My dearest family and friends,
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| The amazing kidlets! |
The weeks are
flying by so quickly, but at the same time every single day seems
pretty lenghty with a lot going on. Working with my little bean,
Takabori Shimai is so much fun. She is definitely way more prepared,
wise, amazing and spiritual than I was as a new missionary, and even
now, so it is a huge blessing to be working with her. She is always
challenging us to find new ways to find and teach and mixing things up,
which is very refreshing and fun. I love her to death!
Too many hilarious and awesome things happened this week to be able to tell you in this email so I`ll just tell you about a few.
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| Holding a gigantic butterfly. Its wings weren`t dry yet from coming out of the cacoon so it couldn`t fly away! |
I
think it was Friday when we visitited a less active member and were
able to meet her son for the first time who hasn`t been to church since
he was really young. We were first just helping him with his English
homework but then he brought up how he has recently been learning about
Moses and the Ten Commandments in school. From that we were able to
teach an unexpected lesson about that and prayer, and then he prayed for
the first time with us and his mom kneeling on the living room floor!
It was so cool to witness that! I think it made the member really happy
because she told us she would attend a cookie-making class at the church
next week and also asked if after the class she could take us in her
car back to her house so we could help her son again with English!
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| Fukuoka zone! |
Right after that lesson we left their apartment and
stopped in this playground to hand out English flyers to a bunch of 9-12
year old girls and we ended up standing there for an hour or so talking
to them about Christ, the Restoration, etc. They were all begging us
for pamphlets and Book of Mormons and event though we had about five
with us that we handed out we needed about twice that many! I`ll say it
again....I love Japanese children! They`re so humble and pure and
seriously craving the goodness that comes from religion and talking
about Jesus Christ. I can`t really imagine how it might have been to
grow up in a country where Christianity isn`t really imbedded into
everyday life but from what I`ve experienced as a missionary there is a
natural yearning for that, and it is especially evident in the young
people here. Its so sad to see how the older people get the more callous
and uninterested they are in our message, but even when we`re bluntly
and harshly rejected we always try to sneak in a testimony and tell them
as much as we can about how much Heavenly Father and Jesus Christ love
them. Someday when they have a hard trial or are searching for the
truth, I know they will remember that testimony and be given another
chance to accept the gospel!
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Me and Takabori Shimai
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On Sunday we had Stake Conference which was AMAZING
because since I`m serving in Fujisaki, right next to Fukuoka, I got to
see tons of Fukuoka members who I haven`t seen since I transfered out of
there in February! It was such a joyous reunion! We stood in the
doorway with a bunch of other missionaries and greeted everyone coming
in, and I couldn`t have been happier with life. I love seeing all of
these faithful Japanese Latter-day Saints gather together! They are all
sacrificing so much to be so dedicated to the gospel despite their
time-consuming jobs, school schedules, etc. I honestly don`t know how
people survive here sometimes. At Stake Conference we watched a
broadcast from Salt Lake City where President Uchtdorf spoke exclusively
to the Japanese saints for the first time! Afterward President and
Sister Margetts gave their farewell talks and I could feel so strongly
how much they have grown to love the members here and how much they`re
going to miss them. Other highlights were finding out a boy who attended
my English class way back when is planning on being baptized soon, and
also being told that my two favorite OYAMA boys, Shintaro and Yuto
attended scout camp last week! I hope they, like their Dad, accept the
gospel soon and are baptized!
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| With Sis. Takabori at zone conference |
After the conference Bishop Miyake took us all over
the place in his car, visiting all sorts of people who needed some
upfliting. He even took us to meet his neighbor, Hara San, who is an old
woman running a buddhist temple. We talked to her a lot about family
history and told her about how we have the largest database in the world
for researching her ancestors. Hopefully it caught her interest and
she`ll want to come to church! She is a professional Shamisen and Koto
player (traditional Japanese instruments) so she took out her Koto,
played a song for us and let us fiddle around on it for a while! That
was something I`ve been wanting to do ever since I wrote a report on
traditional Japanese instruments a few years ago when i was on Study
abroad with BYU!
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| Eating a quick lunch on the riverside with my bean |
President and Sister Margetts will be making the flight
back to Utah this Saturday so please pray that they can return home
safely. It will be weird writing my last two weekly president letters to
President Gufstoffson who is replacing the Margetts this week.
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| making gyoza |
Well, that is my week in a nutshell. We are teaching a
lot of amazing people as well but don`t have anyone who is progressing
very well so please pray that the people we meet with this week will
follow their commitments and progress towards making covenants with
their Father in Heaven. I want you all to know that I know that Jesus
Christ is my older brother and advocate, and that when we exercise faith
in him we can feel his atonement in our lives each day. I love the
gospel, and love being a missionary! Until next week!
Love, Tingey Shimai
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