December 23, 2002

Mon. Dec 23
It has been a beautiful, warm, sunshiny day here, today. A mountain of mail is being delivered here everyday which has kept Mom really busy (forwarding the missionary’s mail out to them in the mission). You can tell its getting close to Christmas.
The ward had their Christmas party this evening. They asked Mom and I to tell some of the Christmas traditions our family has. We did it in English with one of the office Elder’s (Elder Robertson) translate for us. It was a fun party and we enjoyed watching the little Japanese kids. They had little packages of goodies for each.
Sis. Banks said the e-mail we sent to Marie last week, evidently didn’t go through. I’m afraid she stills hasn’t got her computer’s e-mail up yet. Any way we re-sent it to Sherry and eventually we hope you will get it so that you will know we are here.
Tues. Dec. 24
Today we were happy to receive e-mail from Marie and also from Matt & Jen, so I guess our first one went through. They are still trying to get our e-mail connected up. Until then we will continue to impose on the Banks’.
Tonight, all the hombu (mission home) missionaries were invited over to Bro. & Sis. Tanaka’s home for dinner and Christmas caroling around their neighborhood. We had an enjoyable time. The caroling was fun and seemed to be well accepted by those non-LDS neighbors.

Dec. 25, Christmas Day
Today they had a zone conference here in the Hiroshima District. We attended most of the conference along with getting today’s Christmas Mail delivered to all the Missionaries that were here. We were introduced and gave a little of our background and family info. There were about 40 Missionaries in attendance. Everyone seemed interested to know that I served as a missionary right here in Hiroshima 48 years ago. After our introduction, all the missionaries came through the line to meet us (much like a wedding reception) and gave us a little gift of some kind. We were really loaded up! Our Mission Pres. and his wife both gave excellent talks on the atonement (Christ’s gift to us). This afternoon we went to see about getting lined up on my medicine and got back in time for the missionary testimony meeting.
Tonight we met with all those who are attending English study class, which I think we will be teaching. English study seems to be a way of proselytizing (as it was when I was here before). We surely hope you had a good Christmas and I’m sure we had one we won’t forget for a long time.
Dec. 26,
Today we had a mountain of Christmas letters and packages to forward to the missionaries. Today was P-day for our missionaries so everyone was anxious to get on the phone and talk to their families. Pres. Bank made a rule that a limit for a call home was 30 minutes.
Sherry, there are one or two things that I wish you would check on for us. I have charged some things on my Capitol One credit card. Would you please watch for those bills and pay them off when they come?
Also they tell us here that the most economical way to phone is to have the call originate in the US and use a phone card. The best deal on a phone card is one purchased at Costco. Would you please purchase a $20. or $25. card for each family (including one for Mike and Vanessa)? Then you can call us instead of us calling you.
Here are our phone numbers:
01181 825 06 2588 (Our Apartment)
01181 825 06 2577 (Mission Office)
Matt, we are happy to hear that you and Jen have decided to go to Mesa for dental school. That will work out really good. We are glad you got a good car. That should make things more convenient. We are glad you got our car home.
I have also included a chart with your times compared to Japan time. This will help you so you will know when to call. We haven’t got our e-mail set up yet so you can send to bradbbanks@aol.com
Love, Dad & Mom