December 22, 2013 Letter

Where America and Japan meet 1024 hours

Culture Points:

CHRISTMAS! So in Japan they do what Christmas is. You see the most Christmas at the stores with the decorations that are normal in the U.S. with maybe a bit less. Sometimes you will see a Santa or a fake little Christmas tree decoration hanging on someones door. Sometimes they have parties where Santa will come (pretty rare but usually everyone has seen one) but as far as the celebration of Christmas normally you receive a present from your parents and you eat a cake. You still have a normal school day and have work. Most people don't really have any idea that Christ and Christmas are related because the spelling is totally different in Japanese and there aren't decorations that have Jesus so it makes sense why they don't know. It is a good chance for us to explain a little about Christianity to people!

Fun Food Fact:

Cup of Ramen: so I had my first cup of ramen while in Japan yesterday. It was way better then the American cup of ramen but was still cup of ramen... haha! It is pretty normal I guess here for like college student but they too think it is totally unhealthy and doesn't fill you up that much. But I do think they think it is more delicious than I do because they talk about it like a temptation while I talk about it like the pains of the poor or busy. Haha! But it is better here and looks different.

Random Story/Facts: We wend to this all you can eat place that had ice cream!

 So they all feasted like the lil pigs they are. 

But my fourth quarter sacrifice in order to sacrifice for blessings in missionary work was to sacrifice my beloved ice cream...So I pounded the rousted corn - which is amazingly similar to the corn ice cream I told you about.

This is what is in the middle of your table in all you can eat place. It is so fun and so good (that is my corn). Also that is my apartment. 

  

Elder Anderson eating his first intestine. Amature. He made the same little mistake I did.

 

This is the reason for the epidemic called yellow fever. It's not because the Asian women are cuter than other places it is because the kids are so cute so you want them! She is my top favorite! Her name is Ibukichan and I could tell you stories about her for hours (and yes that hat is not normal).

Spiritual Thought:

I think I should talk about Christmas for a bit! There is all the cheesy bits about "the true meaning of Christmas" and while cheesy they are true, but I kind of want to just share my testimony on why I want to celebrate the true meaning of Christmas. There is a scripture I think of in 2 Nephi 2:6-8 when I think about why I want to celebrate Christ and tell people about Him. We celebrate Christ because He conquered our two biggest problems: death and our own imperfections. Through Christ we will overcome death and if we would like we can change ourselves for the better and become pure and happy enough to return and live with our Heavenly Father! That is the joyful news the angels brought when they announced His birth! Through Christ we receive our greatest blessings. I testify that Christ is the Savior and that through Him we truly can find strength, understanding, happiness and salvation. Through his name I testify. Amen.

Funny Story:

So this one I am feeling a little guilty about... :-p.. We wanted to make the apartment a bit more festive. Well I guess Elder Anderson's mother loved us enough to want to make our holidays a bit more festive so she sent us this little package that had a big paper Christmas tree about a meter tall. It had all these little fake ornaments to hang on it and it had the little paper presents to put under the bottom and we were feeling dandy about that. It looked great right in the middle of our kitchen wall and we were looking festive (even kawamura choro thought it looked great). But then someone that originally had pure intentions thought "we need a star on top of that sucker! that will really get the spirit flowing through this place!". So  I (I was the one with the pure intentions at first) started looking around for a star or some gold paper or some yellowish paper or some old white paper that kinda turned half yellow.. anything to make this star to give us the Christmas spirit! Nothing nothing nothing... then I saw some shiny golden paper in the kitchen! Yata!! So I ran over and grabbed it! It was a full bag of tortilla chips (you know we live on a military base because there are no tortilla chips in all of Japan) and the shiny golden paper looked totally great! So I looked over the bag and they were no really big solid gold areas with out a ton of writing or other colors except for one big yellow sun right on the front.

I know what your thinking "that would be great!" but in the middle of this big yellow sun was a voluptuous Latino senorita with her long black hair and kinda low front of her shirt holding her corn and smiling at me... tempting me... I just kinda stood there... hmm. Then Elder Anderson (aka Satan) came and stood behind me and looked over and kinda half said half thought out loud "some people have angels on there Christmas tree, some stars... we could do like both...". So out came the scissors and up went our angel/star! We lived like that for about a week and everybody thought we were so smart and funny (kawamura choro was a huge fan) and then we were at church on Saturday night and the mission president shows up! We like him a lot and we love his wife! We are all so happy! Then after talking for a while Sister Rassumason says "hey while we are up in Misawa for the day (its a five hour drive to the mission home) we would like to inspect your apartment (for mold and broken things) and I go.. of course! So she drives the other two missionaries to the apartment. Luckily you have to take your shoes off and she was kinda slow so Elder kawamura was able to get rid of our little angel before she saw. If anyone one has seen the best two years movie I hope you smiled. But the moral is don't be swayed by Latino temptresses or God will send your mission mom. (By the way she said our apartment was top notch and she loved the tree).

Love each other for me during the holidays! MERRY CHRISTMAS!

Law Choro