Hope all is well in snowy Utah. Here in Kurume, the sun is shining and the sakura (cherry blossoms) are in full blossom! On our way over today we stopped by a park FULL of sakura trees, bought ourselves some yakitori (grilled chicken on a skewer)at one of those stand thingies and enjoyed the incredible keshiki(scenery). Nature is truly incredible!Kurume is a fun place...did I tell you the nickname they have? Gurume ward (Gourmet Ward) Apparently this is the ward where all the missionaries put on the pounds...and last Saturday I figured out why. We were invited to an enrichment activity where they made pizza, steak and vegetables, key lime pie (but since there was no lime they used seequasa...a citrus fruit from Okinawa), some cranberry bread, salad, inari-sushi, onigiri(rice ball)...MAN! It was SOOOOO good.
The sister who invited us is a bread making teacher, and her house is her bread making studio....it's the biggest kitchen I've seen in a year! She had four ovens, a big stove top, and a bunch of other bread/pastry making machines. The flour she uses is especially made for her bread making school too! I was totally blown away! I'm gonna have to pedal alot more to keep it balanced out:)
So we've stepped it up a little bit from last transfer. We have a bunch of investigators...they just have a hard time making and keeping the appointments we make...so it looks like we're gonna do alot of finding this transfer too. I'm going to be a contacting professional! But I heard some good news yesterday. The girl we found in Fujisaki the last week of the transfer came to church!!!!! and is progressing very well! Go figure as soon as we find an investigator who progresses I move!...but I'm still in the same district, so I'll be able to keep tabs on how things go, so that's nice.
We have a very interesting investigator here in Kurume. He's a sixty-one year old grandpa...who is currently talking to my companion behind me(he showed up at the e-mail place 5 minutes ago...weird) The elders found him, and he's been coming to church every week since we got here. He's in a tough position in life. He's been homeless before, and right now is probably in a situation of just barely above homeless. But he has a great desire to change, to pull things together! His goal is to start a restaurant, get himself an established job so that he can meet his daughters. He doesn't care about money or success. As long as he can survive and regain the respect of his two daughters, that's all that matters to him. It's an interesting situation because I don't know if he really understands what we are teaching him. But he's a true example of being "humbled". He's also going to the Jehovah's Witnesses...so it's going to be interesting, but at least it shows that he is looking for something. He's a good guy with a really good heart. It's our first time teaching a man...so I'm not really sure what to do, but we're just going to keep meeting with him and see how he progresses.
Oh, so Kurume has this GIGANTIC white statue thing in the middle of the city...it is SCARY! Try looking it up on google or something. It's HUGE so it sticks out above all the mansions and buildings...(when I got my transfer call the AP told me that it would give me nightmares)...
So.That's crazy about Missy and Jeff. So the Sontags and Osterlohs have finally found their tie to become part of the same family huh? Exciting. Now every time we go to bear lake it really will be a family reunion...hahaha.
Anyways, life is good. Hope you all are happy! If not, decide to be happy...today!
Love you!
