Matsushima and Church in Japan

 It was sad to miss the 4^th of July in America.  This is one of my favorite holidays.  I have done a lot of shopping and enjoyed some more new foods.  On a Saturday we went to Matsushima which is a small town on the Pacific Ocean coastline and enjoyed some nice views of the very interesting looking small islands.  We then had some great pizza that night.  We visited a shrine and a temple that day as well.  I bought a kendama toy at Matsushima.  Here's a very colorful photo of the temple we visited.  Seems odd to take photos at the temples but I verified it was ok to do.

 Another photo of the main temple.

 Here's the low end of the range of toilets common in Japan.  This one is for going number 2 (if you know what I mean).  You have to be careful I guess.

 This view of the various islands in the Matsushima region (there are over 1000 islands) is one of the top three most scenic locations in Japan.  The waters are normally very blue (they weren't for us due to the recent heavy rains).

 Another view.

 Here's the shrine we visited in the area.

 There was a long bridge you could walk on to tour a small island.  Normally you pay $2 to cross but we happened to get to the bridge just after closing and it was open to cross freely.

 These islands are quite amazing looking.  It'd be nice to have a private home on one.  However, this is the region that was hit hard by the tsunami of 2011 that was quite destructive.  You couldn't see much damage in this particular area because it's in a bay and was protected a bit.

 After the Matsushima visit we went to a nice pizza restaurant ad had some unique pizza that is very similar to Italian pizza rather than a typical American pizza.  This was the most interesting one that looks like a bear's foot or something.  It was quite good.

Sunday morning church meetings were a highlight on my trip.  The services were from 10-1 and when I walked up to the building 15 minutes before the start of the meeting there were maybe 12 people standing in two lines on each side of the doors to welcome everyone.  This was impressive that everyone wanted to shake my hand and personally tell me good morning (sounds like ohio gozaimas).  I had an interpreter who was a Japanese returned missionary that was assigned to interpret sacrament meeting for me.  He was very nice.  It was so neat to feel the Spirit so strongly even though I could not understand anything that was being said.  To see people of faith that were from such a different culture share the same feelings about the gospel and about God and His Son was just amazing (this was a very similar experience to the one I had while attending church in France 3 times).  Then in gospel principles and in priesthood meeting I had two different missionaries from the U.S. interpret for me.  There was a newly baptized member that was confirmed also and it was just so nice to feel of the Spirit during his confirmation.  Everyone was interested in who I was and why I was there.  There were a couple Americans there.  The new mission president and his wife also attended the meetings and met me.  After the meetings were over it was like people didn’t want to leave.  They stayed and talked and wanted to talk to me some more.  I look forward to next Sunday’s meeting.  Two gospel insights that I heard that impressed me were 1. That sometimes we can fast just to request that our will be more aligned with God’s will and 2. That as home teachers it’s not so critical that we share a message in their home each month but that we make it a point to talk to them weekly and get to know them so that will we know if they need anything. 

 I spent much of the afternoon walking and talking photos and enjoying some cultural music events.  Here's one of the famous streets in Sendai that is lined with trees in the middle and there's even a walkway you can enjoy in the middle.

This is video from the Buddhist temple of the drums being pounded (I enjoyed that).

Here's video of the Tohoku University a capella group that I stumbled upon.  I enjoyed watching this Japanese man dance to the music.  It was quite good singing.