Another week in Muroran! Ive seen the sun about 2 or 3 times since Ive gotten here, only for about 15 minute periods. Other than that it is cloudy windy and cold. But hey, it makes you appreciate the sun that much more. Well things are good this week, I am at the church right now, we just finished a ward activity as today is a holliday. We had whats called a "Mochi Tsuki", where we made mochi, essentially just rice pounded into a pulp. Its ridiculous how much Japanese people use this rice stuff. Its a way traditional thing; you throw a bunch of cooked rice into a stone bowl, and pound it with a giant mallet until it is sticky mush. Then you ball it up and can put it in soups and stuff, or put stuff inside to make dumplings or treats, it was quite fun. All the little kids had fun watching me swinging that mallet like a boss, I had to get in there and show these little Japanese guys how its done.

Yesterday was pretty interesting, the 3 day weekend holliday is for everyone becoming an adult (age 20 in Japan). Yesterday we went with a member to a convention center, where on this holliday every year everyone that will turn 20 soon or has recently turned 20 gets together. The mayor gives a speech and all, and there was a raffle, that was about it. Most of the guys are in suits, and the girls are all in crazy colorful beautiful kimonos with decked out hair and too much makeup. After the thing everyone was standing around in the lobby, and since we are the only white guys in town, not to mention tall and yound and devilishly handsome, we attract alot of attention, especially with a lot of young people packed into a room. Lets just say there was alot of staring and pointing and giggling and people asking to get pics with us. Quite the experience.

The other day we were helping clean out an old members apartment as he is moving into the hospital, he gave us this old guitar he was going to throw out. Elder Knighton cleaned it up and got it tuned, and even made a make shift capo from pencils and rubber bands, it has proven quite fun and very distracting. Thats been about it lately, we are doing good, having fun, and kicking butt!

Elder Andrew Kade Jones