Wk 18 "Time keeps on tickin', tickin', tickin'...

 Hello friends and family,

Wk 18 has come and gone, and we await a new week. It's Sunday night, and we are just getting home from our trek to Camp Fuji. Still a ghost town up there, but a new unit comes in this week, so we may see some faces next week. Brad was sad that Mt. Fuji hid her face today and we only got a tiny little glimpse of her. It is decidedly cooler there than it is here in the Kanto plain. Triple-digit temps with humidity are not my favorite. One tends to want to stay inside when it's this hot. Otherwise, you are soaking wet very soon after venturing out. 

We started a dinner FHE with the singles this week and started at instead of 7pm. That helped us have a little more time for some fun and games. This week was tacos, and no matter how much I make, they always eat it all. Then we all played UNO attack and had some good laughs. We only have a few singles because the rest are all at sea with the Navy.  But if someone brings an investigator, the missionaries will come. We had a good group. Those "at sea" will be back in Oct or Nov. 

This week, we spent much time manning the Red Cross offices on Zama and Atsugi. Both offices are in transition, and not many folks like volunteering there. Now that both offices have new field reps, we should be there less often. We will volunteer with the Red Cross at the Bon Odori Festival this Saturday. And yes...we will dress up in our yukatas (traditional summer kimonos) Watch for pictures next week.

We were given another opportunity to share some time at one of the orphanages here. This was a different one than the one we went to last time. We had two groups with ages ranging from 3-12. The 3's mostly just want to play, and so we did a lot of that. The older kids like the relay races we planned. They all loved the fruit snacks we gave them at the end. One sweet little girl asked if she could have one for her friend who couldn't come. Of course, the grandma in me wanted to give her a whole box for the entire orphanage. Sorry, no pictures of the kids...not allowed, but I got some posed pictures of the young elders and sisters who helped us with a few of the things we played with. This orphanage wants us to come back later in August.

We had Zone Conference on Friday and enjoyed some great training from the Mission leaders. My favorite quote from Pres. Tueller was, "Everything we do matters."  Sometimes, one needs to be reminded of just that. When you volunteer at four different events in one day and fall into bed that night, it's good to know that what you do matters. It makes it much easier to do it again the next day. 

On a very steamy Friday afternoon/evening, we helped with our first USO event. It was a barbecue for the single soldiers here at Zama. We donned our new USO t-shirts and did our best to keep all those hungry soldiers happy with hamburgers, hot dogs, steak, kabobs, and all the trimmings. Brad was one of two grill masters outside in the heat. Because it was so hot, we both went home soaking wet. We peeled off our clothes and put them straight into the wash. Humidity is like that. Not a fan. Need a fan. 

By Saturday, we needed a day of nothing. We did have to do all the weekly things, like washing and cleaning, but it was nice to have a day to re-group. Sometimes, we try sightseeing, but it's too hot right now. We will get back to it in the fall. 

We are staying healthy and happy as we find new ways to serve the people in our community. We love it when we make connections with folks who understand what it's like to serve in the military. We loved the experience we had for 30 years, and it's fun to be back experiencing it in a little different way. We are finding joy in serving those who serve. Life is good here in Japan. 

Love to all. 

Week 17 and another year older

One of us had a birthday this week... it was touching to see our friends here in Japan wish Sister Nelson a happy birthday.  One evening, we went out to dinner and had a giant bowl of chicken wings (one for each of Sister Nelson's ?? years).  And towards the end of the week, we took the liberty of going into Tokyo and spending the night at the New Sanno Hotel.  There we enjoyed a quiet and elegant Japanese teppanyaki-style dinner.  The next day we went on a brief shopping excursion to the Ginza (a famous shopping district in Tokyo).  Sister Nelson also had a lot of FB well-wishers and we heard from all of our children and some of our grandchildren too. 

Our week began with a Zoom with the Mabb family from "Hot-Zona." We have enjoyed the Zoom technology that lets us spend time with our beloved family while we are so far away.  We got a good update from everyone in Mesa and enjoyed hearing each of our grandchildren give us their update.  

Summer continues here and it's HOT.  Supposedly the "rainy season" is over, but the HOT season is not...I guess we have to get through August too.  Also, we are apparently in Typhoon season now through October.  Earthquake season never ends and we were treated to a small tremor on Thursday... One thing we do enjoy is how green it is here.  Flowers galore and green, green, green. It is quite beautiful (It is more beautiful from the vantage point of some air-conditioned space.  

Transition time is almost over since school will start back up next month.  We met our new Camp Zama Red Cross office leader, but we have one more to welcome into Atsugu this coming week.  Accordingly, we have been doing a little more than usual duty with the Red Cross.  Since the Red Cross touches almost all of the other base activities it is a great "show-the-badge" venue for us.  We met a new member that moved in and an inactive member who had mostly been hiding... Fellowshipping is easy to do and we make a point of not pressuring anyone, we just are happy to meet all who we can.  We know that in Heavenly Father's own time and way, people who might have strayed off of the covenant path will be gently nudged back, answering the prayers of patient loved ones. 

We met a few new missionaries this week after last week's transfers.  We have three new Elders, including a new District Leader and one new Sister missionary.  As always, we love meeting with them on Friday and sharing time and lunch with them.  We even had one birthday Elder this week!  

Probably the highlight this week was our first effort at having a special "sharing activity" with children at one of two orphanages we agreed to try and meet with.  Frankly, getting prepared for this "unknown" experience was stressful.  We had to prepare something interesting, but simple, fun, but flexible...and be able to do it in English and Japanese.  We worked hard and getting ready.  Sister Nelson worked the hardest...and was the most stressed about it.  We enlisted the help of four of our missionaries.  We had two small groups of elementary school-aged children and one hour.  Overall it went very well...not perfect, but well enough to get an invite to come back again.  Some of the children were a bit too shy, some were not very interested, but most had fun and went along with us.  We learned a lot and will be better prepared for the circumstance next time (having now experienced it).  We will do our second orphanage this coming week. We introduced them to Mr. B. More fun to come. He also gave treats at the end of our time with them. Japanese kids love fruit snacks. 

Camp Fuji remains somewhat of a "ghost town" as it waits for another group of US Marines to arrive for training.  We still go each week and remain patiently hopeful for another opportunity to lift, encourage, or enlighten some young marine who is far from home.  Faithful patience and diligence are essential to being a good missionary.  Often, a lot of time and energy goes by, especially by our young missionaries who are out knocking on doors and talking to people on the street, before they get a chance to share their special message.  We certainly understand better, on a personal level, why we pray for the missionaries.  

Wk 16 Staying Busy

 Wk 16 Staying Busy

Life continues to stay busy here in the Far East, at least for two old people south of Tokyo. We love serving all the people here, and time flies by each week. We are grateful for this opportunity and pray that our family all know how much we love and miss them. Next month, we will welcome a new grandbaby, and that will be hard for this old grandma to miss. We have missed a few other things as well, so far, but we try not to be too homesick. This week, our grandson Jace was ordained an Elder by his father and will attend the temple on Tuesday. Sad to miss that as well. Life goes on and we are blessed to have so many great experiences, near and far.  

We continue to make the hour-plus drive to Fuji each Sunday afternoon. It's all quiet up there right now, as the training unit that was supposed to attend has been canceled. As we drove out the gate of Camp Fuji, we left a small plate of brownies with the gate guard. He gave us the biggest smile, a giggle, and thank you. (One of my favorite parts of our trips to Fuji.) We took the rest of our pan of brownies home and will feed them to the Single Adults tonight at our apartment. I'm sure they will be all gone. 

Last week, with the Single Adults, we helped one of them look up some names on the Family Search site. He had never done that before. We will be accompanying him to the temple next week so he can do some baptisms there. He is very excited. His name is Hosea. He is from American Samoa and we just love him. 

We have been volunteering a lot in both Red Cross offices on Zama and Atsugi as they transition to the new field representative. Last week, we welcomed Charlee to the Zama office. She works full-time for the Red Cross and will be a great asset to the Zama office, as the position has been vacant for some time. One of the things they encourage senior missionaries to do is to use their talents in helping others. So...because I love to organize things, I asked Charlee if she wanted me to clean and organize the storage room in the Red Cross office. She was more than happy to accept my offer, and I was able to help her fix the storeroom. Ta-da! Used my talent. Elder Nelson used his talent to reconnect and fix the cable and TV connections in the office. They were pretty messed up. I'm glad I didn't have to figure that out. Elder Nelson is very good at that. 

This week, our District Council was on Thursday because of transfers. After a great meeting with our district, we fed them 2 pans of lasagna, salad, and garlic bread. Elder Nelson also made a Chocolate lasagna for dessert.  There were no leftovers!. We had one elder going home, and 3 others transferred to a different part of Tokyo. That means 3 new ones we can get to know. I love serving with the young elders and sisters. It is so fun to get to know so many people from all over the world. Pretty sure we will receive a few wedding announcements in the next few years. 

We also met with the folks at the children's homes here to do some simple English lessons/games/songs with them once a month. We will take two elders and two sisters to help us with that service. It starts this week. I'm a little nervous about it but we look forward to bringing a little cheer into those sweet children's lives. As we were leaving the home, I took a picture of a most unusual flower. After I googled it, I learned it is a Tiger Lily. Not sure I had ever seen one before. There are so many beautiful flowers growing wild here. 

Our P-day (day off) was on Friday this week. We thought it would be fun to attend a Japanese baseball game. We purchased tickets to see the Tokyo Giants and the Yokohama BayStars play in the Tokoyo Dome. We didn't really know what to expect and we were pleasantly surprised and amazed at the whole experience. We happened to purchase tickets in the "orange" section not knowing what that meant. It means the crazy fans section. Everyone had on jerseys and other swag. We kind of stuck out without all of that, but by the end of the game, some fans gave us their orange rally towels, and we fit right in. I will say that if you are ever in Tokyo, you need to go to a baseball game. It was unlike anything we have ever experienced. Each player has a specific song/chant, and all the fans sing it the entire time the player is at bat. And if he happens to hit a home run, the crowd explodes into song. This particular game was tied at the beginning of the 9th inning, and Tokyo pulled it off with a runner on third who made it home. The whole dome was a mass of orange, screaming/singing fans. Very exciting. 

On a side note, don't let Sister Nelson go to the snack bar alone when she can't read Japanese. I returned with two hot dogs and two drinks, one peach and one pineapple. After a couple of sips tasting like cough syrup, Elder Nelson informed me I had purchased alcohol. Suffice it to say, we did NOT drink them. And I can't go to the snack bar unaccompanied.

We finished off our week by taking another stab at our local Costco. We now have a Japanese Costco card that expires next July. We battled our way through a myriad of other shoppers and vowed never to go to Costco on a Saturday again. We did find a nice tray of sushi that we had for dinner that night. Yum!

We are doing our best to serve as much as we can. It has been a blessing to be a part of so many people's lives. We are learning lots of things about ourselves as we place service above our own needs. From the Book of Mormon, ..." When ye are in the service of your fellow beings, ye are only in the service of your God." We are thankful for this time in our lives when we can do just that. 

Love to all,

Elder and Sister Nelson

Summertime HOT HOT HOT and muggy too.

Hot Hot Hot...with extra humidity for good measure.  We remain in the "rainy season," and we have just added temperatures in the upper 90s to the mix!  There is an amazingly uncomfortable difference between the HOT here and the DRY hot of Utah.  We are still in the midst of the summer transition period where military families are moving on, or traveling (usually to the US) for the summer, and new families and service members are arriving. We also experienced the transition from one set of Mission Leaders to new ones.  President and Sister Node signed off from the Mission LINE chat (something like WhatsApp) on Monday and we got to meet President and Sister Tueller on Thursday at a special meeting at the Temple Annex.  The missionaries loved and will miss the Nodes, as will we; however, I am sure we will feel the same way about the Tuellers in time. 

We always enjoy when we can meet with the young missionaries and we had several opportunities this week.  We saw some of them on Monday at our YSA activity, our whole Zone on Thursday, had lunch with our District on Friday, and helped some of them have a YSA activity in one of the Japanese wards. Their enthusiasm for serving and love of the Gospel is inspiring.  

Our District Lunch this week, by request, featured pulled-pork sandwiches with all the usual summertime sides, including baked beans and a red-white-blue "Twinky-cake." :) It was also a farewell of sorts for our District Leader. 

Transfers will come this next Friday and the mission will welcome nine new missionaries and eight are going home, including our District Leader.  We never know who else will get moved around, so stay tuned... We did some "strategic resupply" of needed essentials, including peanut butter, for a couple who are nervous about getting transferred out of our district.

Our Tuesday Temple work day was devoid of missionaries this week because all attended the Zone, by Zone meetings with the new Mission Leaders. We still feel both welcome and needed by the other temple workers and we really enjoy our weekly Tuesday temple experience. 

It was our turn on Thursday to meet President and Sister Tueller. They are both originally from Idaho but have been in Hawaii for the last 18 years. Both served missions in Osaka Japan several years ago.  Their Japanese is a bit rusty like mine, but I am sure Heavenly Father will bless their memory to get up to speed.  They introduced themselves and told us about their family.  We enjoyed a nice Bento lunch and took pictures and such.  After it was over, we met up with another Senior Missionary couple, Elder and Sister Yamada, who work in the Area Office for dinner.  We took them over to the nearby DoD-run hotel (The New Sanno), which was new to them, and we stepped back into "America" for a while and enjoyed a nice meal together.

Our Sunday trip to Camp Fuji was a bust because all the training Marines departed and the incoming unit canceled at the last minute.  We did have a nice visit with the Chaplain and did a little tidying up of the USO lounge before heading back to Zama. 

Besides military families transitioning, we are in both Red Cross offices that we help also going through leadership changes.  Hence, we have spent more time than usual manning the offices... 

We do our best to go with the flow and look forward to cooler weather in the Fall and all the moving about completed.  Until then, we follow the "Army" motto of "Semper Gumby" (Always Flexible).  In addition to remaining flexible, we always have a prayer in our hearts to guide our efforts and sustain us through the challenges that come our way.

Wk 15 Japan is getting very warm/humid indeed.

There has been plenty of rain and warm temperatures this week. We were told we are officially in the rainy season, but when it's not raining and the sun is out, it's very warm and humid. Maybe it's so you appreciate the rain? Either way, there is lots of greenery around and all the beautiful flowers. Hydrangeas growing wild on the side of the roads will never get old for me. 

We are still working on getting past the in-processing to volunteer at the medical clinic. This week, we had TB tests and N-95 mask fittings.  Have you ever been fitted for an N-95 mask?  It was an interesting process of wearing a mask and a hood over our heads. Then, 5 different sugar sprays were administered inside the hood to see if we could taste the sweetness while breathing, talking, and bending over. I'm not sure if that is a Japanese test for fitting or an industry standard, but we both now know the exact size of the N-95 masks. 

We continue to meet on Monday nights with the single adults from the branch and/or investigators and missionaries. Last week, we put together a charcuterie board for snacks, and the missionaries just sat at the table and at it all up. Needless to say, I think they liked it. There aren't very many single adults right now because most of them are out to sea, aka underway with the Navy, but there will be more once they return in October. We love having them in our tiny apartment. We even bought 4 folding chairs on Amazon Japan to help with the limited seating. 

Tuesdays are temple days for us and this last Tuesday was a special one. Our mission leader and his wife, Pres, and Sis Node, are finished with their 3-year assignment, and so they wanted to do temple sessions with all of their elders and sisters. This happened over two different Tuesdays, and this time, it was the elders and sisters from our Zone as well as another Zone. All of them came to the temple, making about 70 altogether. The session was very full, and it was so good to see them all together. There was a lot of hurrying and scurrying in the temple that day to accommodate them all. We love our Tuesdays in the temple. 

That evening, we had dinner with a couple serving a medical mission here and a brand new couple who just arrived to serve at Yokota AFB. It's always fun to get together with "old folks" like us. Sorry, I forgot to get a picture. 

This week we also paid our "old people's" national insurance for Japan for the year. You pay for it at any convenience store called a Konbini. (like a 7-11) Along with the national insurance, we are now officially "covered."  We can be seen on the base, so we won't ever need to use Japanese insurance, but it is required for everyone living here on a visa other than the military. Such is life in Japan. 

We had district council with Italian Subs as requested by Elder Melton, whose birthday it was. They all chowed down on them and then fudgy brownies and ice cream with a candle. Transfers are in about 10 days, so our district may see some changes. Elder Melton will be going home to Michigan, and then we will see what other changes are made. Elder Nelson and I like to say that it's nice not to have to transfer and get used to another companion. 

Saturday was a Red Cross event day for us. Starting off at Atsugi, helping with the organized triathlon. It was a small group of about 30 people and we cheered them on and handed out water and snacks. I think most of the snacks were consumed by the little children waiting for mom and/or dad to finish the race. The temperatures were cool, and it's always fun to support a run, bike, swim event. We also met a few members from Yokosuka, a neighboring Navy base.  

That evening,  Camp Zama had its Independence Day celebration with food tents, entertainment, a helicopter take-off, an awesome colorguard, and fireworks. Fortunately, it didn't rain, but it was overcast, which kept it quite pleasant for the event. We volunteered at the First Aid tent handing out snacks and water to all the Japanese first responders who were assigned to the event. There were not a lot of serious incidents, so it was pretty quiet. The cooler temperatures helped. They finished with a very nice fireworks display, and that's about all the celebrating for the 4th of July we will be seeing. 

Sunday brought another great day at church. Brad was able to ordain one of the single adults, Hosea, to the office of elder. He is a young soldier in the Army who works as a food inspector. He is such a great guy. He is hoping to go to the temple soon. He is from American Samoa. We love Hosea. 

Also, per the request of one of the Marines at Camp Fuji last week, I managed to make Monster Cookies for the first time. Fran (my stand mixer) and I stirred together a double batch, which included 3 cups of peanut butter, 9 cups of oatmeal, 6 eggs, sugars, choco-chips, and M&M's. Fran handled it well, and my little oven baked them 6 cookies at a time. Some of the dough made it to the fridge for later baking. 

We concluded the week at Camp Fuji and delivered the aforementioned Monster Cookies. The sweet Marine, Luke, said they were just like his mama makes so that was a happy moment. We had a nice service with him and another Marine. Brad gave a great patriotic message, and we sang the Battle  Hymn of the Republic. 

As we were just packing up to leave, another young Marine came in and asked about the devotional that we put on our flyer after sacrament services. His name is Will, and he said he has been having a really hard time lately. He was just hoping he could hear a message that would help him. He has a new baby girl and wife back in NC and is really missing them.  We shared our testimonies, invited him to continue to pray, and taught him a little about the Book of Mormon as a source of faith and hope. He asked us if he could have a copy, and we gave him one with a flyer indicating some specific things he could read.  We told him that God was mindful of him and could be there for him. It was a sweet experience. He said he felt so much better. We will likely never see Will again as he is returning back to Okinawa on Friday, but he has our number and the QR code if he wants to hear more from missionaries. 

Elder Nelson and I have been praying that the Marines at Camp Fuji would hear about our services and have a desire to join us. In our minds, we thought we were praying for members of the church to join us to take the sacrament. What we are learning is that Heavenly Father is mindful of all his sons and daughters and will send them our way to share the hope and joy that the gospel offers, members or not. We feel honored to have been blessed with the opportunity to share with all those who come and join us. Planting seeds that may one day blossom into faith in the Lord Jesus Christ and his gospel.