Well, it's now officially 2014! I mean, it was when I emailed last, since that WAS 1/1/14, which means it was just a few days ago, and not much has happened since then. On New Year's Day, Elder Matsuhashi, the other Japanese guy in our 4 man apartment, went with me on adventures (my companion, Elder Asai, is the type of guy who prefers sitting upstairs alone reading, and the other foreigner, Elder Palomaki from Finland, is fine just sitting upstairs and drawing, so it often ends up those 2 and 2). Well, we went Japanese style and went to the local Shinto Shrine, which is the biggest one on the island. Just about EVERY Japanese person goes to the shinto shrine on New Years to donate some money and pray for a god year and other things... What you need to know is that most Japanese people have no idea why they are there either, but it's Japan: you don't ask questions like that, you just go because your parents took you every year and so did their parents and so on... It's tradition. So we went there, and I bought a little souvenir wooden message thing with a horse on it since it is now the year of the horse. Close by to the shrine is the Sapporo Zoo, and last year it was free entry on New Years, so Elder Matsuhashi and I decided to go check it out. I should mention that it was dumping snow, like, hard. Well the zoo was free again! Most of the animals were indoors, except for the monkeys, who were playing around in their yellow/brown snow; the polar bears; the penguins, who were much livelier than when you go in the summer; and the wolves, which were way sick. When we first got over there, no wolves wee out, but a few zoo workers were in the pen. They were carrying around big hunks of meat and shovels, burying the meat around in the snow and under rocks and stuff. Then they let the 4 or 5 wolves out to run all over sniffing out meat and tearing it up. That was totally worth seeing! Other than that there hasn't been too much going on. We got feed a good amount by the church members here, which is typical during this time of year. All the meals were delicious and filling. Now that we've done all our partying and what not, we get into that part of the transfer that leaves you wishing the transfer over already. This week we will be going to opposite sides of the island for zone training meetings and the one day we are here will be us working from morning to night. Good times! Elder Andrew Kade Jones