new blog ^_^

My new blog is the same address as the old one--just add "-2" to the end of "amandana3".
Let me rephrase that (sorry for the confusion, Annonymous-san): amandana3 + -2 = amandana3-2. So, here's my new blog's link: http://amandana3-2.blogspot.com

How's the weather?

Let's compare, shall we?
First in degrees C, then in F.
テキサスしゅ、ダラスくらい　に：In Dallas, TX:
Current conditions as of 8:53 am CDT
Fair
Feels Like: 33°C, 91°F
Barometer: 1010 mb and rising
Humidity: 69%
Visibility: 16.09 km, 10 mi
Dewpoint: 23°C, 73°F
Wind: S 23 kph, 14 mph
Sunrise: 6:59 am
Sunset: 8:00 pm
Now今: 29°C, 84°F High: 38°C, 102°F Low: 25°C, 78°F

東京と で： At Tokyo Prefecture:
Current conditions as of 11:30 pm JST
Partly Cloudy
Feels Like: 26° C, 79°F
Barometer: --
Humidity: 74%
Visibility: 9.99 km, 6.21 mi
Dewpoint: 20°
Wind: E 16 kph, 10 mph
Sunrise: 5:08 am
Sunset: 6:17 pm
Now今：25°C, 77°F High: 27°C, 82°F Low: 23°C, 74°F

Compare the "High"s!!!! 38 (102) in Texas, but only 27 (82) in Tokyo!!! I miss Tokyo!!!

oops

Got the time wrong--we got back this morning, not this afternoon. It was great to see my family and Oskarr.
I'm so tired. Tuesday was not meant to last 38 hours...
I'm so glad I missed most of the Texas heat wave. There was a sudden and brief rain storm this afternoon. I fell asleep for a few hours (I always sleep well when it rains).....oops. I shouldn't have. I need to get back into a proper waking/sleeping schedule. Jet lag is an interesting phenomena.
Okay, I'm not very concious right now, so I'll stop writing.

日本語しゃべれますか？ Do you speak Japanese?

I leave for the US tomorrow. Daiju and I will take a bus to the airport early tomorrow morning, and get to Dallas by 3pm CST. I wish the flight really were only 3 hours...but actually it's more like 11 or 12.
When Daiju was still in the US and called me here in Japan, he didn't recognize my voice at first. I had spoken to him in Japanese. My Japanese had improved since I'd been gone. Now I can hold limited conversations in Japanese. God is good.
On Saturday I met a girl (age 20) from France. She lived in Japan until age 6, and is here now for an internship. She said she knows French, Japanese (not much kanji, though), a little Spanish, and a little English. We spoke in Japanese. Yoshida-san (from the church in Dallas) was shocked when he saw that; so was my friend Shigeko's daughter, Junko. It's really funny that French and English are so close linguistically, yet the median we communicated with was Japanese.
The French girl I just mentioned is named Erika. She's reallly pretty, and very pleasant. Daiju invited her to church (she's not a Christian, and had never been to a Protestant church) and she actually came!!! Praise God!!! I hope she keeps going there. Maybe she'll believe in Jesus.
At the church, I re-met Amy--a new missionary to Tokyo. She's been here for like 3 months now and still hasn't had any language training. It's really hard for her. Please pray that she'll pick up the language soon and be able to communicate the Gospel and her testimony effectively.
The せみ (cicadas) are really big and quite loud here. They're drowning out Daiju's piano-playing...
Daiju's mom is a an aroma therapist, but she also does massage. I think she's adopted me as her guinea pig. I was with her for like 2 hours today and she said we still weren't done, but I told her I was done. She was okay with that. She's pretty easy-going, as long as everybody's happy and you eat everything she gives you. She has a certificate to teach English, but she can't really speak it...or read it...or write it...Maybe it's just been too long and too far gone.
This isn't in Japan, but I'm so excited: Fausta accepted Christ and wants to be baptised!! Hooray!!!

recent photos of Amanda's activities in Japan

Here's a picture of me and Fuki on the last day of "Meet Amanda" at Akebono Church. I had the kids decorate postcards with Texas-like pictures and cool Bible verses in English and Japanese. Two of the girls wrote me thank you letters (not on their postcards) and said they wanted to visit Texas someday and serve God like I do!







My last day at Akebono. Mrs. Aiyama and Misaki (both girls are named Misaki) gave me flowers and letters from the kids at the church and I said a final thank to them and to God before I left.
















Me ON Japan. :) ^_^ (this was at a park in Tokyo)
















Me and the monkeys--see/hear/speak no evil!!!
[please excuse the tired face...I hadn't been feeling well that day]

Inaka (eenahkah) = country-side

Hi all.
I finished serving in Tokyo on Sunday. I cried as I left. I loved it there. I knew if was the right time to go, but I still couldn't help but cry. I'll miss them...
Now I'm in Gunma--the real country(side)! I'm so comfortable here. And Daiju's family is really great. They all take really good care of me. They're so calm, too. It's a very relaxing family.
Oh, yesterday we all went to Tochigi (a nearby prefecture [state]). We went to the city of Nikko. There, I got to see all kinds of traditional Japanese things, and Daiju explained them to me. The coolest thing was getting to see the original "see/speak/hear no evil" monkeys! I think he said they're like 400 years old. The temple area we saw was not only a national treasure but a world treasure. Pretty spiffy.
Today Daiju and I met Sayaka's parents with Daiju and then Yuta's sister, Miho. It was really fun to get to talk with them. Last year, when I first met them, I couldn't say much to them, but now I know more Japanese, and Daiju helped translate when I couldn't communicate. It was great.
Miho accepted Christ about a year ago. It was great to be able to encourage her in her faith. And Sayaka's parents were so glad to hear that their daughter has turned down hanging out with friends when she needs to study. All in all, today was GREAT.