F-16 flying above our apartment.  Way bigger than it looks and very loud!

They usually fly over 3 at a time and make it impossible to hear anything around 

you for a few minutes!

The right side of the factory.  Where the office is where I use the internet.

The left side of the factory where the screw is being made.

The noise that woke me up at 6 a.m. this morning.

Scott slamming a broom down attempting to kill this

very large spider.  He said it took several tries!

Then on Saturday night we went grocery shopping in the rain.  We used umbrellas and didn’t mind, but Mr. Kadawaki was at the store and he wouldn’t let us walk home!

Monday, September 24, 2012

Yesterday, Mr. Kadowaki took us to church in Miyazaki.  He dropped us off at about 9:30 a.m.  We were greeted immediately by many people.  Everyone was bowing and shaking our hands and making us feel like celebrities.  It is a small branch where about 60 people were in attendance.  There were very few teenagers and only a few small children.  There were mostly older adults and a lot of older single sisters.  We could sing from the hymn book written in Hirigana, thanks to our i-pad studying and luckily we even knew what the words meant due to familiar hymns.  But it was slow going reading it and we stuttered occasionally.  We could understand very little of what was being said in any of the three meetings we attended, but it was still good to be in church.

We were introduced to a couple named Dennis and Emi Peterson.  Dennis is from Boise, Idaho and his wife was born and raised in Miyazaki.  They are our age and have 5 mostly grown children.  Their youngest daughter is attending High School in Provo while living with her older married sister whose husband is attending BYU.  He is a counselor in the Area Presidency for the church.  After church they invited us to come to their home.  They live in Miyazaki not too far from the church.  They own and operate an American Kindergarten in their basement with about 70 students.  They fixed us a Chinese food called Gyoza.  A ton of it!  Along with large rice balls, See’s chocolate, honey dew, and some small Japanese cakes.  We felt like Kings and Queens they fed us so well and treated us so nice.  We stayed and ate and visited for 6 hours.  Then Dennis took us to Miyazaki Station to catch the train back to Shintomi-Cho.  It was the first time I had ridden the train and I was nervous about it, but it was so easy.  We bought our tickets, about $5 apiece and waited on the platform for the train heading north.  It has a marquee on the inside of the train announcing the next stop and after 20 minutes we arrived home.  It is only a 5 minute walk to our apartment from the train station.