Bittersweet

September  4, 2011

ohhh hellooo

How's it goin? I'm drippin' pourin' in rain (Typhoon Talas rolled through Southern and Central Japan yesterday).  I tried to start some Eminem lyrics, then thought twice about it haha.  But the typhoon isn't too bad up here.  It's extremely windy and rainy haha. Dad, I've talked to the Allred family twice! The mom is WAY hantai (opposed) against missionaries.  And the dad lives in Riverton.  They have a son my age, and we visit him and their older brother.  That's so crazy.  We haven't gone sightseeing yet.  There's not much in Kasugai to see.  We might go to a castle next week.  Sounds like everything is goin' great at home! That sounds like a lot of fun.  In a package, all I can think of is like a baseball and batteries.  They're expensive here.

So this week was very up and down and bittersweet.  We started with dinner at the Tozaki`s.  We had okonomiaki [Japanese pancake made of egg, flour, seaweed, soy, cabbage, ginger and octopus], which is way good, but he gave me 24 pieces of it.  I felt sooo sick after, I had to be polite...grrr. It was way fun and good though.  He finally agreed to read the scriptures with his wife because we all shared our favorite scriptures.  He loved it.

We did some volunteer work. We did some landscaping for a bunch of old ladies.  It's really different doing that for old ladies and with a companion, rather than for a Polynesian and working (wink wink) with them haha.

So there is this way awesome guy in our ward, Aoyama Kyodai.  He's like 70, has no teeth, and speaks great English.  He is a hoot.  He loves to mess around.  When he came with us one day, he was hopping fences! Haha it was crazy.  I showed a picture of our family to him, he looked at Caroline and said, "she's just my type, she is the sunshine of my soul, tell her hi for me." hahaha it was so funny.

So I did it, the KING challenge.  First tho, on the way, I swerved out of the way of a truck and when I tried coming back up onto the curb, my tire didn't make it over the lip, so I started falling over.  Before I even knew it, I was standing on two feet, it was crazy! Haha I just reacted and didn't even notice.  But the king challenge, it's a bowl of rice and thin slices of beef.  It's about the size of a strainer.  But every missionary in this mission has to do it.  It was so hard haha.

We had a fun district meeting.  It was Elder Jackson's birthday, and dad told me to take us out to lunch.  So we went to a shabu shabu tabihodi [all-you-can-eat boiled meats and vegetables in different sauces].  Sooo good! Everyone kept thanking you dad, it was awesome thanks a lot.

So Sunday was way bittersweet.  We met Kanda and he said he loves the scriptures and knows it's true, but he doesn't have time anymore.  And he had a baptismal date. So we got dropped.  The Shinodas came to church, but jetted out right after and blew their appointment off.  We got a new investigator, who gave us the wrong number.  We met with a less active, but his wife who's a nonmember didn't show up.  That's pretty bittersweet if you ask me.  Haha.

Well I'm super glad to hear how everything is.  That's the update from the wonderful area of Kasugai!

Elder Parry