Farewell Party

So, on Sunday I got a farewell at church. They had Yan Yan speak since she and I are almost always together at church. She came up to me beforehand and said she had not prepared much, but then went up to the stand and spoke for 15 minutes bringing some members of the congregation to tears. It was quite moving. However, when I am nervous, I have two moods: nervous laughter and vomiting (yes those are moods). I spoke afterwards, followed by the YW singing 'Be Strong'.
In the evening, we had a ward party with tacos! Sis Miyasaka knew I was looking forward to eating Mexican food when I returned, so she prepared the meat, shells, chips, salsa, avacado dip, lettuce, tomatoes, cheese etc. Then it was potluck style, so people brought in curry, onigiri, puddings, fried rice, etc. which was really nice since Char, Em, and Mom were there. They got to try a bunch of home cooked Japanese foods. Plus, my ward has some pretty freaking awesome cooks. The laurels made a 'Stephanie Quiz' to see who really knew the crazy foreigner. It was a lot of fun. Char got a picture of me laughing my head off when they gave the intro to it. It was adorable and funny. 'Cularious' (cute plus hilarious) if you will. Naomi ended up winning. She, being the YW secretary, did hear them making part of the quiz, but she did still remember all the answers I gave. Good job Naomi! Yan Yan, Naomi, and I are all around the same age, so it is natural that we hang out and know more about stuff about each other than others would. She actually got baptized earlier this year. Yan Yan and I have grown quite fond of her. We'll fight over her sometimes. She just laughs at the strange foreigners. She used to be kind of shy, but she seemed to transform within a week. I mean one Sunday she was shy and the next she decided not to be. She has since not been shy. It has been awesome to watch her progress, and even more to see her come out of her shy shell. Or perhaps she was just getting less scared of the crazy foreigner. Either way, I am glad it happened.
Here are some pictures from that day!

Tacos! (among other things)

She is eating a rice krispy treat with chopsticks. I freakin' love Naomi-chan.

Rei and Yuri

Em's 1st plate

Kengo!

Tomoko and me =D

Half of them singing.

Sis Masumoto. She is freaking awesome!! She became the YW president earlier this year and kept me on as an advisor.

Kaori, myself, and Risa. Go SAs!

Naomi-chan took some pictures with my camera. I liked this one.

Since I was kind of the focus of the first half of this event, I really didn't get any super awesome pictures. Maybe I will steal some from Char or Em and post some more later.

More to come

See you this week!