Working in World Famous Suizenji Park

Kandie and I were working in Suizenji Park yesterday (picture attached). We learned that Suizenji Park was built in the 1600’s, and took 3 generations of the local ruling family (the Hosagawa’s, still living in Kumamoto) and over 80 years to complete. It mimics the Tokaido road to Edo (Tokyo) including the 54 rest stops on the way from Kyoto. For several centuries local rulers had to travel to Edo every year (and later every two) to pay homage to the Emperor—a way to prevent any challengers to the central rulers. We found the park, the Shrines, the Shinto Priests and Priestesses, and the ‘walk to Edo’ to be fascinating and uniquely impressive. Throughout the day we pushed forward. For example, in one cottage meeting with an impressive young lady, a final-year medical student, we discussed the reasons to join and when. As a result, the young lady is getting baptized tomorrow, rather than continue thinking about the possibility of baptism in about month or two. (Kandie will not go even a little bit slow. She is incredible.) Then, tonight we played basketball with the soon-to-be member along with other members as part of our YSA Sports Night. Love, Keith

Another "war room" session

We are busy planning strategies for and working on the next posters and tracts for our coming music concert featuring recorded artist Sister Utagawa (recorded with Janice Kapp Perry). Love, Keith

A Park

Mark, happy birthday! We were walking (and proselyting) in the park in the rain, Friday, and a friendly person volunteered to take our photo (attached). Today, one young missionary set had us participate in a first discussion with a new investigator (Kato San). Kandie followed the progress of the discussion, then bore her testimony in Japanese at just the right time. Later, Kandie suggested what turned out to be the perfect scripture to answer Kato San’s troubled question (why is there so much pain and strife in our lives? 2 Ne 2: 13-16) Kandie is really coming along with Japanese. Kato San’s friend, who is getting baptized next Sunday, brought her to church today, and hence the first discussion. We will participate in the second discussion next week. Regards, Keith and Kandie

Lost but not Lost

A week of adventures. We spent 8 hours yesterday looking for the temple in Fukuoka and never finding it. We did see a lot of pretty scenery and even a glimpse of the ocean. We were also looking for Costco and apparently drove right by it unawares. The Costco here sits in back of a big shopping mall and cannot be seen from the road. Since Kyushu (our part of Japan--it is an island) is made up of many hills and mountains, it is hard to see very far away. Reminds me of driving around Becky's place in Pennsylvania. Or the Palouse, although with a lot more trees. 

We wanted to attend the temple, but ended up driving home instead. It is normally about a two hour drive from our place to the temple, according to the members. We also found out, today, that the temple is very hard to find. Next time we will have our GPS unit, even though it is in Japanese--written and spoken. 

I have been resisting getting a GPS unit, since it is not in English, but now I am ready. As the navigator, I was lost most of the time:) When we found the road to the expressway home, we took it! There is a building right by an on-tramp to the expressway that has 'Kyo-wa' written on the side in great huge roman letters.  In other words, easy for me to read. 'Kyo-wa' means 'Today'. When we passed it for the second time, I thought, "Look, there are two of those buildings in this area." Very soon I realized it was the same building and by the time we passed it the 3rd and 4th times, we just laughed, "Ahh, there's kyo-wa, again." We had accidently found a loop of expressway that completely went around Fukuoka and allowed us to pass the same spot many times. We had a great day anyway. We have hope for Costco, since we actually saw the shopping mall it sits behind. We will try for the temple another time.

Tonight we were part of a discussion with an investigator's friend. The friend is a Christian and was concerned about what the investigator was studying. When someone already believes in Christ, that puts us way ahead of the game here in Japan. The elders showed them the film about Christ's life and death and Doubting Thomas' story. I found out that the film does not have to be in English for me to cry. Both women were very touched. The investigator has a baptismal date already set. She kept explaining things to her friend. I was able to follow along with the scriptures in English and actually made some suggestions that apparently were helpful. When it came time for my one-line testimony in Japanese, I was able to pull enough words out of my head without reading the testimony out of a book beforehand. The testimony was really really (probably another really) short. But true and all my own words. And the Japanese was accurate also. (I asked afterward.) So the investigator's friend is now also an investigator.

I had been feeling a little put out about yesterday. There are so many things we could have been doing, but when I saw the film of Jesus' life and death and gift for us, it put my life back into perspective again. 

Our YSA group is dwindling. This is to be expected. However, we need ideas. Would any of you please send me ideas of activities you and/or those you know have been doing? We really need small, fun activities and not huge region wide ones. The young single adults are used to great big things happening every few months, but the idea of just getting together to go do something, this idea is new to them. So what did you do last week that was off-the-cuff and fun? All ideas accepted. Thanks in advance.

We found a park for walking around. Even though we got lost finding it, we located it on the map so that we can go there again. Dad is sending some pictures of us in the park. A kind person walking past us stopped to take the picture. 

Hope your week was good. It is starting to warm up here. I'm not too sure what I think when the weather is practically shirt sleeves sometimes and it is only February. Usually it gets down to almost freezing during the night, but warms up quite pleasantly in the day, especially if the sun is shining. It doesn't always rain. 

I found a new Hyaku-en (dollar) store with really nice dishes. So now I have tea mugs (for mugi-cha--a barley tea) and saucers and rice bowls that are pottery instead of melamine. We hosted three meetings at our apartment last week and needed to upgrade our presentation. The missionaries are very accepting of everything, but when it came to hosting the stake president and his wife, I felt better with real dishes. 

Love, Mom, Grandma or Kandie, take your pick

Lots of Food and Fun!

Hi, all.
John, Michael! Your drawings just arrived. Thank you very much!! They are really good, and we showed them to our friends at the YSA center.
The first attached picture shows Kandie ‘skinning’ a special large grapefruit that is grown in this area (and costs $80+ at the store, because it is rare). This was given to us by members, the Maki family. We ate it during a planning meeting in our apartment with The Team (second picture-- we are fast-paced, effective, lethal, and feel the power of legions of angels with us) this last Tuesday morning. The grapefruit was delicious, and related to the taste of grapefruit we know. The outside was as big as a volley ball, and the inside was about the same size as our grapefruit. We also experimented with home-made pizza, and that was a success.
In addition to everything else, this week has been non-stop cooking for one leadership meeting, planning meeting, and special in-our-apartment investigator family lesson after another. Kandie has outdone herself in learning how to serve new and exciting things (including scones, and our YSA Monday night meeting desserts shown in the third picture), deciphering the kanji to learn new tricks with the microwave/convection oven, and downloading and modifying recipes—all with Ashlee’s invaluable help and suggestions. Thank you!
Along with presenting a program at an Old Folks home (fourth picture), we participated in last Saturday’s talent show (fifth picture of a Hula dance) that brought in at least 60 non members and investigators. We are repeating this effective strategy again in about two weeks. Another random thought. In the name Kumamoto, ‘Kuma’= bear, as you know. Connecting to this, it was fun holding the English class spell-bound by telling about Lucynthia’s success with and survival of the Grizzly bear in Denali, Alaska.
Love, Dad

Googled Apartment

Ashlee was kind enough to post on our blog the google map for our apartment building. I added some comments about the area, if you would like to go look. Thank you, Ashlee. You will notice how many parking lots are around our building. This was a surprise to me, since most of Japan seems to be apartment buildings or farm land. Apparently Kumamoto is not heavily populated and actually has space left over for parking lots. This is okay by me. It means that most of the YSA have cars or can get rides and have no problem coming to our activities. Also, we can be in the country in about 20 minutes and in the mountains not long after that. We have not deliberately gone to the mountains yet, only as a result of being lost:)

Yatsushiro, bus rides and other delights

We were asked to go to a little branch located 90 minutes away (by toll road) to speak about the Outreach Center and Family History work. We had several ideas about what to say, most of them hingeing on getting cell phone wireless to our computers (a possibility here in Japan,where technology seems to be pretty well taken for granted.) As a result of our latest try for wireless, our main computer had to be left at the shop over the week-end and cannot be picked up until Tuesday. So--no presentation. Slight panic--actually more than slight panic. As I prayed about the trip (just the two of us, no one to translate; no GPS unit to guide us, ours doesn't work in Japan; written instructions from the missionary couple that invited us, but couldn't be there themselves; toll way travel, when we still carefully map out every trip that takes more than a block so that it includes mostly left turns--we drive on the left here), I felt complete peace. Again when I prayed--complete peace. So when Dad said that we shouldn't go, because all of the things we wanted to do were in the other computer and couldn't be accessed (yes, we did download everything onto a USB thumbdrive, but of course the file we wanted didn't download). I was able to say, "No, we must go. Everything will be alright." And again, "We really must go. Whenever I feel really stressed and as if I should go home and go to bed, I know that a great spiritual experience is just around the corner."

So we went. We found the right entrance to the toll road. The entry ticket actually came out of the machine as it should. Instead of the trial run on Friday when we had to call for the attendant to help us get the ticket. (On Friday, we decided to drive on the toll road just to the next exit to see what we might encounter on the REAL trip. On the trial run, we had no trouble finding the toll road, getting on--except for the toll ticket problem--and getting off, but we had the hardest time finding where to turn around in order to  get back onto the toll road to come home. As a result, we enjoyed some beautiful mountain scenery, but not a real positive feeling about toll roads.) We found Yatsushiro. Japan has been adding Romaji to all of its signs and that really helps. We could actually read 'Yatsushiro' on the road sign, instead of just the kanji. We found the chapel. We did have to stop at a grocery store to ask for final directions, because we were a couple of blocks off. 

And of course the meeting was wonderful. The branch meets upstairs above some shops. The branch is delightfully small and reminded us so much of Potlatch branch that we felt right at home. In fact we were pleased to tell them that we had come from a small branch, which really surprised them that such a thing could be in America. My carefully rehearsed very simple talk, with some additions about ancestors and their love for us, went really well. They said they were amazed to have me speak in Japanese. So even if they could not understand my accent (which is most likely true), they were still so pleased that I tried. Dad's talk was calm and friendly and short. Together we took about 10 minutes, but the branch president was prepared with another speaker and himself. Again, it reminded me of the care that Pres Russell always took to have something prepared in case there was time left over after the speaker had finished.

We stayed for Sunday School and relief society/priesthood meeting and even afterward where we presented some power point slides about family history work and about the Outreach Center. There were so few of us, that we sat around a table and looked at the computer together--no need for the fancy stuff we didn't have due to the other computer being not available. We also met a newly married couple, married in November, he from Japan and she from Chewellah (just outside of Spokane). She came to Japan to teach English and he decided that he wanted to learn English also. He investigated the church and joined in September. They are a delightful couple and she was so pleased that we had heard of Chewallah and had been to Spokane. She claimed that she didn't speak Japanese, but she translated the relief society lesson for me. I supplied the religious vocabulary, but she had all of the conversation skills! Our class consisted of the Japanese teacher and us two Americans, so it was a delightful exchange of ideas and thoughts. The lesson really is a lot better when you have to rely on the spirit to help you understand:)

Tonight we hosted our stake YSA leadership council. We sat on the floor, around our short table, on cushions. We ate the cake that the Yatsushiro branch gave us just as we were leaving and drank cold mugi-cha (a barley/wheat drink). Then we all watched the beautiful sky just after the sun set. It has been a great day.

Bus rides--we took our first ride on the bus on Wednesday and are already planning our next. Saves a lot on parking and getting lost and other trials with driving a car. Sister Rimi went with us, so now we know where the bus stop is and how to pay and where to get off and other essentials. We are so blessed with all of this help.

Hope all of you have also had a good week,

Love, 

Mom, Grandma, Kandie

This is how you eat squid

Here I am eating squid…Yummmm…Also, Kandie and I took pictures at an old river bridge when we drove part way to Yatsushiro City. We were practicing the drive so we can make the trip early Sunday morning when we will teach about genealogy (by Power Point slides so they can follow by reading the Kanji) and give (short, because no Power Point) Sac Meeting talks.

I think I’ll try to stimulate a YSA fishing trip to the beautiful spot in these pictures. The fishing looks great, and the plans for fishing have been developing to help reactivate several YSA brothers.

Also, we had fun learning one of the traditional and ancient Japanese dances, tonight. The dance is beautiful the way the women do it, and it also tells the Way of the Kumamoto Warrior, we were told.

There was an interesting revolt. A substantial group of brothers decided to go bowling, instead of dancing, and a lot of the single sisters decided to go with them (no surprise there). They also reported having a lot of fun. This is exactly what we want. Love, Grandpa

Happy Valentines

Kandie experimented a lot modifying recipes from the web until she had the right level of non-sweetness. Then some of the YSA made the cookies and the rest had a ball decorating them with frosting. Any warning to avoid too much frosting (and thus reduce the level of non-sweetness….I love double double negatives…..) went unheeded. It was too much fun decorating with the brilliant colors.
Love, Dad

Fish food

Hi Emily, Valaya, Christopher, Mathew, BrookLyn, Jonathon, Paul, Scarlett, John, and Michael! These squid are swimming around in a pool. We catch them and eat them. We like the fish, too. Love,
Grandpa P.

Who IS this?!!!

Kandie came home from her first trip to the hair dresser, this afternoon. Do you like it? (I do, of course).
An investigator soon to be baptized showed us how to make Gyoza for tonight’s YSA activity. This is the church’s kitchen. We had another big group, tonight. Notice Kandie in her new hair style. I have learned how to use this Japanese cell phone. I take a picture, email it to this laptop, then forward it to you.
Love, Keith

A baptism and more...

We ran across this group of kids while visiting Kumamoto castle. When we noticed they were having as much trouble with the Japanese language as we were, we found out they were all from Korea on a school excursion to the famous Kumamoto castle.
This is just down the street from us
Our Outreach center doubles as the baptismal room (font through the wall). Eight more committed in the next few weeks

We always manage to have food at the Outreach events…. Let’s eat (Curry Rice). …….In our Outreach Center (that doubles as the Relief Society room) in the church.
We all got together in our apartment (the War Room) and made outrageous, wonderful, plans (over breakfast).
An English classroom in the Church... Love, Keith

English and Kumamoto Stake

Pres Iwaasa visited our district today for our regular mission president interviews. (He has to interview every missionary in person at least once every 6 weeks.) After commenting on what a great district we have, which is absolutely true. We could have told him that without his having to drive the two hours to Kumamoto. He said, "My, this whole stake has improved their English since the last time I was here."

I'm glad that someone else has noticed what a good influence I have been:)

Love to all and especially to Christopher Hart who is now FIVE (5) years old.

Grandma, mom, Kandie 

A fun get together today for YSA

We had some (now former--, yesss!) less actives and some investigators along with a big group of YSA’s today. This Sister below came four hours by bus with her friends to attend. Lot’s of fun games were combined with our presentation on dating and marriage. The presentation was not my idea. My idea was to go fishing. But it all seemed to be well received.

This Friday Kandie and I have been given the assignment to hold a dance. We have managed to arrange for some skilled practitioners to teach us how to do one of the Japanese traditional Odori’s (dances)—a Kumamoto special variety with marching lines, chanting, clapping, and cool moves, all to exotic music.

Regards and Love, Keith

Our Team

Hi all. Thanks for your neat email and blogs. We love them! Here is our team of full time missionaries. We are gung-ho and teaching a lot of discussions. Kandie and I are part of daily discussions with investigators, and it is really neat. We spoke together in two Sacrament meetings, today. All in Japanese. Kandie did great! We turned in our statistics for this past week: ~120+ at our center activities, including 20+ investigators. And we are just getting started. Love, Keith

Successful Week

Amazingly enough, I have now given four talks in Japanese. I think that I have already mentioned this, but it still deserves saying again. Nozomi Takahashi shimai (that is: Sister Takahashi) has helped me by translating my talks for me. Then I can combine phrases and make new talks. 

Today we went to the Shimizu and Tsuboi wards. Our stake president drove us across town, had us talk at both sacrament meetings, talked himself, arranged for Dad to give his power point presentation about the outreach center between meetings, and also had the relief society presidency feed us after the power point presentation and before the next sacrament meeting. Chocolate pie, rice and some yummy meat and vegetable sauce, tempura fried shrimp and a salad, water to drink. (As you may recall, Kumamoto is very proud of its water.) And it looked beautiful and was served on pretty dishes. I don't know if they bring the plates from home or if each relief society has a supply hidden away somewhere. 

My talk (and the other three) went like this: I am thankful to be here today in this ward. I am thankful for the YSA and for the outreach center. We are thankful for the privilege and responsibility of being with the outreach center. We are from America, Utah and Idaho. We have 5 children and 10 grandchildren. 4 daughters and 1 son. Our son served his mission in Japan, Tokyo north. Our daughters also served missions. I served my first mission in England and Wales. Elder Prisbrey served his first mission in all of Japan. Now for my testimony. The gospel is true. The prophet represents God on this earth. (New line-Thomas Monson is a prophet today.) Jesus Christ is our savior. The book of Mormon teaches us about the savior. In the name of Jesus Christ, I testify. Amen.

I had a line that explained that we lived in Idaho for 31 years and just moved to Salt Lake this summer, but it was quite complicated and not very easy to say. I also had a line about where my daughters served their missions, but it also was complicated. Hopefully I will be able to say those lines correctly soon.

Dad's talk was quite a bit longer and more complicated. He wrote it in kanji and other kana. Part of it was a quote from Preach my Gospel--very complex Japanese. We sounded pretty clunky at the first sacrament meeting, we thought. Pres Tasahiro asked Dad to speak longer and when Dad said that his Japanese was too poor to speak much longer, Pre Tasahiro said that we should not worry, but just let the Holy Ghost guide us and let the audience hear what the Spirit wanted them to hear. Dad relaxed and spoke quite well. I felt better also. Except that my mind went blank at the beginning and I had to keep turning around and asking for help. I made some comment in english about how my mind had just blown away, with appropriate hand gestures; everyone laughed and since the rest of the talk was written down, it went quite well.

Taikai (zone conference) was really excellent. One of the treats for zone conference was meeting one of the assistants, Elder Kado. He is from Niigata, Japan and a close friend of Lionel and Etsuko Hauritz, our friends from Australia and Keith's missionary companion in Hokkaido. Etsuko, would you kindly, for us, tell Elder Kado's mother that he is an excellent assistant, very humble, kind and also powerful. He talked to us in Japanese and excellent English. He is very tall. His companion assistant is from America and is probably a foot shorter. Elder Kado is also very handsome. His family can be very proud of him. 

Here are some accomplishments from this week:

1. My mugi-cha tea finally tastes good. The sister missionaries once again came to the rescue and showed me how to make it. (a LOT more water, I mean PINTS & PINTS more)

2. We successfully put money into our Japanese bank account.

3. We mailed a letter to the mission office. (We had the clerk write the two addresses. That accomplishment I will have to save for another week.)

4. We found rice seasonings at the store. These are like salt that you shake on to the rice and I have not been able to find them here. It is quite a challenge to try to decipher the package labels, which are of course written in kanji. It helps when there are pictures.

5. I can sit on the floor for an hour at a time. The other outreach couple and I play Phase 10 until any young single adults come--about an hour.

6. I can also play volleyball, softball and other indoor games. Sitting on the floor helps with flexibility:)

7. Everyone's English in the stake is definitely improving.

One final note--I sit in on a lot of discussions. Our missionaries are really incredible. People actually walk into the church and ask to be taught! I really do not know what the missionaries are saying so I do a lot of praying and watching. I also have a book of missionary phrases that I search for appropriate testimonies that I can hopefully memorize and give. Often the point passes where that particular phrase would fit, so often I do not say anything for the entire discussion. This could make me feel bad (useless), but I have noticed something. When I concentrate on the words and look attentive (and actually am attentive) and also keep praying for the spirit to touch our hearts or for the investigator to understand a point or to accept a commitment or whatever I think is happening, then the investigator also stays focused and attentive. If I wander away in my mind and think of mundane things, invariably I'll come back to the discussion with the investigator staring at me. In other words, they have wandered away also. So now I try really hard to stay focused and to add my part, even though it isn't vocal.

Keith is trying to  make connections with the universities here so that we can talk to their students and invite them to the Outreach Center. Since the center is totally dependent on someone coming (several someones) so that they can enjoy doing things with each other, more young singles would be better. We found a member who is a professor of English at one of the universities. He is very friendly and even got his master's degree from Bristol, England (My mission). However, he doesn't know the science faculty. But, by a series of amazing chances, we seem to have a lead into the science part of the university. We will see how it pans out. (One missionary sister had to spend the morning with us, bucause her two companions needed to take a driver's lesson in order to renew their drivers' licenses. While waiting with us, Sister Utagawa searched the university website for the name of a professor who teaches about outer-space. That evening Br Maesawa found Dad roaming the halls during English conversation classes and said, "You are needed here." and put Dad into a class. There are three classes. An adult rushed into the building and into Dad's class. While talking to him, Dad found out that he knows the space professor and would be glad to introduce us. Now we'll see what happens.)

Hope all of you have had a good Sunday (or will have--I forget I am 15-16 hours ahead of you). We love you all. If you know of someone who wants to read these letters, pleas e let me know so that I can add their e-mail address to my list.

Dad, how is Aunt Donna doing?

Love, Kandie/Mom/Grandma

All Our Brothers and Sisters

We have zone conference today, so there is not much time to write. I have been touched for the past two days by a statement I made in the last letter--that these dear young single adults especially, and also all of the saints here in Kumamoto, seem to be dear friends and that I have known them for eternities. Since I felt this same way about the saints in South west Britain and South Wales, it makes me wonder how many dear friends we have all around the world. 

On the first day at the MTC  I received a powerful witness that these people in Japan are some of God's chosen people. It really is a privilege to work here. Every morning I wake up with wonder. I take the elevator to the ground floor and think, "I am in Japan, in Kumamoto, living on the eighth floor in a wonderful apartment, working with kind and loving people. And I am on the Lord's errand. What an absolute miracle!"

Sometime I will have to send you our street address. We spent almost an hour in my Japanese language class on Tuesday helping me learn to write my name and address. It looks pretty good in kanji and kana, but still won't fit on a regular envelope and especially not small in the upper corner. But I can't do it from memory, not even in Romaji (roman characters).

I really do feel like a kindergartener most of the time. However, the part of my brain that loves jigsaw puzzles and solving Sudoku and other hard problems is having a ball:)

Love, Kandie, MOM, Grandma

Waiting for the Single Adults to arrive

The picture shows that it is tough work, here, but someone has to do it. (Notice that Kandie has become quite comfortable sitting on the floor in our outreach center. She has been practicing stretching back in the apartment). Love, Keith

Wonderful Family Home Evening

Last night, Monday night (getsuyohbi) we had an amazing family home evening. It was the first night for the center to be opened. Dad and I headed to church with lots of supplies, because of course no one would be coming. Mostly we had Japanese to study. For about 45 minutes we studied away, but then people started to come and by the time the evening finished, there were over 40 of us--3 investigators. There are so many young single adults that come, in fact, that I think they have been just waiting for something to be organized. They come from four wards, by bus and by car, bringing enthusiasm and love and excitement (and shyness and uncertainty) and are so much like their counterparts in the states, that I could have been sitting with them at the UI institute, except that everyone spoke Japanese, except me. They all look so familiar to me, in fact, that I'm pretty sure that I know all of them, I've just forgotten. In fact, I'm more than 'pretty sure'. 

Shimizu ward was in charge. They provided the lesson and the activity and I helped make the dessert--thick pancakes that you split open and then put sweet bean paste inside. Also, you can mix whipped cream with the bean paste and then it is really excellent. Since I have always liked bean paste, then I found the pancakes delicious. Some of our new American elders were unsure, but admitted that they were quite good. 

I cooked the pancakes. Instead of a griddle, I used an electric pancake cooker--a large flat oblong electric pan--much larger than any of our normal pancake griddles--with a shallow lid even. I cooked away and then realized that the insides were still raw. Since the pancakes have to be split open, the gooey, slimey middle could not just be hidden under syrup:)  I had to put the faulty pancakes back on the griddle and bake them some more. The remaining pancakes I was more careful with, but they took a long time to cook and that made us late starting. Not a Japanese trait, but all were forgiving and still had a lot of fun.

Got to go, I'm needed to help with an investigator.

Love, MOM, Kandie, Grandma, etc

Pictures from the opening

Pictures of ribbon cutting

Kumamoto Opening

We had about 40 people at the opening today. Keith and I both gave talks. I had one of our YSA sisters who graduated from a community college in Mesa, Arizona help me find the right words and also how to pronounce and phrase them. So I sounded pretty good:) Keith covered up his lack of advanced Japanese by making power point slides with pictures and correct kanji and hiragona, katakana etc on the slides. One of our fellow missionaries is a whiz at typing kanji (she is from Tokyo) so she helped us to find the right things to say. As a result, we looked and sounded quite professional and knowledgeable. We are glad that the Holy Ghost willingly covers up unintentional errors and helps the truth to shine through. I would type in my short talk here, but only a few of you would even have a clue as to what I said, so I won't trouble the rest of you.

After the ribbon cutting, we ate curry rice (absolutely yummy--I am trying to ship some home for my food storage). Then the Young Single Adults organized themselves into a game and laughed and had fun and we all parted feeling very great and happy. Our mission president and his wife and the Fukuoka outreach couple drove the two hours from Fukuoka to attend the ribbon cutting. This center has been a dream of our mission president's for over a year. He was really pleased.

Tomorrow--Sunday--we will watch President Hinckley's funeral in the evening. I hope that there will be some English available. Last Monday our YSA family home evening (over 35 there) consisted of testimony sharing about President Hinckley and how he had touched their lives. A lot of tears were shed. Our lesson was about eternal families--to remind us that Pres Hinckley is well taken care of and quite happy. We had planned some fun games, but some were worried that the games would be inappropriate. As our committee discussed the situation, I reminded them that Pres Hinckley loved games and loved young people to have fun and that he would not want us to stop the games. So we went ahead and had fun. I think that those games have given us a really strong group already.

Got to go, church is early for us.

Love, Grandma, Kandie, Mom whatever

From Kumamoto

Kumamoto is cold and beautiful. While 7 degrees celsius may sound warm compared to below freezing temperatures, it feels a lot colder here. The humidity makes the difference. However, the people here are warm and friendly and very kind.  We have been assigned by our mission president, David Iwaasa from Raymond, Alberta, Canada, to open an Outreach Center for Young Single Adults. There is a real concern here that the young adults are not staying active. Europe has successfully started this program and we are copying their pattern.

Our center is in the Stake building, which happens to be right next door to us. Our apartment building looks right down on the church parking lot. We are on the 8th floor (the top floor, in fact) and have a balcony that faces west. I really love sunsets so am quite happy that we get to watch them from our front room. 

Our apartment is amazingly large for Japan. Everyone who visits is amazed at its size. In fact, our bedroom here is a little bit larger than our bedroom in Salt Lake. We have a bedroom. a study, a kitchen, a laundry/bathroom, a dining/front room and a large hallway with a genkan--that's the area where you take off your shoes before coming into the rest of the apartment.

We are slowly acquiring furniture and other necessities such as pans and towels. Our latest purchase is a set of shelves that fit over the washing machine. It is good to get all of the laundry supplies off of the floor and onto shelves. I'm hoping that I can send pictures soon. Perhaps the next posting.

Each room is individually heated. When you leave for the day and when you retire for the evening, you turn off all of the heaters, including the hot water heater and then you have to turn the heaters on first thing in the morning. The hot water heater is some miracle machine that delivers hot water within minutes of you turning on the heater and then delivers hot water as long as you need it. Apparently you cannot run out of hot water once the heater is turned on. The washing machine is not hooked up to any hot water, though; so if you want to wash with hot water, you have to bucket it from the bathroom sink. This is not as hard as it sounds, just time consuming. The dryer is the old fashioned kind--clothes lines. Everyone has an elaborate set-up of poles on their balcony to dry clothes. There are also drying racks that can be used indoors when it rains. Which it does almost every time I decide to wash. My clothes dry so gently that they are mostly wrinkle free. Keith's white shirts we are sending to the laundry which just happens to be right next to our apartment building. 

The members of the church here are really wonderful. The relief society have decided that I should speak Japanese, so they are taking it in turn to coach me. I meet with a different sister every day except Sunday at 10:00 at the church. Another member of our ward (Nagamine ward, Kumamoto stake), Brother Rogers, is a returned missionary from this mission who has lived in Japan for the past 10 years. He has loaned us two textbooks that I read from every day. The sentences are only in Japanese--hiragana, katakana and kanji--so everyone, including me, is impressed when I can read them. We have read about 10 pages so far. Reading the Japanese and working with our relief society has actually resulted in some spontaneous Japanese coming from my mouth--some of it even correct! I was able to bear a short testimony yesterday in a discussion that I knew that Joseph Smith is a prophet of God. Perhaps I can say more the next time.

Tomorrow--Saturday, Feb 2nd, our outreach center has its grand opening. Since the hour is late and there is still a lot to do, I will close now with my love for you all and my love for the Lord for giving us this amazing opportunity.

Love, MOM, Grandma, Kandie (pick whichever one fits)