Monday, October 21, 2013

Hey Everyone!

Elder Otsuka doing his handstand
on his scriptures

 

   How are you all doing? I hear it's starting to cool off over there in AZ. So that means it's what, 99 degrees still? Haha!

 

   Last week has been a pretty good week. Lots of interesting adventures. To start off with, there was another typhoon that blew in Tuesday evening. It was raining pretty much all day Tuesday because of it. After being out in the rain for several hours, Elder Otsuka and I finally got back to our apartment at the end of the night. He starts to take his stuff out of his bag, and found out that it's not as waterproof as he thought it was. All his stuff got wet, including his scriptures (that he had just bought only a few weeks ago too). He freaks out, and starts scrambling around trying to save them. he pulls out a hair dryer (not sure where he found that...), and tries to blow dry it. That's not working, so he closes it and squeezes it shut as tight as he can. Some water starts dripping out, so he decides to pursue that course. He puts them on the ground on a towel, and then does a handstand on his scriptures, using the wall for balance. I started laughing, and asked him if it wouldn't be easier to just stand on it with his feet. He hadn't thought of that. Haha! It did end up working though. The gilding on the pages is a little messed up, but his scriptures are ok!

The delicious fruit-cream-cake-cup things
that the Bishop's wife gave me on my birthday.

   So Wednesday was my birthday. Thanks again for all the cards and well wishes! It ended up being a great day over here on my end in Japan as well. I got several calls from other missionaries and a member. At the Children's English class we teach, several of the member moms that came all remembered that it was my birthday and congratulated me. Before the regular English class in the evening, the Bishop's wife (who goes to the children's English class) gave us a call wanting to know where we were. She comes to the church, and gave me these fruit-cream-cake-cup things that were super delicious. Her story was that her 8 year old son, Rei, overheard her congratulate me at the children's English class. On their way home, he insisted that she go and buy me something for a gift. Haha! That kid is so funny. At the regular English class, one of the students also remembered that it was my birthday that day, and brought me a fruitcake. I had to keep myself from laughing just because of the bad rep fruitcake has. I've actually never eaten fruitcake before, but I've decided that it actually isn't all that bad. Granted, I'd much rather have a regular cake, but it's not terrible. That night, we even got a surprise visitor around 10:00. We had already finished planning, and were changed out of our shirts and ties when the doorbell rings. It was the ward mission leader and his wife, and they brought us some treats. That was nice of them.

   Thursday we had a zone meeting. I ended up using the cake mix my family sent me to bring a cake to that since there were a couple other missionaries in the zone who had birthdays in the last week. That ended up turning out really well. I mean, Elder Otsuka and I could eat a whole cake ourselves, but that doesn't mean it would be a good idea. Haha! After the conference we did companion exchanges with the AP's. It was pretty fun. Elder Rindlisbacher (good luck with that one :P) is a way good missionary. I really feel like I learned a lot, even though it was only for a couple of hours after zone meeting. Definitely showed me that I still have a lot of room left to improve. And just when I thought I was doing so well too. Haha!

 

There were quite a few other fun things this week, but I'm about out of time. Talk to you all more next week!

Elder Blake