Day 19 - Meeting in Mito & Ramen

Saturday September 19th 2009

We left really early that morning and headed to Mito, Japan. It’s about 3 hours southeast of Haruna. We always enjoy the drives, because it lets us see a lot of the country. Our meeting started about 10:30. We were very excited when we found out it would be in English. So far there have been some times when it’s really hard to feel like we are worshiping or participating when a class or sermon is in all Japanese. So today we will soak it all up.

The class was on discipleship. It was so encouraging to hear Brother Rich Little’s words. We really felt that we needed to hear this right now. We met a lot of people that day.

We also met a few other new missionaries. It was nice to swap stories and get some good advice from them. I can’t tell you how encouraging it was to see people that have lived and dedicated their whole lives to mission work in Japan. Amazing. The meeting seemed to go by so fast. And soon we were ready to head back home. What a wonderful day so far.

On our way home Obata-san decided to treat us to Ramen. YEAH!! Paul has been waiting to have a big bowl of delicious Ramen. We waited this long, because we wanted to try GOOD ramen our first time so that we wouldn’t be disappointed. We stopped at a rest stop I have to say I was a little leery at eating ramen at a rest stop, but Obata-san assured us it was good. Actually this spot, Sano, is quite famous for its ramen. MMM… we are really excited. We had to go up to what looked like a vending machine. It had all the different types of food you could order. Obata-san placed his order then passed half of the ticket to the lady in front of the ramen kitchen. Soon they called our number. It was a mad house in there. There were yellow lines on the floor to let people know where to go.

Paul and Obata-san brought back 3 huge bowls of wonderful shoyu (soy sauce broth) ramen. It was really hot (temperature hot). We took a big bit of noodles. YUMMM. It was really good. Its the best ramen we’ve ever eaten. Ok its the only fresh ramen we’ve eaten. I don’t think I will count the store bought brick of ramen we had eaten in the US before. This was the real deal. So with our bellies full of delicious ramen we headed down the last stretch of road towards home.

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