June 1

Dear Family & Friends,

This past week was transfer week, our second one. We think things went pretty well. We had stuff ready to give to the missionaries who were headed home, and stuff to give the new missionaries who were just coming out. We enjoyed visiting with both groups—those going home had a steadiness and maturity about them, those coming out had eagerness and enthusiasm. So it was a great week and went off without a hitch.

We did have an accident happen to one of our missionaries. Last Sunday evening while Jim & I were still here at the honbu, we got a call from a sister missionary that her companion had had a bike accident and was in the ambulance headed for the hospital. So Pres. and Sis Hill and Jim all headed to the hospital (an hour and a half away) to be with her and help take care of her. They knew that she had broken off some teeth and found out from x-rays that she had broken her jaw. So they brought her back to the mission home to spend the night. The next morning they left early to go back to the hospital and discuss what options they had. To help them at the hospital, they had the American doctor who is an advisor to the missions here (he cannot legally practice in Japan but can consult with the Japanese physicians), the sister missionary’s local stake president and bishop, and on the phone they had an ear, nose, and throat doctor who is an advisor to the Church in Salt Lake City, and her parents at home in Montana. Between all of them, they decided to fly her back to the States for surgery, with the intent that when she is all recovered, she will return to us here in Japan. She has a great attitude and is determined to finish her mission. So she left on Wednesday with the other missionaries who were flying home.

We had a dai bo-oken yesterday!!! After taking care of cleaning our apartment, we came to the honbu for a pizza lunch (paid for by Pres. Hill to thank us for all our hard work this week and how smoothly everything went), then us missionaries left to go to the Tokyo Sea Life Park Aquarium. It was really neat and we enjoyed walking around and looking at all the different kinds of sea life. We even saw a couple of fish that we hadn’t seen before. One was a sea horse that looked like it had seaweed growing all over it—called a “Seadragon.” The other I don’t remember the name of the other ones. We watched the feeding frenzy of the tuna being fed, and then the penguins getting fed. We had a great time!! We will try to put photos on our blog.

We have strange rain here—it rains mist, that’s the only way I can describe it. When you look at the photos of the aquarium, you will see one of us missionaries standing outside in the rain. I don’t think you can see the misty rain, but that is what it did all day long. Really weird!

Can’t believe it is now June 1^st! We hope you all have a wonderful, happy June!

Love, Jim & Pat