Zone conference Nov 29, 2019

Nov 29, 2019 - Another zone conference.  This time for a change, I asked if anyone needed to take a break.  The young missionaries said yes, so we stopped at this rest service area.  It was quite interesting as I spotted this structure when looking around.  So I dubbed this the Tea Kettle Rest Area.

1st Thanksgiving in Japan

No turkey so we turned to smoked chicken and ham (pre-cooked and pre-sliced).  Sister Lee made the toss salad, fruit salad, gravy from scratch, pumpkin squares with kabucha squash, and corn bread.  I made the mash potatoes and scalloped potatoes.  The entire meal was gluten free so Elder Daley can enjoy along with the rest of us.  Everything was yummy but I really enjoyed the pumpkin squares.  They were really sweet.

Around the table counter clock wise from Sister Lee, Sister Perriton, Sister McCain, Elder Lee the Younger (our adopted son due to same last name), Elder Crook, Elder Vawdrey, Elder Daley, Elder Pajunar, Elder Nishimoto, Sister Kawai, and Sister Glade.  

Mooncake Revisited

Nov 27, 2019 - While shopping for flowers for Sister Kawai, who lost both her dog and grandpa on the same day, I spotted another source of mooncake.  This time they come in a package of 5.

Sakurajima Ashes

Nov 23, 2019 - Yep, this is a selfie, walking to the teaching station for our Saturday English class, wearing a mask because ashes are drifting down.  I need to get a pair of goggles to cover my eyes and glasses.  Apparently the typhoon that is brewing out there is causing the wind to blow in our direction, causing the ashes to come over.

Wow! Mooncake in Kagoshima!

Nov 22, 2019 - After visiting Sister Maki, mother of Kagoshima Branch Elders Quorum president, Sister Lee and I stopped at a Lawson store on the way back to our apartment.  Lawson is a chain of convenience stores, much like 7 Elevens.  There is another convenience store chain throughout Japan, named Family Mart.  Those 3 chains are just all over the place.  One or more of those stores are on every block or two.  "Convenience" store is truly convenient here in Japan.  Not only can you buy things, you can send packages, get passport photos printed, designate a particular store to deliver a package to for you to pick up, and to pay for things like Japanese health insurance.  The last item was exactly why we stopped this time.  Since we only have to pay health insurance while we are here on our mission, we decided to pay it manually on a monthly basis since we didn't want to deal with the hassle of removing an automatic monthly withdrawal from our bank account.  So as we are getting ready to pay the insurance bill, I happened to look around to see what they got and lo and behold, I found that they had "moon cake".  I skipped eating mooncakes in 2018 because they are expensive and I didn't want to buy a whole box of 4 cakes and have to deal with all those extra calories.  Thought I wouldn't have to deal with mooncakes while in Japan, but there it was.  Here is the kicker, it is individually wrapped, so I don't have to buy a whole box of 4.  I can just buy one,  The ones on sale here is smaller, a little bit shorter in the diameter and about 2/3 the height, at an incredible price of only 130 yen.  Now I just could not resist.

Here it is, a day later, took a photo before I chomped it down.  Yum!  There was no egg yolk in this one, but that's OK because I prefer the bean paste only kind anyway.

Now only if I can find a place to buy Chinese sausage.

Lost wallet found

Nov 19, 2019 - On my walk this morning around the Kagoshima University campus, I found a women wallet on the sidewalk.  I brought it back to apartment so Sister Lee can help me take it to the nearest police station.  She says the police station may not be opened.  I guess in Japan, most police stations are not opened 24/7.  After 8 a.m. she called the station to make sure it was opened before we headed out.  When we got to the station, we found 2 young police officers.  They look young, like they just got out of high school.  Anyway, we filled out the paperwork.  It was interesting that they asked me if they can't find the owner, do I want to claim what I found.  I wonder if lost items turned into the police in USA are treated like that too.  Anyway, I hope they find the owner soon because there were a lot of credit cards in the wallet.  If I was an owner who lost my wallet with so many credit cards, I would dread having to make a lot of phone calls to cancel the old cards and get new ones.  What was amazing was we were the only ones at the police station.  It was early in the morning but I wonder if that isn't the norm since it is hard to imagine Japan, a nation of law abiding citizens, would have a high crime rate.

Christmas - Next big holiday here in Japan

Nov. 15, 2019 - We went to the apartment of a family that we teach at their place because they have a 10 year old at home.  This lobby was already decorated for Christmas since Halloween is over and the Japanese people don't celebrate Thanksgiving.  Since majority of Japanese don't believe in Christ, celebrating Christmas obviously is a commercial / social thing here.  Many stores have their Christmas decorations up and Christmas related items displayed for sale.  I am going to miss eating turkey, pumpkin pie, and everything else that usually end up on the Thanksgiving dinner table.  We'll just have to have a good substitute.

Festival at Kagoshima University

Nov 16, 2019 - this festival runs from the 15th-17th.  We walked over to it this afternoon to check it out. (University is just right next to our apartment)  On my daily walks around campus, I noticed some new signs were posted about the festival, so thought we'd take a look.  There were 2 stages set up for performance groups, each at separate halves of the campus (there is a major public road going through the middle of the campus). The above photos were at the southern stage.  At first we watched from the front, then we got smart and went behind stage, where there were some benches to sit on.  Most of the booths were food vendors, trying to raise money for the different clubs at the university.  The far right booth on the top most photo had art students drawing portraits of people who are willing to pay 300 yen for 1 person, 500 yen for 2 persons.  Customers seemed happy with the results.

Sakurajima acting up, a daily constant occurence

Nov. 16, 2019 - The smoke stack was about twice or 3 times bigger than usual.  Today the cloud color is quite white.  On some days, the cloud is much darker, gray to black.  So far I have not seen any large objects spewing out and I hope I never will.  This photo is taken just outside our apartment on the 4th floor.

Persimmons on Steroids

I put a pen next to them so you can get a feel how big they are.  The one on the left is one that Sister Lee bought from our nearby grocery store.  That left one is pretty big as is, but look at the one on the right.  It dwarfs the left one.  The right one came from a gift from one of our students, Mr. Ito.  Anyway, it is persimmon season right now, so we have been eating a lot of persimmons.  They are good!  Might as well get my fill now.  Once back in the states, there won't be too many opportunities to get persimmons.

A little R & R after a member visit

Nov 7, 2019 - after visiting a member who was having birthday, since we were very close to Yoshino Park (where we were previously for a Cherry Blossom branch outing earlier in the year), we decided to take a little break there.  Unlike the previous time where we had to drive around several times before finding a place to  park, this time there were only a handful of cars.  As you can see in this photo, Sister Lee was the only person on this central walk area in front of me.  Mt. Sakurajima is the prominent volcano in the center of the photo.  You can see the white smoke puffing out of the mountain.  There were more maintenance workers than there were sightseers.  We walked to the observation deck from where we can look out into the bay and got a closer view of the volcano.

Adventure verifying member addresses

Can you spot what is in this photo?  It's a huge spider with skinny long black legs.  In process of cleaning up membership records, we oftentimes have to go out and find addresses listed in the membership records.  Sometimes it leads us to abandoned houses, overgrown with weeds and infested with lots of spiders.  The scenery fits right in with this time of year, period of time close to Halloween.  The photo above is one spider that I knocked down to the ground that was hovering in a huge web blocking my way.  The spider had a body that was over 1 inch long.  So creepy.  Felt like being in an Indiana Jones movie.

District Area Conference Nov 2-3, 2019

I am not sure what all the criteria are to qualify as a stake.  This area is supposedly fairly close to getting big enough to become a stake.  So instead of a stake conference, this was a District Area Conference.  The conference consisted of a leadership meeting at 3 p.m. Saturday, November 1, 2019, and a 6 p.m. general meeting the same evening.  On Sunday, there was another general meeting at 10 a.m.  Being the only person in the area with a car provided by the mission, chauffeuring Mission President Mack and Sister Mack is one of my responsibilities.  When I talked with President Mack, he said he had a meeting with District Area President Funakura at 1 p.m. so they were going to be arriving between 12:15 to 12:30.  Sister Lee checked the shinkansen schedule and determined the most likely shinkansen they are on will arrive at 12:35.  We drove to the usual pick up spot and waited.  12:45 p.m. came and still no Macks.  I phoned and found out they missed the shinkansen.  I asked if they need me to contact President Funakura to let him know that they'll be late for his 1 p.m. appointment.  He said no need because Pres. Funakura is standing right next to him at the Fukuoka train station, who had also missed the train.  Since Pres. Funakura was there and he had his car near the Kagoshima train station, they can ride together up to the church so I was free to go straight to the church.  To the parking attendants at the church parking lot, boy were they surprised when I pulled up and there was no Pres. Mack with us.  The 3 p.m. meeting started on time without the Macks and Pres. Funakura, knowing that they would be about 15 minutes late.  The photos below were taken at the end of the Sunday session by Sister Kanai Johnson, who is a very good friend of Mayumi Kwok, mother of our daughter-in-law Marsa.  She is from Kagoshima area and was visiting from Seattle, WA.

District Luncheon Oct 29, 2019

District back to full strength as we reopened Sendai.  In this photo, our district leader is Elder Daley, wearing light blue jacket.  His companion is Elder Pajunar, just behind Elder Daley.  Elder Daley has celiac disease ever since he was young, so we had to make sure the meal was going to be gluten free.  Sister Lee settled on chicken enchilada.  Elder Daley ate his with rice instead of tortillas.  Sister Lee made a lot of phone calls to make sure ingredients she used were gluten free.  The meal turned out great. We had a great time.  The only thing that could have gone better was the salad and coleslaw.  They were delicious but we made too much.  I ate salad and coleslaw leftovers for the next couple days.  Thankfully they were delicious so I didn't mind.