Independence Day and the rainy season

Missionary Life: It's been a few weeks--OK 6 weeks--since my last post. Missionary life goes FAST, guys. We continue on with lots of studying, taking nursing calls, District meetings, Zone conferences, apartment checks, driving missionaries to appointments when needed, teaching English classes, supporting weekly ward Family Home Evening, planning and attending YSA activities, eating yummy Japanese food, and TRYING to learn the language.

• The missionaries here suggested we have a 4th of July party after our English class on July 3rd.  It turned out that we had been having heavy rain for a couple of days and that kept a lot of people away, but some still braved the weather. We cooked hot dogs and had chips and carrot sticks. Elder Yamanaka gave a US history lesson to the class. He did a great job! Then we taught them the Star Spangled Banner. Everyone seemed to have a good time.

• Our friend, Sister Honda, invited us to visit her friend, Mariko. Sister Honda was a junior high English teacher before she retired. Mariko was a high school history teacher who developed a deep interest in the history of WWII. She began collecting memorabilia and has continued to add to her collection over many years. She is also retired now. She showed us many interesting things--photos, paintings by elementary students, children's clothing with wartime paintings on them, flags given to soldiers with messages from people in their village, record books with names of soldiers who died. We saw many interesting things and will go back again soon to see more. Mariko was so gracious.

                 
                  

                        Sister Honda is on the right, and is a member of the Kumamoto Ward

• Transfers happened on July 11th. Here we are with Elder Yamanaka, Elder Noguchi, Sister Sato and Sister Spendlove. Sister Spendlove is the only one who stayed here. We will miss the others, but know they will do great things in their new areas. 

• One other thing that is part of daily life here is taking care of my 'garden'. We have a very small patio outside our apartment. The patios and decks here are used for drying clothes rather than sitting outside, but I was able to get a tomato plant and it is growing! Two tomatoes so far, with potential for maybe 8 more. 

Japanese Culture: We have been in the rainy season for about the last month. When they say rain, they mean RAIN. There have been a few days without rain, but definitely raining the majority of days. There were a couple of times when it rained so hard that we received multiple warning messages on our cell phones. They would warn about the heavy rain and the danger of flooding and mudslides. There were some areas that had mandatory evacuations, and some that had evacuation recommendations. Our apartment is not in a danger zone for flooding so we didn't have to leave. The missionaries were all safe as well, but it makes riding bikes a tad challenging. 

It also makes for very beautiful scenery!

Well that wraps it up for this post. I hope to be back before 6 weeks next time! I want to leave you with a spiritual thought. Remember, Jesus Christ loves each one of us and he has promised us that if we feast upon His words, they "will tell you all things what you should do" (2 Nephi 32:3) Since I have been out in the mission field, I have taken more time to feast on the scriptures. I'm learning how to pay attention more to those small promptings that come during scripture study and my testimony of this principle has grown. I know it is true. Our lives and those around us will be blessed as we learn to feast on His words. May you find joy and happiness and answers to life's questions as you study the words of Christ.