Mitsu-chan ate my donuts

I really like my host family. They are so kind and patient and understanding--just wonderful people all around. But their dog, Mitsu, has a lot of growing up to do.
Mitsu barks loud and often. She jumps onto the table and eats a whole plate of food in seconds. She seems to take a long time to warm up to people. She took my shoes. She stuck her face into a guest's bag and tried to pull out some goodies. She barked many times over during the prayer at our Bible study.
The donuts weren't actually mine. On Saturday, I went shopping with Yuko and her daughter, Erika (Shindo-sensei's family). We went to Mr. Donut (a popular donut shop who's name I am sure I misspelled somehow). I just got a shake, but Erika got a little box of donuts. She couldn't eat them all in one sitting, and her mother's arms were already occupied by Erika, so I volunteered to keep them in my backpack.
Yuko had to rush to get a train back to her place (that's a WHOLE 'nother story!), and I forgot to hand off the donuts to her. She called me later and told me to eat them for breakfast on Sunday. Mitsu had other plans...
I set the donuts on the table. They were in a bag. I just left them for a minute. When I returned, the entire bag was empty and paper was hanging out of Mitsu's mouth. I looked up the word 'vomit' in my bilingual dictionary so I could warn my host mother. She was shocked, as always, by Mitsu's behavior, but said Mitsu wouldn't vomit.
Since then we have been taking extra precautions to protect our food from Mitsu.

Yesterday I stayed at a friend's house overnight. We had dinner at midnight. I was the only one there who thought that was strange. When I told them that I and many other Americans often have dinner around 7pm, they thought that was quite early. When I mentioned my family prefers 5pm, their jaws dropped. [note: another Japanese family I stayed with is accustomed to eating at 6pm, so I think it just depends on the family and the age of the kids]

Today I drank kelp tea. It looked like a ball of moss in light green water, smelled like the ocean, and tasted salty. All around, not that bad. I actually kind of liked it (not that I'm requesting it or anything--I just don't mind it).

This past weekend was really busy and kind of hard, but it was a lot of fun and I learned a lot.
When I gave my testimony in Japanese on Friday night (I just read Daiju's translation of it...), I was so scared. I hated how hard it was just for me to read a piece of paper. I don't know how my international friends can memorize whole presentations for college in the US. Several times, I seriously considered stepping down. I genuinely wanted to give up. I wanted someone to walk up their and take the paper from me, to put me out of my misery. But each time I was tempted to step down, I took a deep breath, swallowed my frustration, and remembered one very important thing: THIS is the whole reason I am in Japan! I came here to share the good news with Japanese people--the good news of His grace, what God has done in my life.
Jesus Himself said, 'What should I say? Should I ask to let this hour pass from me? No, it was for this very reason I have come.' (see John 12:27-30)