Glad Tidings from Naha!

Rin Kun before his baptism!

Hellooo! I have very little time to email today because we are taking a bus with the zone leaders, their investigator shouhei, and a member and her son up the Fukuoka mountain! I'm not sure what the mountain is actually called but I'm so excited! This is going to be the first real Pday we've had this transfer! Most of our Pdays this transfer we have sacrificed in order to teach lessons, which has its ups and downs. I haven't written a single letter this transfer or gone to any of the cultural attractions in Fukuoka, but this transfer I definitely taught more lessons than any other.

In front of the temple with the Shimai

First off, this Saturday we were able to go inside the Fukuoka temple for the first time and do an endowment session! It was so amazing and felt so good after not being able to go to the temple for 6 months. I definitely felt the spirit testify to me that it is the house of the Lord. The temple is such an amazing place! Uchida Shimai and I were also talking the other day about how its so funny that every Pday we both have this huge desire to do morning study on the temple grounds. Its always freezing cold and not comfortable to sit on the concrete, but for some reason we keep going back. I guess it just makes us feel closer to the Lord.

Cleaning the font

Rin kun checking out the triple combination we gave him :)

The big news this week is that Rin-kun was baptized! His mother was so grateful and shed some tears during the actual ordinance. He was really shy but he got up and said, "I'm glad I got baptized" and then sat down. Haha. It was cute. We also got a call from my beloved bean area of Naha because Mueller Shimai who is serving there now used to be in this area and was the one who started teaching Rin-kun. She was SO happy to hear that he was baptized. She said when she first started teaching him a couple of transfers ago he had never really been to church and didn't even know who God was or anything! She said it was a miracle.

Sister fujimoto's french cooking class, taught in English. Pahaha. It was awesome.

Because she called I was able to get the down-low on all of my favorite people in Naha and I was basially floating on a cloud for the rest of the day. She told me that all three of the Sisters that i saw baptized there are coming to church and doing awesome. I was especially excited to hear that Ohama Shimai, who was baptized in July, finally received a calling as a primary teacher!!!! Which is the best news ever because after she got baptized she had a lot of concerns about spending her only day off on Sunday at church instead of spending time with her son, kotaro like she usually did. Mueller Shimai told me that she's so happy to be working in the primary now because she gets to spend her whole time at church with Kotaro! She couldn't have told me anything better! Mariko and Shuko are also doing amazing and I'm planning on sending them a package soon.

Playing games in the church with our zone after attending the temple

The other AMAZING news is.....Shimomura san is getting baptized on November 19th!!!!! She's the woman who my third week or so in the field we found ont he street, she rejected us, but then had this HUGE prompting from the spirit to go back and ask one more time if she would give us her contact information. We went back and...she did! And guess what? Now she's getting bapztized!!!! I could seriously just die right now with happiness. Even though I won't be able to see it I feel so grateful to have had that amazing faith building experience with following the promptings of the spirit.

ahhhh. So happy.

Alrighty, we're heading to the mountain now. I love you so much and pray for you often! Thank you for all of the pictures, letters and love. You have no idea how much it means to me after a long week to hear that my family is so genki. You're the best!

Love, Tingey Shimai