We just need their help to fellowship!

August 24, 2014

Hello everybody, I hope you enjoyed the summer, look out, here comes school! 

It has been quite the week! we spent two days in Nagasaki helping the missionaries there with their open house! It is quite the town. Let me tell you, it is more hilly than San Francisco and we have to ride bikes. I thought my thighs were big from Fukuoka, just after one day in Nagasaki I think they doubled. Wish me luck next time I try to put on jeans! ;) 

We saw a miracle yesterday, one of the less actives we have been working with came to church for a second week in a row! This poor guy has depression, asbergers (no idea how to spell this), and OCD. He will wash his hands and brush his teeth for an hour every morning, so getting to church on time is hard, but he came again! and we were so excited!! 

I drank seaweed tea this week. It was gross.

We have been really assessing the people we work with this week. Doing the drop-or-baptize lesson. If they are not progressing towards baptism, there is no need to meet with them! Unfortunately, it has made our teaching pool almost to nothing. People here just love that I am American, so they agree to meet with us! BUT the couple of people we do have are strong, and we are working to get them to make a baptismal date! Sometimes Kurume can be hard. The members are convinced they are a "cursed ward" they haven't seen a baptism in 3 years. (Hey, at least it isn't 5, right?) So we are working closely with them to show them that miracles happen every single day! We meet amazing people who have interest, we just need their help to fellowship! 

Unfortunately, the lady who has a baptismal date called us and wants to focus most of her time on her studies, but hopefully we can still meet with her once a week and she can continue learning! 

Well, not much happened. We just go housing and housing all day. It is so hot that nobody walks the streets! Have a great week! I love you all!! 

xoxo

Messer Shimai

WE SET A BAPTISMAL DATE!

August 17, 2014

Found this cute little guy while housing

This week was fun! IT was a little hard to visit people because of the Japanese holiday-Obon where their ancestors who have died come and visit them, so its a family holiday. But we were able to meet with a new investigator~ Inanaga san. and we SET A BAPTISMAL DATE! She doesnt know very much about the church, but we set it so she could know what she is working towards! Septemeber 27 :) SO we will see what she thinks about it tomorrow when we go visit her! 

SO this week for Obon, since we live in the nicest part of town, we live right where they sail their ancestors off into the ocean! SO they all set lanterns in the river, and set them free, the ancestors hop on (they used to send ships, but they were causing too much debris in the ocean) and hunderds and hundreds of lanterns float off into the ocean. Which means the ancestors are gone, and the missionaries can once more come visit people ;) 

It has been raining quite a bit lately, so right before it rains it is so humid we practically swim while we are tracting! but It is fun, good thing I have rain boots! It is getting hotter! Unfortunatley, we have to wear helmets, so our hair is always in braids to try to keep cool.  Pilgrim? WE think its pretty cute. 

Sorry this email is so lame! We are just out talking to as many people as we can! We talked to over 180 people in just 5 days this week!  just trying to find people to teach. We were able to go to Nagasaki again, and we are going again this week! 

I love you!! have a great week! Ai shite imasu!

Messer shimai

riding a bike in tennis shoes and pants is SO EASY!

August 10, 2014

Konnichiwa! 

Hirata Shimai, Hawkins Shimai and Messer Shimai-roommates

Kids practicing for the Matsuri-a festival sort of thing

I just want to start off by saying riding a bike in tennis shoes and pants is SO EASY. Man do the Elders have it easy! We were able to go play tennis with a cute 77 year old ward member this morning, so I email you in the comfort of pants!

A week full of fun festivals!! The matsuri was this week! So we were able to go to the BIGGEST firework show in all of Kyushu! And it was IN OUR BACKYARD! We live in a really nice part of the town, and the matsuri was literally in our backyard, so we were able to take investigators and members to the fireworks, and get home in about 30 seconds to make curfew! It was fun, lots of little booths set up in one of the Shrines gardens, and then you walked down these OLD cement stairs to the river where they had a HUGE fireworks show! Lots of fun, lots of pictures. You all know how obsessed I am with taking pictures of fireworks, you know really important pictures that you never look at again. Yup, I need to go buy a new memory card.. 

Anyway, we have had a lot of rain lately! Rumor is there was another typhoon...but we didn't know so we just kept on tracting! We were in Saga when the worst of it hit. (Saga is were our districts Elders are, so it is about a 20 minute train ride in for district meeting) We agreed to go out and work with a ward member who has some health problems and is trying to go on a mission. That poor girl is TINY, and it was raining so much that the streets were flooding! When we used the cross walk to cross the street, our whole shoe like up to our ankle was in water. I try to be an exactly obedient missionary, but I am pretty sure with the humidity and the typhoons I break the "no swimming" rule on a daily basis. Oops, don't tell President! ;) But it was fun, I say if it's going to rain, it might as well pour, right? Either way, we have to go out and work! 

We had quite the experience this week. So everyday personal study is very first thing after getting ready, and the first 15 minutes of it is prayer time. So we were all just starting our prayers, really having a heart-to-heart with Heavenly Father (maybe some were dozing after our morning run I dont know..) and we heard beeping. Uh-oh. Beeping? Our gas, like CO2 detector was going off! We didn't know what to do! We called our district leader, but he is Japanese so we talked to his American companion to explain the situation, and he told us "oh, its ok. If you smell anything, go outside. If your companion passes out, then its probably serious" Hate to break it to you, but you can't smell gas, and if your companion passes out, you are probably pretty close to passing out as well. So we just called straight up to the AP's who told us to get out immediately. So we opened all of the windows, doors, grabbed our study stuff and studied outside our apartment for two hours. Luckily, that day was the matsuri, the parade, so the cute little kids were practicing pulling their floats and playing the drums, so we got a show! It was fun. A little hot, but fun. There was a big issue on getting people to come check out our apartment, turns out they couldnt come until the next day, so we just took one for the team and weekly planned inside, we were fine. The people came the next day and had no idea why it was beeping, said everything was fine.

Hirata Shimai is great. Poor girl doesn't know English and lives with 3 Americans. I speak in all Japanese to her, sometimes without thinking I will switch to  English and her face will go from a cute smile to this shocked look trying to figure out what I am saying, trying to connect the words (when she hears English, if it is simple and slow she can usually figure it out, but cant speak it) and then I notice her face and oops! have to switch back into Japanese! I have seen a little progress already being her companion for a little over a week! We have fun! I am slowly learning Japanese, lets hope by the end of my mission I will be able to! 

I love you all! Have a great week! Enjoy the summer! Ai shite imasu yo!

xoxo,

Messer Shimai

I GOT ANOTHER NEW COMPANION!

August 3, 2014

How are my favorite people? 

Well the biggest news of the week:

I GOT ANOTHER NEW COMPANION! That makes out of six transfers I have had five companions! Me and Johnson Shimai were so sure we were staying, she had only been here for one transfer and only has 2 transfers left of her mission! I think it's safe to say, I was her favorite companion ;) we were at a shrine when we got the call. It was a sad day. So my new companion is Hirata Shimai. She is a Fukuoka bean too! So it is fun talking about the same ward members, less active members, investigators we worked with in Fukuoka! Which means...her trainer was Ito Shimai, my BREAKER (the next companion after your trainer) So I am now Hirata Shimai's breaker! And we live with Williams Shimai who also had Ito Shimai as a breaker. It's a weird love rectangle thing we have here. But Hirata Shimai si great! She about the size of an 8 year old American. She is 21 years old, on her 3 transfer, and speaks no English! It has made these last couple of days so fun! I speak all in Japanese, she kind of stares at me, I word vomit out some Japanese, she stares of in the distance, and puts it all together and then replies with really simple Japanese. It is a lot of fun. We laugh a lot! She is fun! She just said "watashi no kokoro wa buraku desu" (My heart is black) so, she obviously knows some english, because buraku is how Japanese people say "black" in English. Thats usually how our conversations go.

This week we went and ate out with our English Conversation class! most of them are over 60, and all pretty much fluent. We ate at the same restaurant our president and his wife took us to our first night in Japan, so it was pretty fancy and they even paid for it! It was so fun! We got to talk a lot about the word of wisdom, hahah so that was fun! 

Yesterday we were able to go eat dinner at a members house with Nicholas, the guy who rolls his cigarettes using the pages from the Book of Mormon. Well, the ward members recognized him because his son is the same age as their son. Turns out he has been arrested a couple of times for criminal obscenity. Gosh Nicholas, all I wanted to do was save your soul, but you are making this so difficult! hahah so we will probably drop him......

There are a lot of festivals and parades going on this week, today there is a big parade and little stand lining the roads, and tomorrow is the biggest firework show in all of Southern Japan, right in our BACKYARD!! We have prime housing! we are excited! Fun time to be in Japan!! 

I love you all! have a great week! You are the best! 

Love,

Messer Shimai