Elder Narita Returns to Visit

Elder Narita lives near Tokyo.  He finished his mission last February and is on his way to BYU-H to go to school.  We are very happy for him.

On our way to have lunch together at an Indian Restaurant

owned by a fellow Gary met one day with the AP's.

Eating Indian curry  and pan (fried bread) with the AP's

We were soaking wet from a down pour we ran through to get to the restaurant.

Nebuta Matsuri in Aomori

    Several weeks ago, Sister Kimura approached us in Aomori and asked if we would come and stay in her home and attend the Nubuta Matsuri with her family,which is one of the largest in Japan.  We have wanted to experience that Matsuri and knew that it was impossible to get a hotel room in Aomori during the celebration so Gary accepted  her invitation.   Staying in a Japanese home makes me a little nervous because of some of the "unknowns" but to my surprise, we were actually quite comfortable and had available to us every needful thing to get ready for church on Sunday morning.  These are some pictures of the Kimura home.                         

                         

This room had a beautiful grand piano and the computer.

Living room

Willow Tree figurines and a statue of Jesus, etc at one end of the dining/living room.

Kitchen

Taken from the couch (see above) towards the dining table (sit on the floor) and kitchen

Sis ?, me and Sis. Kimura. She is a classy lady who was recently released as the Relief Society President in the Aomori Branch.  Her husband is a Pediatrician.

Sis Kimura asked if Gary would visit this family in the Branch.  The lady is a member but her husband is a Buddist Priest who recently lost his job.  He loves the church and knows quite a bit about the Temple because he has attended Temple Preparation classes with his wife.  He is such a nice fellow.  Gary gave him a blessing at his (the husband's) request.  She also received a blessing in which she was promised she would be sealed in the Temple to her husband and family.  Now we will wait and see how he joins the church.  I think losing his job will prove to be a great blessing.

Sis Kimura arranged for a Taxi to drop us off at the Matsuri (think parade) because there is no place to park a car.  Thousands and thousands of people were there but we stepped out of the cab, walked about 1/2 block and sat on chairs already set up for us on the street front.  She thought of everything to make our experience perfect and comfortable.  We felt like VIP's. 

     I took this picture to show how everyone takes off their shoes and placed them next to the curb so they could sit on the ground on a blue tarp. 

Gary and Sis Kimura buying bottles of water to drink at a stand directly behind our chairs.

Sis Kimura wanted to buy us some squid to eat while we waited for the parade to start.

Squid cooking on the grill.  Gary loved it but it is not my favorite!!

Eating squid.

There are two ways to participate in the Nebuta Matsuri.  You can dress in these ukatas and walk in the prade chanting and dancing, playing huge drums, wooden flutes, or cymbals OR you can sit and observe all of this from the sideline~which is what we did!!!  We noticed that many families with little babies or young children walked in the parade together.  We thought that was impressive.

Cute little boys with their mom and dad getting ready to start the parade.

All of the floats are pulled and pushed by hand and they are HUGE.   The floats are depicting scenes of a battle that was won many centuries ago.

Dozens of HUGE drums like these were in the parade.  Lots of energy goes into pounding these drums replacements would come to give the men a rest.

Wooden flutes.

More pictures of floats that were lit up in lights and colorful. 

They are all made of colored paper.

Sunday Morning before leaving for church with Bro. Kimura.  He did not join us last night because he was working at his clinic until 11:30 PM.  He works long hours 6 days a week.

Gary with Bro & Sis Kimura.

The World Famous Nagaoka Fireworks

We made plans in the schedule to be in Niigata doing Missionary Interviews in time for the Nagaoka Fireworks this year.  (Next year will be our last chance to see them and who know what may be going on next year at this time).  Japan is famous for their fireworks and they really put on quite a show!!  About 300,000 people attend this show which means getting there is very difficult and reservations for the bus tour had to be made well in advance.  We went with President and Sister Yoshida and they made all the plans and reservations for us.

On our way to Nagaoka from Niigata on the bus with the Yoshida's

We arrived several hours early and had time to walk through a museum full of old artifacts from China.  This pictures was taken outside the museum.  It was very warm that day!!

The Yoshida's brought frozen drinks and onigiti (rice balls) to eat.

We sat on the ground covered with a blue tarp.  Of course, shoes are removed to keep it clean and placed on the edge of the tarp.  Japanese people are very used to sitting but we were not and our backs were pretty tired.

This picture doesn't even begin to show how many people were there

 but it was packed full of people on all sides of us for miles.

These were our friends behind us on the tarp.  They rode on the bus with us and we though it was neat that they wore their traditional summer yukatas. 

The lady in orange was our tour guide from the bus.

President and Sister Yoshida. He was recently released as Gary's counselor

in the Mission Presidency.  He is also a translator for the church. 

She served her mission with Gary 40 years ago.

The sky was beautiful before the fireworks even began because of the full moon.

We watched these fabulous fireworks for 2 full hours

Returning back to Niigata was a slow process.  There were hundreds of buses

trying to get out of town.  The would be one hour bus ride took about 3 hours. 

We finally arrived at our hotel about 1:30 AM.