New Year's DAY!

In Japan, New Year's Day is a big day to go to the shrines and ask for blessing for the new year. They put in some money, shake their hands and pray. Since we don't believe in those gods, we went on with our celebration.

It was Sunday, so we had church. This was super cool. It totally shook up my vision of church, in a good way. In the U.S. we get so used to church being a building and a service. What it really is about is believers of Jesus Christ, gathering together to read and study the Bible and encourage one another. The first churches had no buildings or fancy worship bands, it was people getting together in each other's houses. How great is that?!

So, Sunday morning, Joanna, Mr. and Mrs. H., the kiddos and I had church. We started off by singing some songs. Then Mr. H. read a Bible story specifically for the children. They then went down stairs and watched a DVD so the adults could have church. We read from Galations and talked about it. Then we talked about our lives and how Galations applyed and the different things in our lives that were brought up by Glations. Very cool. Oh and we prayed and ate together. Church for sure.


Then we hung out at the H home. Joanna and I talked with Mrs. H about things going on in our lives and in our pasts. We talked about our desires for families and the reality and challenge of being a wife and a mother missionary.

Later a student came by and he played a game with us and the children. It was a lot of fun. It is cool how you can play a game together and not even really understand eachother's words.

We all loaded up in the van and went to Mos Burger. Mos Burger is like the Japanese McDonalds. It is so great. The portions are smaller and the whole place seems healther. It is decorated well too. As someone put it, "If Martha Stewart had a fast food resturaunt, this is what it would be like."
Jo and Mitsuru at Mos Burger
Note the glass dishware, silverware and fine looking furnature

After Mos Burger, we were not ready to be done having fun, especially Mrs. H. So we decided to look for more fun. This was a challenge though, because most things are closed. We ended up having ice cream at McDonalds. Yummy, if Japan teaches me one thing, it might be to enjoy smaller portions.

The children needed to go to bed, so we headed back to the house. We were still not done with our fun though. We stayed up and played Catch Phrase. If you have not played Catch Prase with someone whose first language is not English, I highly recommend it. So much fun.

There was no football, but there was still a ton of fun.