Mopping up

It is Sunday morning now and I just finished a long hot bath. Maybe it is over indulgence, but it is the first time that I have had to relax on the trip. Friday's meetings went about as advertised, at least with our Ag rep. It was not entirely pleasant. I have reflected several times since the meeting that it is they, somehow, that seem to make the rules of our relationship, not us. I don't know that I have a problem with that in normal circumstances, our ultimate goal is to please our customers, but in this case it seems to focus on them, not the end user. The morning meeting contrasted interestingly with my afternoon visit to our food distributer. Both our distributors have had issues recently with some of our instruments, mostly trouble not of our own making. I was concerned our meeting with them would be as tense and one sided as the one in the morning. I found a completely different spirit during our meeting. It was one of concern (the problem is affecting maybe 30-40% of their business) but a focus on what could be done together to fix the problem. It was very refreshing. I left with a plan to work together to solve the problem and big smiles on their faces.

Last night was suchi fest, or so we call it (we being my Japanese professor friend and me). It came closely on the heals of the Decagon Fun Club meeting. That was what the agenda dubbed the meeting. A whole afternoon spent talking about the results of soil moisture testing. I was a pig in mud. There is very good support for our effort here and a very good understanding of what we have done and what we are working on now. The suchi party was a lot of fun too. I am sure I could keep Ryan and Rachel up all night with nightmares if I told them what we ate, but everything was very good. I must come here too often because I didn't even mind the squid this time. I remember the first time I ate it I was wondering how it would look if I leapt over the Japanese style table I was trapped behind and dashed for the toilet. We actually had an interesting discussion on the church, specifically the Book of Mormon, during dinner, discussing its origins and contents. This often happens because they wonder why we don't drink, etc., but it was spurred on by an Egyptian friend of mine that was quite curious about it. He also related a very funny story about some Christian group that nabbed him at Shinjuku station (a very busy station near by here) and tried (unsuccessfully) to baptize him at their church nearby. Very strange. Well, it is time to get ready to head to the English speaking ward for church. Marie's father was kind enough to send me directions to get there. It is actually really close to where we are staying so it won't be any problem.