food blog

Miso Ramen. Best combo ever

Looks like wild rice, doesn't it?

Yup that's salmon 

weekly mission email

Just some notes from this week's adventures:

Bought the Wartortle and Charizard at the book store. Lost my
companion, then waited 20 min at the apartment until he found me.

It rained hard in the afternoon, and we were blasted with wind at
night. Typical Yokkaichi weather.

We made a vision/plan for execution for Yokkaichi. We're gonna combine
our previous plan with the 7 Steps Program for the members with a new
Eikaiwa plan.

Go out on an adventure with Elder Garry and an old member: first out
to talk to a sweet non-member who is a professional Go player, then
out to rip some chainsaws on the trees in the backyard of another LA
member. The member we went with was way cool, and told us he'd be down
to teach how to make soy sauce, vinegar, wine, sake, cheese, and such
with an investigator anytime. I also got a promise to learn Go from
the professional sometime; sneak the gospel into that conversation
somehow.

Watanabe looks at a scripture and says, "That's funny. I wonder why
there's no laying on of hands in my church. I'll ask tomorrow." She's
so good, pure, and sweet but just can't seem to get into her head that
she needs to do more than just study and believe the BOM, she needs to
take action to follow its principles. Right now it's more like a
'that's interesting, our churches are different' kinda thing.

愛しています！

カードん長老から
Elder Cardon

food blog

peach cobbler 

salads galore

More health 

Pretty healthy Ramen from home 

And some more 

We had Mexican at a member's this week! 

That stew was made from scratch, on the spot, with no thought for ingredients and it turned out to be the best stew I've made

Craaaaaazy food-meeting held after church. Pasta, rice, and raw veggies, mostly. 

weekly email

It was Elder Orton's birthday! The 13th. Elder Gary and I snuck out
again to prepare a special treat for Elder Orton: peach cobbler. It
took a long time to find peaches, and they were expensive. We all sat
around the table and ate straight from the pan with spoons.

Elder Arscott blew it. His front tire popped like it was sniped by the
police. Luckily, a long-past missionary had his bike stolen in the
area, and the police literally started calling this week saying they
found it. A nice Giant which tire matches Arscott's Louis Grandeau
pretty well. The question is whether to steal parts from the Giant and
salvage the Louis for a few transfers, or switch over to the Giant and
ditch the Louis.

Koji-san scare. Our baptism-date investigator came in Wednesday night
all fidgety and talkative. He's usually fidgety because he's slightly
handicapped, but not very talkative. Not like this. He just started
spouting for a good twenty minutes or so about some problem with his
parents, saying he couldn't meet anymore and would have to cancel all
the plans and such. What? No! So we called his mom the minute she got
off work (Kou-san is extremely punctual); she turned out to be
literally the nicest lady we have ever talked to in Japan. She said
things like, "I'm not even against him getting baptized at all," which
is unusual in Japan. The only problem she had was that Koji probably
shouldn't ride his bike at night--it's unsafe for him. So can we do
lessons on Saturday or Sunday afternoons from here on out? Whew.
Koji-san really blew that one up.

Holland Conference was cancelled!!! We had a special Nagoya Mission
Conference with Elder Holland coming and it was all cancelled a few
days before!

Last 10 minutes of the night, we're en route home and OYM one last
guy--a businessman. Businessmen are tough because they never want to
talk or listen, and always reject the hardest. This guy stopped for a
bit. Said he was busy, but would listen for about one minute. We get
talking and he shows some interest in Christianity. Actually said he
has wanted to learn about it but he's never had the time. This guy
literally owns several big companies and travels between four homes
across the island. You could tell by his posture, way of speaking, and
the fat Rolex on his wrist he is rich. Way cool! We exchanged numbers
and may get a follow-up. So ecstatic that we actually got a
businessman.

Elder Holland Conference is back on! It actually happened. We heard
the morning prior that everything was out back and would happened as
planned.

Guess what?

I've officially shaken an Apostle's hand, looked him in the eye, and
talked to him. It was seriously intense. I'm gonna have to get back to
you on the details of that whole conference.

愛しています！

カードん長老から
Elder Cardon

Elder Orton

I'll sneak another picture later. He wears a cool U of U hoodie around the apartment 

Elder Orton is from Heber. 

His parents are Alexandria and Nate.
It's his birthday today! Happy bday Elder Orton, turned 20! But maybe not technically until tomorrow cause he's born in America 

He's going to the U in fall semester. Returns home at the end of July 

Weekly Mission Email

Yokkaichi: 

Learned basics of break-dancing the first night 

There's a market down the street that sells everything twice as cheap as anything in Ueda 

This place is a city (I mean, Ueda was a city, too, but there are actual people out and about at night) and looks like SO much fun. 

Yup. Four people in one apartment is crowded. Especially sleeping-wise. 

There are about 150 members, a plethora of programs and ready tachiais, investigators, etc. This area has a solid base. 

Our apartment is 100% white American male. 

The new schedule is all whompus, and we're still trying to figure it all out along with the new Eikaiwa programs, and then balance that between a split Zone Leadership's responsibilities and a District Leader on top of that, too. It's busy work. 

Yokkaichi is an actual ward. An actual ward. It was so weird to come and participate in an actual Ward Council Meeting or whatever I'd heard so much of in America at the MTC. I actually may get a semi-normal missionary experience (as compared to the American missions). 

I landed in a musical apartment. We've got music playing all the time here (church themed, of course. For the most part). Speakerphone, music libraries, CD players, the works--we got a bajazzle of party materials and we're not afraid to use them.

Elder Orton had to complete some housing application for the U of U Honors Housing. I didn't know he was going to the U. Actually, not only is he going to the U, he's majoring in Mechanical Engineering--and part of the Honors Program. Basically what I was going to do before switching to Metallurgical. Whoa! Twinners. 

I saw a baptism! Brother Itou got baptized! Whoohoo! Go Yokkaichi! Missionary work is on fire here! 

Funny story: 

We went out Sunday night to deliver heart attacks (for Valentine's Day) to members--hit up four houses. Hahahaha you absolutely cannot doorbell ditch in Japan; the people just aren't accustomed to that. We went to doorbell ditch our first house. First time we ran away and waited a couple minutes but nobody came out. We thought I had just pushed the button wrong--it didn't actually ring or something. This time Elder Orton goes and ditches it. Runs away, we wait, but nobody is coming out. Wha? Orton tries again, but this time waits until somebody calls at the box asking who's there. "The missionaries!" and runs away. Hahaha the father peeps out the window on the top floor and sees him running away, calls after him, and is so relieved to realize that it was just the missionaries. Hahaha he, his wife and family had honestly thought a creeper, thief, or other was playing a sick joke on them and was out to get them. The wife had been with the four small kids towards the back of the house, hiding. We felt so bad! It was all good though; they invited us in, we shared snacks and cocoa, had a improv lesson and bore testimony, and in the end received an invitation to come back for an actually dinner plus lesson later on. Sweet!

The work here is moving forward in marvelous ways. I'm so glad to be a part of it. 

愛しています！ 

カードん長老から

Elder Cardon 

Sweet Yokkaichi view we caught the other day

food blog

Not much this week, actually.

A fancy okonomiyaki

Horse-meat udon. This was delicious. Probably the most delicious meat I've eaten.

Last minute college pizzas 

Fried rice again

Tuna, cheese, lettuce, avocado sandwich

We are trying as an apartment to go into healthy overdrive. Plus lunches are only 30 minutes so creativity is getting hard. We'll see where it goes from here. 

food blog

Well we bought cheese so why not an instant pizza? 


Oooooh boy. Oh boy I did it. Oh, man. I made the most Mexican thing I've ever eaten since before the MTC. Dad, you know that Doria recipe on iCloud? Well, I used that as a base and tweaked as I went. Oooh, man. I felt I was eating at Cafe Rio with my Mexican rice, beef, and peppers topped with cheese and egg. I snuck a secret cream sauce in the middle to help thing a bit. Oooh. And then I had a leftover sprite can, so I made a Fanta orange soda (combining with some sweetened orange juice) to go on the side. Oh jeez. That hit the spot. That was it; I'm good for cooking now. I can just stop there and be happy. Ooooh. And the egg was so perfectly cooked, too! It got to that perfect in-between stage where it's definitely not runny, and definitely not cooked--it just has enough goo to slowly ooze over the side if you let it. I'll have to explain what adjustments I made because y'all gotta try this! 

Adjustments:

I used a the equivalent of 1/4 large green pepper and 1/4 large red. 

Substitute chicken for mincemeat; not very much--about enough for one hamburger patty. When thrown in the pan all the ingredients were about equal proportion. 

Substitute spaghetti sauce for ketchup. Either works, I think. Just enough to coat the rice, but not heavily. 

Add Death Sauce (something similar to Tabasco sauce or Sriracha) to pump the spice into the rice mixture. 

Also add black pepper and chili pepper. Season to taste, depending how spicy you want it. 

First, take the meat mix and lay it in bottom of rice cooker. Then, cover with the rice mixture and spread evenly, perhaps even patting down a bit to give a solid base. 

Then comes the secret sauce. We had no milk, so I used water instead and increased the other ingredients: double the butter and like triple the flour. 

Smooth that out over the rice mix. 

Last, take a couple eggs and crack 'em over the secret sauce. To ensure they don't run off to the sides, I dug little ruts into the rice for them to stay in. It's good for the whites to spread all around. 

Cover that with good (I used Gouda) cheese. Probably not pure cheddar. Thinking more a white or Mexican cheese. Sprinkle cheese with garlic, parsley, black pepper (and others if preferred). Put in rice cooker and cook on regular rice setting. 

Here we have a brownie-like pancake I made on the spot.



If you can tell, it really wasn't all that great.  Honestly.  (Talking about the fish.)

weekly email

I've been transferred!

YOKKAICHI,!!! 四日市‼️with an Elder ORTON,!!! Companion with the new Zone
Leader! Wow! I'm SO excited for this! Yesssssssssssssss!!

In other news:

We were exchanging sheets at a local clinic on Thursday morning, and
in one of the rooms there was a marvelous view through huge glass
windows of a house caught fire on the mountainside. It was a truly
spectacular sight.

Roses are Red
Violets are Blue
Man I stink at Poems
I done messed up

I tried to introduce the classic Valentine's poem to my Eikaiwa
students, but they just couldn't get it, and I couldn't think of any
good examples on the spot! It turned out alright in the end, though,
because I brought American candy to share and they all liked that.
We had two new students show up this week who we are all very excited
for! A father and son who hail from Taiwan decided to join our class.
How cool is that? I can't even pronounce their names.

I recently uncovered an inexplicable love for sweet potato.

DTM was amazing this week because we got blasted with a surprise
announcement: not only is Elder Baldwin (DL, former AP) going home
next week but his companion, Elder Passey (who has only been out for a
little over a year) will also be returning to America next week! So
the companionship that whitewashed into Nagano together will be
whitewashing out together. Wow. Man, what spiritual giants they are.
We'll sorely miss them both.

Hey, word of the day: sanguine. Example given: I wish to ever be
sanguine in the work of the Lord. Hahha I found this word when looking
into the teachings of Brigham Young. People back in the day were so
descriptive.

Below: the Eikaiwa Valentine!