Meet our new girls!

We adopted!

...two teenage girls from Hirosaki.

Well, for the weekend at least.

Every year our Branch hosts an English Speaking Club from a Hirosaki High School.

We decided to join in and let two girls stay with us. They come on Saturday and then leave on Sunday. It's a whirlwind of fun, broken English, pityful Japanese on my part, and all around a good time.

As I said, they arrived Saturday and the ward hosted a craft. I helped them make caramel apples (which later was to my detriment as my crown broke as I was eating one... errrgh!- anyways).

After that I took them home to meet Marie and Brett.

Brett, being the great host, showed them how to play Battleship. They were such good sports.

Later we took them mini golfing. It was hard to think of things to do because if we wanted to keep them on the American base so they could hear more English. They were really cute and fun. They taught me a few things in Japanese and I tried my best to make simplified small talk in English.

Here is Marie as I caught her trying to reset her ball.

What is this face all about? 

Marie kept calling our girls (Ririko and Arisa) "The Ladies."

Later we took them to a Haunted House on the base. It was gory. The girls said that Japanese Haunted Houses are scary, but American Haunted Houses are the MOST scary. I would have to agree that at least the one on base goes a little nuts with the blood and gore.

And then to help them recover, the next day we took them to church :)
It was really long for them, but they were such good troopers. They didn't understand a single thing, but they tried really hard to sing and listen. They had never heard of Christ before, so it was cool to be the first person to tell them about Him.
Very cool.

And I have to mention the cutest part of the weekend was when I was showing the girls their bathroom, Marie casually offered, "and you can use my pink soap if you like." Her pink soap is the Mr. Bubbles bubble bath we only break out on special occasions. What a great host she is.

We'll Miss you Ririko and Arisa! Come back anytime!