An International Experience

This will be highlights of three posts I should have written last month but haven’t found the time and now I just need to get down what I can before I forget anymore of the details.

On June 17th Keelin, my mom, and I went to the Maria Loma assembly hall to pick up our delegates, Toshiko and Kumi. I expected everything to be organized, but the precision of everything, right down to where we parked was amazing. When others used to talk about the emotion involved in having delegates I thought it was so cheesy but it really does get to you. When the group our delegates were with were brought up onto the stage everyone cheered, we were so excited that they had arrived and so nervous. Toshiko and Kumi spoke pretty much no English and prior to their arrival we had not learned a single Japanese word (go us)

Wednesday was spent with them settling in and us trying to figure out how we were going to make them comfortable for the next 5 days without being able to communicate with them.

Thursday afternoon was the first part of the convention. We are always so disorganized the first day of the convention and being responsible for delegates and having a baby to get ready for the first time made it that much more stressful but we made it to the Long Beach Convention Center on time, made sure Toshiko and Kumi found their arena, and we found seats all before the start.

Friday and Saturday went fairly smoothly. We never managed to leave the house as early as we wanted but we made it in plenty of time, and had no trouble finding seats.

Sunday the Woody decided to break down on us when we were about half way there. A sister from my old hall recognized the truck and stopped and took Toshiko and Kumi the rest of the way and got them there on time, a sister from our hall was able to pick Keelin and I up and we managed to find seats just before the start of the program thanks to another family in our hall.

Keelin was a very good baby. She took great naps all 4 days, only having trouble going down a couple of times, I probably only missed about an hour of program each day and that was because of time spent nursing her.

Dinner each night was super fun. Thursday we went to the Yard House and I think it was there that everyone started to relax and figure out how to communicate with each other.
Friday we had 2 other couples over that had delegates from Japan and Toshiko cook dinner for us, it was so yummy. I wish I could have watched her make the rice because I am lousy at making rice but Keelin was more interested in filling her belly then letting me learn how cook. Saturday we went to a BBQ place (keelin does not like the taste of BBQ sauce) and Sunday we did a quick “Mexican” BBQ at out house and then went to a congregation gathering for dessert.

Monday Toshiko cooked breakfast for us, it was delicious (can you tell I love food). That was their only free day before heading back to Japan so we decided to show them as much of L.A as we could in one day. First we went to the Griffith observatory, then Hollywood, then Universal City walk, and then to Santa Monica. I think Keelin was a trooper. She got fussy when we got to Santa Monica, I got her to sleep but then she woke up when we were sitting by the ferris wheel and went crazy over the pretty lights. When we walked away from the ferris wheel and headed to the restaurant she lost it. I think that is the worst melt down she has had and I felt so bad for her. She had pooped which only made things worse but once I got her clean I found a place to sit she nursed and feel asleep and when she woke up in the morning she was as happy as ever so I am assuming we did not do too much damage.

Tuesday morning we had to take the Toshiko and Kumi back to Maria Loma and say our good byes. It was such a sad day. In 5 short days using the few Japanese words they taught us, the little English they knew, and lots of gestures we grew so close to them. Thanks to the internet I hope we are able to keep in touch but I wish we could have had more time with them here and in our home.

I think we grew a lot during the time with them, there is so much more that I wanted to write about but it’s late and I need to get up and work in the morning. I hope we have the opportunity to host delegates again when Keelin is older and can remember.

I have about half the pictures uploaded into an album titled international, I will put up a link on the side and hopefully get the other half uploaded and labeled soon.