wow it has been a long time since i have emailed. my pday was new years but everything was closed that day so i couldnt email, sorry that was a dissapointment for me too though. anyway, thanks for all the christmas gifts and stuff and esp the phone call, it was way to short but it def was good to hear from you guys. well a lot has happened that i can share so i prob will forget half of it, but thats way exciting trevor is coming home this week. thats so crazy to think about, i cant believe it. anyways. so this last couple weeks have been crazy for sure i had a great christmas, it was hard but everything leading up to christmas was great, from our gospel concert to christmas caroling at an orphanage to our church party (making christmas cakes) and our eikaiwa party. so for our eikaiwa party real quick we played a white elephant game, we went to the dollar store and bought some gifts there is a ton of ladys in eikaiwa so we bout this clay vase and a fake flower, so the funny part is im still learning japanese culture. cause when the lady opened the vase sister iwanaga gave me afunny look, the vase was not at all a vase but a sake cup! a cup for alcohol! haha everyone got a kick out of that, everyone was laughing for a long time, oops, that was my fault, haha but they all agreed it looked rather suteki(good looking) and it was a good gift anyway haha.
well anyway, it was really fun and a busy time. it didnt slow down for new years at all. new years is huge here in japan, i dint see any fire works or anything but everything closes people go to their parents house and make tons of food rather interesting food to be exact. the week of shougatsu we made mochi! its steamed rice thats beaten in to a cake, but not at all like cake, a less active member invited us to come help make it. that was a sweet experience. elder reyes and i beat the junk out of rice in a big cement bowl using wooden hammer things for like 4 hours with a bunch of japanese men. haha it was way interesting and way fun, my hand is actually still sore though. it bruised my hand pretty good, but it was cool, ill send some pics but youll have to wait for the videos to get a good idea of what im talking about. anyway that was fun
so because of shougatsu it was really hard to dendou, everyone was with their family which was good but for that same reason they didnt like us intruding. so people were not very friendly, good thing new years day was pday. another custom is to start the new year right so they cleaneverything way good its called osoji or big clean . also on new years they eat werid food thats suposebly really healthy but really weird. we actaully went to sister kitas house and she made us werid food, i had sea cucmber, whale, kelp, devils tongue and tons of other really weird stuff,elder reyes couldnt eat it so geuss who had to pick up the slack! we couldnt be rude so we had to eat it all and there was a lot! haha it was fun, and it really does clean you out. just kidding bad joke, anyway despite the hardness of dendo this week we had a lot of lessons. i finished my lesson mastery (taught all lessons short med and long in japanese with members and stuff.) but more importantly we had a lesson with hamasaki san. she is nice lady, shes a single mother of two children, shes really nice. we had our first lesson with her today. this is the lady that we found ages ago housing, and talked to hyer about families and showed a picture of you guys, anyway the lesson went really well. the spirit was def present in the room, it was amazing. we taught her the restporation and taught her how to pray. she marked moroni 10 3-5 in her scriptures and prayed to close the lesson, which is scary for someone to do that has never prayed, in front of 2 missionaries. soit went really well. we also found out she doesnt have a job which is not good. so plays pray for. i know she can find peace in this gospel as i have. when all is taken away in life..all the gospel still remains. christ is our constant, our rock and through him we can find joy and peace. i know hamasaki san and anyone on this earth can find peace through this gospel becasue i have found peace through this gospel here in a foreign land, without the people i love most, to end ill share a new favorite scripture in the bible, John 16 33. its my favorite. anyway have a great week, start of the new year right! love you all
aishiteiru
eldr martinez
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
No comments:
Post a Comment