We have been teaching Kozue's parents the gospel. It has truly been a privilege to teach them. Kozue and her parents recently had us and another couple in the branch to dinner. They live about an hour from our home. They prepared a 5-star Japanese delicious dinner. It was a very fun evening.
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| I took a picture of this beautiful applique rug that Kozue's mom made. |
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| This shows the spoon and chopsticks rest. Those were little delicious treats. The biggest one is marinated seaweed wrapped around a delicious piece of smoked and marinated fish. Inside that cup was a delicious custard with shrimp, mushroom, and edamame. So good! |
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| Marinated and grilled beef steak (so rare in Japan!), Japanese potato salad with tofu, veggies, and a cooked veggie salad. |
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| Japanese soup. The greenery garnish was delicious- maybe the best "lettuce" I've ever eaten. It was kind of spicy and delicious. |
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| This picture shows the red bean rice. |
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| The group with the delicious food. I actually remembered to take a picture BEFORE we ate! Isn't it beautiful? We love these people: Sezas, Takahashis, and Kotonumas. |
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| We went to a little bakery in our neighborhood and ordered a birthday cake as it was Kozue's mom's and Brother Seza's birthdays to take with us. We walked over there three times to get the order just right. Boy, weren't we surprised when Kozue cut the cake and we saw that it was a white cake rather than the chocolate we thought we had ordered! A very common phrase we say to each other is "We're in Japan." It seems we never really know what's going on! But, the cake was delicious, even if it wasn't chocolate. Afterward, Kozue's mom told her that she had never had a birthday celebration before. The chocolate tag says Happy Birthday to Brother Seza and Sister Takahashi . . . we think! |
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| They also served this "jelly" for dessert. |
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| Birthday girl |
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| Birthday boy |
After dinner, we talked Mr. Takahashi into showing us some of his calligraphy. He is a certified calligrapher. It is a very difficult and huge honor to be certified. There is a very stringent test. He took it six times before he finally passed. You can only take the test once a year, so that was over a six year period. In the first picture, he is showing the one character he missed in his fifth try. His teacher had taught it to him wrong, so he got it wrong. That one little character caused him to fail. He was most discouraged. But, he persevered, and finally passed the next year.
At the end, Elder Hinton shared a video and a message from the Book of Mormon. We loved our evening with these dear, dear people! Thank you and Happy Birthday!
3 comments:
Do you know that prickly feeling when you get fascinated by something? I felt that as I read this charming post, almost as if I were there observing this sweet dinner party. I was fascinated looking at the food your host prepared and I would have loved to try it. And that cake!!! So artful and lovely and charming and delicious-looking! What marvelous experiences you two are having together on this mission!
The Japanese food is always so beautiful. I love seeing the pics of the people you talk about in your emails. What wonderful friends you have made.
What a beautiful dinner and birthday cake. The Japanese fppd is always so colorful! It looks like a great celebration and opportunity to share a gospel message - you two are awesome missionaries!! I love the picture of you and Ken at the top of your blog!
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