Beautiful

Konbanwa! :) (Good Evening)
So by now you are probably wondering what exactly i'm doing here. Well I am making active relationship with students, teaching them English, learning about Japanese culture, and spending alot of time studying the Bible through Bible studies (4-5 a week) and on my own. Yesterday we had our first UpTen Lunch (we have them at our apartment every Tuesday). Alyssa, Ogawa-san, and me hosted lunch for students to be able to come that way we can connect with them. Around 15-20 students came at various times between 12 and 3.. Some students came by our place after they had lunch in the cafeteria so they could meet us and hangout. It was great! We got our first invite to go camping in the mountains at the end of June for the weekend. Last night we had our first English lesson at UpTen with a few students from the local University, Tohoku Gakuin University. It was so much fun! We taught them some phrases such as: you're kidding, I can't believe it, freaked out, i really got into that, and no way. Alyssa and I did a role play of two girls talking about what they did for the weekend. One of the characters in the role play went skydiving and the other talks about how they can't believe she did that. We had to explain the phrases I mentioned before and then ask the students to use them in an example. Then we all practiced reading the role play dialogue too. None of the students we're allowed to use Japanese while they were at the lesson. Ten students came. It was a great turn out. They asked us lots of questions. They asked me if I tried nato which is sticky fermented beans. It's one of their favorites. Now I've heard that most Americans don't nato because it smells really bad. So after the lesson we all walked up to a convenient store close by to get dinner and they were trying to persuade me to eat nato. Lol thankfully I got out of it!...this time haha.
This past week we have been working on meeting students and befriending them. I have gotten really close to two students here already. Their names are Noa and Muchan. I hope our relationships continue to grow throughout the summer.
Today at lunch in the cafeteria Fimeato and Shu taught me more Japanese words to learn. Here are some of the words they taught me and that I know:
english --> japanese pronunciation
yes --> high
delicious --> oye-she
thank you --> ari-gato
very --> cho
good morning --> ohayo
understand --> wa-ca-roo
cool --> steak-e
please --. dough-zo
thank you --> dough-mo
hot --> a-tree
my name is ___ --> wah- tah- shee- no- na- ma-eh- wa
your name? --> an-i-ta-wa
I have learned a number of other words too. I'll let you know more soon! :)
Today has been a beautiful day outside. It's definitely no Florida weather here! The high today was 68...perfect weather! Since most people get around by walking, the weather worked out in my favor :)
I recently found out abortion is legal here, making the abortion rate extremely high. It broke my heart to hear that. They view abortion as just another standard operating procedure. Oh and I also found out that the Japanese are big into "groups" so anything that would cause them to stand out and be an individual they won't do. Learning about the culture has been very interesting but also exciting!
Please be praying for Alyssa and me. Tomorrow is going to be our first GUYS Club meeting we are attending. Oh! I'm not sure if Ive mentioned it but GUYS Club is a student lead organization that is run by students interested in international relations. And no, not only "guys" are apart of this club lol. Girls are members of it too. They got the name of it because of the phrase "hey guys". So I'm guessing it stuck and that's the name of it now. A lot of the students Ive been spending time with and meeting are apart of this club.
I've got to go for now!

<3 Les