May 25 News

Dear Family & Friends,

Except for poor Jim slaving away in the Financial Office, this has been what I would call a “more normal week.” I have been able to catch up with things in the office. We had a baptism after church on Sunday (our third since we have been here!!), Office Staff meeting on Monday, Zone Leader Conference on Tuesday, Tokyo Zone Interviews on Wednesday, regular office stuff on Thursday, travel to Ikebukaro to do banking on Friday, clean and do laundry on Saturday plus babysitting two of Pres. & Sis. Hill’s grandchildren who are here visiting. This next week is preparation for Transfer Week, which is next week.

Our phrases for this week are greetings: Ohaiyo gozaimas – Good Morning, Konichiwa – Good Afternoon, Kon ban wa – Good Evening. (I might have already done these, but since my computer died, I don’t know what I have written and what I haven’t, Sorry). When we are walking around, if people look at you they will generally respond if you greet them. But if they are not looking at you, only about half will respond if you say something. Some are very open and friendly, most are more quiet and reserved. And it doesn’t matter what ages they are—this applies to everyone. Sounds like anywhere else you might live. But you always bow when you greet people—I am really getting used to it and will probably do it for awhile after our mission until I have been back in America for awhile. I find it quite nice and respectful.

We have been saddened by the earthquake in China and the Tsumani in Myanmar. We are so grateful for the Gospel which gives us peace and the Church which provides help in so many different emergencies. Of course, the places have to be willing to let people in to help. We pray that the people will receive the help they need.

Our good friends, the Halversens, are taking a group of people on a tour to Egypt and Israel, like the tour we did with them 12 years ago. We wish them well and will be reliving our most memorable trip as they are going to the places we got to visit. We will be forever grateful for the experiences we had in those places. And we loved our extra visit with our dear friends, the Dotans, who live in Rehovot, Israel. We hope to return again some day!

We have enjoyed the emails you have been sending us so that we can keep in touch with how everyone is doing. We love you all very much—

Elder and Sister Hartzell (Jim & Pat)

May 18 News

Dear Family & Friends,

Except for poor Jim slaving away in the Financial Office, this has been what I would call a “more normal week.” I have been able to catch up with things in the office. We had a baptism after church on Sunday (our third since we have been here!!), Office Staff meeting on Monday, Zone Leader Conference on Tuesday, Tokyo Zone Interviews on Wednesday, regular office stuff on Thursday, travel to Ikebukaro to do banking on Friday, clean and do laundry on Saturday plus babysitting two of Pres. & Sis. Hill’s grandchildren who are here visiting. This next week is preparation for Transfer Week, which is next week.

Our phrases for this week are greetings: Ohaiyo gozaimas – Good Morning, Konichiwa – Good Afternoon, Kon ban wa – Good Evening. (I might have already done these, but since my computer died, I don’t know what I have written and what I haven’t, Sorry). When we are walking around, if people look at you they will generally respond if you greet them. But if they are not looking at you, only about half will respond if you say something. Some are very open and friendly, most are more quiet and reserved. And it doesn’t matter what ages they are—this applies to everyone. Sounds like anywhere else you might live. But you always bow when you greet people—I am really getting used to it and will probably do it for awhile after our mission until I have been back in America for awhile. I find it quite nice and respectful.

We have been saddened by the earthquake in China and the Tsumani in Myanmar. We are so grateful for the Gospel which gives us peace and the Church which provides help in so many different emergencies. Of course, the places have to be willing to let people in to help. We pray that the people will receive the help they need.

Our good friends, the Halversens, are taking a group of people on a tour to Egypt and Israel, like the tour we did with them 12 years ago. We wish them well and will be reliving our most memorable trip as they are going to the places we got to visit. We will be forever grateful for the experiences we had in those places. And we loved our extra visit with our dear friends, the Dotans, who live in Rehovot, Israel. We hope to return again some day!

We have enjoyed the emails you have been sending us so that we can keep in touch with how everyone is doing. We love you all very much—

Elder and Sister Hartzell (Jim & Pat)

May 11 News

Dear Family and Friends,

We have survived our first earthquake!! Last Wed. night, in the middle of the night, we were awakened with much shaking and rolling. It lasted about 20 seconds. We found out later that it was a 4.0 quake centered in Mito ( I don’t know how far away that is). We had an aftershock that was much milder on Friday morning. Oh, boy!! I sure hope we don’t have any BIG ones!!!

I had a lovely Mother’s Day. The missionaries fixed dinner for us last night (Saturday night) since the Hills were going to be gone for dinner today. They made us three kinds of fried rice: regular (pork), chicken, and curry. (Curry is very popular here). They also made us Gyoza, which is like Pot Stickers, only different. I hope to learn how to make them before I leave, though I don’t know if I can get the ingredients in America. We had watermelon (very expensive here—paid for by the Hills) and brownies for dessert (always a favorite for a choc-oholic like me!!) We look forward to Skype visits with our kids tomorrow morning (Monday morning for us, Sunday afternoon/evening for them).

As you know, Jim has had to work long hours to try to do the financial stuff, usually getting home at 10 or 10:30. But Friday night I went to bed without him. The next morning he told me he got home about 11:15. He has been trying to do the month-end reports for April. Since he had only done one other month-end report (actually, he just mostly watched Elder Iida do it), he could not figure out all the amounts and where to put them and what they meant, etc. He spent hours and hours on Thursday and Friday. Finally, he prayed for help, pleading with the Lord to help him understand what he needed to do. As he started back into the documents, he started seeing connections and the figures became more understandable—both what they were about and what he needed to do with them. Though he got home so late, he also felt pretty good about how to prepare the reports. Truly the Lord takes care of those who are trying to do His work. How grateful we are for the blessings of the Spirit to help us do what we need to do.

Our phrase for this week is: “O, genki des ka?” (How are you? Genki is pronounced with the G like in Good, and the en like in den, and ki like in key) The response is: “Hai, genki des.” (I am fine). So the missionaries will sometimes say: “Are you genki?” It’s really funny—I am very genki? So now I ask all of you: “Are you genki?” I sure hope so.

We love you all and hope that everyone is genki!!

Love, Jim & Pat

May 4 News

Dear Family and Friends,

We are in mourning. Our small Mac laptop that we brought with us died. With it went Jim’s diary (the original is still on the PC back in Payson), our budget stuff (only 2 months’ worth so not too terrible), and all the music we had downloaded to listen to over here. That is what we will miss the most. I will ask our daughter Christi to make some CD’s of the music we left at home and send those copies to us. In the meantime, it will be quieter in the office. The missionaries have a few downloads of Mormon Tabernacle Choir CD’s to listen to, so they will have to do for now. We just had a much bigger selection and other CD’s that we really liked to listen to.

Okay, enough of that!

I will call this email: IMPROVED UPON. I will explain:

When we got word that we were coming to Japan and started telling people about it, we heard from people who had been to Japan telling us that we would have to bring all kinds of things with us that we would not be able to find here: toothpaste, anti-perspirants, laundry soap, etc. However, upon arrival we found that they have Costco and Wal-Mart (called Seiyu here), plus lots of other stores and stuff (Gap, Old Navy, etc.) So there are lots of places to buy everything we could want. There are American foods that are hard to come by, and when you do find them, they are very expensive. But we are loving the Japanese foods so are able to deal!

We were told to be sure to ask for American toilets, as what the Japanese usually use are holes in the ground. Well, the holes we have seen are nice enough and ceramic, etc. But western toilets are all over—and improved upon. The one in our apartment is an example—it is called a Warmlet, because the seat has a heater in it! Boy, that has been soooo nice with the cold weather. We probably won’t use it in the summer. We have also seen toilets that have bidets (like in Europe), and/or can play music, and/or have different flushes. They also have a faucet at the top of the toilet tank so when you flush, you can wash your hands in the water over the toilet as it fills the tank back up. However, we don’t use it.

We have been doing yard work for the mission home and the church next door. They have tools here that we really like: a small scythe-like tool for weeding, quiet electric hedge trimmers, a large, enclosed dustpan that collects a lot of stuff and stands by itself with a tall handle so you don’t have to bend over. Though they do have regular brooms, they also use the old-style witches brooms (think Wizard of Oz) that are really quite effective.

Their subway, train, and bus systems all use the same cards: they have machines where you put the money on the card and then use the card at the beginning and ending of each part of your travel where the correct amount is withdrawn from your card. We just keep ours in our wallets and place the wallet on the readers and it’s all done.

When they have to remodel a building, they put up heavy netting all over the whole building to keep the dust and debris contained. It’s kind of cool seeing the netting all over the buildings.

The small side streets have no sidewalks. They simply put large white stripes along the edges of the streets to show where people can walk. Saves money and space, plus I prefer walking on pavement to concrete.

Well, these are just a few of the things we have observed. There are probably lots more. We have been very impressed with how clean everything is (there are old men who are out every Saturday cleaning up the little park across the street from our apartment), they recycle here, they bow so politely all the time, it’s just a very, very nice place to live.

Hope you are all well—Love, Elder & Sister Hartzell

Our Official Mission Photos

In front of the "photo bush" with Pres. and Sis. Hill

April 27 News

Dear Family & Friends,

This past week we were on the phone with our son, Brent, when our mission president, Pres. Hill, walked through the room. He asked if he could speak to Brent and we said, “Sure.” Pres. Hill proceeded to tell Brent how wonderful we were, how we fit in so well and were doing our jobs so well and were a great asset to the mission. Also, how much he and Sis. Hill enjoyed being with us and considered us good friends. Of course, this made us feel so good!

The Hills have 9 children, 8 of them are married and having families. Two of the children and their families have been able to come visit since we have been here. Each of those children took time to tell us how we were the answers to prayers and how grateful they were that we had accepted the call to come here and be such a help to their parents. And one of the daughters also told us how much our mission would mean to our children at home. That all the Hill’s children at home, though they missed their parents a lot, were so happy to have them serving here in Japan and how much it meant to them and their children. And the Hills are here for 3 years, not just 18 months!

To top all of this off, we had a very special conversation with Sis. Hill earlier this week. She told us that back in November they realized that the Hatches would be leaving in March (when they were supposed to leave) and that they had better request a couple if they felt prompted to do so. They had 3 different couples that they knew were turning in papers to serve missions. They prayed about each one but didn’t feel that any of them were supposed to come here and serve. So they and their family just prayed that the Lord would send the right couple for the position. They were delighted to hear from us just two weeks before we were supposed to come. They hadn’t even gotten word from Salt Lake City yet when we called. As we visited on the phone, Sis. Hill told us that they received confirmation that we were the ones the Lord wanted here to assist them. Our hearts were so full of gratitude to the Lord for allowing us to be the answer to so many prayers. Truly, the Lord knows us and what we can do and where we need to be.

We are learning our jobs better and better all the time. I (Pat) am connecting more and more dots in my secretarial duties and am starting to work on projects that I haven’t had time to do before. Things are going very well—we have had a great week. Jim had a fellow from the area office over accounting who came to observe and train. He learned a lot and was so grateful for the training.

I, Jim, have also been called to be the executive secretary in the Mission Presidency. I attended our first meeting, Friday evening and was set apart. It was a very special meeting to meet these other great men. The one who has been his first councilor has been called to be the mission president in Nagoya Mission here in Japan, and so a new presidency was organized that evening. There is a special, very spiritual experience for me to be in the company of these great men. President Hill was very complimentary of me and my dear wife for what we have brought to this mission. He said he had prayed us here, and so we are here. It is so wonderful to know there is a living God in Heaven who hears and answers prayers and is mindful of all his children and how to support their needs. There are many wonderful people in Japan who are prepared to receive the Gospel, we just will have to find them as Jeremiah in the Old Testament (Jer. 16:16) said we have to be fishers and hunters and find them in the mountains, in the hills, and out of the holes of the rocks. Pat and I are keeping the nets mended and fishing poles ready.

Saturday, a week ago, we were able to visit our first Buddhist temple, called Asukasa, and pronounced Ah-sock-suh. It was really interesting. It had a gate to enter the area, a long marketplace street, a neat parade (that was unexpected as it was part of a wedding party), and the temple itself was big and ornate, with symbolism and statues inside and on the grounds. Right next to it was a smaller Shinto shrine, and a tall 7-story pagoda that we were not allowed inside. We had fun looking at the shops, then took a ferry boat down the river to downtown Tokyo, then to Shibuya where we walked the Shibuya Crossing—supposed to be the busiest intersection in the world—people going every which way all at the same time when the traffic lights allow it. Really reminded Pat of growing up in Vegas and the crosswalks they had there that allowed diagonal crossings—but not nearly so many people. And we even ran into another mission president there with his family!! With so many people and so many streets all coming together, the chances of running into anyone without previously planning it are so small as to be negligible—but we did!!!

Well, stay tuned—more to come next week--

Love, Jim & Pat

Ferry cruise down the river

The parade was fun and the costumes elaborate. We also enjoyed the river cruise--it lasted about 20 minutes and we ended up in Downtown Tokyo

Asakusa Temple & River

They also had a parade (just for us?) Nope, The tall pagoda we could not go in, just for the wedding party

Visiting Asakusa Temple

It is a Buddhist temple and next door to it is a Shinto shrine., The temple at Asakusa (pronounced A-socks-a) has a big market place to walk down.

The big group photo is the new missionaries and their trainers

The Mission Office & Missionaries Including Sisters

The Mission Office & Missionaries

Pat's desk, you can see her working hard!






Jim's desk, small but important!!