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.

kids say the darndest things

I'm gonna try to remember all the cool stuff the elementary-school age kids at church have said to me...(oh, BTW, '-chan' is kind of like '-y' in English...i.e. 'kim' > 'kimmy')
Today, Chi-chan asked me if there McDonald's is in America.
On Saturday, I was talking with Seika-chan's aunt about forgeting languages. She said she's almost completely forgotten English, and I said I've forgotten most of the Spanish I learned. Then Seika-chan said, 'Have you forgotten English, too?' NO...it's my language!!!
The kids are amazed by the funniest things. Some are amazed that I speak Japanese, others are amazed that I speak English. Eyes gaped and jaws dropped when they saw my journal was all written in English. My pick (comb) had girls calling their friends over to come and see the American's comb.
Seika-chan looked at my eyes for a long time and then said, 'Your eyes are blue, aren't they.' Yes... 'Do you see different colors than I do?'

But adults have interesting comments, too. I'm often asked if my hair is permed or died or if it's natural (さいごだよ). I'm often told I have long legs (or feet...both are true, technically...in Japanese, your foot is part of your leg in that there's only one word which encompasses both of them...........So, if you're told you have ながい　あし　[long legs/feet], you'll just have to guess how to translate that into English....my guess, in this case, is legs). I'm asked at least once a week if I can use chopsticks. Everyone wants to know if I'll eat sushi.

And I have made countless mistakes myself. When choosing my Yukata (summer kimono; traditional Japanese dress), I said I wanted the eel (unagi) one instead of the bunny (usagi) one. I misheard the word for 'cool' (temperature) and thought someone said 'shameful' [suzushii VS. zuzushii]. I tried to read a menu...I read that the dish had a pocket (poketto) instead of potato (poteto). Instead of saying 'I forgot it' (wasureta), I said 'I haven't memorized it' (oboretenai).

God is good...all the time!
(and yes, I know I'm not spelling all the ろまじ　correctly...)

Gebble-geh!

I can hardly believe I only have one more week in Tokyo (two and a half more in Japan in total). I miss certain parts of home, and I will be glad to be back in school when I get back to the US, but being here hasn't really been that hard. The first couple of weeks were hard, but now that I know people and they know me, it's a lot easier. They take care of me, keep me accountable, encourage me...
My host family has been awesome. They're so patient and understanding and kind and flexible. I often don't know my schedule until the day before or the day of it, yet they're perfectly fine with all my crazy coming and going. I hope I've been a good guest. I have been doing my best.
I miss my family, dog, friends, boyfriend... but it's all bearable. I will be relieved, though, when I get to see Daiju tomorrow at church! It's been like a month and a half since we've last met!!!
I'm excited about all that's happening here, but also about going home. It will be great to see my family in person and talk and joke with them. I'm also anxious to meet Fausta, a 6-year-old girl who is staying with my family. I met her online (web camera), but not in person.
If I lived here, it wouldn't be too hard for me to be busy every day. Many people want to see me--be it because we're already friends, they want to be friends, they want to learn English from me, or whatever. I pray that God uses every part of me for His glory.
To reach the Japanese people for Christ, one must understand their logic. The Japanese culture is very distinct and complicated--it's such a mixture of so many others while still retaining certain aspects fo its own. The language illustrates this. I've been having trouble finding a verb chart, mainly because such a concept is slightly alien to the language. 'Maybe' seems to be an important concept. I tried to have a friend (Tomo) explain to me what a certain verb-form meant. He said something like, 'well, it's most likely now, maybe earlier too, and probably later also.' ??? In English, we have forms like 'I have been eating' which indicates past and (usually) present action also. The present action may be slightly uncertain, but at least the past progressive is known for sure. In Japanese, it seems a lot goes unsaid and a lot is unknown.
But I am just beginning learning this language, so please (if you have experience in this area) advise me. I really don't know much for certain about the language... I just try to apply everything I kind of know as often as possible. Maybe the uncertainty is something I've acquired...........maybe.............I don't know.............. ;)

Oh, and 'gebble-geh' is something Erika-chan (Shindo- & Yuko-san's daughter) says randomly form time to time.

Today's post has been really random and unorganized...Sorry about that.

Okay, now I'll paste an e-mail I sent to a few of you:
I made pottery with friends...
Watched Shindo-san fall into Tamagawa (Tama River)...
Became a mummy at church camp...
Went to Hamura's Omatsuri (summer festival for my homestay city)...
And visited Sailor Moon's garden (for those of you who can't read the sign, it says 'Sailor Moon')...

arg...........why aren't the pictures posting????

Camp fire = hell?

Last week was soooo busy! Mon, Tue, Thu, and Fri mornings from 9-12 I helped the church kindergarten's English teacher with her English camp. Thur-Sat was an overnight church camp for grades 1-6 (grades 1-2 didn't stay overnight). Several middle-schoolers and singles helped out. Not long after I got back to my homestay on Sat afternoon, I had to get ready to go to our city's summer festival. Sunday was packed too, so I didn't really rest until Monday morning. Today (Tue) was pretty much a full day of rest, so I think I've recovered!!!
Here's an edited version of what I journaled Sat morning:
"today is the third and last day of church camp. Last night, after Shindo-san told me several kids were close to accepting Christ, I prayed that someone would. Fuki (foo-kee) did! [Fuki is 3rd-grade girl whose family comes to the church] At first, I thought it was bad that she wasn't really paying attention to what the pastor was saying during his mini-sermon. Instead, she kept saying how scary the camp fire looked. Then I prayed that God would even use the fire to reach the kid's hearts...First Yochi (a guy in his early twenties, soon-to-be elementary school teacher, camp emcee) and then Shindo-san talked with her as I sat with her. Even though the pastor said nothing about hell last night--nor did any of the camps' topics thus far been on that topic--that's what was on Fuki's mind. She said that, as she looked at the fire, she thought of hell, and that she didn't want to go there. Later that night she talked with Yochi again and prayed to receive Christ. Praise the Lord for Fuki!!!"