Week 14 - May 7-13, 2013

May 7, 2013 – Tuesday was district meeting at the Shimizu/Tsuboi chapel.  We bike to the chapel.  After the meeting the district went out for lunch together.  There was so many of us and it was during the lunch hour so we ended up splitting into two different groups.  We went with Elder Morris and Elder Rowell.  We enjoyed eating lunch on the street outside the restaurant.

May 8, 2013 – Wednesday we road our bikes to the International Center and taught an Eikaiwa class before our Japanese class there.  Kotuska Moto saw us teaching and ask about it.  We invited him to join us this week.  He sounded like he would come.  He is very interested in learning to speak better English.  We had a couple who saw our advertisement at the international center come to Eikaiwa in the evening.  We hope they will come back this week.  After class we went to the castle and took a picture for Mother’s Day for our mission mom, Sister Gustafson.

May 9, 2013 – Thursday, we visited Sister Adera Motsuda.  We are going to study the Seminary Book of Mormon program with her.  She is from the Philippines and speaks good English.  I made peanut butter cookies and we took them over to the Elders.  Two of them are concerned about gaining weight so I thought I would help them.  I think age will do a better job though.

May 10. 2013 – Friday, We had our two month review about the MTC Skype program with Maria Johnson and then class with Kent Johnson.  After our class we drove to Saga and surprise checked Elder Lawson and Otami’s apartment.  Elder Otami showed us the kanji for the upper/top sheet and bottom sheet.    Terry had me take a picture of them.  The top kanji is pictured on top.  Now you can all buy sheets for futons in Japan. 

We enjoyed lunch with the Elders at a okonomiyaki restaurant.  I ordered a vegetarian mix which had lots of grated cabbage in it.  It was very good.  The mix was brought to us and we cooked it on the grill which was in the center of our table.  A fun experience!     

May 11, 2013 – Saturday, We started the day with a Skype class from the MTC with Kent Johnson.  We did and apartment checks for the Krume sisters.  When we got back to Kumomato Sister Suzuki and Sister Kuribayashi brought their investigator, Aukachon over to our apartment.  The three of them made a Korean meal for her mother for Mother’s Day.  They made spam sushi as one of the dishes.  They ran out of rice so left the extra ingredients for us.  I cooked some more rice and made 4 sushi rolls later.

  Late in the evening we took President Hodson and his companion Elder Lee to the train station.  They were here for stake meetings.  Elder Hodson is the Branch President in Omuta.

May 12, 2013 – Sunday, we had a busy and wonderful mother’s day.  We enjoyed being able to have missionaries from Asia Skype from our apartment home.  We enjoyed mother’s day in the Kumamoto and Nagimini wards.  The flowers were prepared by a less active member of the Nagimini ward.  They have been beautiful on my kitchen table.  The missionaries gave me a beautiful book of birds around the world. 

May 13, 2013 – Monday, We enjoyed Skype calls from our family.  It is wonderful that we can talk to our family on preparation day which is Monday here and have it be Sunday in the United States.  We took down our 17 Eikaiwa posters as another three week period ended.  We are not doing to the drawing again this week as we have not had anyone come to Eikaiwa from the committee board advertisements we have put up the last month and a half.  We have had some response from our advertising at the International Center.  

After the posters were down we biked over to Lake Ezu.  It was a fun bike ride recommended by our Japanese teacher at the International Center.

Elder Koberstein would have loved to try the kayak/rowing shell we saw in the lake.

We enjoyed a beautiful sunset before heading back to our apartment.

Elder and Sister Koberstein on the bridge as the sun is starting to set.