October 5, 2003

Sunday, Oct. 5, 2003
Dear Family and Friends,
Today has been a red-letter day, especially for Mom. While all the immediate family was together in Cedar City for Matt and Jen’s baby shower, they called and Mom was able to talk to about everyone. We are happy you were all able to be together and seemed tobe having a good time (even without us). Anyway it was good to hear from everyone.
We had Church today because we won’t get to see conference until next weekend. We are scheduled to go out to the Takasu ward next Sat. and Sun. where they will pick up conference via satellite –both in Japanese and English. We are looking forward to that. at Church today there was a fellow there from Utah. When he found out my Mother was a Lovell he became suddenly interested. He said his wife’s grandfather was Ben Lovell from Leamington. If I remember correctly, Grandpa Lovell and Ben were brothers. It is interesting how you go clear around the world and meet some of your family! But I have decided that if you are in the Church, it’s a small world. Just like Mom found out that her and Sis. Gohaller are distant cousins. Most good LDS people who come into Hiroshima find the Church and attend meetings here, even if it is predominately in Japanese. It’s the Spirit and partaking of the Sacrament that counts.
Bro. Gohaller is my home-teaching companion. The person who we are home-teaching is the returned missionary from Utah that came back and married one of the Japanese Sis., has two little girls and now is divorced (I think I told you about him a few weeks ago). Anyway Sis. Gohaller invited us all over to their place (including the Bro’s new Japanese girl friend, not a member) to dinner and we would do our home teaching at the same time. However, when we got over to the Gohallers’ they had received a phone call from the Bro., saying that he was sorry but they wouldn’t be able to make it. So we had a nice dinner and still didn’t get our home teaching done.
Yesterday, (Saturday) we had an enjoyable day. Two people from our English class invited us to spend the day with them. They drove us to a beautiful Island called Kamagari. It is one of hundreds of small islands ( over 700) surrounding the main Japanese islands. They have build a long bridge (similar to the Oakland Bay bridge in California) connecting it to our island. First they drove us to a beach area, where we had dinner at a wonderful restaurant with a great view of the ocean. The food those two ordered looked scary! Raw fish, called sashashimi and cavier. Mom said, No Way!” After we finished eating we walked down to the beach and watched the ocean (which was loaded with seashells since the tide was out). Then we went through two museums and then attended a tea ceremony. We of course, didn’t drink the tea but those who we were with did. Then on the way back home we stopped at the Hiroshima Port and walked around the seashore and watched people fishing. It was all very interesting. We were impressed with the people who took us. They spent a lot of money on us and are very good people but not interested in the Church except for how it’s helping their English to improve.
Last Tues. evening we went to a returning home dinner with Pres. & Sis. Banks for Elder and Sis Lowe, who left for home on Wed. They have been serving as regular missionaries in the Takamatsu area. We went to a really nice Japanese restaurant. At our table they had two pots of boiling water that were built down into the table along with a small frying grill, which we put in thin slices of beef, chicken and pork. Then we put in many different kinds of vegetables and scooped out on to our plates what we wanted to eat along with our rice (it was a lot like sukiyaki). There were several different condiments to spice it up with. It was delicious and we had an enjoyable evening.
Now the weather is beautiful here. The temperature is mild and we haven’t had rain for about two weeks. Mom and I do a lot of walking. We are very well and appreciate this great opportunity. Keep up the good work at home!
Love, Dad & Mom.