Week 25: Food and Dendo Embargo (Week 16 on the field)

Hey,

   

     This week was New Year's, and we had a letter from our mission president telling us not to Dendo during New Year's celebration week. He specifically told all of the missionaries to "go enjoy the culture" and to "go hang out with members" so we were booked for every meal (minus breakfast) from Dec 31 to Jan 3.  New Year's celebration is also HUGE in Japan and everyone wants to spend time with their families so interrupting their celebrations with Dendo would've made a bunch of people mad.  We also spent time with this Eikaiwa member named Taka.  He's fluent in English so we had a great time speaking to him in English and going around to different places.  We went shopping together, invited him over to a member's house for food, and watched projecting mapping (It's like at the Cavs basketball game where during the pregame, they light up the court make it look like it moves or breaks, or cracks).  In Japan, as a culture, we eat Soba (Buckwheat noodle) for New Year's eve and often during New Year celebration week, but in Okinawa, we eat it in an Okianwan way.  This "Okinawa Soba" is super yummy and it had giant pieces of meat included inside of it.  We also had Temaki-zushi, which is a type of sushi where you have ingredients for your hand-made sushi and you take a dry seaweed wrap and stick some rice and some other ingredients  like Sashimi or Cooked sweet egg or cucumber sticks,  and dip it in soy sauce and eat it.  Super yummy!  I highly recommend it!  Actually I love Japanese food so much that I gained 2kg since coming into the field.  I went from 64kg to 66kg.  A kilogram, mind you, is about 2 pounds.  私はふとってる/I'm fat! Help!

    

     We Dendo slammed in Oroku on Friday.  A Dendo slam is where everyone in the zone gathers in one area and proselytize a specific area.  So we Dendo-ed these gigantic Danchi's / apartment complex for 2 hours and we were able to contact over 100 people, get 6 return appointments, and rejoiced while sharing the gospel message.  After this, we gathered together, told the Oroku missionaries the stats, and delighted in a Tim Tam Slam.  A Tim Tam Slam is in our missionary culture where we get Tim Tams and Hot Cocoa and with the Tim Tams, we bit off both ends and suck the hot cocoa as if it were a straw without dropping the Tim Tam into the cup. We had a great time and split.

    

     We also transitioned to 2 hour church this week. With the new announcement in the past General Conference, the church now is 2 hours so we can spend more time with our families then we'd spend the week studying the scriptures so I thought it was interesting.  It felt different just going for 2 hours (Elder Uhlig and I still went to Naha 1st ward along with our Naha 2nd ward so we stayed in the church from 8:30am to 2:00pm).  The point of this change isn't just to shorten church but to strengthen the gospel study in the home.  This is actually putting the gospel in everyone's daily life.  The new "Come Follow Me" curriculum is for every individual.  It will change the dynamic in every home.  I believe in what the prophet says.  As we all study this, we'll come to know Christ better.  I'm sure of it!

Elder Jacob Wilson

P.S.  Elder Uhlig  and my companionship relationship has grown so much that we bought matching shirts... HaHa. I'll put pictures of us next week. 

Shurijo Castle's view

Tim Tam Slam