More Service
We were again doing wakame (seaweed) service in Omotehama. We are becoming regulars I think. On Thursday the mission president and his wife, the senior missionaries, AP's and most of the zone leaders went to do wakame service. We were also joined by a busload of people from Tokyo. It is interesting that things are quite well organized so when we arrive they already have our names down and assignments for the day. We were with a man named Ito san who is from Kasugai. He is actually not even a member but an investigator to the Church. The interesting thing was that Calvin served in Kasugai 40 years ago. At that time there was only a branch of the Church there but now there is a ward. He was a fun person to be with because he really tried to communicate with us and acted like it was normal to try to speak with someone from another country. Here we are cutting wakame:
We were cutting the ends off the wakame which, as you can see, are long stringy things. On one side there is usually a stem part and the other side is the stringy stuff you see. I never did feel all that comfortable trying to figure out where I was supposed to be cutting so hopefully the buyers aren't disappointed in my cutting job!:
We spent two long days of 8 a.m to 4 p.m. working. They give us a break in the morning and a break in the afternoon and an hour lunch. The places where we worked were small operations with small warehouses and pieces of wood for tables. Luckily the temps were fairly good and we were dressed warmly because it is basically not heated and cement floors.
But the people are always nice and try to give you something to eat for the breaks especially. This first day the lady in charge made us some soup and wakame salad for us to eat along with the lunch we brought.
The next day we went with our branch president and the sister missionaries. The area all along the coast is beautiful. Here is a forklift lifting some wakame and the bay in the background:
That day (Friday) we were working alongside two other elders: Elders Carter and Uchida who are our zone leaders:
Most of that day we were also cutting. But it was nice to have Elder Carter next to me, who is from St. George, and we could have a nice ENGLISH conversation all day long!
The rest of our zone was also there on Friday (and the bus from Tokyo) and this is some of the group:
Unless you enlarge the photo, you may not be able to see that by that time of day (around 5:00 p.m.) it was quite cold and we were freezing!
I am assuming that that was not the last time we go do the wakame service. They seem to need help whenever we can go. It is really not bad work and the people are happy to have us. And the wakame seems neverending!
And yes, we are still eating wakame daily and I quite like it. I am a vegetable eater and this is good eating for me--and very low carbs!
Miracles
So I wanted to tell you about two miracles that happened this week. These might not be the kind of miracles you might imagine we would have but nonetheless they are miracles to me.
The first miracle involves kokeshi dolls. Here they are:
I may have blogged before a little about these dolls but it's been a long time so I will refresh my memory! They are the dolls of this region. The legend is that they were made popular many years ago because this area has a lot of
"onsens" which are natural hot springs. And where the natural hot springs are they have the public baths. And of course these natural hot springs are supposed to be very healthful and relaxing and are the places of choice to visit in the area. Anyway, long ago they began making these dolls to sell as souvenirs at these hot spring resorts. They may have also been used as massage tools after your hot bath.
Every doll is hand made and hand painted. Many artisans have been doing this for 50 or 60 years. Anyway, I was not as much a fan of them when we first got here but they have grown on me as I realized that they were a part of this region that we have lived in and learned to love for over a year. Also there is something about the fact that each doll is an individual just as we are individuals and each different.
So the miracle came that I really didn't want to pay a lot for these dolls so I have been searching for them in second hand stores. I have found a few but sometimes I still had to pay $10 or more for them. This, I guess, is a bargain since they can be $100 or so if they are new but those who really know me, know that I do love a REAL bargain.
Well this week, I was walking to the post office and went by the second hand store and went in. There was a display of kokeshi dolls. Usually they are quite expensive at this store. But to my surprise (miracle of all miracles!) the larger ones in the photo were $1.50 and the smaller ones were 50 cents! Yes, MIRACLE ONE!
Okay, on to the next miracle:
In order for us to get money to live on, we access our credit union back home at an ATM and can get out up to $500 a day. When we arrived 15 months ago, our $500 would get us about 39,000 yen. We were losing about 1/4 of our money in the transaction because the American dollar was so weak. We figured that our $500 was getting us less than $400 worth of goods in Japan plus it was more expensive in Japan.
BUT MIRACLE #2: The American dollar has gotten so strong (stock market is up) that we are now just about even with the Japanese yen! We now get more than $100 more yen per $500 than we did a year ago! This makes a huge difference in our money. Instead of 39,000 yen we are getting almost 50,000 yen for our $500.
I guess I never did realize before that this could make such a difference but it does. It now seems like we can stop worrying about spending so much. Plus the added advantage is that our one year's experience here means we are much more savvy to what is a bargain and what is not. A couple of weeks ago we had the sisters and Marie over for lunch. Marie took one look at my tomatoes and asked, "Where did you get those?" I laughed and said, "I know. I got them at Ujie (a grocery store) but they are cheaper at Ainoya (another grocery store)." She laughed too and gave me that "I'm glad you understand that" look!
In Conclusion
Though we were busy this week, not much noteworthy. But a few tidbits:
*One of our sisters is one of the new sister leaders that the Church has recently created. She is over the sisters in several areas.
*Our apartment apparently has a water problem. Our water bill was five times the normal! But the thing of it is that we are not using water and there doesn't seem to be a leak anywhere (including the toilet) so things are still under investigation. Meanwhile the owner realizes it is not our fault and so is not holding us responsible for the huge bill!
*Yesterday and today we were able to watch general conference with the branch--always nice. But also nice to listen in our apartment on the internet! And -- was that Papparazzi jewelry that the Tabernacle Choir ladies were wearing on Sunday?
*We are also into Marie's wedding reception that is in a week and a half. The whole branch is involved and I love being involved without being in charge! BUT I have to make the wedding cake! I am sure that in two weeks my blog will be pretty interesting!
*At our English class on Wednesday it was on travel so I decided to have everyone come up and put a magnet on a world map where they have been. We had nine people in the class. I think there were 35 or 40 countries that had been visited! We ran out of magnets! These people are world travelers! Every continent except Antarctica was represented several times. We had in the Western Hemisphere: Canada, US, Chile, Peru, Bahamas, Guatemala among others. In Europe: most all countries. Asia: most all countries. Plus Australia, New Zealand, Mozambique, other places in Africa. Really crazy!
*Going to Tokyo this week! Should be some great photo opps!
See you next week with lots to tell!
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