Week 11 USOhhh No!
Hello from the heart of Japan. We have been having a lot of very rainy days which makes for lots of green things growing EVERYWHERE! Most Japanese people carry umbrellas every day because it rains often, and when it's sunny, they don't like to get tanned. We now own several ourselves. So much for talking about the weather. Here is how our week went.
We started out last Monday by cleaning up the USO lounge at Camp Fuji. And it was disgustingly dirty. The lounge is in the same building as the base chapel and has cooking facilities for the marines who are there for short periods of time. Well, let's just say some marines don't know how to clean up after themselves. The stove, sink, and floors were filthy and had not been deep cleaned for a very long time, if ever. I love to clean, so Elder Nelson and I set out to give it a deep clean. 5 hours later, we were pooped, and the lounge was looking awesome. We did have a group of about 6 marines come in to watch a movie on the big screen TV there and we said, "Oh we are cleaning up the lounge today, are you here to help?" The look on their faces was hilarious. Blank stares all around as if to say, "She's kidding, right?" And no, we didn't make them help us. It was their "day off" because it was Memorial Day. Anyway, things are a lot cleaner at Camp Fuji USO right now.
Our temple shift was pretty quiet this week. Most of the missionaries attending came down from further north of Tokyo, so there were just a few of them. Brad and I are continuing to learn new responsibilities each week in the temple. Last week, there were about four of us who spoke English. Brad communicates just fine, and I do a lot of nodding and basically observe my jobs. We love being in the temple.
We have been "trying" to do our training and paperwork to volunteer at Behavorial Health here at Camp Zama. There is so much red tape. We hope to be able to volunteer there once a week. We are also still volunteering with the Red Cross several times a week in the office. We will be getting a new Red Cross Director here in Zama as well as at Atsugi this summer. We will be patient as they make those adjustments.
We also had the sweet experience of going to two different orphanages here with the base chaplain, some public affairs folks, as well as the Elder Strong, a humanitarian missionary for Japan. The chaplain brought some gifts for the children, and we met them and saw lots of sweet, happy faces. It really tugged at this old grandma's heartstrings, and I wanted to scoop them all up and hug them. This was our first meeting, and we hope to be able to return to do some fun activities with them more regularly. The children deserve all of the love and care we can and/or are allowed to offer.
This week was also the Zama High School graduation, which we attended to see 3 of our branch members graduate. The class is a booming 60 students with a cumulative GPA of 3.75. They are a pretty smart bunch of young people. Saturday night, they had a group graduation party, and we made a 7-layer Dip and Veggie Tray. Sounds like me, right?
District Council every Friday continues to be a fun time. Our district has really grown to about 16 elders and sisters. This week, we fed them sloppy joes, and it was fun to see those who had never had a sloppy joe try them for the first time. It was all thumbs up for them. The big hit was the berry trifle which many of them had not ever had. There was nothing left! Transfers had us saying goodbye to one sister returning to Bolivia and an Elder heading to another district. Meanwhile, still contemplating what to feed them this week. Maybe try lasagna again.
We finished off the week with a lot of baking: cookies, brownies, and Rice Krispie treats for Seminary Graduation, Linger Longer at church, Camp Fuji treats, and Single Adult FHE tonight. I broke down and ordered a stand mixer. It's tough mixing everything with a fork.
Hope you are having a great week, and we will, too. Love to all....forever,
Elder and Sister Nelson
PS. Check out the "bullet-train" delivery of sushi at a restaurant we tried out.
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