March 8, 2015 Letter

1400 hours a place with 6000 year old ruins (I am going there today!)

The weather continues to get warmer and the snow hasn’t been sticking at all!

Fun food fact:

So one of the most delicious things is called onigiri which is just a rice ball that I have already talked about. One thing that seems so normal now, but is actually kind or weird maybe, is a type of rice ball that I have never seen sold, but people make them all the time.  It’s pretty much like sautéed mushrooms and carrots and all sorts of other brown plants that you have never heard of or seen and then they dump it in rice and mix it up make balls half the size of your fist, wrap it in plastic and you got a way good lunch. I can pound those things... good stuff. :-)

Culture point:

Children can go to preschool and most kids do. Sometimes it’s for like 5 years they go (more like day care.)

Then you become a first grader the year that you will be turning 7.

Grade school is 1-6

Then middle school is 1-3

And then high school 1-3

So your grade is determined by what year you were born in. (way easier to understand I think)

If you ask someone what grade they are and they say "I am a second grader in high school".

All kids in middle school and high school have school uniforms and all kids in elementary school and preschool have these really cute backpacks.

 Spiritual thought:

I really enjoy church. When we are baptized we are making a promise to follow Jesus Christ.  In return he promises us that we can have his holy spirit to be with us and that we can have eternal life. We go to church every week so that we can renew that two-way promise or covenant with God by taking the sacrament. I really felt that when that becomes or biggest reason to go to church is makes for a really powerful experience that gives us new strength from the spirit to become what we want to be.

Funny story:

 So I either told you this and I forgot or I somehow missed a good one.

In the office in Sendai I worked with many senior missionaries (retired adults) and one of them was his lady named Shitami Shimai. She is sweetest lady you will ever meet. SSOOOO nice. Because she knew I was transferring she made me apple cake. I said thank you 100 times and was so happy. Then I did the worst thing anyone in the world can do and I forgot it on my desk when I transferred...X-P sooo stupid... that’s another story. But I came up here to the north and was here about 2 days when I got a package in the mail and it was the cake she had made me! She saw I forgot it and shipped it to me. (I am telling you no one is as nice as this lady) then to make it even worse she had put inside it a note and a box of chocolates. sheesh I am feeling stupid and yet loved. Mixed emotions. Anyway. the chocolates were this brand called melty kiss that I have had a few times and speaking honestly I was never a huge fan but with all the thanks and guilt in my heart I cracked those suckers open planning to down the whole box with a smile. I get through one and it was just not good at all... like normally they are just kind of strange but this was just off... not even sweet and it wasn’t like dark chocolate. I eat a few more... still that same grossness.. So I do the same thing anyone would do that doesn’t want to be wasteful and I go put them on the desks of the other missionaries in the apartment. Then Nishiie Choro comes in later that night munching on them and is like "where did these come from can I eat them?" and after I explain he throws some back and is like "these are great!" (He is crazy) and then I say they are weird and he is like "yeah they do have a unique flavor I have never had this either" and so he starts reading the box...

Turns out they were full of alcohol in the middle. (We don’t drink in our church and so its super funny that a saint, the nicest woman in the world who also doesn’t believe in drinking sent them to a bunch of missionaries)

Love each other for me!

Law Choro