They celebrate Halloween! Probably
more so the members than Japan in general
The kids in the ward all had a
costume contest and they were all so darn cute! There is one little kid named
Ichigo who is just the cutest little Japanese baby I've ever seen. I took a
picture of him. I'll send later.
I can't believe that Katylen
McKenzie is already almost home! I was thinking about it. I've been in the
honbu (office) for 4.5 transfers. When I transfer out of here I will be a
transfer ten. 4.5 transfers flew by and by the time I reach another 4.5
transfers I will be almost coming home! Before coming here two years always
seemed like such a long time. It isn't!
This week was way long! We did so
much I literally can't even remember it! Hopefully I'll remember next week!
Talk to you then!
Love,
Elder Draper
This is where he thinks he’s so
funny! I almost emailed him and said that’s it. There better be more of a
letter than that! But then this came. Funny kid!!!
Just kidding, but for real though
it's gonna take some time to remember what went down this week...
In no particular order, we went to
Kofu again, we made cookies for the ward, we decorated for the Halloween party,
we had the Halloween party, I carved pumpkins, we talked about family history
with hideki san, I interpreted for like 8 hours, I still can't figure out the
stats excel sheet, I found out that I’m transferring and who will replace me. I
think there was more but I'll just write it as it comes!
So we went to kofu for the last
time! We had to meet the landlord of the old gross apartment to inspect if everything
is ok or if it's broken. That's basically the only thing we had to do. It was
sprinkling the whole time. The fog was pretty intense as you can kind of see in
the picture I sent you of us driving. After that we walked to a restaurant to
get some food. There was a castle along the way so we decided to walk through
the castle. It was pretty awesome! Castles don’t have anything to do with
Buddhism but they were made hundreds and hundreds of years ago and samurais and
the famous people of that day and age used to live there. The place we went to
was pretty awesome. It was in a back room on a tatami mat. Anytime there is a
tatami mat or you sit on the floor in Japan you need to take off your shoes and
place them either facing outward in the genkan (the little sunken in area in
front of the door) or out it in the cubbies if they have them. They will almost
always serve you Ocha which is tea that we don't drink. So then they bring us
water. Tempura is deep fried vegetables or fish. I got some stuff. I have no idea
what it was but it was sure good! So you have to pay to drive on the highways
here which means that their rest stops are basically outlet malls but maybe a
bit bigger. We stopped at one along the way.
The relationship between our ward
and the missionaries isn't the best. That's just how it has been for years. So
I decided to have us as a district make cookies for everybody. Sounds easy
right? Elder Battaglia was feeling sick on Thursday so I didn't go to sports
night but instead made cookies. On our mission portal is a recipe for cookies.
The recipe should not exist. But unfortunately it does. Well first of all it
was in grams and we only have things that can measure cups. So I just guessed
based on the fact that our box of butter came in 200g bricks. So right off the
bat the amount of flour was off. Then just everything else didn't work at all.
We went through like 5 different batches of cookies until we finally found the
nestle toll house recipe and made one good batch haha. But we passed them out at
church and they all loved it!
For the Halloween party we made
the worlds most intense cardboard maze. We went to a super market and asked for
all of their cardboard which they 喜んで gave. We had a little
bowling alley on the side and then a ball toss into some boxes that looked like
witches and ghosts and robots. The kids like our booth the best!
After that, we went to the library
with hideki san and looked up his family in these massive Japanese books that
have where everybody's lines trace back to. I'm guessing that’s kind of what
the brass plates were like. This book was like a solid 6 inches deep. We looked
for his family symbol too but couldn't find it. Every family in Japan has its
own symbol which is awesome. It's like a cattle brand but you don't put it on
cattle.
Sister Warnick invited me and
Elder Uemura and Elder Hattanda to come carve pumpkins! I was so happy! I think
last year was the first time I didn't carve a pumpkin in my whole life! I
carved the head of Jack Skelington (Skeleton?) from The Nightmare Before
Christmas. It was so fun!
We had some conference this week!
Me and Sister To were asked to interpret. We both just switch off and on a
whole bunch from 9 am to 5pm! It was so long! But it was really fun!
After talking with Hideki san
president Warnick met with me and told me that he was sad but that he felt that
it was time for me to go back to the field! My replacement, Elder Bateman, will
come in on Tuesday! I have a lot of mixed feelings. I'm finally going to the
field but I've grown to love the office and being around the office couple and
president and sister Warnick all the time that it will be bitter to leave. Plus
it was way sweet to live 20 feet from the church and have wifi all the time.
But I'm way excited! I'll find out where I go in two weeks!
There have been so many problems
with this big excel sheet that counts the stats of the mission. There are
problems between the sheet I pull off of IMOS and there are problems in IMOS
itself so I just can't figure out what to do! But it's fun. I probably won't be
able to figure it out before I leave though which is unfortunate.
I also had my Facebook training
meeting! There were about 50 or so missionaries there. I've been studying how
the Savior taught and I tried to implement it in my training and it ran much
smoother than the training meetings before this one!
I know this work is the work of
God and that only the gospel can bring eternal happiness to the individual and
to families and nations. I invite all to come and see what glorious happiness
never before felt to them awaits in the restored gospel of Jesus Christ.
I love you so much!
Love,
Elder Draper
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