Trips and vacations bring happiness for moment, but when that moment is passed, only a memory remains.
A truly rewarding life is built in everyday moments, prioritizing our families and communities.
The way we live our normal life determines whether or not we will will enjoy a high quality of life or not.
Here’s some of the secrets we’ve found for living the best life.
[Life in Japan Theme Song]
There’s joy to be found in everyday moments,
and every moment can be useful, even making breakfast.
Involving others in our lives is a key part to a purposeful life, whether it be our children, community or you as you watch this.
Chocolate chip pancakes! This is the tradition of the Reutter household on Saturdays, huh?
The yummiest pancakes!
The yummiest pancakes?! Momma cake's cakes.
Homemade.
Oh my goodness, let's just fill up our hearts with kawaii for a moment.
Whoa, look at that stack of pancakes!
Yum! Chow!
Eating time.
Good!
Whoa! Hey guys, what's going on?
We're doing school! I'm the teacher. I'm hot.
Learning Japanese is a huge part of connecting with people here, so it’s a big part of what we do.
In fact, our whole family is learning!
Now Becca, your turn. Please do the hardest one ever!
Whoa! It looks like you setup Hiragana cards all the way through here.
If you want to learn Japanese, this is the first place to start: is to start learning Hiragana.
So these are all the sounds that you use in Japanese, huh?
And the characters that go along with each one.
Why don't you sing the little song?
OK, so sing the song that goes with it, OK?
(Sings Hiragana Song)
Wow! Great, Sarah!
Wow, good! And you lined all of these up yourself, huh?
Yep. Joshua kind of helped me put it over here.
Yeah, I was so nice! You were so nice to help her set it up?
He kicked the ball into the neighbor's yard today. He runs up to him and says "Sorry!"
That's so cute!
We’ve been documenting our journey in Japan on this channel for over 2 years now, but the journey started long before our channel.
The relationships we’ve forged here have allowed us to share this journey with you, and that increases our joy.
Tonight we're premiering our video here at the Coffee Shop, right?
We got some little sushi and rolls and some fun stuff to eat; some grapes.
Over here we're making some popcorn!
Welcome to the premiere!
Our first ever in-person premiere of Life in Japan.
With lots of nice snacks and visitors!
I'm a visitor. You're a visitor!
If you don't know Ryoji, he's the reason why you have all those subtitles in Japanese.
He and his wonderful wife Miruka.
Miruka, wave to the camera. OK, thank you!
Alright, we're about to start! We're about to start, yea!!
The countdown, here it goes!
3, 2, 1!
Whoa! Here we go!
So what did you think of this last video: down the canyon, huh?
Scary!
Just translating it was scary!
Healthy living is a result of well-balanced priorities.
It’s far too easy in today’s society to let one’s career, education, hobbies or leisure take priority over family and community.
If misbalanced priorities go on too long, look out!
There is a lot of pain at the end of that road.
Today we’ve come to the girls’ undoukai, or sports day, at our local elementary school.
We love cheering our kids and their teams on to victory, even if it looks very different this year.
Instead of having the whole school participate at the same time, each grade participates at separate times and only the parents of that grade can come and observe.
Everyone wears a mask and is careful to not scream and cheer, although that can be hard to do!
Did you see Sarah, dude? Yea! She was running over there.
We love our local community and that we were still able to come together to pull off the undoukai this year in a safe way!
The challenges of physical distancing are plenty, but they shouldn’t detract us from building stronger relationships with those around us.
The better the relationships we can develop, the richer our lives will be.
After the undoukai we headed over to Paz Coffee Shop, where we honored all the volunteers that make Paz Church such a special place.
Daddy, this is like a birthday party.
It is! Volunteer party!
The camera is here. The camera's here?
What are you doing over here? I'm looking outside.
Oh! Life in Japan!
Hello everyone! Hey friends!
You're going to be famous!
Look at John, alright! How many drinks have you made today, John?
I don't know. Quite a few though.
You know, we came with a lot of dreams and visions for what we believed God was going to do.
(Japanese translation)
And everything happened very differently from what we expected.
(Japanese translation)
But in an amazing way, I would say it is much better, much deeper than what we expected.
(Japanese translation)
Our church is an extension of our family — a place where strong community is developed.
Our Life in Japan is so rich because of the great relationships we have forged here.
Being a part of a strong community is key to thriving in the world these days.
Don't say anything! I won't.
Don't say "oh" or anything.
Here I come, close your eyes. OK?
You closing your eyes?
OK, open.
What is this? Minecraft sheets.
Can we use it tonight?!
One side's that and the other side's that.
How did you...?
Happy Birthday!
I love you, Becca and Anna
Have fun at Yomiyuri Land!
Aw, that was so nice, Sarah!
This is a rollercoaster!
Each and every person is special, so we like to make a big deal of our kids’ birthdays and celebrate.
For Becca & Anna’s 11th birthday, they decided how they wanted to celebrate.
The girls' birthday present this year is to go to Yomiuri Land with their friends. Oh boy!
3, 2, 1
Ooh! No fear! I love it!
We're on the Ferris wheel, ahh!!
Neh, Anna?
For a less intense birthday celebration that the whole family could enjoy, we’ve come out to Showa Kinen Park.
That would be fun to try sometime, huh?
In Natsu (summer), just in case we fall down.
Get the gloves on. Look at you! You look like a little marshmallow man!
This is one of our favorite parks,
In fact this is the place where we recorded parts of our intro for Life in Japan many moons ago.
Right there. Where was it Anna, right over there?
Right here. Yea, it was right over there, wasn't it?
Uncle Paul was with us, filming.
Beautiful colors.
It's a good place for a music video, though!
We’ve come out to Showa Kinen Park for one of the highlights of their year: to see the Fall foliage at night in the illuminated Japanese garden.
Whoa dude! Trekking through the leaves!
Walking down the colorful way.
It's so pretty. It's so pretty, isn't it?
Don't those all look so fun? They're called Segways.
I want to ride one. Yeah! So cool.
A positive outlook on life comes from filling your mind with good things.
The news today can be depressing,
but if we focus on what is lovely, beautiful, pure, noteworthy, wholesome and true then we can keep from sliding into depression, anxiety and hopelessness.
OK, I'm going to do a little interview with the youngest kids.
Sarah who, how old are you now, Sarah? I'm seven.
OK, and Joshua kun, how old are you?
I am four. Alright.
So Sarah, what is your favorite part about Japanese school.
Um, when we, like, make stuff. That's mostly my favorite thing.
When you make things?! What kind of things do you make?
Like you make like crafts, and you make so much cool things.
Oh cool. It's fun.
So Joshua, I'm going to ask you the same question. What is your favorite part about Japanese school?
I like playing with my blocks.
You like playing with your blocks there?
Sarah, do any of your friends at school know that you're on YouTube?
Only Minori chan knows.
Minori chan knows? Does she watch you on YouTube?
I don't know but when you like put on the Life in Japan hat, Minori chan says "That's the Life in Japan hat!"
Oh, your friends at school. Do they know you're on YouTube?
No.
They don't? I think Aiden knows, doesn't he?
No! I was talking! I need to start all over again.
You need to start all over again?!
OK
Aw Dude, what a face!
OK, let's turn that frown upside down.
Mommy, I'm thirsty!
OK, good luck.
What should I drink?
Just hold on. Mommy's starting to really freeze.
Alright. Do you remember doing this last year, Anna?
I do, I do.
I think Ruth was dressed just like that, too.
I probably was.
Except, just, minus a mask.
Building strong families and community takes work, but the reward of this work is a rich and satisfying life.
Ooo, but this is always so pretty here, look! Oh my goodness!
So cool! So cool, huh Dude?
I remember this part. You remember this part?
For us, this means prioritizing our family, our neighborhood community and our church community.
And in a larger sense, we’ve built another community — the Life in Japan community — full of great people like you.
We love interacting with you each week and sharing our life with you makes our joy even greater.
We are all a part of something special which God has given each and every one of us: life!
It's pretty. It just doesn't come out the same way on my phone.
It sure doesn't.
I have a picture of you from last year, I should take one of this year.
Whoa, this is cool here. A little waterfall, huh Anna?
Cool!
No cameras allowed! No cameras allowed?!
You can't take that in.
Oh you can do it. This is where you can do it, see?
It kind of looks like a huge Christmas tree, doesn't it Sarah?
Yea because there's one star on top of that.
Wow What are you doing?
Taking a video. What are you doing?
Nothing. Nothing, ok!
Do you see this water? You have to be so careful!
Oh you have to be so careful, you're right, so you don't fall in, huh?
Samu! That is so dangerous!
It's not so dangerous, actually.
What’s the best life you can live these days?
I believe it’s a life lived in the love of God through Jesus Christ.
He came to give us abundant life, not the kind based on the circumstances around us,
but a life full of joy no matter what is happening in the crazy world.
We understand your situation may be very different:
perhaps your family is in bad shape,
maybe you’re looking for a new job this year or you’ve recently lost a loved one.
Maybe your beliefs are completely different or you feel all alone in this world.
I want to encourage you that you’re not alone.
We care for you and God cares for you.
If you want to connect on a deeper level, I’ll leave links in the description to other great friends and channels to follow.
And as always, thanks for watching, liking and subscribing.
Until next time, we’ll see you on Life in Japan.