Halloween party and pictures

Our ward put on a fabulous Halloween party for the community last night. Brother and Sister Jerry Rogers have, for the past three years, planned, organized and put together this amazing party. This year they were glad to turn a great deal of it over to the Outreach Center. Many, many non-member families attended. The party was a huge success, largely due to our wonderful YSA and their director (your dad). He tirelessly planned and suggested and organized and told and pointed and made things happen--in his own quiet way so no one really knows who did it and why everything everyone thought of actually happened and happened well.
I was in charge of baking over 200 sugar cookies and then providing the frosting and the frosting bags and other fun decorating things so that anyone who wanted to--especially if they were under 15 years of age--could decorate and eat. This task does not sound too arduous except for two things--One: The biggest oven available, the one at the church--bakes two trays of 6-9 cookies each, at a time. AND Two: the cost of bakery supplies is prohibitive. Confectioners' sugar, needed for the frosting, cost $2 for one cup of sugar. Luckily a member showed us a bakery supply place that sells retail where we could actually buy a 500 gram bag (about one pound) for a more reasonable price, probably $5.00. The butter is $4.00 for 200 grams, which is about $9.00 per pound. Not many people bake. One good thing--everyone likes very small cookies so the normal American size was looked at in horror at our test bake run the night before. I found some smaller cookie cutters (these are only $2 each--practically a bargain!) for the actual cookies for the party.
Many YSA came to the church to roll out the cookies and bake them. It took us about two hours to do the 200. The frosting was woefully inadequate, but by some miracle of loaves and fishes, we had plenty for all of the 200 small cookies and the 20 huge cookies baked the night before. (The 10-12 year olds' eyes grew huge at the sight of the big cookies. I guess 10-12 year old boys are the same everywhere:) Children and parents and investigators and families from English class, mostly non-members, and more children decorated and ate and decorated and gave away and decorated some more.

(This is our cookie decorating 'booth'. We are at the end of the evening. there are not many cookies left. I haven't brought out the BIG cookies yet. Elder Chung, our district leader (from Hawaii) is getting ready to decorate a cookie also.)

Meanwhile there were many games going on--throw the darts at the balloons (on the stage so no one could be downwind of the darts. The line waited in front of the stage. Only the game managers were allowed on the stage with the balloons.) Cake walk--only with cookies from Costco, the maple sandwich ones. Bowling using a very soft ball and empty 1.5 liter pop bottles. Musical chairs. Fishing--paper clip on a fishing pole with cardboard fish and a magnet and if you caught a fish, you got a prize. Bottle throw--empty plastic bottles of all shapes and sizes hanging from strings at different heights and distances. All you had to do was hit a bottle--surprisingly hard, your dad says. And Pin-the-Nose on the Pumpkin--blindfolded--you walked toward the drawn pumpkin with your out-stretched hand and if you touched the area where the nose would be, you won.) And in another room, the bishop's wife from Tsuboi ran a fortune-telling booth. Oh, we also took family photos (remember mostly non-member) which will be delivered by eager and committed ward and full-time missionaries.

(And here is our district leader, Elder Chung, speaking to Br Kaneko, one of our YSA leaders. On the far left, you can just barely make out Sister Haymond, from Taylorsville, lifting up a little blindfolded boy so that he can touch the Jack-O-Lantern with his finger.)

The prize for winning any game was candy. Each child was given a trick-or-treat bag to put their candy in. At the very end of the evening--right about the time the cookies ran out, although not the frosting--there were the pinatas. Two beautiful pinatas sent to us by Aunt Dianne. Two step-ladders were placed at opposite sides of the gym and two elders--our two zone-leaders, in fact--climbed on to the top of the ladders and held the rope for the pinata.

(This picture shows President Su-e's boy staring in awe at the pinata.)

They were instructed to let the rope down for the little kids and to pull it up for the big kids. Every person was allowed one hit when his name was drawn from the hat. All of them swung with all of their might, two year olds right up to our line-backer football playing Elder Bodily from Idaho Falls. As instructed, the pinata stayed put for the little ones to hit (not much damage to the pinata yet) and the older you got the more the pinata was jerked up and out of the way. Finally it was Elder Bodily's turn. (He was quietly instructed before hand to break it open.) He flexed his muscles, took the stick, swung with all of his might and of course the zone-leaders had yanked the pinata out of the way. He tried again, faster, before they could move the pinata, but the zone leaders were quicker still. Elder Bodily gave them a look that sort-of conveyed a threat of possible harm- and the pinata stayed put for one mighty whack that spewed candy everywhere. The second pinata was broken open by the bigger kids. They had been watching how it was done.

(This is the pinata game. That is Elder Steed from Canada on the ladder.)

A friend from Curves came, a non-member. She brought her two daughters. At the end she said she really had fun and that it was a great evening. Her eyes lit up when Sister Rogers mentioned that we also do a Christmas party. My friend is very skilled at English. She spent the entire evening talking English to all of the missionaries and watching her girls play every game and get their faces painted. (Whoops--forgot to mention that booth). Her daughters enjoyed the cookie decorating. They each decorated and ate two cookies and then proceeded to decorate several more and give them away to all of us working at the booth. They won our hearts.
Nearly everyone came for the entire two hours. Our YSA decorated the booths, came in costumes and then ran the games. At least three of our YSA investigators where heavily involved. When anyone asked how they should award the prizes, your dad told them to just use their judgement and show their love for the kids at the same time. A lot of candy was given away:-)

(And here are two boys practicing their sword-fighting. Notice the bamboo trees by all of the tents. They were the basis of the decorations. I must admit that never before have I been at a Halloween party with bamboo trees.)

Before the party there was some grumbling among the missionaries about how much work this was taking and how no one was ever baptized from one of these huge events and it took away from good streeting and housing time. But your dad helped them all to see that missionary work happens in strange ways and that this was a good way to do it. I prayed that those who came would feel loved and welcome and would want to know more. And I felt that this party would have far-reaching consequences for good that we had no idea of what they would be. I freely told this to the missionaries.
Afterward the missionaries could not get over how many of their Children's English class came with their dads, unheard of in Japan--you can never reach the dads. And how many old investigators came and how amazing the whole evening was. It really was, too. A lot of work and a lot of fun and today--Sunday--the building was clean and free of straw (and little orange frosting dots) and you would never know such goings-on occurred just hours before.
Yes, I know that Halloween was on Friday, but we chose Saturday to celebrate it because more dads could come and besides, no one here really knows what day Halloween is anyway. We don't really have a lot of Catholics here to complain about the misuse of Nov 1.
Being a senior missionary is really an amazing, up-lifting, mind-stretching and wonderful experience.
Love, Mom/Kandie