02/15/2015
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| Sapporo Snow Festival |
Hey everyone. So this is going to be a quickie, but there will be lot's of
pictures to make up for it.
So this week we went to Sapporo for Zone Conference. That was cool. Got to
learn some cool stuff from the missions mental and physical health doctors. We
also had a cool devotional from President Nakatsuka. (sadly I can't remember it
off the top of my head, but I took notes, so I'm good) Then we watched the new movie Meet the
Mormons. Wow haven't seen that for several months, but still loved it. Then we
went to the Snow festival. So I'm in Hokkaido right? There is a TON of snow
here. As we walked down the sidewalk just today, the snow was reaching 2-3 feet
above my head. It's insane. Because of that, Every year Sapporo has a Snow
festival. They basically make HUGE snow sculptures, and have shows on them. I
have pictures, but I also have videos. I can't send those sadly enough, so
you'll have to wait till I get home to see them. But they didn't even capture
the awesomeness of it all.
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| Zone Conference (Kelson's in the middle) |
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| Queen Elsa's Castle |
Along with the snow festival, lot's of the bigger cities here have their own mini snow festivals that they give their own names to. The
one in Abashiri is called the Ryuhyo Festival, or the Iceberg Festival. Probably
the coolest thing I saw was there. The big main sculpture they had, looked
really weird. It had a swan, with a face on it's chest, some animals, trees,
dens, and other weird things. But the magic happened when they started the show.
Using only 6 projectors, they preformed a movie, on the sculpture. It all played
very well. It was an Ainu (Japanese native) story called Rossettes Prayer. The
video I have doesn't even portray the amazing detail in it. Anyway. Yeah. Then
at the snow festival, they had this cool Star Wars display. Sadly, there were
some warm days, and before we got to go they had to destroy some of it. The Tie
Fighters weren't there when we went. Oh well. But they had a cool light show
with that (it was slightly lame, I couldn't easily programmed the lights that
they used on it. I was told that it was going to be better than what we saw in
Abashiri so I was a little disappointed), but there were other huge sculptures
that were stages. People got up on them and performed. I have some videos of
that too. If you are curious at all about it, just search Sapporo 66th Snow
Festival. You'll find pictures, and probably videos too. Then there were just
lot's of other cool sculptures.
Other than that though. This week was pretty normal. We had a huge blizzard
yesterday. After we got back from church (4 hours after it was done) we couldn't
even go outside. There are 2 windows in our apartment, and they are both
entirely covered by snow. this morning when I went to take out the trash, I had
to football tackle the door open because the snow was so high. It was insane.
Well I'll put in some descriptions with the pictures, but that about sums up
my week. Hope you are all doing well. I keep you all in my prayers.
Lot's of love from the land of the Frozen.
Elder Eliot
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| His jacket has reflective strips, no his chest is not on fire! |
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| Is that the Stay Puff Marshmallow Man? |
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| They have Olof in Japan too! |
