5 changes in me

This week will be our "5-month-iversary" of living in Tokyo! Lately I have been reflecting on ways that I am different since moving here, so I will share some of them with you. These are not deep spiritual things, just funny things I have noticed...

1. All of my socks are filthy-looking. Trent's are the same. Believe me, I clean our floor and I do laundry regularly.. but walking around with no shoes on all the time just messes up your socks.. there's no avoiding it.
2. I used to completely hate tea, but now I love it! (Well, I love hot tea.. I'm not still not fond of iced or sweet tea.)
3. I have become an expert at converting US measures to metric measures, mostly thanks to cooking. I can tell you the number of grams in a cup of butter, pound of butter, tablespoon of butter.. I can convert grams to ounces in my head.. I can change Fahrenheit to Celsius for my convection oven. These are things I am teaching my students in 7th grade Math, so I guess I'm a little late on acquiring these skills, but better late than never!
4. "Close" has become a relative term. I thought everyone was crazy when they told me I would just "get used to" long train rides and long walks everywhere.. but they were right. Whereas 10 minutes in my car used to feel like forever, now an hour on a train flies by and if it's within a 30-minute walk, it's close!!
5. I have learned to live without TV, radio, and movies. That's not to say that we live a totally media-free existence now.. but so many of the things we used to depend on for entertainment are just not convenient or affordable now (i.e. $1.99 TV show-episodes on iTunes, $30.00 sub-titled DVDs, $20.00 movie tickets). So we live without them.. and ya know, it's kind of freeing :)

Tomorrow 2 of my sisters are coming to Tokyo to visit us over their Spring Break!! Will you please lift them up throughout Wednesday and Thursday as they are making the loooong trip here and adjusting to jet lag??? Also please pray that we will have a great time together and that their visit will be encouraging and refreshing for Trent and I! THANK YOU!!! (Maybe after their visit I will actually have some new pictures to share with you finally!!!!)

Love, Lindsey

PS: Our prayer requests and praises on the left hand side of the page have been updated!!!