many blessings down here on the little island!

Konnichiwa! 

I hope you all are enjoying SPRING in America! What a glorious time! Ring by spring anyone? I haven't heard anything yet. *cough cough* I'm praying for you, Aus! 

First of all, Minami is still on track for baptism on April 4!! Best Easter present ever!! We can see the temptation and the trials from Satan attacking her right now, so please pray for her! We had lunch with her and she was so frustrated and hurt by some people that she was shaking when she was telling us the story. She needs that little extra divine help! Thank you for all of the prayers in her behalf already!! 

Our British investigator flew back to England today :( so we miss her a lot, but she left a the cutest little note about how her view on God and the purpose of life has changed. We are hoping she can meet with missionaries where ever she ends up these next few months. I love her with my whole heart and am so sad I wasn't able to meet with her before she left. 

Saturday we were able to video call up to Fukuoka and hear from Elder Nelson!! It was amazing!! We learned all about how to be proper with our iPads, and we are so excited to receive them. At the end of Elder Nelson's training he blessed us. He blessed us to become fluent in English, Japanese, and the language of God! How amazing is that? Of course all of the Japanese missionaries were like "YES! I will be fluent in English!" but I just thought "Oh hallelujah, my teaching in English is a bunch of garbage! Maybe my investigators will be able to better understand!" But really, try being a native English speaker, but translating from Japanese to English to teach in English because I only know the lessons in Japanese!. The sentences are usually switched around and I use weird words that we don't really use in English. So I am super excited to receive that blessing! But it was so amazing to be able to listen to him and be spiritually uplifted! 

Also, one perk of being an STL, a companionship of our girls spent the night at our house and a Japanese sister gave me a massage with doTerra oils and it was pretty much the most amazing thing of my life. Can you say SPOILED in Okinawa? I'm sure you really were dying to know that. 

But I love you and hope you have an amazing week! We are having a lot of fun and seeing so

many blessings down here on the little island! (I looked at where we were on the map..who knew Taiwan was so close!)

AI SHITE IMASU YO!

Messer Shimai

Oki!

Listening to Russell M. Nelson

MINAMI SAN IS GETTING BAPTIZED!!!!!

Me, Kimura shimai, Minami san, Clements shimai, Emiri san (investigator), and Salmon shimai 

March 15, 2015

Hello all! I hope you are enjoying the beautiful March weather!! We love being in the south right now because Okinawa has BEAUTIFUL weather!! We have to enjoy it while we can because it will soon be blazing hott and humid! The main island of our mission is so jealous that when Elder Russell M. Nelson from the 12 comes to Fukuoka on the 21 of March. The WHOLE mission is going in to meet him, but they didn't invite us Okinawan's. We get to skype in though! So we are sad, but we party hard down here.

One other reason we love the south is because the Japanese word for south is Minami, and

Zone Taikai

MINAMI SAN IS GETTING BAPTIZED!!!!! She picked the date of April 4. We were teaching a recent convert a lesson and invited her to come sit in. We had the recent convert explain the feelings she had when she was baptized and confirmed and then I turned to Minami and asked her what she was feeling and she said "jealous" and so we said, "Can we make a baptismal date with you today?" and she agreed! We explained the importance of Easter and how we thought it was be a great way to show our love and commitment to Heavenly Father by being baptized the day before and confirmed on the 5 and she said ok!! The recent convert said "Oh no, four in Japanese is a bad number, it means death" (it is like the 13 in America, where there are no rooms with 13, there are usually no rooms with 4) but Minami said, "I don't care, that has no meaning to me!" YAY!! So we are super excited, and she hasn't even been drinking coffee! It has been so hard for her, but she has been doing so good and I love to see the change in her life! We actually went shopping with her today, that's why I am emailing late.

I also went on exchanges with a cute Japanese missionary, Kimura Shimai and it was loads of fun! I learned a lot from her. Mainly the life of snails. I never knew that snails could get so big! We found a shell and she taught me all about them. 

Interesting story of the week: on Friday I contacted the first person I've ever contacted to who had the hiccups! It was crazy! Her whole body was moving because she was just a small 17 year old and these hiccups were massive. I felt so bad asking her questions, and I think she agreed to accept the Book of Mormon just so she could walk away. Japanese people are very very shy and you could tell she was so uncomfortable. They were seriously the biggest hiccups I have ever seen (almost as big as mine were that one time at Target when somebody thought I was choking, Aus hahahah)

But we had an amazing week and have seen SO MANY miracles this transfer! It is crazy, we have been able to meet with a lot of people and there are so many prepared people on this island! I love the Okinawan life! Thanks for all that you do for me! I love you all so much!! 

xoxo,

Messer Shimai

A miracle filled week in Okinawa!!

March 8, 2015

Hey everyone! How was your week? It was a miracle filled week in Okinawa!! The sisters in the neighboring area taught a women ALL of the lessons and then realized she was in our ward, so she had to get baptized in the Okinawa ward! It stinks for them, but was awesome for us! Turns out she was one of our English students all along! Why didn't she ask us to teacher her? Who knows. But a lot of miracles happened because of that one baptismal service this week! 

We were able to meet with our favorite Minami san before the service, we had an amazing lesson about eternal families and happiness, and she told us that she has a feeling she needs to get baptized in April or May!! She is having a little trouble with the Word of Wisdom, so pray that she can she does not need that coffee everyday! She wanted to talk to Erina san, the lady who was baptized, before setting a date, so we are hoping she can move forward with baptism! 

Also, Emiri san came to the baptism! Emiri is also an investigator those neighboring sisters were teaching until they found out she is in our area as well!! (why are all of these people trying to avoid us? Where are they hiding? FUTENMA!) But she has said she wants to be baptized since the first day the other sisters met with her, we are going to try to start teaching her this week and hope she can progress as well!!
We were also able to meet Erina san, the lady who got baptized, 13 year old daughter Himari chan who is really really shy. I am not sure if her interest is completely there yet, but her mom really wants her to hear the lessons. She thought it was really cool that her mom was completely clean and we are hoping she can follow the example of her mother! 

Then on Sunday a ward member told us she wants us to teach her granddaughter who is turning 8 in April. Since the granddaughters parents are not members, we have to teach her the lessons in order to be baptized, so we are excited to help little Rea chan this upcoming month. 

We were also able to meet with our British investigator 3 times this week! She is progressing so well! We talked about baptism, and she said, "So do you think I could get baptized before I leave?" (she leaves island the end of this month to Korea or Hawaii) and we said yes, if you can keep those promises and commandments that our Heavenly Father has given us, do you want to set a date, make a goal? and she replied with "do you have time next week?" Wait, what? To be baptized? "Oh no, just to meet again" it was really funny! We laughed, and promised some blessings. She is working hard to follow God's commandments and we are hoping she can receive some divine help to follow them this week! 

I just got back from pedicures with the senior couple sister missionary who took us out. Let me tell you, my feet have never been so smooth nor pretty in my whole 20 years. That poor lady had to deal with my dancer, missionary feet. But she did well! I even had her sign her name on them when she was done they were so pretty! And we all know I have ugly feet. But we also got leg massages, and I don't remember the last time I was that relaxed. Oh Okinawa, how I do love thee. Almost as much as I love YOU! Have a great week! Remember to choose the right, and God is on your side! 

Love, 

Messer Shimai

I'm staying in Okinawa, eh?

Lunch with the district

Ok, so I know the first thing Aus will tell me is that I am using "eh" wrong, but I still haven't gotten the art of it down. My beloved half Japanese companion left me! We were in a members car driving home at 8 at night when the AP's called us for transfer calls telling us that Sister Jeffery was leaving me! My new companion is Sister Salmon from CANADA! Calgary, Canada for those that know Canada. We were really surprised and had to spend most of the next day packing and sending suitcases to mainland. Then we went to a National Day of Prayer on base and hear lots of crazy prayers and scriptures being read in different languages, but it was really cool!! Our goal was to get members from our church out to support this even because usually we kind of stick to ourselves, so we called all of the members, and we were able to have almost 60 members there. We prayed, and we ate! It was a good time! Then a ward member took Jeffery Shimai and I to the beach since she had never been to the beach the whole time she was on island! She took us to a place they used to perform baptisms, it was SO PRETTY and rocky! She even gave us some water shoes and we walked in the water for a bit before we had to head back to ship off her luggage. It was super awesome. 

A beach at Okinawa

Sister Jefferey was transferred

Then the next day I had to drop off beloved Jefferey Shimai, and then spent the whole day with the Naha sisters (the area with the airport in it) which just so happens to be my old companion, Hirata Shimai who is training a new missionary! So i was able to spend the day with them. They weekly planned for their area, it was....fun. Then I picked up Salmon Shimai at the airport! She is awesome! She is just starting transfer 5, so she has been in Japan 6 months! My other STL companion had a lot of stress, so Salmon Shimai is my new STL companion! So it will be nice being actual companions with my STL companion again! But it has been CRAZY trying to introduce the HUGE area and everyone to her! I just barely got here 6 weeks ago, So I don't really know what is going on either, but it is fun! Her bike still hasn't been shipped in, so we enjoy walking everywhere. We got to borrow the Elder's bikes one day...she broke it. So we were stranded out an hour bike ride away. THANK HEAVENS FOR SENIOR COUPLES WITH VANS, right? 

at the beach

We were able to meet with our British investigator and teach her the restoration and the plan of salvation. Oh my goodness we love her so much! She is so brilliant, and understands EVERYTHING we say! She even applies the stories she reads in the Book of Mormon! We love her a lot and are sad she is getting deployed on the 29 :( 

Well this week was a lot of planning, and packing so nothing super funny, although last night when we were housing we talking to a little Japanese man, maybe in his 20's, who had interest in learning English, but not Jesus, so we kept going. Then he was getting in his car to leave and just yells, "Hey, did you find any guys?" I dont know, now that I type it it isnt super funny, but it was funny to hear the cute little accent yelling English. Sorry, no we didn't find any guys. But I hope you will call us someday! 

Well I love you and hope you all have great week!!! Ai shite imasu!

xoxo

Messer Shimai