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