These members are amazing

11/3/09 Email Message

Family!,

Wow an email from the new computer - how exciting! Did you lose anything when the old one crashed? I hope not - it had so many pictures and songs it would be sad if we lost all of those. But I hope you have fun with this new one. By the way Dad said something about Windows 7 coming with it - is that the new operating system? Ive never heard of that. Whats it like?

Halloween looks like it was a blast! The pictures were great - everyone looks like they had soo much fun! Where did all the kids come from? I think thats so cool that Kendall had a bunch of school friends come and have a clean fun time. By the way Kendall I got your letters! thanks so much. And I have a question - does that girl you wrote about come to church with you? Do you invite your other friends? Since Ive been on my mission Ive realized how easy it would have been to just invite my friends to church stuff - I never really took advantage of that and I regret it a lot. I think thats so cool that Aly invited her friend and helped her all the way through her conversion - that would be such a great experience for you and your friends to have. Have any of your friends ever met with the missionaries or have you ever talked to the missionaries about your friends? If not you should pull them aside this week at church and tell them you want help with your friends. They can help :-)

But anyways the party looks like it was amazing. I hope you all had fun! Im glad even merritt and rocky got in on the action.

So sad news - our party got cancelled. It was planned for the 29th but thats when Sister allred and Sister Dibb came in and had their big conference so it was a no go for the halloween. But i still got to pass out the candy to all the kids so that was fun at least. But we did have a big ward activity a couple days ago. Its called an imonikai - basically a big potato soup festival. We played softball in the morning (our team squeaked by 19 - 18 in extra innings) then we all walked over to the ward garden and picked cabbage, daikon (japanese radish) potatoes and peppers, then we all sat down and ate an awesome lunch of soup, homemade bread, and smoked meat and cheese prepared by the relief society. It was so fun and so Japanese.

These members are amazing. It was so fun to play with them but also to work next to them in the field and see how hard working and down to earth all of them are. It was a great experience. Ive attached some pictures from the day - notice no matter how Japanese I may feel Im still representin my true colors ;-)

Life is good - although it has gotten cold. It snowed a couple days ago for the first time and Im now back to sleeping with three blankets at night. It will be a happy day when Japan discovers double paned windows and insulation - but until then my big three blankets will have to do. Ill be fine until I have to add the fourth layer - then we are in trouble ;-)

I love you! Im glad you are all having so much fun together. Thanks for sending me all those pictures - and dont be afraid to send more! Talk to you soon!

Much Love,

Elder Brendan Kingsford