From the Bountiful evening view to the east.....

and out to the west........

to the temple from afar.......

and up close.......

we land in Tokyo with a view to the south during a Typhoon!

Yes, we are in the middle of a typhoon and yes, we have felt our building sway. Woooo! 

Kent was here in Japan working all week! I think he has broken a record of being in one country longer than 7 days in the past 7 months! No jet lag for him this week!!

The efforts of trying to supply our apartment with the necessities of life - including certain foods - still continues. I would really like to find a fruit and vegetable stand which seems to be nonexistent in this neighborhood. Rather strange for Japan...... They are fruit and vegetable lovers!

There are two English speaking wards in Tokyo and we are in the Tokyo First Ward. Our stake consists of the entire island of Honshu. 

As you can see, the island of Honshu takes in the large island of Japan - which is our entire English Speaking Stake. It includes all of the military base wards and foreign English speaking wards. When we lived here 21 years ago, the Tokyo Stake included 5 Japanese wards and 2 English speaking wards. At that time, I served as the Stake Primary President and we had to have everything translated by one of my counselors, my secretary, and myself. Each quarter we had to have two separate quarterly stake meetings - one for the Japanese wards and one for the English speaking wards. We didn't have any translation help from the church offices here in Japan, so we had to spend a lot of time (with the help of the Lord) to do our jobs. As I contemplated what the church is doing presently with our stake, I see the wisdom in the change. It is much easier to get on a plane and travel, or get on Skype and communicate with those who speak your language than it is to worry about mixing the two cultures. 

Our ward is a very strong ward and reminds me of our ward in Bountiful. The Area President and his wife, Michael and Rosalie Ringwood are in our ward. You will never believe this, but Rosalie is my dear friend's, Brenda Miles, sister. Brenda and her husband, Dick, are serving as Mission President in the Alpine Mission in the Germany/Switzerland area. Such a small world. We also have both the Tokyo and the Tokyo South Stake mission presidents, couple missionaries serving in the missions, members of the temple presidency, temple missionaries, and other ward members who are dedicated faithful people from all walks of life. We feel so lucky to always be surrounded by great people.

As I mentioned last week, I would take you on an adventure through the neighborhood! Get your popcorn popped, sit back, relax, and enjoy the show......

My first interesting encounter on my morning run was a small shrine. The height of this shrine came about waist-high to me. You will see flowers, a stuffed animal, and other gifts in the shrine. The Shinto religion teaches that a deceased person becomes a god, and that god protects his living relatives. These gifts are given to the gods of this shrine by the living relatives. Shrines come in many sizes as you will see......

This shrine is about 5 stories high. It is the main shrine in our area of Tokyo where there are many community activities and gatherings.

This is a one story high community shrine. Like I said, they come in all sorts of sizes.

As I continued down the road on this early morning, I found things that I love about Japan. One of those things were watching people sweeping and cleaning their property. Japanese have a lot of pride in cleanliness. This man was sweeping and cleaning with..........

Yes, you got it. Like I said last week, the Samaria era meets the 20th century.....bamboo brooms vs. the leaf blower! Who would have thought???

Cleaning with a mop.

Oh hey! There's more bamboo brooms with green "dust pans" and a garbage can! Someone obviously hasn't done their job yet.....

Another mop.

A modern day 18 inch broom...... Maybe that's why so many older people have bent over backs??

This says it all.......

See! No pets, no poop, no trash!! Love it!

Let's now talk about space or lack thereof......

No space on the trains, but hey, we have our technology!!

No space for cars, unless you want to do something crazy like drive in the forbidden lanes.

How about a lovely back yard? And which home gets dibs on the space? The green and white rails from the upper home are hanging over someone else's roof. The rails are for hanging out clothes to dry.

Maybe these three home owners divided that cubicle in the corner for space?

Land space.....hmmm....... you can maybe put 3 cars in here. Notice how it is guarded for dear life!! Don't any of you even think of stepping foot inside there.

Let's see, the space for privacy in a public bathroom? Not too private.

At least the women have doors.

You smokers have your space and that space only!

Now let's talk about taxis. We have........

black ones,

yellow ones,

green ones,

and white ones. Hopefully I will never have to use the white one!

I'd prefer being thrown on the top of this garbage heap on this "Barbie" size truck for transportation over the white one above. I wonder if there is a fine if one of those bags falls off?

It's now time to show food and take the......

The "shef" at an Indian Restaurant suggested the salad,

Samosa,

Curry, and naan. Yumm!

Yesterday as we were fixing dinner after church, we heard drums and whistles. We looked outside and realized that the Aki Matsuri (Fall Festival) was starting. We stopped cooking and walked outside to see what was going on and this is what we saw......

This is an area between the buildings where people will gather for celebrating.

We then saw a group of people dressed in their hapi coats waiting to worship and carry their "Omikoshi" (portable shrine) around the community.

You will notice a framework of timbers that is used to carry the shrine.

The priest presides over a ceremony blessing the shrine as others pray, bow, and listen.

These girls were adorable and I just had to take their picture.

The priest then leads a large group of drummers and people carrying the Omikoshi throughout the community.

The police diverts the traffic from the group

as the people chant as they walk down the street. 

The Omikoshi is very heavy so there are

people following behind who will eventually take over and carry it.

A priest brings up the rear of the group.

As the head priests walk past the businesses, they bless them for the coming year's prosperity.

This cute little old police man was doing a great job keeping the traffic off the street.

And this cute little boy was just irresistible.

As the storm rammed through the city today causing sheets of rain and furious winds, our Heavenly Father blessed us with this beautiful ending to a tumoultuous day......

The end of the storm with the moon and

the blue sky breaking through the clouds,

leaves a peaceful night

with Mt. Fuji's silhoutte just to the right and back of the square building. 

This is the first time since we have been here that we have seen Mt. Fuji from our apartment.

And so another day and another adventurous week ends. 

Love,

Mom and Dad

Grandma and Grandpa

Kent and Barb (or which ever title you wish to use! Ha!)