Yes, this is our laundry! Like everyone else in Japan, we are now porch laundry people. It wouldn't be so bad but it began to snow soon after I put it out! Luckily that was short-lived.
I thought I would tell you our schedule which is mostly not so rigid but we try to stick to it:
6:30: Get up and get dressed
7:00 Study scriptures and missionary handbook "Preach My Gospel" together
8:00 Breakfast
8:30 Individual study of your choice
9:30-10:30 Language Study
During the day: Visiting, volunteer work, more studying, and anything else we need to do (like go to the 7-11 and make copies, call people with questions, etc.). Have lunch in there someplace.
5:00 Dinner
After dinner: more visiting, meetings, etc.
Of course this schedule changes daily since we have district meetings on Tuesday which take up most of the day because they are 2 hours away, Wednesday night English classes we teach, other meetings, etc. But for the most part this is how we spend our days.
This past week we were able to visit some of the members of the branch. Every person here in Ishinomaki has been affected GREATLY by the earthquake and tsunami. Pretty much everyone we have talked to has had water in their house a few feet high. Some had huge amounts of debris and rubble in their yards as well. Many are displaced into temporary shelters (kind of like small relocatables) which the government will allow them to stay in for 2 years but after that they will have to pay rent or move out. These places are so small I doubt anyone would want to stay in them much longer. Plus apparently they are cold and look like army barracks. Everyone we visited was so nice to us. We may be getting fat because they always offer us refreshments and make us sit down. At one house I got a Haagan Daz ice cream bar (yum!) and on Sunday we ate at a member's house--curry rice (rice and curry) and chocolate cake and strawberries and sweetened condensed milk for dessert! The people are always so nice but the talk aways turns to the tsunami. I am trying not to say too much about the tsunami until the one year anniversary (March 11) because we think there may be a big commemoration then. Most of the members have very strong beliefs of the Church and Jesus Christ. They are constantly talking about acting like real Christians.
We ate at our first restaurant here this week. It was a Cafe something or another. It was kind of an American-Japanese family restaurant. The French fries were served with ketchup and some mayo squirted on top of the ketchup--fry sauce--for those of you Utahns that know what I am talking about! The food was okay. Kind of like eating at IHOP or Denny's I guess. But we are hoping to go to the big department store soon (maybe tonight) where there is supposed to be a big cafeteria with lots of Japanese food. I'll let you know next week!
The weather has taken a turn for the worse around here. It is now pretty cold and windy most of the time with some snow in-between! But all in all, our apartment is good so we feel really blessed. As time goes on, I can see that we will become much more busy. We do have more and more to do each day! Ja matta (until next time).
Glad to hear things are going great. Think of you often and miss those grat smiles.
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