Christmas Party at the Volunteer Center

We go to the Tsuruoka city Volunteer Center every Wednesday morning and volunteer for a couple of hours.  We work with a lot of wonderful, and it turns out, talented people there.  On December 14th, we had a Christmas party.  We went at the usual 10 am and worked for an hour, then all went upstairs to a room and had bento boxes for lunch and then entertainment from members of the group.  Kadawaki san had asked me sing for the event. 

We had learned from the spring party that most of the people bring little treats of some kind for everyone.  I made pecan crunch candy (a recipe that was Ken's grandmother's) for everyone.

You can see the assortment of little treats and gifts besides the bento lunches.

We had heard that Kono san did magic tricks.  It was so fun to finally see her perform her magic.

Ken acting as magician assistant, and finding the "right" card in the middle of an orange.

This lady is so funny.  She told a story with illustrations of a lady that farted really loud and blew people away.  We just couldn't believe the subject of the story in reserved, respectful Japan.  We still chuckle over it.

Then she sang a traditional Japanese song.

This multi-talented lady played the harmonica and displayed some of her creations (above) made from paper.  She is the one that takes fabulous photographs.

I don't have pictures, but then it was my turn to sing.  I only had my laptop with ITunes for accompaniment, and it wasn't very loud.  I had the Keynotes be my backup singers from a CD we made a few years ago.  I sang the solo in a cute, acapella arrangement of "Deck the Hall" and the Keynotes did a great job of backing me up.  I also had the accompaniment to "O Holy Night" and sang that.  I started pretty weak, but ended strong.  The cheers and applause were most gratifying!  Then they started chanting in unison as they clapped, "Encore!  Encore!"  Come on, it wasn't THAT good; but it made me feel good.

Unfortunately, this video has the bad first verse, and doesn't have the much better third verse on it. 

We then took some group pictures. 

The little gal next to me- Abe san, took us out after the luncheon and presented us with gifts as it was her last time attending.  She really likes Elder Hinton and we even taught her a couple of lessons on the Book of Mormon.  We hope she will sometime accept the gospel.

Because I don't like to eat before I sing, I took my bento home and had it half-eaten before I remembered to take a picture.  Sorry.  This meal was much better than the one we had at the spring party- which may have been just a little bit TOO Japanese. 

It was a very fun party with people we have come to love here.  Our Christmas wish is to share the gospel with one and all!!