So I feel like a Kindergarten student...

This morning we had a "Japanese Manners" class given to us by Misaka-san and another lady from the church (I forgot her name). They taught us to say things like "itadaki-mass" (means "I receive" and you say it before you start eating), "sumi-masen" (means "excuse me"), "wakari-masen" (means "I don't understand" or "I don't know"), and a lot more. They taught us to do a lot of things, here are few: how to pick up chop-sticks, how to pick up the rice bowl, how to pick up the soup bowl, how to pick up and hold our tea cups. They also taught us a lot of things we shouldn't do because they are rude to do in the Japanese culture. It was really helpful to get these pieces of information that we will most definitely use while here in Japan. There are a lot of things that are completely opposite of what we're used to from home, but there are also a few similarities.

In the afternoon, we had our first Japanese language class from Kasama-sensei (you add -san at the end of everyone's name, but when you have a teacher, you add -sensei as a sign of respect). She will be teaching us every Tuesday afternoon while we're here in Japan. I'll tell you, I have not felt like I was kindergarten since..........well, since I was in kindergarten. I realized that Japanese is not a very easy language to learn, but it is so intriguing and beautiful. We learned how to write some of the letters or characters. Japanese uses3 different alphabets: the most traditional one (I don't remember the name and we will probably not learn), Katakana (which is the alphabet for foreign things and people), and Hiragana (this is what Japanese mainly use. It is written up and down, and this is the main alphabet we learned today). If there's one language that you need to be a semi-good artist in, it's Japanese! We learned how to write a, e, i, o, u, ka, ki, ku, ke, and ko. She gave us a lot of homework to write out and things to say for practice.
I have a lot to learn, but our team is determined to practice with each other and get as much Japanese in our minds as possible!
Please pray that we focus in our lessons, practice as much as possible, but most importantly, come to love the beauty of the Japanese language.
Sayonara (good-bye)!
Blessings.