Nearer, My God, To Thee

I accompanied Elder Sharp at October's Zone Conference in Yamagata.  We played an arrangement of "Nearer, My God, To Thee."

Don and Ada Come For a Visit, Part 2

Saturday, October 8th
We awoke to rain on Saturday.  The guys had planned to go on a walk again in the early morning, but it got rained out.  Rain was okay, though, as we planned to go to Sendai that day.  Don and Ada served as mission president in the Hong Kong mission about 15 years ago.  They had one elder in their mission that came from Japan.  He is now living in Sendai.  So we arranged to meet with him and visit his family on Saturday.  What a special day it was!

We met Tomo in the parking lot of the church in Sendai, then followed him to his home.

His wife had a beautiful meal prepared for us and the table set so beautifully.

It was pure joy to be in their home and to feel the light of the gospel there.  We all cried tears of joy. 

Their children are SO cute!

Don, Ada, Hikari, Tomo, and their adorable children.  Hikari served a mission in California and speaks very good English.

It was a privilege for Ken and I to be part of this reunion.

Japanese custom is to walk you out to your car and bow and wave to say goodbye. 

I don't think I've properly captured the joy we felt in this reunion. Let me try again: This fine young father serves in the bishopric of his ward in Sendai (in our stake.)  His wife serves in the Relief Society Presidency.  Can you feel the joy of a mission president seeing them living and raising their family in the gospel?  This, my friends, is what life is all about.

The drive home over the mountain was beautiful.  This is Japan.

We went to dinner that evening at another of our favorite restaurants- Jiros.

Sunday, October 9th

In Japan, we watch general conference a week after it happens at the church on DVD.  We loved introducing Don and Ada to so many of the people we have come to love here in the branch.  They were so loving and good with all of them.  They truly boosted all of our spirits.

Sweet Sister Ikeda has been making many origami cranes to give as a gift to the rest home where her husband stayed at the end of his life.  She is folding a thousand cranes in a rainbow of colors for them to display.  But she loaded both Ada and I with several that she folded during conference.

Monday, October 10th

Ken and Don started Monday with an early morning hike to Kami-ike (pond) 

After breakfast, we went to our Tsuruoka City Park.  It is a beautiful park any time of the year.  It is at the site of an ancient castle.  The castle is no longer there, but the moat is and they put a shrine where the castle was.

Camera War!

I think I won!!

Here you can see the moat behind Don and Ada.

Traditionally, little girls are photographed in kimonos when they are three-years-old, five-years-old, and seven-years-old.  This family was there for their daughter's three-year-old pictures.  We had to take pictures of them.

We then walked over to the Art Center to see what was on display.  We happened into the best display we've seen there yet.  It was a display of art done with torn pieces of paper- no brushes or paint were used.  It is a Japanese art.  We loved it! 

I photographed some of my favorite ones, but there were many, many more.

This one reminded me of a painting my dad did.

This one and the next one were my favorites, I think.  I wish we could buy one to remind us of the Japan we love, but when we inquired, we found they were not for sale.

This lady was one of the artists.  She showed us how you do it. 

It was fascinating to watch her practiced fingers make such beauty.

Here she is with one of the pieces she did.

See that little lady in the middle in the red coat?  As we were leaving, she was coming in.  We work with her at the Volunteer Center.  She(Yoko)  is a fine photographer and actually, as I write this, has a display at this same art center of her photography.  We are going to her show tomorrow- so check back for a post on that!  We just happened to run into her, so introduced her to Don and Ada and took a picture.

Next we walked over to an ancient traditional Japanese school.  It was established here in Tsuruoka by the ruling family hundreds of years ago. It consists of several beautiful ancient buildings.  We have driven by it countless times, but have never gone in.  It is now a museum.  As with all museums in Japan, all of the writing is in kanji, which we can't read, so we only get a small portion of the information.  But it was still very interesting.

The floors inside are all tatami mats, so, as in every home in Japan, shoes are removed.

We then met the elders and Imi and Hiroyuki for lunch at Stamina.  We wanted Don and Ada to experience that Japanese cultural experience.  You choose raw meats and grill them at your table over live coals/flame (this wouldn't happen in America because of safety concerns.)  There are many other foods as well.  You can see the float in front of Hiroyuki.  It is the highlight for Elder Hinton- soft ice cream with soda pop floats.  Well, that and the liver that he grills himself.  I like the sushi and the octopus balls and the sorbets and sherbet for dessert.

After lunch, we took Don and Ada out to meet our recent convert- Dr. Kobayashi at his clinic (they are called hospitals here)  He hadn't come to church the day before and we really wanted him to meet Don and Ada. 

We then headed back to our apartment for our last evening of visiting.  Sweet Remi (a young adult in the branch) was not at church the day before because she was out of town at the wedding of a friend.  She wanted to meet Don and Ada, so she came over to our apartment and we had a delightful visit.  Remi is a breath of fresh air wherever she is.

Don's picture of the sunset.  We live in a beautiful place.

Tuesday, October 11th

We picked Don and Ada up at their hotel at 5:30am the next morning so they could fly out. 

They were flying to Hong Kong to attend a reunion with their Chinese missionaries there.  We hope they had a wonderful time there.

It was sad to say goodbye, but we have so many fun memories.  They brought so much joy and truly boosted our spirits and the work we are doing here.  Thank you, Don and Ada!

They had to leave before the breakfast was being served at their hotel.  They had their meal tickets, so gave them to us.  So after leaving Don and Ada at the airport, we went back to their hotel and enjoyed breakfast and the beautiful view.  If we would have remembered, we could have watched their airplane fly right over us, as this is frequently the flight path.

Tsuruoka from the 8th floor of the hotel.

Again, thank you Don and Ada!!!!!!!!