10/11/11: He has made everything beautiful in its time...

Top 10:

1. Visited Nojiri for 3-day weekend
2. Collecting and cooking chestnuts
   
3. Playing roller hockey with the Benedicts
4. Taking an free online photography course
5. My biblical genealogy project
6. Blueberry pancake breakfast with grandpa and the family
7. Long talks with Caleb at Nojiri
8. Tutoring Minoru
9. Subbing for Kindergarten and 4th grade at CAJ
10. Teaching at UTSS

Bible Reading
Just recently I decided that I wanted to do a little biblical genealogy study so I began looking for those passages in the Bible that we so often skip over which contain all the names of the ancestors/descendants of different people. I created a rudimentary family tree of these people and hope to eventually get it onto some bigger paper so that it can be a good visual. However, some of the genealogies are not as easy to follow as you might think!

A sample from one of my sheets.

Books Read
I have been able to get some new books read!

• The Girl With the White Flag by Tomiko Higa (Very good autobiography from Okinawa-Japanese perspective of WWII)

• The Mysterious Island by Jules Verne (Very clean, adventurous and exciting!)

• When Hitler Stole Pink Rabbit by Judith Kerr (Wonderful piece of historical fiction of WWII that I would recommend even to 5th graders)

• H.M.S Bounty by John Maxwell (I wouldn't recommend it but it was an interesting read. It is similar to the Count of Monte Cristo in that there is a theme of vengeance all throughout)

• Endurance: Shackleton's Incredible Journey by Alfred Lansing (Very intriguing book that tells of the Antarctic expedition of Ernest Shackleton which became a fight for survival))
  

UTSS
I had a great opportunity recently to be a witness for Christ at UTSS. The students in the written communication class were supposed to write about something sad that had happened in their life. One of the students had written at the end of her story, "Mr. Victor what is your sad story?" So, after correcting her writing I proceeded to describe to her the story of how Ethan died this summer and at the end I wrote how I know he is with Jesus and I can't wait to see him again.

It has been such a blessing to be working at UTSS because I have enjoyed working with Japanese high school students and also with the professors. Sometimes I'll also get some very humorous journal entries such as the following:

"Today, I went to Mister Donuts to study with my friends. I was taught math by my friend. I am not good at math. So, it was good for me to study math but I had a problem. I ordered two doughnuts and a coffee. It is free to get refills on coffee. So, I drank much coffee because the taste was very good. I drank about seven cups of coffee. So, my stomach was broken. I could not concentrate after drinking coffee. "I'm sorry. I want to go to rest room" I said to my friend. I returned from the restroom but I said, "One more!" I returned from the restroom again but I said, "I'm sorry!! One more!!" My friends said to me "Are you okay today?" I think that it is not good to drink much coffee. It is very good to refill coffee and very profitable but when we do it too much we encounter painful situations. So take care."

Photography Online
Recently I have been learning more about photography because I want to brush up on my photography skills and put them to good use. I searched online for some Youtube videos that might have photography tutorials and ran across a professional photographer who offered a free photography course online. So, I watched some of the tutorials and have been learning about aperture and shutter speed and lighting etc.

Over the weekend I tried putting my learning into practice and here are a few examples.
The following were taken with a Nikon D40 50mm lens. Most of them have an aperture of 1.4.

Enoch, my nephew.

Enoch again!

Enoch and Amy!

Caleb

Cicada shell.

My cousin Esther's flower garden.

Nojiri lake in October.

Chestnuts on the ground

Chestnuts that have just been boiled.

Trip to Nojiri Oct. 7-10
I was able to drive for about 125 km to Nojiri and Dad drove the other 125 km. I got a Salt and Lichi drink to enjoy on the drive which tasted pretty much like a sports drink. I was able to spend lots of time with Caleb and Amy and also baby Enoch. We did some roller hockey with the Benedict kids. We watched a Danny Kaye movie called "The Inspector General." Caleb and I cleaned the chimney. I did some cooking and tried cooking and peeling chestnuts. On Sunday we listened to a John Piper sermon.

Cooking
I am beginning to enjoy trying out new recipes and using allrecipes.com to get ideas. During our time at Nojiri I made a sort of fruit juice:

• 2 bananas
• 1 can of mandarin oranges (with juice)
• A few ice cubes

Blend in the blender and serve in a cup.

I also made a 2-Bean Soup.

• 1 can of kidney beans
• 1 can of garbanzo beans
• salt and pepper to taste
• water
• Cayenne pepper to taste
  
• 1 T. olive oil
• 2 cloves of minced garlic

Bring to a boil and let simmer for about 2-3 minutes.

I also was able to make a pizza a couple weeks ago using Tom and Linnea's recipe but these are the pictures :)

\Pizza #1

Pizza #2

Gardening
I tried planting an avocado pit not long ago and look at how it has sprouted!

The avocado plant.

Mom decided to get a lemon tree so here it is!

Our new Meyer lemon tree.

Guitar Repair

My old guitar that had the bridge break off when we were traveling. I'll see if I can fix it but I don't know...

Praises!

• My college loans are now paid off!
• Matthew and Miriam will be in Tokyo with our family for the next two weeks!