0637 Nippon (that is a really formal
written way to say Japan)
Baking stories:
I feel like I am one of those bloggers
that bakes one page a day through a cookbook and talks about it in her
blog... they made a movie about that once.. mary to mary or sally to sally... it
has Amy Adams in it. Anyway! I pumped out a pie this week! Baking is the most
interesting thing. I will compare it to Harry Potter. If anyone has read Harry
Potter you all have thought the same thing as me: you can understand defense
against the dark arts as being difficult because someone might have a better
wand or pronunciation or just be more powerful. The seeing the future class could be tricky because
someone might have the gift and you don't. But what about potions? You just read
the bloody recipe, measure it out and boil. Harry complains and complains about
how hard it is... its an art folks.
My pie was apple. it cost me
approximately an entire shift as a lifeguard to purchase the ingredients. In
japan shortening comes in a little squeezable bottle and is super fun to
squeeze. The pie was super good tasting! It was a bit on the ugly side but won the "good
looking award" at family home evening but came in second to Yamamoto choros pork
boiled fancy, way delicious, in the tasting category. My vote was that the tie breaker
should be a smell off but they refused....
Culture Point:
Counting. It's going to be a bit hard to explain but its different when you
count on your fingers here. In America and Japan the first 5 are the same. But
the second five and up are different. In America when you finish loading the
first hand you just bust out ol' lefty. In japan you have two options: the
first is you start pulling down fingers form the side you started. That sounds
super confusing but if you do it every time then it makes sense and is nice
because you only rock one hand. The second way and the way you would show
someone across the room to grab SEVEN eggs is you hold up the filled hand and
then place the fingers of your other hand (in the case of seven two fingers)
nail up on your palm so they can see. I don't know why but this way is super easy
and natural to copy. I have been doing it on accident since the second week of
the MTC.Random:
This is a perfect example of the messed up used of English that I have talked about in previous letters. This one wasn't on a shirt so I could take a picture for you.
This is what a church building looks like
Yamamoto choro on my favorite road to ride. It looks like this for a couple miles with a river on the other side and occasionally baseball fields for little kids.
My first split where I was the senior companion! I love this guy and he wants to do the same thing at he same school after!
Fun Food Fact
Deep fry! Everyone thinks America is
super unhealthy and japan is super healthy which is true in a lot of the
diet. My image was always that most of the reason was Americans love deep frying. But
Japan deep fries waaaay more. The thing is what you get with the deep fried
batter. In America its normally chicken or potatoes or onions or fish or steak
or corndogs or burritos or bread or snickers. In japan its normally meat or the
most common is vegetables (egg plant, green beans, pumpkin, onions, pepers...). It is always super good! You should try it.
Spiritual thought:
So we just watched general conference this week end and because of the translation and the time issues I actually got to watch it in English which was sweet. A thought I wanted to share was a little story in President Eyring's talk. Its the morning session on Sunday and the story is the one about the grandma and the kid in prison. If you weren't able to hear it please look it up.
We are all literally infinitely in debt to
the Savior for all He has suffered to help us. I thought this story was
inspiring to maybe be able to pay him back a little. To become an arrow in his
quiver that can be shot at the strongest, armor covered, flaming advisory and
penetrate deep and not break off. Become the weapon the Lord can use to liberate
the captive and protect the innocent. To be humble and loving enough that He is able to
use us to accomplish great things. From the rest of conference I think the
way is complete repentance and obedience to his commandments and then to pray.
Pray for humility, pray for meekness, pray for love and I know He will give it.
Through Christ's name I testify. Amen.
Funny Story:
So we had two birthdays this week! The
first was my companion's and went perfect thanks to an AWESOME uncle and a super
star family! But I will write about that in a real letter and mail it to you
guys. I want to talk about Takase choro's birthday. It was yesterday and we had
gone all out for elder Yamamoto and we needed to do something for elder takase. But it was Sunday and we didn't really know what he wanted anyway because he has
everything he wants because he is a way old missionary. We tried to think of
what he likes and all we could come up with was the gospel, Hawaii and his
fiancé. We couldn't send him to Hawaii, the gospel birthday present was a bit
boring, so that left the girlfriend. Except we didn't have enough to send him to
her. So we decided to bring her to him. Not the real her of course (refer to
letter 16, paragraph 6, "male nun") so we decided to make him one! Some lesser
men would result to paper and ink but we wanted 3D so we went with rice eggs and
ketchup (we have a chef in the apartment we can do anything). He died of
laughter and said it wasn't his lover but that she was tasty. We presented it to him really funny but I don't have time to explain now. Above was supposed to be his favorite animal, a dog.
Love each other for me!
Elder Law
