Konnichiwa!
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| Hirata Shimai, Hawkins Shimai and Messer Shimai-roommates |
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| Kids practicing for the Matsuri-a festival sort of thing |
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
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