January 3 & 4, 2003

Friday Jan. 3
We were surprised this morning with first a call from Sherry and then a call from Marlene. It was great to talk to them. Sherry is getting lined up with phone cards so you can all call once in a while. So we will be expecting to hear from the rest. Thurs. (Wed. for you) is a good day to call. We are in the office alone most of the day because the rest of the missionaries are having P-day. Our P-day is on Saturdays. Follow the schedule we sent and call when you can.
It has been raining here all day today. We hope tomorrow will be clear so we can go to the Peace Park (You that were here with us a few years ago will probably remember it.) About every day we walk over to the Post Office to take the mail. The Post Office is closed this week for New Year’s, we have discovered a way to get the mail sent anyway. We walk under the train station going and coming. We are getting so we find our way around pretty well now. We feel really blessed to be here and if we can just get a handle on our jobs.

Sat. Jan. 4
Today is P Day. We hurried and got our house work finished up and then headed out for the Peace Park. It hasn’t changed much since we were there in 1985 (remember?). We did have plenty of time to read all the inscriptions on the exhibit (in English). Do you remember that the three buildings are connected by an overhead passage way? However, they are remodeling the downstairs of the middle building so we didn’t see that. On August 6, they are having a special program in honor of those who perished in the atomic bomb blast. We will try to go back over there then. It was a terrible thing but everything has been built back up and Hiroshima is certainly one of Japan’s most beautiful cities. Today the sun was shining but there was a cold north wind that made things pretty uncomfortable. Its strange to see all the pretty flowers out in bloom when it is so cold.
Coming home on the street car, we had some conversations with an older lady, two high school students and an old 80 year old man who wanted to try out his English on us. Things went along pretty well until we mentioned the Church and that pretty well ended the conversation. However we did give our Mission card to the old man and he said he hoped he would see us again (more English). It has been good to hear from some of you this week and hope next week will be good for you.
Goodbye until next week.
Love, Roper Choro and Roper Shimai