OF GARBAGE, BASEBALL AND BEAUTY

This has been a week of diversity.  We began on Monday when Calvin went to the doctor because his allergies had flared up into asthma.  The good news was that it hadn't really gotten to his lungs; the bad news, he still didn't feel that great and went home with an armload of medication.  But over the week he has progressed to feeling much better and now just has occasional bouts of coughing spells.  Also good news:  we have Japan medical insurance so a doctor visit complete with chest x-ray and breathing treatment, three medications, and two different inhalers cost about $70.  Not bad.

Garbage -- literally

The Japanese are pretty serious about their garbage and recycling.  I have wanted to post for months about having a big poster on the fridge with many details of when and what to do with your trash.

On Mondays and Thursdays you can put out "burnable trash" which includes food scraps, plastics, and other things that can be burned:

Note:  there are no trash bins, only plastic bags which are certain types of garbage bags you purchase at the store (cheap).  Then another day (you can refer to a chart), it might be bottles:

You put in the bottles (mostly liquor bottles) according to their color into baskets of similar color.  There is also a basket for aerosol cans (not shown).  Another day is PET bottles (recyclable plastic) which ONLY include soda pop and soy sauce bottles(!):

Another day is non-burnable trash.  Another day, metal cans and other metal things.  The days are like:  2nd Tuesdays or 4th Friday or 1st and 3rd Wednesdays.   It is all very confusing and we are always consulting the poster and the calendar to find out what day it is!  But if you should mess us this is what happens:

They refuse to take your bag and it remains there all alone!


Go Rakuten Eagles!

Friday was the big night for President Rasmussen (mission president) and Calvin:  they went to a Rakuten Eagles professional baseball game!  I guess it was all in part of the missionary work (or so they said) because one of the managers got to know the Church's humanitarian person and President Rasmussen was told to keep in contact with him (forget that Pres. Ras is an avid baseball freak!).  So out of obedience they went to the game. . . .

At first they were sitting in the nosebleed section:

But later (because of their connections) were upgraded to box seats behind home plate:

The seventh inning stretch included launching off a bunch of balloons:

And all in all they had a marvelous time.  Side note:  The game ended in a tie and there were NO extra innings!

Good Idea

While the guys were at the game, Sister Rasmussen and I stayed at the mission home and worked on a project for an upcoming youth conference.  I thought it might be something someone out there would like to use.  We used the candy "Hy Chews" (you can get it at oriental food stores).  Then the handout read:  I CHOOSE (Hy Chews) to:  (and it gave a few things they should choose to do)

Relief Society Beauty Workshop

Saturday we had a couple of Beauty Workshops as a Relief Society activity.  One of the RS counselors is a beautician so she had it at her shop (attached to her house) and it was quite fun.  One idea when your polished nails chip:

It might be kind of hard to see but file down the ends of the nails and then add a glitter nail polish on just the tips of all of your nails to make people think you meant them to be that way!

Our group before:

And some of the girls AFTER their 5-minute makeovers:

We actually had an afternoon and an evening session and learned about taking care of your hair and saw our hair and skin magnified through a magnifying camera:

That is someone's  hair and you could see the pores, oils, damaged hair, etc.  It was pretty interesting.  We also saw our skin:  the texture, oils, and wrinkles!

And afterwards we went out for Japanese fast food:

I had spicy noodles  and a couple of large pieces of tempura and it came to less than $5 so not bad!


Exciting Sunday News!

Today (Sunday) we had the stake president and mission president both show up to our Church meetings (along with about 35 young volunteers from Tokyo that we weren't expecting!).  The stake president and mission president didn't even know that each other was coming but afterwards had a meeting and pretty much decided that they were going to open up Ishinomaki (where we are) to the young missionaries soon!  We are so excited because that means for the first time since the tsunami the younger missionaries will be here and we will be able to help them.  This is what we have been hoping and praying for.