Picture with President Yoshida!

Hard to believe this is the last mail before Christmas! Just like everything else it`s kinda just crept up on us huh. It`s beginning to look a lot like Christmas over here though!! Had to bust out the boots and have a little fun in the 8 inches of snow we got over the past couple days haha. It was crazy, it went from a clear ground to nothing but white in no more than 30 minutes! Very pretty though. I guess we`ll be gettin lots of hit from here on out . I`ll take another white Christmas :)



I mentioned it before but my last week in Morioka we had District Conference and were visited by many of our leaders. One was President Yoshida, the first counselor in our mission presidency. He also does a lot of translating for the church, including the Book of Mormon into Japanese. I enjoy him so much and really wanted to get a picture with him back in Morioka but he was busy with a lot of different things so it wasn`t able to happen. I left the church that day a little discouraged but was confident in Heavenly Father that I would have another chance to meet him. My first sunday here in Nagaoka there was an announcement that President Yoshida would be visiting our branch on the 18th of December. Recently we were also able to meet up a couple of times in Niigata for some meetings as well. So yesterday as our meetings came to a close I was able to pull Yoshida Kaicho aside and take my long awaited picture :) It was a tender mercy of the Lord and a testimony to me that Heavenly Father knows me personally and has a plan for each and every one of us.


Our branch president here in Nagaoka lives a little ways away but we were finally able to make it over to his place this weekend. He had a nice house and such a cute little family!! The members here are great. We aren`t having a Christmas `party` this year but instead have made Christmas-looking pinatas in which we are gonna fill and take to less-active members, etc. I think it will be a fun activity! We are also doing an English Class Christmas Party this week!! It should be fun. We`ve been blessed and have about 20 people attending class each week!! Although we may not have very many investigators or people to teach, we`re still being blessed and seeing miracles taking different forms. A few investigators wouldn`t be too bad of a Christmas though! ;) I hope you all have a good one. Thank you so much for your kindess, love, and support especially during the holiday season. I love recieving your letters. I hope and pray that we may all feel the joy of our Savior as we celebrate His birth this Christmas season. Love you!!!


Elder Ovard

                                                                     The Field is White!!!

                                                          Tatsuhiro. I love this kid!

                                                        Pres. Yoshida- The Man!