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