Week 25 - July 23- 29

We had a zone meeting on Tuesday.  It had and interesting activity were we were each given one of our zone leaders precious letters from home.  The challenge was to  keep it dry while floating it in a bowl of water.  We were given plastic UNO cards and packaging tape and teams to work together on this project.  It was interesting to see all the different ways of keeping the letter dry.  All the letters stayed dry.   

Following the activity we were asked what we learned from this activity.  Some of the ideas we came up were:  Our zone leader trusted  us with something very precious to him, he had faith that we would take care of it for him and return it dry to him.  

We were taught that we need to build a relationship of trust with those we work with.  All the letters were returned dry to our zone leader but each was floated in a different boat.  It was interesting that there was not one answer but a different answer to this problem by each group.  Life is this way often there are many ways to get to the same place.  It depends on what you have to work with how you reach the end.

Wednesday we went to the International Center where we taught English classes and attended a Japanese language class.  We have learned a lot.  I can read hiragana and some katakana but may not know the words I read.  After our lessons were over we walked over to the covered shopping mall.  On the way we passed a little park.  It was a picture opportunity for me.

Terry and I have been learning more about addresses in Japan.  We still have a difficult time sometimes finding were we are going but guess that is true no matter where you live.  It can be difficult in the states as well.

Friday was the day for an apartment check in Shimizu/Tsuboi.  The Elders had a wonderful clean apartment and one of them had a birthday as well.

We had to celebrate with dinner at the MK restaurant and had "shabu shabu".  It is an order and cook your own, all you can eat restaurant.  

There was a pot of hot broth on the table to which you added your choices of vegetables and meats from the menu.  

It was a very enjoyable birthday party lunch. 

Saturday night we had the opportunity to attend the Roasso Kumamoto Soccer team game.  Kumamoto has a beautiful facility for the games and it was very fun to be part of the viewing crowd.  We enjoyed selecting dinner from the many choices outside the stadium while waiting for others in our group to arrive.

Sunday finished with a ward dinner in the Nagamine Ward which was a good-bye dinner for five young adults, 3 are going to BYU Hawaii, 1 to UVU in Utah and the fifth is marrying.  The ward will miss these wonderful young people.