I KNOW My Savior Lives

Since we were in Okinawa for Easter, we had a late Easter dinner last Sunday. It turned out more or less like I wanted.

But that's not the point of my post though. The food anyway. I did want to post my testimony of Christ though. It's not often I flat out say "this is my testimony," but I try to show it in the way I live. I do know that my Savior lives. I know that He loves me. I know He died for me, and that He lives again. One of my most favorite parts of my calling is listening to those young kids sing about Christ. You can tell in the way they sing, that they believe what they are saying. Our song for this year is "I Know That My Savior Loves Me." I love when we get to the chorus and they all belt out "I know He lives! I will follow faithfully. My heart I give to Him. I know that my Savior Loves me." My eyes tend to get a little wet every time I hear that. Their testimonies help mine. But like them, I know He lives. I am grateful every day for Him and what he did/does for me.

I Ate What?!?!

Friday night we went out to dinner with some friends. We ended up going to one of those restaurants where you order whatever kind of meat you want, they bring it out, and you cook it right there in the middle of your table. It's actually a lot of fun. Since it was a Japanese place, the menus were all in Japanese. It's a good thing one of our friends grew up here in Japan, so she was able to translate and order for us. Not sure the ordering part was such a good idea though... :)

It all looks decent, right? And for the most part it was. She only ordered a couple questionable things. Most of it was different pieces of beef, chicken, and veggies. Look at that picture above though. In the upper left hand corner. Can you guess what that is? It's tongue. Cow tongue. As disgusting as that sounds, it was alright. Not saying I would eat it again, but it wasn't horrid.

This one on the other hand I will NEVER eat again. It's beef hormone. Yeah, hormones. Like those things that make women all crazy for that one week a month. Apparently it's supposed to help with collagen or something. It's disgusting though. It's all chewy and slimy and yuck! It's one of those things you try chewing but you can't really so you just end up swallowing it whole. Makes me gag a bit just thinking about it.

Dessert on the other hand was fantastic! The smaller little ice creams came with the meal, and I ordered the sundae separately. It was pretty good. It's a place I like eating and the prices are decent. And it wasn't nearly as crowded as I thought it would be for a Friday night. All in all it was a fun night. :)

And The Winner Is...

Last weekend we had the first annual Zama Branch Chili Cook off. I decided that morning that we would go, and found a random chili recipe on line that looked good and easy. It was called "Aloha Chili." It's sweet, has pineapple in it, and was pretty much the best thing ever!

Everyone was saying how great it was, but it wasn't until the awards were given out that I claimed it. I won the "Best Sweet Chili" award. I got a certificate and bottle of maraschino cherries. :)

The small print (for those that can't read it) says: Know all ye by these presents" That the most excellent chef in possession of this coveted award, somehow displayed the cunning and prowess to present a sweet chili and pass it off as unanimously excellent. Truly a culinary wizard, this chef has proven that even an abomination like a sweet chili can appeal to the masses when done correctly.

The brother in the branch who put it together is from Texas and takes pride in his chili (he won two of the categories, plus the overall chili), hence why he doesn't think a "sweet" chili is really a chili. The judging was done by the missionaries and a few others in the branch and no one knew who's was who's, but they did mention afterwards, if they had known that the best overall chili was this particular brother's they would have picked mine. So technically I got 2nd place overall, but there's no prize for that. Naturally I had to give him a hard time that my "totally random- 20 minute- sweet chili" recipe almost beat his "award winning-takes all day" recipes. It was all fun though. The winning was great, but I have fun just cooking for people anyway. :)

Under The Sea

I tried posting these a couple days ago, but it was having issues. But anyway, these are videos I took while snorkeling out at Torii Beach. I didn't see any cool fish or anything this time, but it was still fun trying out the underwater feature of my new camcorder. :)

Ok, so only one video wants to post. I've got the second one on my Facebook page if you are really interested though. :)