Kurayoshi

Wednesday (May 22th)we abandoned urban Japan in exchange for somewhere a little more subdued. The first area that Jonathan served his mission is a little farming community called Kurayoshi. I loved this place. I have always considered myself to be a city person. Growing up in a small town in Pennsylvania, I remember thinking that I couldn’t wait to get out of there and into somewhere bigger and faster. After spending almost a week in one Japanese city after another, I almost felt at home in this small little town. We woke up early and went to the house of one of Jonathan’s friends. He’s a 20-something Japanese kid named Takeru who drove us around all day (this was wonderful because we had just hiked Mt. Misen yesterday and were tired and sore). Takeru was really sweet and could speak a little English, which made me like him even more. Until about 5pm we visited one members/investigators house after another. Remember, I speak no Japanese. So although I started the day trying to act interested in the gibberish conversations I was overhearing, by about lunch time each member's house that we visited I sat on the couch and did everything I could think of not to fall asleep. It was really no problem to deal with though because Jonathan was so happy, and because I knew at 5pm we had a reservation at a Ryokan (a rustic Japanese Inn) built on top of natural hot springs. This was to be a kind of anniversary celebration for us.

These little frogs are like grasshoppers here in the Japanese countryside. At night their chirping is so loud and so obnoxious that it's difficult to sleep.
This old lady was one of Jonathan's first and favorite investigators.
Takeru and Jon. Takeru saved me by driving us around all day in his car.
We're posing in front of Jonathan's old apartment in Kurayoshi.
Little Japanese community vegetable gardens.
We ate lunch with this lady who was Jonathan's friend on the mission. She loves the show Friends, which they dub over for Japan.
This is the Church building in Kurayoshi.