Week 15 - May 13-19, 2013 Fukuoka Japan Mission

Preparation day last week was a lot of fun with a bicylce ride to Lake Ezu.  Our Local Japanese Instructor told us about this lake and said their were many birds to see.

Oddly crows are hard to get a picture of, but one held still for us.

Here we are at the bridge at the stream entering the lake.

It was getting close to sunset and we got this fantastic shot of the sun going down over Mt. Kimpo with a wonderful yellow hue and a bird (tori in Japanese) to the right.  There is also a rowing shell I was hoping would be a great silhouette but I took the picture when it was is the bright reflection of the sun and it got got lost in the glare.

We got a great shot of a Great Blue Heron on a boat on the shore.  I tried to wait him out to get him in flight, but I finally tryed to find a pebble to create the flight, but he got away before I could get it.

Tuesday we had an appointment to visit Yoshida San and have sushi.  It was great fun and I enjoyed the sushi (yes Weston it was raw).  She had her friends from China with us.  Luetta gave a spiritual thought about Elder Ballards talk that included the story about the tomato plant.  Luetta had given her a tomato plant she had grown from seeds, before we knew about the talk.  The talk was a perfect connection to the gift and the idea of growing to know the truth of the Gospel or wilting as the story talks about (http://www.lds.org/general-conference/2013/04/this-is-my-work-and-glory?lang=eng or http://www.lds.org/general-conference/2013/04/this-is-my-work-and-glory?lang=jpn in japanese).  She gave the chinese couple a tomato plant as well.  We got a return appointment and hope they will all be receptive to the message we have.

Wednesday was very busy with English teaching and Japanese learning classes in the morining at the international center and English teaching class at night.

Thursday and Friday was apartment inspections..  We started over again with Kumamoto Elders and Nagamine Sisters.  We were hoping the frequency of inspections might go down as we got issues resolved, but the President wants inspections on a monthly basis.  Since we have two zone and cover most of kyushu Island this is impossible and we are trying to do them all, about every transfer (6 weeks).  Kyushu is the third largest island of Japan and most southwesterly of its four main islands.  As of 2006, Kyushu has a population of 13,231,995 and covers 35,640 square kilometres (13,760 sq mi).  The width of the island is about 150 miles and we have 12 apartments to check, of which they are so spread out that we can only do one a day for 10 of them.  That alone fills all our thursdays and fridays with long car travel and buying things the apartments need, at Japanese stores.  Did I tell you we don't know how speak, read, or talk (except a few words and my ipod touch google translate program).

At the Kumamoto Elders program Elder Morris made this fantastic art piece.  The photo doesn't do it justice as it is 3-D.

It is meant to depict the thoughts of this Book of Mormon scripture (2 Nephi 28:30):

" 30 For behold, thus saith the Lord God: I will give unto the children of men line upon line, ^aprecept upon precept, here a little and there a little; and blessed are those who hearken unto my precepts, and lend an ear unto my counsel, for they shall learn ^bwisdom; for unto him that ^creceiveth I will give ^dmore; and from them that shall say, We have enough, from them shall be taken away even that which they have."

The Assistants to the President were with them as shown in this photo.

We also inspected the Nagamine Sisters apartment.  They did such a great job of keeping it clean that they received a Celestial Rating and got taken to lunch.

We had inspected the Kurume Sisters last week and were unable to help with their broken toilet seat.  However and e-mail to the previous couple (Christiansens) revealed the place where you can buy such items and we took and installed it on Friday. 

Here is the store:

We also inspected the Omuta Elders apartement.  They had a non functioning burner on their stove and their heater/air conditioner was not working.  We had lots to buy including futons that had been approved earlier.

Saturday we were able to fit in a short bicycle ride and found new flowers blooming along the creek we like to bike at.