Our Japanese Friends

A week ago Monday, I got an e-mail from Lindon City asking for host families to open their homes for about 300 international students traveling abroad on a music tour. I thought it would be a cool opportunity, and with Brian's permission, replied to the e-mail. I didn't hear back for several days after I filled out the required information, so I assumed we were not accepted. Last Sunday night, we finally got correspondence back saying we were being sent 2 teenage boys from Noto, Japan, and we needed to pick them up the following day.

Had I known that I would have another leak in my ceiling, and what I could have sworn was strep throat at the beginning of the week (not really, but it felt that way), I may have changed my mind about the whole thing. But we just went with it, and it has been a fun experience.

I am really unfamiliar with the Japanese culture, but I am really impressed with these boys, Shogo and Hide (he-day). They are so polite and well mannered. Their regimen is strict. They don't sleep past 6am, and if we sleep in past 7am, they come looking for us (we feed them breakfast in the morning and drop them off at 8am, which should be plenty of time, but they get nervous I think)!

At first, neither one spoke much English and the barrier was difficult, but they got better every day. We mostly feed them breakfast and lunch, and them drop them off or pick them up at their car-pool destination. Their days are packed with activities, performances, and workshops, and they come home tired. Most of our time with them is spent around the table. They learned to fold their arms like we do, and think it's funny to see Jackson fold his arms automatically. We have given them a couple of turns to pray in Japanese (they pray to Buddha), which is cool.

When they like a meal, they say "thank you," but when they LOVE a meal, they say "very good" or "Delicious." Their favorites have been pancakes, peach cobbler with ice cream, spaghetti, steak, and scrambled eggs with sausage. And they all but lick the plate clean. They also like the mountains and the views from our house. Jackson has warmed up to them and likes to be the center of attention. He goes around giving them "rocks" and high fives, and waves goodbye in the morning.

These are gifts they brought us from Japan: a fancy set of chop sticks, a beautiful etched Japanese box with grapes on it, Yin that mean "ties or bind" and a festival style headband .

They showed us origami, and we showed them how to play checkers and say "king me." The week has gone by really fast. They play tonight at the orem owls game, which we plan to watch depending on the weather, and leave Sunday Morning. I hope they've enjoyed it here!