Laden with Sheaves

Heyyo!

We were laden with sheaves this week. Literally. We helped a member harvest rice. It was fun and a great service opportunity. I got to use this awesome machine that pulls in and cuts the rice stalks, binds the sheaves, and spits them out. It was way fun. But if you thought Takenami Eki had some spiders, woo boy. A freshly harvested tanbo (rice field) is literally crawling with them. You take a step and see about thirty spiders move.

We also spent some time preparing for the Halloween Party that our branch held. We had balloons with candy, a cardboard haunted house, bobbing for apples, and some sushi even made an appearance. It was really fun and it has opened the doors to our Eikaiwa students that came to hear the Gospel.

One such family is the Fuchino family. The father is pretty against the Gospel, but we talked to him yesterday about holding a Family Home Evening. He said that it would probably be alright! We are so excited because the Fuchinos have been in contact with the missionaries for awhile, but it has been difficult to get the Gospel in the door. We are shooting for an FHE on Sunday with them. Hooray!

This week while preparing for the Halloween Party, we had to blow up some balloons that came out to be as big as my torso. Shoda Shimai, Jindo Shimai's 95-year-old mother, was terrified of the balloons. Jindo Kaicho's son, Achi Kyodai, blew up a balloon really big and said, "Grandma, Look!" Were face turned to sheer terror and he started laughing super hard. Shoda Shimai was also our welcome witch at the Halloween Party.

We went to Jindo Kaicho's house for dinner on Saturday night with Kato kyodai and his family. Kato Kyodai, now Kato Choro, left for his mission this morning, so we had dinner with his family. During that time we were talking about Kato Kyodai's grandma that lives with them. She is 85 and Shoda Shimai said, "Oh she's a lot older than me." Jindo Shimai turned to her and said, "How old do you think you are?" (Believe me, it sounds nicer in Japanese) Shoda Shimai said "I don't know" then Jindo Shimai told her she was 95 years old. Then Shoda Shimai said, "Oh really?" It was really cute and funny.

I noticed that night at Jindo Kaicho's house what a profound love I have for Nakatsugawa and the people here. It's hard to discribe, but I love all of them so much. It's pretty crazy, really, this feeling is. Sorry for the weird sentence. Sometimes Japanese is spoken like that.

Well that's it for now. I read the other Elder Sanderson's blog and I'm happy to hear he is doing better. Good luck to him out there. Love you all.

Love,

Elder Sanderson