こんにちは!
If you're wondering why you didn't get an email on Monday, the subject line says it all! Well, that and we had zone conference yesterday, so we had to wait until today for our P-Day.
Spiritual Stuff:
Yesterday's zone conference was absolutely amazing, as expected of President and Sister Esplin. I really like one of the analogies that was shared. Forgive my summary, it was in 日本語 (nihongo= Japanese language) so I probably missed a few details 
. The penguin says the earth is white. The monkey says it's green. The camel says it's brown. And the astronaut says it's blue. All have different opinions and think the others are wrong because that one color is all they know. However, even though they all have different perspectives, none of them are wrong. The earth is white, green, brown, and blue. It's the same with the gospel. We may all have different perspectives and interpretations, but that doesn't mean that we're all wrong. It also doesn't mean that just because someone thinks about the gospel differently than us that we can just assume that they are completely wrong. If we do that, we miss out on seeing the bigger picture. Just as God sees the complete picture of the earth, he sees the complete picture of the gospel. He knows all parts of both, and no matter what we may think or how we may interpret the scriptures, both He and the basic truths of the gospel will never change. It is well worth our time to listen to the perspectives and opinions and others so that we can get closer to seeing that complete picture that God sees.
Daily Life/Fun Stories:
As to why we were harvesting rice on Monday, it's the other area's fault lol. A member of their ward's parents, who live in our area, own and take care of 2 rice fields with 2 other couples. They produce enough rice to be a year's supply for all of them. So, as service, we went and helped with the harvest as a district. Harvesting rice involves long pants and long sleeve shirts (even in feels-like-95-degrees weather), rain boots or made-specifically-for-rice-
A part of harvesting rice is, of course, standing in the rice paddies. They must have drained it in preparation because it wasn't literal water. It was, however, a lots of deep, shoe-sucking mud. And yes, I personally experienced that shoe-sucking. Multiple times. Basically every time I wanted to move. Three of those times I was stuck so hard that when Ogata姉妹 tried to pull me free my foot came out and landed in the mud. I was so tempted to just take off the other boot, but it wasn't a good idea for reasons given in the list below...Creatures I saw in the rice paddies:
-crickets/grasshoppers
-very large praying mantis
-lots and lots of dragonflies
-lots and lots and LOTS of spiders, of all different shapes, sizes, and colors. Also all different abilities, such as running very fast or jumping.
-zarigani, which is a Japanese crazyfish. Red and big enough to eat if one desired. One of the 長老たち in my district picked one up and just stuck it in his pocket... We didn't see him take it back out again...
-crabs! Small, freshwater ones that didn't really care if they were picked up.
-small, green, adorable frogs that I wish I could have taken home with me.
Last week was transfer week, which means the district changed and the mission got more bean-chans! For our district, the transfer meant that we are now half bean-chans and half trainers (see pic). It's super unusual, but also cool because I get to see 2 people who were my 後輩 at the MTC! (後輩= underclassmen used in more contexts). We all felt kind of bad for them because their first Monday wasn't P-Day and they had to spend it working in a rice paddy in the heat of 日本.
Actually, this past week there were a few days we didn't turn on the AC for a couple hours! And today is positively cool, though according to Ogata姉妹 it's cold 
. Fall officially starts on Saturday, so it shouldn't be a surprise, but it is pretty weird considering how I started off my time in 日本 (with feels-like-101-degrees weather and 100% humidity, all day every day).
The other day we were walking through the shopping area under the 駅 and saw literally the biggest spider I've ever seen in my life. Maybe some tarantulas in zoos come close, but this spider literally had a diameter as long as from the bottom of my palm to my middle knuckle. It was headed in the direction of a store, and all I could think was, "well, I'm never going shopping in that store." I also unfortunately, in my shock, neglected to take a picture.
Last P-Day we finally had all the ingredients, so we made sugar cookies! The kind with lots of sugar, not the kind with frosting. And for those who are not aware, microwaves in 日本 have an oven function, which is how it was even possible to make cookies in the first place. However, we did not have a cookie sheet, so we had to use wax paper on the rotating microwave plate instead, which led to the cookies being perfect on top and barely cooked on the bottom (they still tasted good, though). We also did not have a mixer or electric beaters, so I had to become a human mixer with a rice paddle as my beater (see pic). It was worth it to see the faces of the people we gave them to, though.
I finally got to try legit katsudon! (See pic). And the reason this ended up in this section is because of how close it was to K's Kitchen in Provo. It was pretty much exact, actually. Even had the same types of side dishes! For anyone in/near Provo looking for legit Japanese food, I highly recommend it! Maybe the only difference, actually was that K's Kitchen provides a spoon for those who can't use chopsticks .
New Foods:
-that legit katsudon!
-eel tenpura. Completely not what I was expecting and also delicious.
-soba
-cream pan (bread), which is basically a roll filled with custard and delightfulness.
-Japanese grapes (see pic), from a member in the missionary fruit basket (that really should be called something different cause we get all kinds of edible goodies)
About the Pictures:
- These are Japanese grapes. And that is my hand. Yes, they're actually that big and round. And they're also the best-tasting grapes I've ever had.
- Tenpura and soba! The eel is the long one on the left with dark brown along the edge.
- Pictures really don't do Odawara's mountains justice.
- Sometimes Google Photos puts a panorama picture together for me. it's not perfect, but it's actually pretty good.
- This transfer's district!
- Human mixer at work.
- Katsudon!
- The cookies baking in the oven, I mean microwave.
- Love Odawara's sunsets.
- Rice harvesting crew! You can't really tell but there's actually a small rainbow behind us... Also, my gloves were white when we started...
愛してます!
-スナ一姉妹
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