Kanji Confusion - Reading/Writing

I didn't do much with Japanese today.
I did run into a bit of confusion with some kanji today,

and I'm trying to set some things straight.

the kanji for "to read", "to write", "writings", etc. have me all scrambled.

ok...

to read is
読む - yomu

to write is
書く - kaku

but, to write down (for the purpose of being remembered)...
to write down is 記す - shirusu

to write down/ compose (song/poem) is
詠む - also yomu !!!

so...
write=yomu
write down=shirusu
compose=yomu
read=yomu

confused? I am... but writing all this down has helped.

Mental Language Barriers

Today was nuts when it came to language.

I was studying my Japanese.
I got into that mindset and I noticed I'd come a long way when it came to vocabulary.
My grammar has improved a bit, also.

This was at church... not long after, I somehow ended up speaking with someone from the Spanish branch that shared the building... oh, and she spoke no English.

That's right - I had an entire conversation in Spanish! It was weird. I've never done it before - it was far easier than I expected. MY comprehension is very high, even though I have so little vocabulary. She noticed some of my Japanese stuff , and we briefly spoke about Japanese in Spanish.

Afterward I thought my head was going to explode... I had so many layers of language and grammar in my head I was losing it.

That's all I dealt with today reaffirming and recognizing things I already knew...
I haven't used much Spanish in years - for some reason thinking in three languages gives me a headache. Just writing this is causing it again.

The important thing is that I have never spoke in Spanish to someone to doesn't speak English. I was kinda scared. It took getting used to. I learned a lot from it, though.
Behind the language barriers, we're all the same people.

Learning to Read

I learned a few new words recenty, which i thought I'd share...

信仰 shinkou - faith
希望 kibou - hope
慈愛 jiai - charity


My reading comprehension skills have increased markedly recently.
I wish I could give examples, but that's kind of an abstract thing...

You just have to know your parts of grammar... there's the particles, of course, but also な, た, した, -aれ, -ない, and other conjugation stuff.
You also have to know your katakana for names, and words spelled in kana alone,
like こと, ついて, あなた(がた), and わたし(たち).

I'm getting there. soon enough, i'll be able to just look up the kanji as i go... that's the goal, anyway.