December 28, 2003

Dec. 28, 2003
Happy Holidays to all our family and friends,
By now most of the holiday excitement has passed! We had a wonderful Christmas and looking forward to New Years, which traditionaly is the most celebrated holiday in Japan. I was just noticing that the bank will be closed five straight days next week, along with most of the Post Offices. I believe they will deliver the mail on most of those days and some of the central Post Offices will accept new mail.
On Christmas Eve, the Tanaka family held their traditional Christmas Eve Caroling party. We were invited again this year, but that was the day Pres. Banks was going to Osaka to pick up his children and so we didn’t have transportation to Tanakas. But at about 9:00 PM we had a knock on our door and there was the whole party group out in the hall to sing carols to us. That was really nice of them! The Japanese Shimai’s (sisters) brought us some delicacy that had something in it that Mom thought looked scary, it looked a little suspicious to me too, being that it had a big fat egg sitting in the middle of it and other little floaties in it. Mom got Elder Aoki to eat it and made him promise not to tell the sisters.
On Christmas day (your Wednesday) it was hard to get a phone line through because all of the missionary’s families were calling their sons and daughters. However, we did spend most of the time on the phone. The ones we didn’t talk to that day, called the next day (your Christmas day). It was fun to hear from all our family. We also received cards or letters from Afton (including a clever poem she made up). Dot (reporting on Misty and Austin’s new baby girl –Congratulations), Ann (bringing us up-to-date on Shirley’s family), Kathleen and Wilmer’s family newsletter and the 20th Ward Newsletter. Thanks to all of you.
Christmas Day we met Pres. and Sis. Bank’s son Joshua, and his wife; and daughter Annika. It was nice they could come and it really brightened the holidays for the Banks. They will be here for about a week. Annika is a hairdresser and has promised to cut Mom’s hair while she is here. The Banks’ other daughter Emily and her husband and little son were here last April for a week and couldn’t get off work to come with the family now. Yesterday, they rode out to Iwakuni sightseeing, and tomorrow they are going to Himeji to see a castle there. Pres. Banks’ work has slacked off this time of year so this is a good time for them to come.
I think I mentioned this before, but every year my postmaster friend, Mr. Miyake’s, brother-in-law goes hunting wild boar near here. This year while we were down to the Temple, Miyake brought a piece of the meat over for us but we were gone so gave it to Pres. Banks to give it to us. He put it in his freezer. It was a while before we heard about it, which was making Miyaki nervous. But we did get the meat and cooked it up last week. It tasted very good. Pres. Banks saved the piece Miyaki gave him until today (when the family was here) and they cooked theirs up. We all agreed it was delicious. It tastes more like beef than pork. We had heard that the smell was similar to antelope meat, but we didn’t find that to be the case. We all really enjoyed it.
There isn’t very much to report, this week. We have a lot of year-end work to be done and it is complicated because so many places here are on vacation. We always look forward to hearing from home. We hope the rest of the Holidays are good for you.
Love, The Ropa Senkyoshii-