GPS Navigation disaster revisited

Feb 3, 2020 - We really felt bad that I crushed the plastic chain and planter and the owner wouldn't accept any money for the damages.  So we decided to buy some nice fruit to give to the owner as a token of our appreciation for using their driveway and his unwillingness to accept repair money.  We went back, this time we parked the car in the pharmacy parking lot and walked the street to his house.  We rang the bell and his wife came to the door.  Sister Lee told her who we were and she was very gracious and called her hubby.  We presented them the fruits, apologized for the mishap and explained why we are in Japan.  Hopefully we made a good impression and if in the future they meet some young missionaries, they may be receptive to hearing the gospel message.

Another GPS Navigation unit disaster

Feb 1, 2020 - This was supposed to be a joint visit with the young Kagoshima Elders with a single sister at 7 p.m. in the evening.  They gave us the address of where to meet and Google says there is a parking lot across the street from that address.  I am using Google Maps street view and Google Earth to show what happened.  The following are pictures of where our car GPS Navigation unit led us. First picture shows the street that the GPS unit was telling us to turn left.

Next picture shows entrance to the street.  It is narrow but doable.

Here we just entered the street.  There is no room to turn around and the street from which we turned into here is a busy street so I didn't want to back out into it.  I see a house (one with red roof at the end) and figured I could turn around there.  As you look down this narrow street, it gets even narrower once you get past the car you see in the picture.  It was narrow, about 6 inches clearance on either side of the car.  Got to the end and discovered that there is no opening to go into the parking lot.  In fact it was a dead end.  I would either have to back out through that narrow path, which is about a block long or turn around using the driveway of that red roof house.  The driveway had one car but empty slot for another car.  The driveway was chained off.  Sister Lee went out and moved the chain so I could pull into the empty stall to back out.  Unfortunately the area is so small, when I backed out, I had to crank the steering wheel to the right and as it back out the left vendor crushed a plastic planter.  By this time, the owner came out to see what's going on.  Sister Lee explained the situation and he was OK with us trying to get out.  He even suggested that I would need to go back and forth to work my angle to get the car out, which I did.  After several back and forth, I got the car out and parallel to the street.  However, it didn't sound good.  I keep hearing this crunching sound every time I went back and forth.  It turned out that I was going over and over the chain, but the chain was made of plastic.  The car tires just crushed the chain.  We tried to give the owner money to pay for damages to the chain and planter but he won't accept.  We are now trying to think of some way to pay him back.

  

This next picture is courtesy of Google Earth and there is the parking lot that I thought I was going to be able to use.  Above the parking lot is the apartment building that we were trying to get to.  This turned out to be another frustrating adventure with the car's GPS navigation unit.  But hey, we survived.  When we got out, we parked across the busy street in a large store's parking lot.  After the meeting we bought some stuff at the store, the least we can do for using its customer parking lot.

District Lunch at the apartment

Jan 25, 2020 - Last district meeting for this transfer so we timed the district lunch at our apartment as a last meal with some of the missionaries who will be transferring.  Since Elder Daley has to eat gluten-free, I ordered a gluten-free chocolate chips cookies mix from Amazon Japan.  Here is a photo of a dozen cookies cooling off.  The cookies turned out well.  Sister Lee made the salad and cooked the vegetables.  I did the dessert, cookies for Elder Daley and brownies for the rest of the gang.  I did the main course as well, cheesy chicken broccoli casserole.  Since our microwave also serves as oven but being small, we went with cooking the casserole via a slow cooker to be able to feed the 12 of us.  Had to double the recipe.  The recipe said uncooked rice and either cooked or uncooked chicken.  Mistake!  We came back to the apartment and discovered rice not cooked and the chicken was only half cooked.  Learned the hard way that doubling the recipe was putting too much strain on the slow cooker.  Future attempts will be to pre-cook the rice and chicken.  Thankfully, we came home 1/2 hour early to cook the vegetables so we scrambled to cook the casserole outside in a large pot.  We managed and the casserole turned out to be a hit.

Elder Daley said I needed to be in the picture so he took this last photo.

Kagoshima Branch Olympics

Jan 25, 2020 - Kagoshima branch olympic games sponsored by the youth / YSA of the branch.  We actually had an opening ceremony where an oath of no cheating was administered.  The following is one of the events.  Water was sprayed on the contestants' faces.  Then they have sprint across the room to a table with 3 large bowls filled with flour.  Buried in the flour are 3 pieces of candy.  Contestants must find one of the 3 pieces of candy with facial parts only.  No hands allowed.  Once found, contestant must get the piece of candy into his/her mouth.  Each team has 2 runners.  Winning team is decided based on combined results of the 2 races.  I was on the blue team and we didn't do too well with this event.  Our second runner (not in photos) didn't want her face covered with flour so she was the only one who tried to blow the flour aournd to expose the candy, which strategy failed miserably and caused a big mess.  Too bad I was so intrigued by her method that I forgot to take any photos of her.

At the end of the games, it was the award ceremony.  Sister Lee was on the yellow team and somehow the judges decided to award her (bag of goodies) for her leadership skills.  She think it was because her team was the only team with primary children, the judges thought she worked well with them.

Elder Budge Mission Tour Conference

Jan 23, 2020 - Elder Budge Mission Tour Conference.  4 zones attended this conference, Fukuoka, Nagasaki, Kumamoto, and Kagoshima zones.  It was a very wonderful conference.  Elder Budge is very personable, down to earth.  As you can see in photo above, lunch was fabulous.  Since the conference was in Fukuoka, over 4 hours away from Kagoshima, we normally take the shinkansen and the young missionaries take a 4.5 hours bus ride.  However this time the car rental company had a spring special, so the price of renting a van for two days was really going to save a substantial amount of money if we drive some of the young missionaries.  The price was so low that we decided to drive.  After getting to Fukuoka the night before the conference, Sister Lee said no more, future trips to Fukuoka will be by shinkansen.  This is mainly because we left a little after 2 p.m. and didn't get there until almost 8 p.m.  It took couple hours longer because we had to drop off the Sisters at the Kurume Sisters' apt. and traffic was nasty during rush hour.  Then we had to drop off the Elders at their designated apartment.  It was all good.  On the return trip, it only took 4 hours.  When we got to the mission home, Elder & Sis. Budge, Pres. & Sis. Mack and another senion couple, the Welkers had just finished dinner.  We had eaten on the road but found some room for dessert.  I then listened in on the Welkers' presentation of how to strengthen the YSA (Young Single Adults) to Elder Budge.  Interesting discussion.  Bottom photo is a group photo of 4 zones with Elder & Sister Budge.

Even simple tasks can be challenging

1/17/2020 - Part of the apartment checks is to verify things are functioning well at the apartments.  This includes lights.  The above was in the dining / kitchen area of the Kagoshima Sisters' apartment.  There are 2 circular bulbs.  The outer one (40 cm) was burned out.  Generally replacing bulbs is a pretty simple task.  However, this one is a little more involved.  First this apartment has a higher ceiling than most Japanese apartment.  We don't have a 8 ft ladder.  All we have is a 3 step ladder.  I barely able to reach over the lip of the fixture cover on my tiptoes on the topmost step to unhook those spring loader hooks.  Not knowing which tube was out, I brought every circular bulb I had in stock from our apartment.  Unfortunately all I had were 30 and 32 cm ones.  So we rushed over to the nearest store that sells bulbs (10 minutes away).  We had to hurry because the Sisters had an appointment so we needed to get back in time, install the light before they had to leave.  Thankfully we made it on time so no impact to Sisters' schedule.

Church cleaning & Mochi

Jan 13, 2020 - This was some Japanese national holiday "Coming of Age" so the Kagoshima Branch scheduled a church cleaning day and then have an activity to make mochi, a delicious pastry made from rice flour and usually filled with sweet red bean paste.  Cleaning is hard work but can be fun and enjoyable as shown here in a photo of President Sano (counselor in the Fukuoka Mission) and his wife.

This fence borders one of the parking lots at the old church building.  You can walk around the fence at the end (not very far to walk around) but Sister Sano decided to have some fun by climbing over it.  BTW, look at the cinder block foundation upon which sits the fence.  The foundation wall was all covered with moss.  I spent most of my time scraping off all the moss.  It was quite satisfying after seeing how nice the parking lot looked after a concerted effort by about 10 of us working together.

Making mochi the old traditional way.  2 people walk around a stone basin, gentle mixing of the rice flour / water by tapping with wooden mallets.

Then you pound the mochi with the mallet.  It is like at a carnival and play that game of trying to ring the bell.  They offered me a chance to do it, but because my shoulder problem, I had to decline.  It looked fun and everyone oohed and aahed when you get a nice strike where you get a very distinct popping sound.  In this photo it was Elder Sasaki swinging the mallet.

These 2 photos showed sisters inside the church wrapping the sweet bean paste inside the mochi.  They asked me to try.  So I did.  The first one, I apparently rolled the mochi in my hands too hard and thus the bean paste squeezed out.  You have to do it softly.  Learned from my mistake and did much better the next two.

OK, here is photo of finished product.  My first one is the 4th one from the left in the 3rd row.  You can see couple spots where the bean paste started to ooze out.  Right next to it (5th from the left) is my 2nd one, vast improvement over the first.

Best part of making mochi is the eating part.  Here is a photo of zenzai, sweet bean soup.  Just add one of the mochi into the soup, making it doubly sweet.  Before coming to Japan, I thought I would lose weight, thinking I'd walking all over the place.  Nope, I've put on a few extra pounds.  It is hard to lose weight when you got all these goodies to eat.