Long Weekend!

Today was the last day of my long weekend. Today is Elder's Day, so I didn't have school. This weekend was really fun. Yesterday (Sunday) was pretty nice. I got to go to church again here. I really love that I get to go almost every week. It's really nice to do something so familiar and the members are so nice to me. I got to practice my Japanese talking to a lady there. She was very sweet and patient with my poor language skills. Then another lady sat by me and translated for me again.

Anyway, after church I went to my friend Ilianaa's house. She is a girl that I met at Rotary from Mexico. We went for a walk to see all the stores around her house and I had lunch then dinner with her and her host family. It was so nice to talk to have someone to just hang out and talk with.

Today, I met up with Ilianaa again. This time we went to Yokohama Station and Kamiooka Station. All the major train stations here are connected to huge department stores, so we wandered around the different shops and looked at all the ridiculously expensive brand name clothes. I would never be able to afford anything at those stores, and I honestly can't see why people would ever pay that much. Anyway, then we had lunch at this little Italian restaurant. It was really good, but I think the waiter misunderstood us when we were ordering. Go figure, right. We tried to order one spaghetti type pasta and then one pizza, and we were going to share. When the salads came, they brought 3 of them. Then, when the pasta came they brought two big plates out, and then they brought a pizza out. It was really good, but we couldn't eat it all.

After lunch, we went back to my apartment. We hung out and talked here. It is so nice to have a good friend here to talk to. I brought her back to the station at about 5 so she could go home for dinner. Once I got back, I helped finish setting the table and ate. We had this really good hot pot type thing with some little clear noodles, meat, tofu, mushrooms, and various vegetables in a broth. It was so yummy! I love my host mom's cooking. Then I helped with the dishes and took my shower.

Today I finally told my host dad that I want him to stop speaking English to me. I'm really starting to feel like I should know more Japanese because I have almost been here for a whole month. I really hope that I will start learning faster now that I will be hearing less English at home and taking Japanese lessons at school. My school even got me a really nice Japanese textbook in English to help me learn.

In school this week all the high school girls will have exams, so they won't be in class. Then what will I be doing, you ask. Well, they couldn't just give me a whole week off of school, so they have me go to the only classes that are going on. That's right, I get to go to grade school this week! I get recess and everything! I was told that I can either observe or participate. I plan on participating as much as my Japanese skills allow. I am so excited for this. I just hope they get me a little bigger desk than the ones the little kids are using... But seriously, I'm excited to go. Hopefully the kids won't be too scared of me or anything. I do have, I mean get to give a presentation to the class about Halloween. I wish I would have known that earlier so I could have gotten some American candy or something. Then the kids would love me for sure!

Sorry there aren't any pictures for this entry. I'll be sure to take some this week at school though.