Church in Japan

Today was our first Sunday in Japan, and it was such a busy day. Our branch building is in downtown Marugame, about ten minutes from our house. It's a very old building with contaminated water that the church has been renting for 35 years. The Marugame branch has been put on the list for a new ward building, but it needs to consistently have 80 members in attendance--and this past year it has only hit 80 once. Usually, attendance is around 60 or 70. There are, including us, twelve English teachers, all of them BYU or BYU-I graduates. We have a translator for sacrament and relief society, but Sunday school is English. After church, we went to have lunch with at the Jensen's apartment. This is the third time the Jensen's have taught in Japan. Sis. Jensen had her first baby here, who is now 2, and will have her second baby here in December. It was fun visiting with them. They made us curry (just the way I make it!) and gave us the scoop on living here.

After visiting with them, we got home and then had a welcoming dinner at the Morimura's, along with the missionaries. We had--I don't know what it's called! Basically a bunch of meat and veggies thrown on a grill that you eat right off the grill--is that tepanyaki? Afterwards, the missionaries gave us a lesson and a sheet to refer our friends to church, and Bro. Morimura shared his conversion story. He got baptized six years after Fumi did and told us of how Fumi would put her three boys on her bike with her to ride to church while he went gambling. He realized that was terrible and started driving them to church and then ended up staying with them. Did I mention the Morimuras have three sons, one of which is a cell phone music composer in Tokyo and another is the branch president? After dinner, we all crashed--we were so tired! We did figure out how to use some of the appliances in our house--including our toilet with bidet, heated seat, and remote control--it's almost too much to handle for a toilet! Tomorrow we'll need to figure out how to use our tiny tiny washing machine. I will post pictures as soon as I can find the camera cord.
If you are reading this, set up Skype! ~Amy