Well our first two months in country have arrived and we are getting into the groove and feeling a little more comfortable with our office duties and new surroundings.

We had a good flight across to Tokyo and were greeted by view of Mt Fuji as we descended into Tokyo. We met President Deshler out of customs and made our way to our apartment right by the Mission Office and Temple.

We had 3-4 weeks of intense training with Elder & Sister Loftus (who we took over from), and then were on our own. We've loved working with the Deshler's, missionaries and members and friends in our assigned ward in Koiwa, Chiba Stake.

We've been blessed to be able to participate in FHE's and social events with the other Senior Missionaries in our mission as well as the Area Missionaries as well as get to know and fellowship friends and new members of the Church in our Ward.  We've joined our Zone conference and seen two transfers come and go (6 weeks between arrival/departure of missionaries) where we have had many new missionaries arrive and some leave.

Sister Haynes is doing great as the mission secretary and keeps the 'front office' well managed. The missionaries and members love her (of course). I keep my head above water (barely) with all the mission finances, vehicles, and other responsibilities  and we both work together on all the items for preparing for the arriving and departing missionaries.

We saw one friend who we met on our second Sunday get baptized a couple of weeks ago and so has been uplifting to see his faith grow and support him.  The members of our Ward are so caring and supportive and we feel very loved.

We are enjoying Japan, love the convenience of being 5 mins from our office and the Temple, getting on a train a few steps from our apartment and able to go anywhere any time of day. We live one stop either direction from Shake Shack so Elaine can get a good supply of strawberry shakes and there is an amazing burger restaurant on the 2nd floor of our building. It has been cold and we were both sick for a couple of weeks in 2nd and 3rd week of January but all good now and hopefully will not get too much colder before it starts to thaw out in a month or so (really, the weather has been pretty good since we've been here).

We've felt the Lord guide us and strengthen us and also bless us and our kids during our time here and thank everyone for their love and support.