Week 85 - September 15-21, 2014



Monday was a holiday in Japan.  We took advantage of the holiday and invited a friend and her parents over for lunch and games.  After lunch we enjoyed playing "Yahtzee" and "Panda Chopsticks".  We had a fun time together.  The afternoon went way to fast.

Flowers are so beautiful here.  I biked past these flowers Tuesday on the way to the YMCA.  They were so pretty that I stopped and took a picture. 

Elder Koberstein and I are preparing for the 29th Cosmos Marathon.  I am thinking about competing in the "General Women above 40" category for the 5K race here in Japan on November 3rd.  Wednesday I decided that I needed to run a full 5K.  I did it both Wednesday and Friday this week.  Now to improve my time.  It is amazing what regular training, good coaching and good examples will do to motivate a person to change their life style.  Thank you to all that have helped me on my path to better health and lots of fun times participating in physical activities together.  Go Napa Ragnar Race team 2014!  I am so proud of your accomplishments this weekend.

Friday was our 45th wedding anniversary.  It is hard to believe it has been 45 years since we were married in the Logan, Utah Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints temple for "Time and Eternity".  That was a special day for me shared with my parents, Elder Koberstein's Grandmother Jensen, aunts and uncles and a cousin. 

 It was a beautiful day with a nice blue sky and the red, yellow and orange autumn leaves in abundance to be enjoyed as we drove from Logan, Utah through the canyons to Star Valley, Wyoming for the open house in our honor.  

I believe, as this quote by President Spencer W. Kimball teaches the importance of the decision of marriage.  "Marriage is perhaps the most vital of all the decisions and has the most far reaching effects, for it has to do not only with immediate happiness, but also with eternal joys.  It affects not only the two people involved, but also their families and particularly their children and their children's children down through the many generations.  In selecting a companions for life and for eternity, certainly the most  careful planning and thinking and praying and fasting should be done to be sure that of all the decisions, this one must not be wrong"  (Teachings of Presidents of the Church:  Spencer W. Kimball (2006), 193). 

Elder Koberstein and I decided to celebrate our years together by returning to the temple, in Fukuoka, Japan this time.  It was a good choice because it was a very rainy day as all the umbrellas show.

This is the Fukuoka temple as we drove in about sunset.  It was missing the usual crowded Saturday parking lot which made us wonder if it was open.  It was a nice quite night at the temple.  We really enjoyed the opportunity to be part of it.  We treated ourselves to a night at the Crowne Plaza Hotel in Fukuoka and then attended the temple again on Saturday morning before returning to Kumamoto.

 

Scripture for the Week

Genesis 2:21-24

And the rib, which the Lord God had taken from man, made he a woman, and brought her unto the man.

And Adam said, This is now bone of my bones, and flesh of my flesh:  she shall be called Woman, because she was taken out of Man.

Therefore shall a man leave his father and his mother, and shall cleave unto his wife: and they shall be one flesh.