Jamie's...: April 2009

Its too hard to do pictures right now sorry. But everything is going well. We live 1;30 hours away from the church we have school at. Thats an adventure. The keys are different so sorry if there is typos! I have two sisters in theri 20s and another american that i live with. Its fun...apparently pictures dont work...sorry

Day one
I woke up at 8am and read my scriptures and my homework. It was slightly hard to concentrate because My roommate, Marcy Skaggs, was snoring really loud. Good thing I was so tired I slept through it anyway. Then I went downstairs and took a shower. Pretty exciting. Breakfast was really good. They made toast, this pudding thing (that kind of had the same texture as German pancakes), yogurt (Japanese style), orange juice and rice balls. It was very good. We left at 10:30am to get to school walking the 15 minutes to the bus stop with Yumiko, our sister. She is way cute and actually was at BYU for a year and a half so that was neat. She understands us pretty well. She left us there and we bought our tickets and waited for the train. The terrain is beautiful! My goodness, I absolutely loved it. We rode through these little mountains and in between saw the beauties of rural land. J We rode that for about 30 minutes and then we were at Kyoto Station. We found the bus we were supposed to get on without any trouble, our only questions being where we get tickets and pay. We took a slight leap of faith and just got on the bus hoping that was okay—it was. We rode the bus for another 30 minutes and dropped us off at the church so that was cool. The church is little but very cute and nice. Obviously the Spirit is there too so it made me feel at ease. While we were waiting for everyone else we went down to Lawson’s convenience store and looked around. Some people bought food. I got Orange Juice and a little orange and the Koala treats. The Lawsons are all over Japan. When everyone arrived we took a picture in front of the church.
I was getting tired of my roommate already because she has to talk all the time and reassure herself about everything. And she talks really loud. But anyway, I was excited to see the others kids that were slightly more normal. We had our introduction—apparently Skaggs and I live the farthest away—our travel time being 1:30 hours. Warnick sensei suggested that we buy the month pass for the densha (subway type thing) so we did after class. We had an hour class with Warnick sensei and then an hour with tuchiya sensei so that was fun. Then we took a group picture and started on our way back home. Our host family, the Okunishi family drew a great map for us on the way there but we forgot which denshsa to take back so we had to walk around for a while. That was dumb. Then we got on the train and this lady, Mikicho, joined us.

She was funny and we talked to her for a little bit. Such a cute lady. J She liked Skaggs Jagarico (a snack—like potato chips except healthy flavored. I will bring some home) and ate some of them. I took a picture with her for fun. WE had her take one of us too but she cut off our heads…haha. Whoops. We got home and it was getting pretty cold. Skaggs didn’t bring a jacket so I let her borrow my Seattle one. We both studied for a while and then fell asleep before dinner. Our Okaasan came and woke us up and we ate dinner. It was delicious but I can’t remember what it was called. It was like an egg with some other stuff mixed and somehow cooked and formed into a triangle. It was really good. Then we went to study again and finally went to bed after being really tired. J
Day Two
I woke up at 7am and read my scriptures. I had a throbbing headache but it mostly went away for the day so that nice. Then I went down and started eating. We had a banana, sandwiches, dongo (ball with a sticky syrup—very sweet), orange juice, and yogurt. It was really good—the dongo was slightly too sweet for me. We finished getting ready and then went to the densha stop. We took the one that left at 8:17am. We managed to find seats so that was nice. We made it into Kyoto Station and then found our bus. We were about five minutes late but it ended up being okay since class didn’t start until after we got there anyway. We had our small devotional and then split up into our two classes. Class was fine—we talked about a story and I was pleased to note that I was the only one in my class who understood parts of the story. It was a funny/stupid one about pots. We are going to have to cruise through this first bit of information because we only have like 15 days of class before our midterm so we are doing a chapter a day. After class we all walked over to the grave of one of the guys who helped unify Japan in its early stages. It was kind of cool. There were a lot of other graves over there as well but the path went straight to his grave. There was also I little well type thing where you scoop out and drink the water for good luck. It was cute. The water was coming out of the dragon’s mouth. I walked around with Hannah and tried to avoid Skaggs for most of the day because I did not want to lose my cool with her. I have been praying for patience and for love for her so pray for us too please. Luckily she just went and tattled and talked with sensei for most of the day. She tries (I don’t think on purpose) to be the mother hen/scolding one which is slightly annoying.
After this we walked to the Imperial Palace and walked around. We went today because it was free and we didn’t have to have a special reservation or show our passports or anything. They told us it was the Emporer and Empress’s 50th Wedding Anniversary tomorrow so that’s why they were having this special event. It was really neat because we got to go to the Emporer’s private garden and take pictures there—Warnick sensei has never even been there. It was really special that we got to go back there and it was beautiful.
It was really neat to see all the beautiful stuff. I was excited. We were all getting pretty tired and hungry though so we probably didn’t appreciate as much as we should have, it is still weird to think that we are in Japan. We went over to Doshashin University and ate a later lunch. I had Chicken Curry—it was really good. After that we all split up and went home. We talked to okaasan for a while and then went up to study. We both fell asleep again and she had to come wake us up for dinner. Dinner was good again—we had a Japanese style pasta salad which was amazing, consume soup which was okay, pork slices, and cabbage. The whole thing was very good. We had strawberries for dessert and then we both showered (not together J). I watched a little bit of tv with obaasan and otoosan and then went up to bed.
Marshmellow=7

After all semester together, I would say we have grown fairly close...haha. We have had our ups and downs and arounds, but somehow we still like each other. Even after all my dumb jokes about random stuff like failing and 30 year old men ;) jk. But thanks for the fun guys. You are awesome. And Cameron-kun thanks so much for all of your help. You are amazing and you are a great kid. You will be awesome on your mission! And dont worry, I wont forget to write. And Eric, sorry you arent in the picture but thanks for offering to let me study on your body for anatomy. :) Bradley-san, thanks for the fun chats about mutual "friends." Thomas-san, you are so cute...my goodness. And Florez-san, you keep up the cuteness too (and thanks for letting me share the love-sac with you!) You all are the best!

Thomas-san, Cameron-kun, Bradley-san, Catherine-san, Florez-san, and me. (Do you like how I switched back and forth from first and last names? Whoops:))