Sakura Festival, 2017

Every year in the spring, Japanese cities and towns host sakura festivals while the sakura is in bloom.  We attended Tsuruoka's at the Tsuruoka City Park on Monday, April  17th.  They rate blossoms by open they are.  We timed it perfectly as the blossoms were 100% open.  Oh my, it was beautiful!

Getting ready to open up the booths

Vendors come from all over to sell their wares.  They travel from festival to festival.

Chocolate-covered bananas

Tacoyaki (octopus pancake balls)  I've really grown to like these.

Fried sweet potatoes

Meat on a stick- yaki niku.

Okonomiyaki

These were kind of a pancake ball.  Later in the day, people were lined up for these.

You can also buy turtles. . .

And fish for your Japanese garden.  People buy them because they eat mosquitos.  They put them in their ponds in their gardens.

Chopped up octopus

The crowds gather

At the banana booth, we purchased chocolate-covered bananas.  You buy one, then Jon kim po (rock, paper, scissors)  with the owner.  If you win, you get a second banana free.  This is Ken jon kim po- ing.  He didn't win.  Tie goes to the vendor.

I chose pink, of course.

This is my favorite place.  The beauty is just breathtaking.

It is very common for families and groups of people to picnic under the cherry blossoms. 

The city puts up hundreds of these lanterns in the weeks before the festival.  I have noticed them in other cities as well.  They signify that a festival is coming.

It was fun to attend the festival and to view the beautiful, beautiful cherry blossoms.  We felt so blessed that we went that day.  The next day a big storm came in with lots of wind and rain and pelted all of those beautiful blossoms to the ground.  So it was a short sakura season this year.  But we have all of these beautiful pictures of it to remember it and our beloved Japan forever. 

This Little Bowl

This little bowl may not look like much to you . . and it isn't .  It's just a cheap (I think we got it at the 100 yen or dollar store when we first came to Japan), plastic bowl.  But she and I have been through a lot together.  She's going to be hard to leave behind when we go home.  She has been full of cookie dough so many times, I couldn't possible count.  I make cookies at least once a week, as I provide refreshments for our English classes and take treats to people as we visit them.  She's been full of puddings, casserole mixtures, cut up vegetables waiting to go into soup that we will take to an impoverished member of our branch at least once a week. She's been full of cleaning solutions of many types, chips, soup stock, bread dough, well, everything.  In making a meal the other night, I think I filled her, emptied her, washed her,  and refilled her with something else six times.   She and I are now on our third hand mixer (we've burned out two making all of those cookies.) She and I are like this.  You can see she's been too close to a hot pan, but I still use her.  She has been on this mission journey with me, and it will be very hard to part ways and say goodbye.  She has become kind of a symbol of this mission for me.  At home, I have a plethora of beautiful stainless steel bowls, one of every size.  I have a set of gorgeous, colorful ceramic bowls, a set of colorful melamine bowls with plastic lids, hand-made pottery bowls, and fancy serving bowls and silver bowls.  This little girl has done the job of all of the above- and done it with finesse!  It's made me realize how much less we really need than we think.  It would be crazy to take her home.  She would be the country bumpkin among my fine city beautiful bowls.  Would I ever even use her there?  And yet, as I said, it's hard to say goodbye to someone who has been through so much with me.  Hmmm . . . Maybe I could display her in my living room curio.  She would only be beautiful to me. She would sit amongst heirloom fine china, dolls and treasures from around the world.  Everyone else would wonder what she was doing in there.  But she and I would know.  So if you come to visit after we're home, don't surprised to see a well-used, scarred plastic bowl displayed proudly in my living room.  Please make her feel welcome in her new home and tell her well done, well done!

Our Last Hurrah!- Sakata Eikaiwa Easter Party

  If you remember, I locked the keys in the trunk the night we were supposed to have the Sakata Easter Party, so we had it the Thursday after Easter.  I didn't realize until I looked at these pictures that almost everyone there was male.  We used to have more women come, but lately, it has been mostly men.  Anyway, here is our Sakata Easter party:

We dyed Easter eggs (The Japanese people's first time ever )

Played Pictionary/Charades with Easter words

Unwrapped the Saran wrap candy ball

Played musical chairs

Taught them a little bit about Jesus Christ and his resurrection and showed them the church's Easter video.  And then ate yummy treats which I neglected to take a picture of- but they were pretty much the same as we served at the Tsuruoka party.

While people had treats and visited, Hiroshi- one of our advanced students, got out his guitar and played and sang.  Soon, everyone was singing along.  It was a great ending to a fun party.
And now we are DONE!  It was our last holiday party to throw.  Yahoo!!!!!!!  Not sad!!! 
We really enjoy teaching the English classes, but haven't loved doing the parties.  They are a lot of work.  When we first came, our branch president asked us to be in charge of the holiday parties at eikaiwa and so we have done them for a year-and-a-half.  We fulfilled the calling and we are now done.  Can I hear a hurray?   How about a Wahoo! 

Tsuruoka Branch Easter Program

On Easter Sunday, our little branch put on an Easter program.  We invited our less active and non-member friends to come and learn more of Jesus Christ. 

Sweet Remi made this beautiful billboard to welcome people who came.

Imi (and some of the other sisters) made beautiful Easter eggs for everyone who attended that day.

The program was based on a conference address given by President Gordon B. Hinckley in April, 2000.  It was his testimony of Jesus Christ and made a beautiful program. He outlined the ways Jesus blesses his life:  Jesus is my loving friend, Jesus is my exemplar, Jesus is my leader, Jesus is my healer, Jesus is my teacher,  Jesus is my Savior and Redeemer, Jesus is my God and my King.  We had narrators read his words in Japanese and then sang a song or songs about each way Jesus blesses our lives.  Following are some videos we took of our choir rehearsals as we prepared for the special program.  The finished program was better, but it gives you an idea. 

It was unifying and a joy to share testimony with these beautiful saints. We had five non-member friends join us for the service, which made us very happy.   We express our love and gratitude for our Savior, Jesus Christ. 

Sakura Party at the Volunteer Center

We volunteer at the city Volunteer center every Wednesday morning.  It has been a fun way to serve and to get to know a lot of special people.  They have two parties a year: One at Christmas and one at Sakura- in other words, when the sakura is in bloom.  I think sometimes for the sakura party they go and eat bentos (lunch boxes) out under the sakura trees.  But weather didn't allow that this year.  It was windy and rainy, so we had our "picnic" indoors.  It was still fun.

The lady sitting across from us asked for my phone and then took about 50 pictures of us. 

Kono san in the middle has been a good friend to me.  Literally NO ONE at Volunteer speaks any English, but Kono san brings her little translator machine and tries her best to communicate with me.  The one on the right is Kadowaki san who you have seen many times on this blog.  She is a dear friend.

The bento box lunch.  It was good.

The crowd.

Everyone brings a little treat to share at these parties.  I brought Next Best Thing to Robert Redford dessert which everyone seemed to love.

Kadowaki san brought these delicious little carved apple pies.  The bottom is a crust and the top a piece of apple she carved to look like a rose.  It tasted like apple pie and was an absolute work of art.

After lunch, we took a picture of the whole crew. 

In the city building where we go, there was a display of beautiful quilts and artwork all done by three generations of one family.  The grandma was the quilter.  I wish I had taken more pictures of the beautiful quilts.

This lady is the "mother" and did the beautiful artwork, using real dried flowers. 

It was a nice ending to a fun party.  We will miss these people.