My Friend Yosh

i cant believe it is already coming up on the end of the month! last night i went out with yosh; it was so much fun. i really enjoy just being around him. we went to play pool and after two games we stopped and just talked. he asked me how i have felt lately. i didnt know boys asked that question. so we talked about our feelings and stesses and such. we left and were driving toward home when we saw the moon and decided to go up to a look out spot and see it better. by the time we got there, the clouds covered it -or it was so late at night that it was hiding- that we couldnt see the moon, but we still looked at the stars and at the city. it was the same spot that i went to with kay and nell that first trip around asahikawa, and the same place that i went to with akiko last tuesday. we talked about new zealand and their english. he asked me who my best non-Japanese friend in asahikawa is. we talked a bit about mormons. we discussed why stars twinkle: because God likes it that way. we even worshipped God for being so creative as to make the stars. as we were leaving, he said something to keep me from falling down the stairs and we talked about how "gentlemanly" he is. then i made a comment about how he is a different person when he is alone, compared to when he is around people. we talked about this for a while. he said some people cant understand him. i feel so priveleged that he has let me in to that part of his personality. he is one of the kindest, gentlest people i know, but if i tried to tell some people that, they would think i was crazy! he is very... not simple... maybe face value. not as in "what you see is what you get" but as in he wears his emotions on the outside. it isnt difficult to tell when he is happy, stressed, tired, angry... and if you misunderstand, he will let you know. he has many secrets, but somehow, he seems so open. he is not a 'lets go to a movie' kind of guy; on the contrary, he would rather go somewhere just to talk. rare. i asked who his best friend is. he said the hirokis, and then proceeded to explain that even with them he couldnt share everything all the time. sometimes they are strong, but other times they are "lost". lost　he said has many meanings. いろいろ意味　（いろいろいみ）. as i was riding the bus downtown today, i made the realization that last night was one of the best dates i have ever been on. its kinda funny to me because yosh and i arent dating, but it did make me start thinking. to someone who is not me that was looking at his and my relationship, it looks a lot like we date. i find it difficult when i am describing such an outing not to put in the incredibly romantic parts of the evening- such as going to look at the stars; when he says things like 'most people wouldnt understand me' implying that i do; when he often offers to pay for my food or whatever. i must admit that this really is the best relationship i have ever been in, and im not even in it. we really are just friends. i dont even like him that way- okay, so i do think he is very attractive but i dont think that i could spend the rest of my life with him, and thus i dont want to date him regardless of attraction. not to mention his end of it; i am sure he doesnt want to date me. i dont think i am his type. i would chose for him a meg ryan type, someone who is more girly than i am. however, i shouldnt be so quick to stereotype him; just when i think i have him figured out, he surprises me. ahh, my friend.

Neat Relationships

today was one of those days that i couldnt have had if i were japanese. i am only twenty-two years old and yet, in a land where age is a status-defining trait, i was invited to a barbeque at toyo's house. It was toyo and hiromi and three of their friends. the youngest of them was thirty-nine, and i think that they were all insurance salesman. i should have felt out of place, but i didnt. i was just really impressed that i was there. who knew that i could go from spread last night, hanging out with twenty year olds to todays insurance salesman party! praise God for making me universal.
another praise to God is Rutsuko. she is a gem! she is a college student at the education college just across the street. she really wants to study english. i want to her help in setting up an english conversation table at the college. how exciting would that be! this is something i have wanted to do since i came, or thinkning about coming. now rutsuko and i must find time. i dont really know how this table would work. i think maybe use seijis idea of a 20 minute lesson and then just games and chatting afterward. i wonder if the college would allow something like that. would we need to get permission?

love?

tonight at spread midori and nao came. i am so glad. i also talked with each one of the boys tonight. not long conversations, mind you, but i was curteous if not friendly. i hope they knew they were loved tonight. i wrote in my journal last night and so some of my entries here are missing. i think that is okay. i have had NO classes today, which is a strange treat. i have none tomorrow either. i have just been doing laundry and dishes all day today, and watching movies. as i returned the other videos to Sunhome and got new ones i opened my eyes and realized that there is a church RIGHT beside it. i wonder if it is the church that the lady i met on the street goes to. if it is, there is an american pastor there. i am so curious! could i really have been so blind? so anyway, i have recently read a classic and to continue with the tradition, i got casablanca and gone with the wind. it makes me happy to be a woman, a real woman. not one who flaunts her pitiful excuse of love. all these girls, and boys too for that matter, prancing around as though they know what real love is. i only wish they could understand. may my life pursue the purpose of sharing the fact that love can be more than mere happy moments, and it doesnt mean that you have a husband that will do whatever he can to please you. ahh! silly dreams that these silly hollywood girls put into people's heads. may i always remember the love that has been shown to me.

A Taste of Religion

next week the buddhists in japan, or at least in asahikawa, will celebrate a festival called obon (pronounced oh-bone, like a dog bone). i have been using this as an excuse to, first try to understand japanese culture better, but really as a way to get my students to talk about their beliefs. i often talk about what i believe, but i am really trying to understand, and i am really glad that i did because i am learning a lot! i am trying to be as subjective as possible, and get out of my western mindset so that i can ask questions that i would normally shut out of my mind as ridiculous. obon is celebrating a day when the river between the worlds of the living and the dead is ... wadeable. the living family members will go to the gravesite and pray to the ancestors. they invite them to come back to their home and during this two day festival, the spirits are free enough to return. i was kinda startled when speaking with one student. she was explaining that they talk to their dead ancestors. i asked, "do they talk back?" she answered no, and then decided that they talk to her through dreams. in my basic class today, we first talked about the summer festivals with portable shrines, which is the shintoism side of summer. they explained that the gods live in the shrines. i then asked what the difference was between spirits and gods. this is a difficult question. they didnt quite answer the way that i was expecting, but i am still thinking about their answer and its implications on the gospel that i am trying to share. one of my students kept trying to compare these things to Christian holidays such as Christmas and Easter. i easily explained the difference, and even though they are basic students, i think they could understand.
toyo-one of the basic students- had started the class by talking about his new zealand homestay family. he really admires them. he called them honest Christians. i wonder if he meant earnest. either way, at the end of class he said that i am an honest Christian. i praise God for the opportunity to share the God of my faith with this man who is clearly seeking something real. i pray that he can learn to trust in this "new" idea of a God who is powerful, one who does not have the human flaws that we associate even with our ancestors. now i am watching mulan, and though it is set in china, it makes me sad to know that they pray to ancestors. why do they waste their time talking to people who are disconnected from this world? i hope that by learning more about this, they will want to learn more about my religion, about my relationship with the one TRUE, Living God.

Challenging Day

Today was a pretty special day. We are now in the middle of summer vacation. I had only one class tonight, so I had the rest of the day off. I went to Grace (a church school/church building) at lunch. Afterward, John (a visitor from England that taught English in Osaka for a year with the JET program) and I went downtown. It was so nice to talk to him about Japan and Japanese people and such. I just met him on Wednesday, but I feel very comfortable talking to him. Well, not exactly comfortable- he makes me want to be... better. I really want to be more courageous. I want to speak Japanese. I want to speak to foreigners. I want to reach out to the people at SPREAD- the young-adult group at church. Afterward, I went to talk with with Abu and Cellou- my two African merchant friends in town. I talked to Abu about a bunch of things. He actually asked me a couple of English questions, and then, as always he switched the conversation to religion. He said that when a Muslim dies, the other Muslims pray for forgiving him. I must read up on Islam. I wonder what happens when a woman dies. He said that it is important that you forgive a man when he dies, so that his list of bad things that he did during his life is less. On judgement day, if his list of good is more than his list of bad, he goes to Heaven; Hell, if it is the other way around. Talk about earning your salvation, seriously! My conversation with Cellou was actually done mostly in Japanese. He was explaining -なる. Then class and SPREAD. Mitsunori came tonight. I want to be able to talk to him. Then the kid with the glasses actually talked to me. I dont even know his name. I am kinda a jerk that way. I am sad to say that I really dont know what he said. Something about his dad, scary, his little brother, Tomo, and either strict or uncontrolable circumstances. I dont know if he was talking about his father doesnt approve of him coming to church and doesnt like Tomo, the youth minister, or if he was talking about something else. That is kinda what I thought. Maybe one day I will actually understand people when they talk to me. That would be great. Anyway, he seemed to feel like we had a bond after that. That made me happy. I think that Ikuo-san (maybe thats his name) said that he really didnt feel like people understand him. That makes me sad. I dont think that I can love him through language, but I can love him in prayer. I was startled tonight by the lack of women at the meeting. I left soon after it ended and went to the video store. Just a normal day in the life of me, being challenged at every breath.