our next travel adventure

Next week, Chris and I get to go to Japan! We've been planning this trip since before we got married and now that it's finally happening, it's a little surreal. We'll be there for a total of four weeks and as of right now, we are going to nine different areas. Most are in northern Japan, on the island of Hokkaido, which is where we both served missions for our church. Me 18 months, Chris 2 years. We bought rail passes since we'll be taking the train from one end of Japan to the other and then all over Hokkaido (it's cheaper than low-cost airfare). We are spending time in Fukuyama (which is where my family lives), Yokohama (which is where Chris' distant relatives live), Hakodate, Sapporo, Asahikawa, Kushiro, Shiner, Atsubetsu, and Obihiro.

I feel an overwhelming sense of gratitude for being able to go. We won't be fine dining or staying in five star hotels but we won't be eating granola bars the entire time either. We enjoy traveling but this trip has multiple purposes. It's our honeymoon, a visit to introduce Chris to my extended family, and a visit to our mission area all rolled into one. It's extra convenient that we were in the same mission :) Overall, we feel pretty lucky.

As I've been planning where to go and who to stay with, memories of my time there have been coming back. Precious experiences, personal growth, and incredible people, all things I'm looking forward to sharing with Chris.

Since we drove to Washington instead of flying, we were able to bring a few things back, like a box of my stuff, which had all of my memory cards! We spent hours going through all of the pictures, laughing and reminiscing the entire time (a year and a half leaves you with a lot of pictures..). Definitely not my best looking years but here are a few fun pictures from the last time I was in Hokkaido :)

And in case I didn't make this clear enough, I'm so so excited to go again!

 

 

^^Look! A picture of husband that I didn't even realize I had! 

miss me? me either.

from 2012
and yes, that's purple in my mother's hair.

i'm not really sure where to begin. the three posts that are saved in my drafts? sorry i'm not sorry for not blogging for a month? hope you're doing well? well now that that's out of the way...
i spent two weeks in japan with my family and had an amazing time. it's been years since all five of us have spent more than two days together so that plus seeing extended family made for a wonderful trip.

i'm living at home again and surprisingly enjoying it more than i thought i would. i love my family (and not paying rent) but living on my own for two plus years has made me independent. i like living on my own, braving roommate drama, and going to school. but i've rediscovered something obvious: it's nice to live with people who have known me my entire life. not just liz who's going to college, but ME me. the me who danced for 14 years, who gets cranky, who loves to cuddle with cats and read. the chubby kid me, the awkward teenage me, and the trying to become an adult me. is this cheesy enough yet? the point is, in this key time when i'm trying to prepare for my biggest adventure and responsibility yet, i'm happy i have them by my side.

 

 to prepare, i've been doing a lot of reading and journal writing. my usual hour or two a day is nothing compared to what i will be doing but baby steps, right? other than that, i fill my time with helping my mom and playing with babies. i thought i would miss school and all that comes with it (social life, people my own age, you know) buuuuut i don't. sure, i miss a little male interaction with men other than furry ones and blood related ones but that's not really where i'm at in life.

so there you have it. you didn't miss much ;) if the internet cooperates and i can upload photos, i'll do a few posts on japan. if not, well you'll just have to believe me that it was bomb :)

CALLED TO SERVE

Dear Sister Sugihara,

You are hereby called to serve as a missionary of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints. You are assigned to labor in the Japan Sapporo Mission. It is anticipated that you will serve for a period of 18 months.

You should report to the Provo Missionary Training Center on Wednesday, April 24, 2012. You will prepare to preach the gospel in the Japanese language.

I'm so incredibly excited and humbled to be embarking on this new adventure. Teaching the people of Sapporo about Jesus Christ will be a wonderful experience. I'm grateful for this opportunity to grow spiritually and do what Heavenly Father would like me to do. If you want to know more about what I will be doing, this has some pretty great information :)

big news + a new chapter in life

I have decided to serve a mission for The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints. It will be 18 months of teaching and sharing with people what our church believes. I submitted my application/mission papers a few days ago and now I'm just waiting to find out where I will be going!

This was no small decision and took months of contemplating and praying. If you remember this post, that's the weekend everything changed. That's when the age requirements changed (for girls, the age requirement changed from 21 to 19) and all of my nicely laid plans for internships went out the window. But even after the announcement, I still wasn't quite ready. It took me a little more time to finally choose and commit to this life changing decision.

I love my life here at BYU but I'm putting it on hold for a while. This semester I really got into my major and fell in love with it all over again. I've made incredible friends and become more established in my job. But as sad as I'll be leaving all of this, there's something bigger out there for me. "Paying it forward" or "giving back" doesn't adequately express it, but that's kind of how I feel. I've been so blessed and have so much to be grateful for, this is my way of expressing it; 18 months is so short in the grand scheme of life. (I know that serving a mission is not meant for everyone so I'm grateful that there are other ways to show gratitude and help people locally).

I'm so incredibly excited for this new chapter in life. I find out where I'm going either next week or the week after and I'm getting more and more anxious! I have a particular country I want to go to but I'll be happy going anywhere. I haven't decided what to do with my blog while I'm gone but until then, thanks for reading :)