Making a deal with God!

November 23, 2014

Hello everyone!

Well to start with some good news, we have a baptismal date!! We still have to teach the commandments, so we aren't are still trying to be hopeful, but not cocky! I think I forgot to mention this though, we didn't whitewash into this area, we actually opened it. So it has been fun seeing the blessings from just going out and finding all day. Sometimes it is really long, and even if it is really cold we have to stop and eat ice cream just for our sanity, but it is fun being able to teach lessons. We taught 5 member present lessons this week, which is the most I have taught my whole mission! They were all with Akutagawa san! His baptismal date is for December 20! Please pray for him! He really has that desire to change, and even called us and said he wants to be baptized fast! We are teaching Word of Wisdom tomorrow (it might be hard to teach about a commandment I seem to have some trouble with on my mission..... ;) ) and we are scared that will be the hardest! Japanese people LOVE their tea! Oh mom, you asked if they were Buddhist. OF COURSE!! EVERYBODY IS BUDDHIST! So we start out really basic, teaching about God because they don't even believe in God! But I love being able to introduce them to God and our Savior Jesus Christ. You can just see a change in people as they show that effort to follow God! A mission is amazing!

Bad companion story of the week: this week in English class we were teaching "figment of your imagination" to our advanced class. They were so confused. So I decided to do an example, so I think on my feet, and go up to Doi Shimai and say, "WOW! Doi Shimai, you look good! You look skinny, have you lost weight?!" then I realized that was a bad example because Doi Shimai just grits her teeth and says, "nooooooo.... it's a FIGMENT OF YOUR IMAGINATION!" Poor thing, had to call herself fat! hahah. -sigh- I love fat jokes. 

So everyday we have "standards of excellence" as a mission. It is 20 contacts, 3 sudden lessons on the street, give out 1 Book of Mormon, and 1 Baptismal Invite, this Saturday we were having the hardest time to get people to listen. We had talked to 54 people and had only taught 4 lessons, with only 1 baptismal invite. It was aweful!! It was 3 minutes before we had to go home, so we decided to make a deal with God. We told him our desire to meet standards, and how we wanted to knock on just this one apartment that had a light on inside. If we could hand out this Book of Mormon, Doi Shimai would pass off a lesson mastery (a program we have to get our Japanes better) and I would practice a lesson on her since I have already passed my lesson mastery off. We make the deal, knock on the door and the guy says his tub is filling up, so he has to go. But we just pulled out the BoM and told him if he read this by himself he can learn more about our message. HE TOOK IT! He took the BOOK OF MORMON! We were so excited, we were on such a high! it was amazing! Don't worry, we kept our end of the promise as well! God always keeps His promises if you have good desires!

Well I love you all, I will probably email next Saturday so I can go to the temple, so it will be earlier than usual! love you!

xoxo

Messer Shimai

My wonderful roommates!

Making rice balls at ward activity 

Playing with children at ward activity

Breaking the Word of Wisdom Round 2

November 16, 2014

Fujisaki

Add caption

Konnichiwa! 

To start this email off, I have to tell you that my poor, poor companion broke the word of wisdom again.This time it was coffee in the ICE CREAM. If we didn't love ice cream so much, we would probably have to stop eating it due to all of the commandments we are breaking just trying to eat chocolate. But she started crying before I took a bite of mine, so I knew to throw it away. So don't worry, I have only broken the Word of Wisodm once.

This week we had a grandma ask Doi Shimai if she was my daughter. We kind of just stood there, and thought we heard the Japanese wrong, so we asked her to say it again, and she said, "your her daughter, right?" ....hmmm NO. Rude, how old does she think I am? Plus, Doi Shimai is half Tongan and a quarter Japanese. The grandma said we looked a like..what part? Plus Doi Shimai goes up to like my shoulder!! But the grandma gave us chocolate so we forgave her.  

This week Akutagawa san came to church!! Doi Shimai found him on splits last week, and he has come to church twice now! We taught him the Plan of Salvation this morning, he is 64, divorced and lives all by himself. He moved here just a month ago and really wants to change! He is awesome, he loves to talk, so lessons are kind of hard, but he really has that desire to learn! It is awesome! 

You all know Yamamoto san, he is the one that posts pictures on Facebook! We met him a couple times this week, he helps us with missionary work! He tells us what ways we should approach people on the street and how we should teach them from a Japanese investigators perspective! It is way awesome! Plus he always gives us those small oranges! They are in season right now and SO GOOD. 

White washing is tiring, I fell asleep while Doi Shimai was praying and it was so awkward when I woke up still kneeling with her just staring at me waiting for me to say "amen" but I she said it was only like 20 seconds. We contacted over 300 people again, and we are really getting unified. We try to turn every "totsuzen lesson" (sudden lesson?) on the street into a Book of Mormon or a baptismal invite. We did 6 baptismal invites on the street in one day. Sometimes with our bikes and small sidewalks, only one of us can talk to the person. We have a good system down, the one who is NOT the one who brought it up takes out the material (BoM or pamphlet with baptismal picture), the one speaking reaches their hand behind their back (while still pushing their bike with one hand), and there is the BoM or the pamphlet magically turned to the right page. Nobody has caught on yet, but it makes teaching way easier not having to dig through your basket. Sometimes Doi Shimai will jump up and down waving the pamphlet to make sure I know that she is ready for when I need the material. It's hard not to laugh, but it has made tracting a lot more fun trying to turn everything into a BoM or a BI.  

But ya, that is a little of the life of a Fukuoka Missionary. I love you all and hope you have a great week!! Ai shite imasu!!

Love,

Messer Shimai

A week full of 奇跡 (MIRACLES!!)

November 9, 2014

Messer Shimai and Fujisaki

Konnichiwa!!
How was your week? Because ours was full of MIRACLES! It all started on
Thursday when I was able to meet with Michiko san, an old investigator I
had in Fukuoka! Since the areas are neighboring, she came in and met with
us! We went out and ate lunch, I just love her! Her English has gotten WAY
good, and my Japanese has improved, so communicating with her was a little
easier this time around! But she still calls me her American daughter, and
she is my Japanese mother, so she takes good care of me! Their was a big
thing with her and a Fukuoka ward member, so the bishop told the sisters in
Fukuoka to stop meeting her. She still reads the Book of Mormon, and after
we ate lunch, she asked if she could go see our church, so we walked to the
church, and gave her a tour. When we passed a room with a picture of Jesus,
she asked if she could go inside. She stood in front of it for a couple of
seconds, the Spirit was way strong, it was way cool. She says next time we
meet she wants to bring her Book of Mormon and read out of it together! I
am so excited. I feel so blessed to be in this area that is close to my
first area!!
We had exchanges with the STL's this week too! Just so happens, my STL is
Hawkins Shimai, who I lived with for 6 months in Kurume! So it was way fun,
but we had to go to Fukuoka and help some missionaries who are preparing to
go on missions. They had a big Mission Prep class where we each got a
companion who is preparing to go out on a mission, teach a lesson with them
and then go out streeting with them! My girl was just adorable and ended up
being my favorite Fukuoka ward members little sister from Kagoshima
(another area) It was fun, but made exchanges only 3 hours, where we taught
Yamamoto san the Word of Wisdom! He says if he wants to follow it, he can!
So that was a miracle!
But the true miracle comes on SUNDAY! So on Saturday night while we were
out teaching Yamamoto san, the other two sisters found TWO new
investigators! One of which wanted to come to church! So we went and walked
with him to church on Sunday, and Yamamoto san came to church as well! We
had two people! What a miracle! Yamamoto san even stayed for lunch after
church, then he left and we had some more meetings after church. We didn't
know about these meetings, so we had to change our streeting plans, decided
to go to a big street, but when we got there, there was like nobody there,
so we decided to go to an even bigger street, but we were stopped at a stop
light and there was a big road with people, we decided to go there, and
park our bikes at a store called GU, right then YAMAMOTO SAN walked out of
the store! He has been waiting for the perfect timing to tell his wife
about us, and introduce her to us, and just kept saying the timing must be
perfect. Well thanks to Heavenly Father, this was the time. We pretend to
shop (covering our badges..NO SHOPPING ON SUNDAY!) and he "stumbled" into
us and said, "oh, hello! these are my English teachers!" introduced us to
his wife and daughter, and it was such a big miracle. They were adorable,
and when they were done shopping we took a picture outside the store, and
when they were driving away the wife rolled down the windows, smiled really
big and waved goodbye with two hands. It was amazing. A perfect timing,
miracle! He even kept saying how much of a miracle it was! It was amazing!
I still love Fujjisaki and Doi Shimai, it is a great transfer so far!
Sorry this is so long, but the Lord's hand is in our lives! He loves all of
us so much! I love you so much! Have a great week!
Ai shite imasu!
Messer Shimai

I HIT MY ONE YEAR!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! AHHHH it's crazy!!

I HIT MY ONE YEAR!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! AHHHH it's crazy!! For my one year I was able to go to my first area for zone training!! It was way fun! Back in Fukuoka like the good old days when I had no idea what was going on! I also got to go back to Fukuoka yesterday for more training from President, which is why I am emailing on Tuesday instead! But you want to hear our breaking the Word of Wisdom story? You might think it would involve tea at an investigators house. Nope it involves alcohol in our apartment!! So one thing that all sister missionaries in the Fukuoka mission grow to love is ICE CREAM (duh) and pens! So yesterday after training Doi Shimai and I went to go pick up ice cream and a new pen, we see an ice cream we had never tried before, so I decide to buy it. It said mango and chesnut, I thought it was weird, so why not, right? We go home to eat it, I open it and smell it..hhmmm Doi Shimai this smells weird. Lick the top..hmm this tastes weird. Read the ingredients, well no coffee, no liquor, no rum. Ok....here you try it Doi Shimai..she takes a bite, looks down and reads ALCOHOL .2%!! she screams and yells "I WANTED TO GO MY WHOLE LIFE!!! WHAT DID YOU DO?!" hahahaha it was funny. Don't worry, we repented. 

But it has been a good week, contacted almost 300 people just trying to find people to teach. Found 2 new investigators since being in Fujisaki, just talking to as many people as we can and trying not to get lost. We got lost in the rain the other day, we had been biking for 2 hours, decided to ask somebody, so we went into a store (which ended up being a liquor store...idk what was up with this week..) and the guy showed us where we were on our map...2 minutes away from our apartment. WHAT?! But we had been biking for so long! But at least we knew how to get home! But it was a fun week! Nothing cool for Halloween, we bought masks at the dollar store, and put them on as we made dinner with our two roommates. Ate at an Indian Curry place in Fukuoka for my year mark...and talked to a lot of people. Well I love you and hope you all

have a marvelous week!!

xoxo

Messer Shimai

Halloween masks at the Dollar Store

Do not eat this!  Alcohol ice cream!

Fukuoka Tower lit up for Halloween

I have been transferred!

October 26, 2014

Housing in Kurume with Hirati Shimai

inenaga san with her 2 year old riina and Shimai Hirati

Inenaga san 

 ward members dropping us off! Akiyama Shimai and Niihara Kydoai

  Eating yaki tori with Yamamoto San, and Doi Shimai

KONNICHIWA! 

Well, like you have seen on facebook, I have been transferred!! I moved to one of the closest places possible: FUJISAKI! It is right on the border of my first area, FUKUOKA! So the district I am in right now, is the same district I was in 6 months ago! I even have the same district leader! Our mission is huge, you have to take planes to some areas when you transfer, but yet I somehow have managed to stay in the same stake for my whole mission! I sure do love President Aiura (Stake President) we have even gone tracting together, and he now talks about me whenever he gives a talk in my ward! hahah But my new companion is Doi Shimai!  She is a 5 transfer (I can't believe I am now on EIGHT!) She is a quarter Japanese and 1/2 tongan! She is way cool! We get a long great, it is fun to speak in English to my companion again! 

I was SO SAD to leave Kurume!! We had that place going good, and of course I had to leave. OH! I am whitewashing Fujisaki! So the other sisters gave us 2 less actives to work with that they havent been able to meet with because they are so busy. SO we are starting from NOTHING! It will be fun, thats what we did in Kurume, and look at it now! The biggest miracle is YAMAMOTO SAN! He is the nice man that puts our pictures on facebook, and that took us out to eat yakitori last week. He works in Kurume, where we met him, but LIVES IN FUJISAKI!! So I have already met with him three times since coming here! He came to church yesterday for the first time in his life! He takes good care of us, and even took me and Doi Shimai out for yakitori again since she had never eaten it! I am so glad I am able to meet with him here in Fujisaki, which gives me good excuse to call and follow up with the sister in Kurume, and catch up with them! :) 

My last day in Kurume consisted of me saying goodbye to my favorite ward members and investigators, I was so sad to leave Kinjo san and Inenaga san, to really solid investigators, but I trust the new sisters with them! WE don't have a phone, and our bikes just arrived, so we have just been wandering the streets, talking to almost 200 people in 2 1/2 days! But the Fukuoka Tower is in our area, so that is way cool! 

Well I love you all and hope you have a great week! 

Messer Shimai