houses. We then went and delivered the Book of Mormon and made the hour long trip back.

Things are going well here in Shingu. The trip to and from Shingu feels shorter everytime I take it, which is good since I`ll probably make it many more times. There`s not that many people in Shingu but we run into a lot of tourists, mostly from other parts of Japan.

Zone conference was good and I really felt the Spirit there. It`s not necessarily that the stuff that we learn at zone conference is new, because for the most part it`s not. But somehow the spirit there really impresses on one the importance of the things being taught.

Well we might go see the dolphins or whales next week, I`m not sure yet. Until then take care.

Sincerely,
Elder Andrew West

It's a roadable aircraft.

Reserve your's now for only $10,000.  My husband is drooling.  He showed me pictures of this little prototype...and only asked me two or three times if I would let him reserve one.  Yeah, right.  I have to admit, this baby gets pretty good gas milage - and think of all the new friends you'd make at the gas station. 

I'm pretty sure it will never become a commercial success.  Why?  It looks like the engineers are also in charge of marketing.  The sign reading "It's a roadable aircraft" is such a give away.  Who wants to buy a $200,000 car-plane with a slogan like that?