draft relgiion

I was skipping school to go to Japan. My family goes to Church once a year on Christmas. It was there that my mother met a woman who told us about the cultural exchange with Shiga, Japan. 8 months later, my mother and I were accepted as ambassadors of Michigan and on our way to live with our host family. They were so kind. In their living room there was a gold statue of Buddha in the corner.  He told me that he was Shinto and Buddhist. I had never heard of someone having two religions before then. My host parent told me that he would wake up every morning at sunrise and pray to his father. I asked how they prayed and he showed me: knees and feet on the ground with hands together. Before we would eat, we would say “itadakimasu” which means thanks to god and the earth for the food. But by far the best moment of that trip was when they took me to a traditional shrine. The night before after dinner, they had a big book full of maps. They were showing where in Japan there family was living and where in the world they have traveled. When it was our turn to show them where our family had been, I pointed out that my boyfriend lived in New York. Before this, I had only told my mother that I was gay. My host parents were surprised at first, but then were ecstatic. The next day they brought me to a temple.