Visiting Japanese Friends (July 2007)

Some of the best experiences were visiting the people in their homes to see what life is really like in Japan. You can see the kitchen table on the left side of the picture. Adalei is sitting on the couch. This is a very small living room/family room. The three women are members. Nate taught the daughter of Sugimoto-san, the woman in the gray shirt. She was so excited to see us. She bought a suitcase full of toys for Adalei and gave Misty a skirt that still had a 7000 yen price tag on it. The people are so generous. We were served a Mexican meal at this home - burritos.




Here are two missionaries - one from California and the other Flagstaff, Arizona. The missionary on the left was very helpful to give us information about places to eat and things to see.
















This is the Fukuda family. He is a dentist in Osaka. Nate visited his dental office and found the differences in Japanese vs. American dentistry very interesting. We brought them some tootsie rolls so they got out a big bag of Japanese candy and shared. It was just like Halloween. Of course, they thought Japanese candy was the best! They fed us a great Japanese dinner followed by fresh peaches for dessert. A herbal tea is also served after dinner to help the digestion. It was a wheat tea - I drank it as fast as I could as the taste was a little bitter.




Adalei having fun playing the piano as we went to leave. Everyone thought she was so cute.












This is the Fukuda family with the mother who lives with them. Notice how thin the people are. Also, this family appeared to be wealthy as they had a "Western" house - much like the U.S. This was the picture of the formal dining room which was more spacious than the other homes. We ate in the family room area. The rooms were separated by curtains instead of doors.






This is the Kochiyama family in Kobe. The father and mother both served missions in Japan. Shortly after they were married, he was called to be the bishop and served for approximately 4 years. He is now 32 yrs old. He is an engineer at Proctor and Gamble and works approximately 10 hours each day. They have 3 boys. Their home is new with 3 floors - childrens' bedrooms, living area, and master bedroom. The amount of square feet is very small. He moved to Kobe to be close to his parents. Being the oldest and a son, he is responsible for taking care of his parents in their aging years. (He only has one sister.) It took 18 months to find property to build their home.

This couple fed us delicious Japanese pancakes. They cooked the pancakes right in the middle of the table while we talked and ate around the table. As each pancake was ready, they cut it into pizza type slices and we shared pancakes until we were full. This was one of my favorite meals as I LOVE the plum sauce on the pancakes. This was lunch for us. They live in a condo that is very much like our apartment/condo housing in the U.S. Nate taught and baptized the husband. He was so thrilled to see Nate - it brought tears to my eyes. His wife is a returned missionary from a different part of Japan. They met at a singles conference. The husband is a lineman with a power company and she works part-time at a pharmacy.

At 10 pm one night we knocked on the door of this man. He opened the door in his pajamas but wasn't too happy that I took a picture. He is 59 yrs old and a single member having been divorced for 25 years. In Japan, after you get divorced, you don't remarry. We stopped to make an appointment to come back and visit with him. In Kobe, the city map shows the names of who owns the property so it was easy for Nate to find him.

Nate taught and baptized him 10 yrs ago. His 10th anniversary of his baptism was the week after we were there. This is a picture of him when we came back on the following Sunday for a visit. He spoke and read English very proficiently. I was very impressed.

Adalei had a great time.... We were sitting on the floor on cushion around this table. The room was too small to have chairs around the table.

This is another one of Nate's converts. We had dinner with this man on his birthday. He followed Nate everywhere at church and was just thrilled to see him. He wanted Nate to make me and Misty talk Japanese but we weren't very cooperative.