December 29, 2013 Letter

Dec 29 at 5:42 PM

Holidays:

So Christmas was absolutely fantastic! We ate waaay too much, got way too many presents and got to Skype family!! Yata! Now it's New Year's time and everyone is getting really excited!! In Japan New Year's is the biggest holiday of the year and you spend it with family! It's such a strong holiday that we are not allowed to really do normal missionary work for two whole days but we will hopefully visit a ginga (Shinto temple) on New Year's Day and learn about New Year's more. I really don't know that much about it at all but everyone is saying have a good rest of the year and everyone's family is coming and going to meet up with the rest of the fam and its just excitement in the air!

Culture Fact:

大掃除 (Osoji) It's pretty much what we call spring cleaning but they do it even bigger and on New Year's! hahaha How's that for a holiday?! I don't think it has to be on New Year's Day itself but it's around then and you deep deep clean your house! We are doing it on December 31st and we have a list of chores to do that the mission mom estimates a group of 4 strong missionaries in a tiny apartment will take 8 hours. I figure with a man with the power of woman I can cut that time in half... haha but we will find something not on the list to do to stay busy.

Fun Food Fact:

Fish. So everyone says you will eat tons of seafood on your mission if you go to Japan and I have lived in two coastal cities one of which (Sendai) is world renowned (this is according to a Japanese I met in the MTC) for fresh fish. Unfortunately we aren't that rich and chicken and pork are way cheaper than fish so we don't buy it that often. I don't really know that many ways to cook a trout let alone some of these fancy fish I have never seen before. But you do see like classic market things with the fish laid out and hanging and the guys with aprons and fish blood on their hands. I always want to go over and tell them "this little guy has a nick in his fin I think he should be 200 yen less..." or something all market like! But then I still wouldn't know what to do. Sometimes you see a whole tuna in a giant tub to sell and it cost like a couple thousand bucks! HUGE! It's cool, I don't know much about the fish but they are fun to see and eat on sushi!

We eat the oddest things in Misawa. Last night I made grilled cheese and miso soup. Cheddar cheese is impossible to find in Japan so Kawamura Choro had never eaten it. This was cheese, pepperoni, crackers and apple. Kawamura Choro had never eaten it. And by the way every church in Japan has a ping pong table.

I want to show off these awesome containers that my sister Christine sent me for my birthday to pack meals in.

Spiritual Thought:

I just want to share my testimony of the love of God with regards to repentance. There is an often quoted scripture in John 3: 16-17. The purpose of repentance is that we can save ourselves from our own weaknesses, we can overcome our mistakes and become what God wants us to be and that is eternally happy. God sacrificed His only begotten son in order to do this, that is how much He wants you to have this gift of repentance, so never feel like it is not for you, or you have fallen below where it can save you, because it is infinite in its power to purify and infinite in its depth. Everyone has need of it and can use it. I have used it and felt its true power, I use it everyday and continually through it I become better and happier. You can always come to God.

Funny Story:

So I have a wonderful big sister and brother in law (I actually have two of both of those but this one is about the senior- Christine) and they sent me a package for Christmas! Inside this package was something rather unusual: a little stuffed outfit of like a baby missionary full of presents... and I would have been super confused but she had given me a little football outfit before to announce that Mikilah was coming!!! So yata!!! Another Mikilah!! Merry Christmas us and that is just totally awesome and we are going crazy about it but that's not the funny story but you needed some background. (To not hurt any feelings this story will be told from a different missionaries perspective and I will change the names so no one knows who these people are):

Elder Amberson bursts through the apartment door with Elder Kawadebu shuffling in behind and shutting the door to cut of the colds wind's intrusion. "Another great day of dendo" thought Elder Amberson and time to end it with a package I received. He hurriedly untied his boots and climbed the stairs to get to his desk to see who the package Elder Justice had said arrived was from. The package was large, blue, and surprisingly large! He had already received his parents package, who else would love him enough to send so much love. But of course my sweet love Delilah! Did she finally at last send me something? He looks at the name on the box... yes it is her!!! Delilah you angel sending me huge packages on Christmas! No perfume though... it must be something extra special for her not to worry about marking it...

Elder Justice walks around the corner with his grin and camera flashing... not even Elder justices teasing can ruin this moment for Elder Amberson though! Who has a... Elder Justice tosses him the pocketknife before he even gets the word out not even shacking a little on the perfect video. Then says "hurry up!" with trembling hands Elder Amberson digs in what could my love have sent me to warm my Christmas spirits?!
The lid comes off and he looks in; a little white shirts is all he can see. He grabs the shirt and pulls it out. It's a whole outfit of a small little missionary with a name tag that says "our future Elder Ambersons" (my biggest regret in life to this day is not writing that but instead I wrote just Elder Amberson) and he pauses, never before had such a well of mixed emotion come burning through his body as it did at this time: a little confusion, a little adoration that she would think of them as that close, and a ton of terror and fear that she would think of them as that close. What had she become? What was the meaning implied here? How do I reply to this? Elder Justice is roaring with laughter! How do I play this off smoothly thought Elder Amberson. So he just kind of gives these nervous little chuckles. Wait a sec the name tag is paper and the one under is fabric, he pulls it off and reads Justice Choro... Elder Justice has this tight lipped grin and asks what that is. "she must still think we are companions and put your name on here too..." "to make it less weird" he finishes in his head. Elder Justice just loses it at that point.

This is him giving a brave face. He still has no idea.

This is me showing who it really is for. Seriously that was the funniest part, when I thought it was all over and he still was too overcome to think straight!

He was like opening all the little presents when we finally did this little skit where Elder Breinholt said something smelled too good and did a little basset hound impression until he found this smaller box with a surgically removed address and drenched in perfume and hearts. He still was in so much emotional turmoil that we had to rip of the address on my box to show him what was under. Oh man... I have the whole thing on video and will show you in a couple years.

Happy New Year's and makes some real goals for me! In "wisdom, and in stature, and in favor of God and of man" all 4!

Love each other for me and smile!

Elder Law