Church in the City

For the past couple of Sundays we have been meeting at the Kamakura building for church until the renovations to our building were complete. Since our Branch has grown in size an additional floor needed to be fixed up for us. Today was the first day we attended church in our normal building. But church here is not normal. There is no big parking lot outside of a nice big building. Everyone parks at the hospital parking lot inside of the base and walks a couple of blocks outside of the base to our building. We don't even have the entire building to ourselves. Our church is on floors 3,6 & 7. Oh and there is a cigarette machine right by the 1st floor elevators. That will make for a nice teaching moment. We quickly realized that taking the elevator was nice but not always the fastest method. With only two extremely tiny elevators you could be waiting for quite some time. AND since there is no AC in the hallways bordering the elevators, in the elevators and on the staircases, it was all about getting to your floor quickly. Since we were early there was no wait for an elevator so we got right in and went up to the 3rd floor for Sacrament Meeting. Once on the 3rd floor we entered a door and were so happy to feel the AC. YEAH! The chapel in this building seemed to be a little bigger than the one at the Kamakura building. We chose a row in the middle of the chapel right next to a door just in case Abby needed to go out. Getting used to chairs instead of benches will take some getting used to. Trying to corner Abby in will be even trickier. The older kids enjoyed Primary and I enjoyed being in there with them leading the music. Abby was agreeable when I dropped her off in Nursery. Even though this wasn't your typical church building it still felt familiar and welcoming. Our Branch family is great and that is something to be grateful for!