Sunday, February 15, 2009

Feb 15, 2009

Dear Family & Friends,
It was a good week for the most part. Poor Jim had some frustrations with iMOS, the internet Mission Operating System, that we are piloting. Thank heavens, it turned out what he had done that he thought was not processed, it was processed so he felt better about that. I tried to do a mail-merge and it didn’t work so I went back to the old way. It’s always hard (frustrating!!) trying something new and helping them work the bugs out. We are getting tired of being the beta test site for all of the Japan missions. It’s a dirty job and WE get to do it!!!
Thursday morning we came over and did some yard work to make everything look nice for Elder Evans to come visit us next week for a multi-Zone Conference. I cleaned up the office while Jim and the missionaries and Sister Hill worked on the yard.
Then, that afternoon, Sister Hill invited me on a quick trip to a place called China Pete’s where they have lots of different things made out of china. When I say quick, it took two hours to get there, we looked around for an hour, bought a some dishes, then went to Costco for a few things (compared to the major shopping we usually do), and two hours to drive home. We had fun visiting over and back so it was well-worth the time. Nothing is close here!!
Friday night we double-dated with the Hills to a good Valentine’s dinner at Kennedy Steak House, which was delicious!! Then we watched a DVD that I had picked up at Costco called, “Prince Caspian,” part of the Narnia series. We loved it and thought it was such a good story and so well done!!! (Jim & I liked it so much we watched it again last night).
Saturday we attended a wonderful wedding in the Temple. Our own Elder Iida, who left the mission just 10 days ago, was sealed to his sweetheart who waited for him. They looked so happy and we were happy for them. We were not able to stay for the photo session, so when we get any photos from the Hills, we will put them on our blog.
Our thought for the week is: “And if you keep my commandments and endure to the end you shall have eternal life, which gift is the greatest of all the gifts of God.” Doctrine and Covenants 14:7.
Our new word for the week is: haru ichiban (har-oo itchee ban) which means #1 spring or first of spring. This has reference to the interesting change of weather we had. On Thursday it was quite cold. On Friday a wind blew all day, but it was a warm wind. When we went out on Saturday, it was positively balmy!! The temp was about 78 degrees!!! We couldn’t believe it!!! In Colorado we would call this wind a “Chinook.” So we had our first taste of spring and we are all excited!!!
Hope you are all doing well and having “haru ichiban”!!
Love, Jim & Pat

No comments: