Sunday, September 4, 2016

Week 14: PUBLIC ORDER and MORE ABOUT TOMATOES

This week I learned a lot about Japanese culture! Let me share with you my findings.

JAPAN'S "PUBLIC ORDER"

I was talking to a ward member who had traveled to Italy, and when I asked her how it was, she said "It was very pretty, but the 治安 was really bad." I looked up the word 治安. It means "public order." I laughed. Of course! The Japanese are so orderly!

They are so orderly, in fact, that this week I saw a cleaning person cleaning leaves off the street with a tiny pair of tongues. He was picking up individual leaves with tongues. TONGUES! Is that the right word? Or am I spelling tongues, like the thing in your mouth... I'm kind of forgetting how to do the English...

JAPAN'S not quite right, but still TRYING

We were over at a member's house this week teaching a lesson to her friend, who is one of my favorite investigators, who always wears a classy hat wherever she goes, and is basically a church member, but she hasn't been baptized yet. She's received all the lessons, but is just putting off baptism, because she's worried about how her husband may react. She comes to church every week, and is such a sweetie pie. She's the one on the left!

(She's not unhappy, Japanese people just usually don't smile in pictures because they are so classy)

Fun fact! Classy Hat Investigator recently got a Facebook account, and is now addicted.

ANYWAY, we had met for lunch, and the member had made us pizza! Which was miraculously, amazingly, life-changing-ly delicious and it had broccoli on it. But, she didn't have a pizza cutter, so she just pulled out some scissors! My companion informed me that this is fairly normal in Japan. Cutting slices of pizza out with scissors! I was very amused.

We went to another curry place this week with a really cool investigator in her 20's who is the third generation of her family to be a part of this really strict sect of Buddhism. They have to study their religious text and take tests on it and everything! So basically seminary... But different! She is super interesting and cute and her name means Good Smell.

But anyway, this item was on the menu! Apparently, some of the curry they sell is invisible, but this one is not!

I love Japan.

JAPAN'S GENEROSITY

I know I've already commented on this before, but this week we got another huge haul of groceries from a ward member and the Fruits Basket (the food basket for missionaries at the church building.) They give us so much, it's hazardous traveling home with that heavy of a bag of food on your handlebars! We have to go extra slow so we don't die, haha!

Our current tomato stash. It's gotten so big, we've dedicated that entire drawer to tomatoes. I call it, "The Tomato Drawer."

"Enough tomatoes to kill."

JAPAN'S CULTURAL PRIDE

This week there was a small festival in one of the towns we have investigators in, so we were stopped at a light when a group of children in festival clothing, chanting "RASSHAI!" in unison as they carried the... Thing they carry... (I don't know the word for it, but it's like a small version of a shrine that is on two poles so a big group can carry it around.) The adult who was leading the procession said, "Everyone, the foreigners are watching, so do your best!"

So funny!

Last week's P-Day we went to a fun park and acted like children for a few hours. Well, I guess we always act like children, but we were only at the park for a few hours...


It was beautiful!

Just a city girl.
 Just a taste of what it's like to have this much hair all the time.
This climbing thing was really hot and I almost burned my hands.

PS, JAPAN HAS HELMET GREMLINS!
We had stopped by the church to utilize the wifi, and when we went to our bikes, my companion's helmet had mysteriously vanished! Luckily, we had extras back at the apartment. That was on Friday. Today, I found her helmet hidden under the weird concrete structure right near where we park our bikes.
It wasn't windy that day.
No one was around.
The helmet didn't get up and walk over there by itself.
There is only one possibility...
Helmet Gremlins!

And I'm out of interesting things to say!


Bye bye!

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