Perimeter of Kagoshima Univ. campus

It gets monotonous to keep walking in circles around the 300 meter track every day, so last Saturday I chose to walk around the campus of Kagoshima University.  Here is an interesting building.  The name of the building is at the top left corner of the building.  It is called the Inamori Auditorium.  The sphere sticks out of the side of the building.  Around the corner you can see a spiral walkway around the sphere going into an entrance of the sphere.  Hope I can go inside one of these days to take a look.

Here is a look from the south entrance into campus.  What caught my eyes is that there is a domed observatory near the center of the photo between 2 palm trees.  Next time I think I'll walk through campus to get a closer look.

Imagine that! You don't see too many of these things anymore, what with everyone having a cell phone nowadays.  The younger generations may not even know what it is.  It is a pay telephone booth.

Baptism Today

This is a photo of Daiki with the Elders Arnold & Jacobson, who taught him most of his discussions.  The photo was taken about a week ago.  Today Daiki was baptized by Elder Jacobson and confirmed by Elder Arnold.  Daiki is going to school at Kagoshima University.  He came to English conversation class to learn English.  Prior to going to college, he had a friend who introduced him to Christianity.  He was quite interested in learning more about Christ but when he went off to college, his appetite to learn of Christ was put on hold.  However, coming to English class afforded him opportunity to learn English and once again explore Christianity.  This all started near the end of January and in just 2 short months, he was baptized like our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ.  It was a beautiful day, much like the weather seen in this photo.  Sister Lee and I played a little part in Daiki's life these past 2 months.  Daiki would ride the tram from University to the station at the bottom of the hill going up to our church building.  We would pick him up along with the Elders and drive them up to the church.  We noticed Elder Arnold would always bring a white dress shirt on a hanger with a tie so Daiki can wear it for church, because Daiki never went to church before and never had a reason to own a white shirt.  During our last apartment checks, we went to one of Elders' apartments and they had these extra clothing left in a room, clean clothing that other missionaries had left behind when they transferred.  The extra clothing was just cluttering up their apartment, so we took them away to donate to others and to declutter their apartment.  I found 3 white shirts and thought they would fit Daiki.  Sure enough, they fit perfectly.  How wonderful it is to see the Lord's hands to make this all happen.

More from District Conference

Here is a photo of missionaries after the recent District Conference.  There was lunch afterwards and President Mack had some meetings.  With nothing going on, I stepped out briefly to use the restroom so I would be ready to drive the Macks back to the train station.  Lo & behold, when I came back, I found out they had decided to take a photo so I wasn't in this, but Sister Lee was.  I am probably too serious to be in this picture anyway.

More on Zone Conference

Here's a little more information on Kagoshima Zone Conference.  Since we share zone conference with Kumamoto Zone and Kumamoto is about an hour drive from Fukuoka, it is less travel to hold conference at Kumamoto rather than Kagoshima.  To help keep costs down, I get to bus as many as can fit in a vehicle.  With only a regular license, I am only allowed to drive a maximum of 8 people.  Normally, that means taking the Taniyama Sisters, Kagoshima Sisters, and 1 of 2 Kagoshima Elder companionships.  The remaining Kagoshima Elders and Taniyama Elders would take a bus.  To take 6 passengers in addition to Sister Lee and me, we have to rent a 8 passenger van.  We pick up the van the night before conference and park it at the teaching station.  In the morning we walk over to the teaching station and drive to pick up the missionaries at a parking lot of a grocery store near the Kagoshima Sisters' apartment.  With the announcement of a new church building, the teaching station will eventually be replaced by the church building itself.  When that happens, it will probably mean I'll park the van in a paid parking lot just across the alley from our apartment building.  The gathering place to depart will probably change as well because no doubt there will be efforts to find apartments for the young missionaries closer to the new church building.

Remember one of my earlier posts where I showed a photo of our active volcano.  Here is a link giving more information about it.

https://www.japan-guide.com/e/e4601.html

I mention the volcano again because Sister Lee just the night before checked the wind direction and noticed that the wind is projected to blow toward us from the volcano during the morning.  Sure enough, as we walked to the teaching station to get the van, a speck of ash got into my left eye.  Thank goodness, it was not hot but it was a nuisance for a number of minutes.  When Sister Lee and I occasionally ran our hands through our hair, we noticed black specks underneath our fingernails.  As long as it stays this way of constantly letting off steam / ash, I am OK with it.  Don't want any major eruptions.

Kagoshima Zone Conference training skit

We had zone conference yesterday, Mar. 20, 2019 in Kumamoto Stake Center.  It is a 2.5 hour drive from Kagoshima.  Zone conference is once every transfer, i.e. 6 weeks.  The Kagoshima Zone holds its zone conference at the same time as Kumamoto Zone.  For the most part, the zone conference is combined with Kumamoto.  In the afternoon, Kagoshima Zone does split off from Kumamoto Zone and have its own training session for about 1 hour.  Our training session was on Obedience.  We had an activity where we performed 2 skits, 1 how a certain activity is not "obeying" the proper guidelines and 1 how it is supposed to be done.  Now the skit performed by Kagoshima Elders on morning activities as shown above is "exaggerated via synchronization" to punctuate how it should be done.

Now as the driver of these young missionaries in the morning, Sister Lee and I thought they wanted to have their blankets to sleep in the van when they brought them.  Now we know the real reason.

Kagoshima District Conference

We had a wonderful District Conference this past weekend.  This is like a Stake Conference but since Kagoshima is only a district, hoping to get large enough to be transformed to a stake.  Anyhow, Elder Yamashita, (the larger photo on the left), a member of the 70's came and presided over the conference.  Elder Yamashita is born the same year as I.  I am only 5 months older, yet my head has a lot more gray hairs.  Elder Nagatomo from the Area 70's, (photo on right), also came.  As mentioned in another post, Elder Yamashita announced a new church building with Kagoshima Branch combining with Taniyama Branch.  Sister Lee and I have hard enough time trying to remember names for the Kagoshima Branch.  Now add more names for the people from the Taniyama Branch.  For the conference itself, I participated in 2 choirs.  First I was among the Kagoshima Elders Quorum which sang the song I'll Find You My Friend, composed by Linda Leavitt.  First I never heard the song in the states and then we had to sing it in Japanese.  The song is in 4/4 time but most notes are eighth notes.  It was too fast for me to read the Japanese hiragana, have my brain tell me what the sound is, and utter the sound at the eighth note pace.  I practiced virtually every night for 2 weeks so I could stay synchronized with the notes.  The 2nd song was much easier.  It was the hymn "Love One Another".  That was with all the missionaries in the Kagoshima Branch.  We sang it in English first and then repeated the song in Japanese.  The tempo was much slower so my brain can handle the transition from one sound to the next.

New Church Building

This morning when we went to the Uearatanomori Park for our exercise, we went further to check out our new church building, that was announced during this past weekend's District Conference.  Our current church building sits up high on a hill and is inconvenient for many people to come to church since there is no bus service.  You either have to drive, taxi, or walk.  Some of the younger missionaries do bike but it would very strenuous to do so.  So in my opinion, this is a very welcome change.  Of course, I am a little bit biased since it is only 12 minutes to walk there and 4 minutes to drive.  Not sure about the parking situation since the announcement at District Conference said coin parking.  There is a pay parking lot about 1/2 block away but this building does have about 20 parking spaces as you can see in the picture.  The gate is on wheels and can slide open.  There is a similar gate in front of the main entrance.  Initially, we will only use 2 floors, so church leaders are thinking about leasing the other 2 floors to other interested parties.

The building announcement included combining the Kagoshima Branch and the Taniyama Branch.  There is strength in numbers.  The only disadvantage I see is members living north of the current church building now will have to travel further to the new building. The members from the current Taniyama Branch will have to travel further.  We will probably need to find new apartments near the new building for the missionaries living at the bottom of the hill close to the current branch building.  Since Kagoshima University is just next to us, most apartments around here are tailored for students (small to make it affordable), so finding apartments large enough to accommodate 2-4 people will be difficult.