Konban wa!!
How is everyone doing? I hope everyone is doing very well
First off, I want to say Happy Valentine’s Day to everyone!!
Second, I have some picture from Sunday, but not many. For the Sunday School time, my dad spoke for just a couple minutes on “Things We Learn Along the Way”, then he had several people get up and testify, so I got pictures of those people up there testifying.
First we have Brother Yamamoto standing beside his drawing of Japan. He was telling us that the Japanese are actually made up of people from the Philippines, Mongolia, Thailand, China, Korea and…. for some reason, I feel like there should be one more, but I can’t think of it.


This is when Sister Felicia Lotsu translated for Brother Yamamoto.

And then my dad had Sister Felicia Lotsu get up and testify.

After Sister Felicia testified, Brother Gaze went up there to testify.


And Sunday after church, Brother Paul called us and asked if we would all come over for a while. Sister Blessing had been home from the hospital for about 5 or 6 hourse by that point, so we went over for a while. And while we were there, baby Elizabeth woke up and we got to see her with her eyes open.
This is while I was holding Elizabeth. It was funny because I was sitting on my knees right in front of Sister Blessing as she was sitting her the chair holding Elizabeth, and I was just looking and watching Elizabeth. Meanwhile, Sister Felicia Lotsu, Sister Blessing Omorefe, and Sister Felicia Dorgbadzi. were cooking fufu, light soup, and fish. Sister Blessing Apedo looked at me and said, “Sister Rachel, I need to go in there and check the fufu. Would you mind to hold Elizabeth?” I looked at her and said, “Really?!?” She said, “Yeah!” So as I took Elizabeth and sat down, Sister Felicia Lotsu looked into the living room from the kitchen and said, “Oh look at Sister Rachel!. She is so happy!” I know I was just cheesing. I looked at my mom and said, “I’ve never held a baby the day they came home from the hospital. She’s so light and feels so fragile.” But she is SO cute!! And seriously, the whole time I was holding Elizabeth, I had this huge grin on my face as I was looking at Elizabeth.
Here is Vivy with Elizabeth.

And here is the baby again.

And here you can see some of the people in the kitchen.

And Elizabeth again.



And here you can see Vivy, my mom, and me all watching Elizabeth.

And Vivy and Elizabeth.

Oh! Look at that yawn!! Elizabeth was probably tired with all the company.

Here you can see Brother Paul talking to my mom and dad.

And some of the rest of the group in the house.

“Oh, stick that tongue out as far as possible!”

Vivi and Elizabeth as Elizabeth is watching her mobile.

And here Elizabeth is looking up at Brother Daniel.

I don’t remember exactly who Elizabeth was looking at here. Isn’t she such a cutie?

And this was as we were looking at the Apedo’s wedding pictures.

Here is Vivy playing with Elizabeth.

And here is Alice dancing with Brother Ephraim to some Ghanaiam music.

Then Alice watching Elizabeth sleeping.

And Makafui.

And here is Peter. I think he might have been getting a little jealous of Elizabeth getting all the attention.

Here is a group picture. Makafui, Vivy, Peter, and me.


And here is Vivy and Makafui.

And that’s all I have from Sunday from church and from Sunday afternoon at the Apedo’s house.
Now, as I type, it is snowing outside. And the majority of the flakes are huge!! Some of it is even sticking on the street! Here are several pictures I took from out of a couple of our windows.
This is from off of mine and Rebekah’s bedroom.


And this is standing with my head outside my parents window. It migh look a bit better if there wasn’t electrical wires, but uh…that’s kind of hard to get in Japan!! To find a place with no wires in Japan is almost impossible. I won’t say that it is impossible, but it is close to that.


Earlier, after I started writing this, I went back out and got some more pictures of the snow outside. Now we have about 2 inches of snow now, and it might be getting close to 3 inches. We have already shut all of our metal doors so I haven’t looked outside. But I wanted to get some more pictures of the snow because there is only one time that I remember getting this much snow and that was when we were stationed at Yokota somewhere around 10 years ago. I will always remember this Valentine’s Day by all the snow we have gotten today.
So, here are all the other snow pictures.
Sorry you can see our kerosene containers, but that is the way we stay warm.


And I have no idea how this little tree can hold up all this weight from the snow. Hmm.

And last, our other two trees in the back (you can see these two in the previous pictures).

Real quick, before I get off, I would like to clear something up. We heard that there was something going around at our church in Dayton and I wanted to get that cleared up. Someone mentioned that they had heard from someone that we were moving to a church in Singapore. Although we do have many friends there in Singapore and we love them bunches, we are not moving to a church there. We will be staying in Japan, and although it is taking a lot of strength/courage to say this, until God brings us back, whenever that is. I know I wasn’t too…excited at first about the fact of staying, but after talking with my mom and dad several times, I’m pretty sure I’m ready now. And as my mom said, if we do go back home, and God doesn’t want us there, we will be miserable. And we’d rather be where God wants us rather than be where God doesn’t want us. We do not want to be as Jonah was, running from where God wanted him to go. And my thinking on it, if God made a fish eat Jonah for three days, what would be the modern day version of that? “Rachel was in the airplane and the plane started going down in the midst of a storm. After much discussion and consideration, Rachel told the captain to throw her out of the airplane, preferably with a parachute, into the churning waters below. As soon as she was in the water, the storm stopped.” Would there be a fish waiting for me as well? Okay, so I am sort of being funny about that, but after thinking about that for several months, I have decided (yes mom and dad) that I’m ready for the future and whatever God has planned for me!! Thank God for helping me get over that!!
Okay, well, that is really all I have for now. Other than being glad that it is actually snowing, and other than being SUPER excited that my grandma and aunt will be here in, if I counted right, 50 days, we are not doing very much! I hope everyone has a great day, and had an awesome Valentine’s Day!
Love and miss all y’all!!