Ward Party at the basketball court

Hi Everybody,
For some reason I just thought you would be impressed with the Costco escalator.  You stick your cart on it and the cart is magnetized or something so that it sticks on it going up and down.  Interesting, huh?  We only get to go to Costco once every two months so this is a big deal for us.  This has nothing to do with the rest of the blog, however!

Here we are at the ward barbecue and guess who is cooking?  Elder Chandler really was the best but of course, he's had lots and lots and lots of practice!

The Elders and Sister were busy helping, too.  I actually got to do the popcorn machine for a while which has always been my dream! (It turned into a nightmare when some of the popcorn got stuck and started smoking!  There were some people who came to my rescue, however!

Here's our stake president, President Madsen and his wife, Annette.  Their ancestors are from Lake View, too, and it has been pretty fun comparing family histories and seeing where our ancestor took his ancestors for boat rides on Utah lake.  On the left is our great "relative", Ron Judd who just moved here and who was also a stake president in London, England.  He is our daughter-in-law, Krystal's, uncle!

                                   Have you ever played this game?

If the ball you throw lands in one of the glasses, you get to keep the fish!  There were a lot of little kids walking around with bags of fish.  I'm not too sure that their moms were very excited about it, though.

I really liked the investigator in the middle who came with the missionaries in a white shirt, tie, and shorts.  Actually, in Japan, most of the men always wear white shirts and ties when they go to work, just not shorts, though.  There were also lots of people on the street who stopped to listen to the band and some of them came down and joined the party, too! (Would you not accept an invitation for free food and music?)

Here's Ron's wife, Teresa Judd, who is our daughter-in-law's aunt!  Isn't that great that she got right in without being asked and worked so hard helping to serve? They are great people, just like their niece! 

 It was a seventies band that they got up for the party so they dressed in seventies dress and wigs.  They were members and they were really good singers.  Next to the singer is the Bishop's wife, Sister Linder. I think the band took the name of the seventies quorum of seventies or something like that.

Here's a dear friend, Rebecca, her husband, Edgar, and their daughter, Kolob.  They are great people and good friends, she's a member and he isn't.  She's from Uruguay and he's from Germany.

This event was held on the basketball court that the Church owns in one of the busiest and most exclusive places in Tokyo and which is not far from where we live.  They estimate that this property is worth fifty million dollars, not bad for about three-fifths of an acre, huh?  They have plans for future building here in the future, though. Right now the missionaries play basketball on their P-day here with members and investigators.  They do some teaching here, too.

Here's our good friend, Claude, and his fiance, Haehung. (We are also allowed to call her Kim as that is her last name.)  He's from one of the African countries via France and she's from Korea.  He speaks many languages and he is a professional artist. I think she said she was a research scientist or something like that. He has been a member for a year or so and she is a Christian. He provides for his deceased brother's children and is like a father to them.  He does all kinds of artwork and he also drew a beautiful pencil drawing of us.

On the left is Adam Aalder, our DTA from Australia.  Elder and Sister Whiting got back just in time from a mission tour to come for dinner.

Here we are together with Rebecca and her family, including her son, Conrad.

Walking back from the party, we noticed that our neighborhood Buddhist temple was having some kind of celebration.  They do this a lot with lots of drum beating and with other instruments. Sometimes it can be pretty loud especially when we're outside.

Another day, we had Claude and Haehung and the sister missionaries, Sister Snow and Sister Biddle, over for dinner and a great discussion.  It made for a great week!