Back in Town

I went to Sendai (a city 4 hours away of about 1 million on the east coast of Japan) from Friday to Monday. A couple who teaches english with the same program as me live there and were amazing and hosted me, Kaila, and two others (who teach in Akita City). It was great to get away for a bit, and do things like have real pizza with real pepperoni (for the first time in over a year), walk around downtown Sendai and shop, hear live Mexican entertainment while eating an enchillada, and go to a salon. I hadn't gotten my haircut since the end of August before I got it cut on Sunday; it feels so good to not have split ends anymore. They also had free services like hand massage and pedicure. It was a really good price too, despite having to buy nail polish remover on my way home last night (I just couldn't handle light green sparkly nails with glued on gems any longer...)
I had a shyuji lesson today. One of my students (my oldest one actually, at 75) has been teaching me the art of Japanese calligraphy for a couple of months now. It is way harder than I thought it would be; even though I know the strokes and stroke order with a pencil, it's very hard to make it look nice with a big paintbrush.
It's been one of the ways that God has so greatly blessed me over here. This lady, who is like a grandmother to me, takes me to her house after the english class and feeds me (normally curry rice because she knows it's one of my favorites), and then takes the time to teach me. She told me today that it gives her great joy, that she's so glad to be able to teach me shuji; I was happy to hear that and also expressed my joy to be learning from her...I also told her that I've turned half Japanese, and she just laughed at me.
Maybe I'm not quite Japanese yet, but I definitely do have a heart for them now, for them to know and love God like He wants them to, and I hope they've seen God's heart through me over this past year.