Uearatanomori Park

This is the Uearatanomori Park behind the hospital (emergency entrance on the left of picture), very convenient, only 6 minutes walk from apartment, to use its 300 meter track for exercise.

Hospital across the street

This is the hospital near our apartment.  We can see it from our back balcony.  We have gotten used to hearing the occasional ambulance sirens and the occasional helicopter landing and lifting off from the heliport above the hospital building.  There is a park behind the hospital that has a 300 meter track that we use on weekday mornings for exercise.

Last week as I was walking back to the apartment from the track, a helicopter came flying in from the East approaching the heliport.  Here is a shot of it above me.

Kagoshima Branch Member Phone# Verification

Sister Lee spends a lot of time trying to contact branch members to verify the phone numbers listed in the branch directory.  Obviously I can't help her with this task.  I wouldn't be able to carry a conversation beyond the usual greetings.  Here are the usual responses on the phone:

• Recorded message saying the phone # is no longer in service.
• Some person answers but when Sister Lee ask if this is so and so, the reply is "wrong number".
• Parents answers and says son/daughter no longer lives at home but parents not being church members, won't give out new phone number.
• The intended people answers but say they no longer wants to come to church and don't want anyone to visit them.
• Japanese people are very polite in person but on the phone, some feel uninhibited to hang up.

I don't know how Sister Lee can handle so many phone rejections.  Perhaps it is the occasional success that makes all worthwhile, like she made contact with one member and told him about the District Conference.  He said he would come if someone can provide a ride.  Sister Lee relayed the request to Elders Quorum President Maki.  Rides were arranged and he was able to attend the conference.

March 2019 Home Evening

Once a month, we have a branch home evening at the teaching station.  It is a potluck type event.  Sister Lee made her cinnamon rolls, 15 (3 rows of 5).  We thought that might be enough but today a lot of people showed up so I cut up each roll in half to make 30.  I was smart and grabbed the first piece because I knew it wasn't going to last. Sure enough, as soon as everyone had a chance to have some, people came swarming back to get seconds. It was demolished soon thereafter.  If you look carefully, there are couple of pizzas just above the cinnamon rolls. Tiny but sliced into 8 pieces. I hope that wasn't the large size.

2nd transfer

It's transfer week.  So we had an "Open house" at the teaching station to say goodbye to 3 missionaries who have served well here.  Sister Lee is in charge of providing the refreshments, either by assigning others or prepare them ourselves.  This time Sister Lee decided on hamburgers / cheeseburgers.  Since we couldn't find hamburger buns, Sister Lee baked them herself.  Then we went to a store named A-Price and found they sold more US products but they tend to be pricy.  We actually found they did have some buns, but they were like 300 yen for a bag of 5 buns.  That's like 50 cents per bun without the meat.  So we continued with plan A, with homemade buns.  The ground beef was expensive too.  We used a scale to make sure every patty stayed around 60 grams.  We ended up making 32 patties, which was my contribution since I learned that from Montana Café.  Unfortunately I didn't have a Chinese butcher knife to make quick work of flattening the patties.  I was going wait until everyone had their chance of making their burger but then I realized people didn't know what to do.  So I made the first one so people can see how to do it.  The photo above is Tom, one of our English conversation class students.  He followed the example of putting the burger together but didn't catch how to eat one.  As you can see, he got everything stacked on the bun but then started to eat individual ingredients separately, starting with the lettuce.  I then demonstrated to him how to eat the burger in a stack.  Then everyone started eating them in like manner.  We did have three extra buns left over, so 3 people ate only the meat.  Maybe they were the late comers who didn't catch the demonstration.

Here are the 3 missionaries who left.  Sister Shibahara was transferred to Ube. Elder Sueldo, who is Peruvian with 1/16 Japanese, was raised in Japan so he had Japanese down pat, fluent in Spanish as well, and learned English during his mission.  He was my translator when Sister Lee wasn't around.  He served faithfully and well and now is home preparing for university studies.  Elder Howells from Georgia was transferred to Miyazaki, fairly close by so we will still see him occasionally during zone conferences and apartment checks.

McMayumi

It may not be McDonald's, which BTW is only 3 blocks away, this homemade cheeseburger is yummy.  We have a farewell party Wednesday March 6, 2019.  Elder Sueldo is going home and Sister Lee volunteered us as the ones in charge of providing refreshments, either bringing some and asking others to bring.  So since is farewell, Sister Lee wanted this to be memorable.  She thought hamburgers.  Only problem is ground beef is expensive here (we have a limited small budget) and we have yet to find anywhere that sells hamburger buns.  Hence the photo is an experimental burger with real homemade buns, 50 grams of ground beef.  Our oven is a dual cooker, a microwave and an oven but the size is small, so Sister Lee can only bake 6 buns at a time.  Well, happy to report, the experiment went off without a hitch.  I sampled two and they were delicious.  I am naming them Mayumi's My Yummies.

Happy Valentine Cards from America

Here are some cards that we received from one of the Highland 29th Ward primary classes.  We appreciate the support from across the sea.  You will have to zoom in to read the notes and see their names.