In the Shadow of Sakurajima: Holiday Season

We have really enjoyed the past few weeks from Thanksgiving leading up to Christmas. There are so many more opportunities to share the message of the birth, life and mission of the Savior during this time. Christmas can be seen all over in the stores and on the streets, and in many homes and apartments with trees, lots of lights, and Santa and his little elves everywhere. The music in the stores and on the streets is a mixture of the songs of the Savior’s birth that we love and often sing in Church, along with the usual Santa Claus songs. But crèche’s, nativities, and manger scenes are not to be found anywhere. We have loved sharing that side of the Christmas message as we visit with people, teach, and visit senior citizen centers. The Church members here also planned and carried out a very nice Christmas open house on the Tuesday before Christmas, since it is a national holiday (the Emperor’s birthday).

On Christmas Eve we had our weekly English class which only had a few people, but was a lot of fun as we talked about Christmas symbols and two of our young missionaries dressed up in Santa Claus outfits and we all went out and walked around the streets singing Christmas songs with a ukulele, shaking hands, waving at people, and wishing everyone a Merry Christmas. People seemed to love it and loved having their pictures taken with the two Santa’s—there were only a few Scrooges on the streets. Our English class students were very brave and patient to be seen with us. We came home that evening and found we had been given a “heart attack” on our front door by some anonymous friends from the church (that’s where they tape hearts and love notes on your door). We were so touched. They are so kind and give so much and we feel like we have so little to give them with our limited language and other skills.

People have been so generous giving us all kinds of fruit and things. The kaki (persimmon) is one of the most frequent things we get, especially from our good friends down street who run the little mom and pop grocery store you saw in an earlier picture. This past week they also had kinkan (cumquats) which was a Deja vous for someone from California. I have good memories of Sue, Honey, Lori, Rich, and I eating cumquats on a sunny afternoon. When I bit into that cute little cumquat, it took me back to my childhood. We also love all the mikans (mandarin oranges) and ringo (apples) and dragon fruits that seem to be so abundant. There are some fruits that seem to be unique to the islands here and we have a hard time learning their names in Japanese or English.

There has been some snow here on the hills and on the volcano and although the temperatures are not too low the humidity makes the cool air seem quite cold, especially since central heating and air conditioning aren’t used here. When its 40 degrees here the chill factor puts the “feels like” temperature at like 30 degrees.

Our grandchildren have been so good to send us cute pictures and notes for both Thanksgiving and Christmas and we have loved sharing them with our friends here.

This next week we move into the big holiday for Japan, New Years or Oshogatsu where everything seems to shut down. We are excited to watch the traditions.