Week 37 -- Its beginning to feel a bit like Christmas.

 The weather in our area of Japan is much cooler, but there is no snow. Other parts of Japan, especially up north, are seeing the white stuff.  We have had frost on the car in the mornings. Sweaters are definitely in season. The Christmas lights on Camp Zama remind us daily that the holiday season is in full swing. And with the holiday season, there are plenty of opportunities to serve in a variety of ways...ho ho ho. But first, let's start with the beginning of our week. 

Monday afternoon we drove to Tokyo (to the Tokyo Temple Annex) for a special FHE for the Senior Missionaries in the greater Tokyo area. We have attended three of these so far.  It is fun to see some of our counterparts that we don't see often. Many were from the Asia North Area office. We had some great holiday food (potluck style) and had a few activities and a short devotional by Elder Esplin of the Area Presidency. Some of the missionaries were heading home which will happen to us sometime in the future. We feel privileged to be in such awesome company and we enjoy what we have the opportunity to do here in Japan. 

We spent the night at the New Sanno Hotel since Tuesday is our regular day serving in the Tokyo Temple. I took some time before reporting for Temple Duty, visiting a nearby park where the autumn colors are still present.  We enjoyed another full day of helping the missionaries attending the Temple that day feel welcome and have a good experience.

Wednesday I had a return and final visit with the downtown Tokyo dermatologist while Sister Nelson helped the Zama Red Cross office decorate for the holidays. We later reported for duty at the Zama Clinic for a little volunteer time. And we went here and there in preparation for the rest of the baking week... we also made our way to NAF Atsugi for mail and such. We invited our neighbor MRM missionaries, the Meltons to join us at the Zama Community Center that evening for Mongolian BBQ (one of our favorites). Sister Nelson slipped into Grandma mode also and prepared some boxes for mailing to some grandchildren we know and love.

Thursday we did a lot of different things...it was a long day, to say the least. We started early (0700) helping set up the room and then signing in the Zama newcomers to the biweekly Camp Zama newcomers orientation. Sister Nelson snuck out for a haircut and we did lunch with our friend, Rob from the "Stars and Stripes." Then we made our way to NAF Atsugi for mail and such.  I gave my final photography class at Zama, at least for this round, and then we made our way to support our friends at Celebrate Recovery. I think we got home about 8:30pm.  It gets dark about 5pm now, making it seem even later. 

Friday was our day to bring lunch to our district missionaries. Lasagna this time and they made short work of it.  That night we ordered Pizza and got ready for Saturday.  We spent time translating a holiday favorite, "The Sweet Smells of Christmas." into Japanese so I could read the translation while Sister Nelson read it in English and showed the pictures. Since the "scratch and smell" aspect of this book was long past its prime, she amassed a number of "smells" in the form of essential oils and Scentsy wax.

Saturday we continued our prep for the combined church Christmas Party for the Camp Zama Military Branch and the Yamato Japanese Ward. (we share the same meeting house.)  We made food to bring - potatoes and gravy, jello squares, green beans, etc. There was a lot of food - Japanese and American. We also had the story reading activity and then I became Santa towards the end --the finale.  This Santa had to be bilingual.  Sister Nelson was Santa's helper handing out candy canes.  All in all the activity, while rather chaotic was well-attended and was a lot of fun.

Sunday seemed a little anti-climatic, just a normal Day of Rest kind of Sunday. We will take those anytime. Onward to next week.