Yoshino Park

Kagoshima Branch activity to go see the cherry blossoms and have a picnic at Yoshino Park.  It is a surprisingly large park.  They have a playground area for kids.  Fields big enough to play games like soccer, baseball, and football.  Here are 2 photos of vegetations in the park.

There is observation deck overlooking the Kagoshima Bay and of course full view of Mt Sakurajima, our local active volcano.

Got to do a selfie.

Optical illusion.  Is Sister Lee walking down and climbing up?

She is actually walking down.

Apartment Checks

Part of our duties is apartment checks.  This is where we go to each of the apartments of the young missionaries and check how they are doing in terms of keeping their place clean and verify appliances, smoke / CO detectors, etc. are in working conditions.  We divided our list of apartments into 2 routes.  One day we do Miyakonojo, Miyazaki, and Nobeoka.  Nobeoka is 3.5 hours away by car.  This is known as our Eastern route.  Only 3 apartments, but the distance gets me pretty tired.  The other route, known as the Western route, has 5 apartments in Sendai (1), Taniyama (2), and Kagoshima (2).  Sendai is about 1 hr. away and Taniyama about 30 minutes away.  Distance wise is not bad but 5 apartments so that can get tiring too.  The very first apartment check that we did 6 weeks ago, 2 of the apartments needed curtains, so we installed them this time.  We also picked up 5-6 futons from one apartment that are no longer used and because they got stains on them, it was not worth the effort to clean them.  We took them to the local recycle center today.  It is free as long as have proof of residency (which we have - first thing we did when we arrived in Kagoshima - get our residence cards) and keep the total weight of items under 100 kg.  Anything over 100 kg will incur a fee, but even that amount is relatively inexpensive.  Here is a photo of one section of the recycle center where we took the futon and broken chair parts.  There actually was a line of cars bringing stuff.  Inside the building, there are 4 stalls for vehicles to unload.  In this photo, there were probably 4-5 cars in front of me with maybe similar # of cars behind me.

District Training Mtg

Today's theme was on "Love", as taught by Jesus.  So the focus on Him as each of us held a picture of Him.  There wasn't enough room to get everyone in the camera shot so we went outside.  It was a little bit breezy as you can see from our ties and pictures blowing toward our left.  It was a very beautiful sunny day though.

After the meeting, we went back to our apartment and provided lunch for the young missionaries.  We served sloppy joe sandwiches.  Remember hamburger buns are rare items around here but we found sub sandwich rolls so we used that instead.  We also had toss salad and a pasta salad. For dessert, banana bread and chocolate bars.  Sister Lee is well loved here.

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.