I am SO excited for Toa to go on his mission! It's nice to know my best friend and I will have mission stories to share in the near future! Being a missionary, you get super geeky when people tell you they're going on missions...I freaked out about this elder from my ward, Tsuda Choro. He left today for the MTC and he's going to the Honolulu, HI mission! I told him he'll absolutely love it. Hayashi Shimai and I made candy leis for him. I absolutely love his family! His dad went to BYU-H and speaks English really well. His sister went to Snow College and learned English. Needless to say, I REALLY love talking to them at church, haha. Missionary work is exciting!
Yesterday was Tsuda Choro's farewell and one of our kyudosha came to church with her 2 kids! I absolutely adore her! And guess what...she accepted baptism! She's getting baptized December 28th, however she wants to get baptized sooner, haha. Her faith is amazing. She told me during the lesson yesterday, "None of my friends are Christian, but I got on facebook and told them they all need to believe in Jesus!" Whaaaaa??? She's so awesome! I've been LDS my whole life and I would have NEVER had the guts to do that...as I said before she's AMAZING! So we have 2 baptisms scheduled for December, so please keep those 2 individuals in your prayers. They'll need as many prayers as they can get in order to be ready for baptism by that time. Especially since this upcoming transfer Hayashi Shimai is going to a new area and I am staying here with a 4th transfer. I'm excited and super nervous about the language, but I know the Lord is happy that our kyudosha have accepted baptism. I know He will help us out!
Earlier this week we went housing at some apartments between the chapel and our apartment. We live in the city so there are apartments everywhere! This one was the tallest and before we started knocking, we prayed for guidance as to where, and whom, we should seek. We took the elevator all the way to the top and decided that unless we get prompted otherwise, we will just start knocking from the top until we get to the bottom or until it was time for dinner. So we went! As soon as we reached the top floor, Hayashi Shimai turns to me and says, "I really want to go to level 9."
I said, "9 is my favorite number! Let's go!" Obviously, she was prompted. And obviously, I was just going because it was my favorite number...We waited for the elevator and started down to level 9. The whole way down I kept thinking about what I was going to say in Nihongo. We rang the first door on the left. As soon as a man opened the door Hayashi Shimai said, "Konban wa!" He looked kind of beweildered. He was on the phone and started waving as if to say, "I'm not interested." I felt like I should start speaking English so I did. Suddenly, he got a lot nicer and hung up the phone. He relaxed a little and told me he's an engineer from India and he's only been in Japan for 6 months. He doesn't know any Japanese but his job brought him here, so here he was. I told him I've only been here 6 weeks so I knew exactly how he felt. I told him why we were there and I invited him to church. He was way cool! He said he really wanted to come to church and learn Japanese. We gave him a flyer and exchanged numbers. Hopefully he'll be at church on Sunday!
I was feeling really good after that. I love contacting in English! I said a little prayer of gratitude that he spoke English then we moved on to the next door. At the next door the lady spoke Japanese so I tried my contact in Japanese. When you approach houses here they have a little box thingy with a camera so they can see you through it and talk to you on it kinda like a phone. I guess -- no, I KNOW -- I talk really slow because she ended up hanging up on me...hahaha. Hayashi Shimai just sat there and laughed.
D&C 75:20 says, "And whatsoever house ye enter, and they receive you not, ye shall depart speedily from that house, and shake off the dust of your feet..." so that's what we did! We laughed, shook it off, and kept knocking for another hour or so. We are counseled to rejoice regardless of what happens during our missions. There's evidence of this all over the scriptures. So many scriptures say, "...be glad of heart..." "Continue your journey and let your hearts rejoice..." D&C 29:7 the Lord says He has His elect, and they hear his voice, and they harden not their hearts. This is my calling. If they receive us and message that we bring then they have been prepared by the Lord. If not, then we just keep working until we find those who are ready!
This Thursday will be the start of a new transfer. Today is the start of a new week. The Lord doesn't want us to be miserable in this life. He wants us to be happy and to have joy. Even when things don't go the way you want them to, just laugh it off and keep working. We had a tough week with getting a hold of investigators and teaching, so we have had to do a lot of shrugging it off and we have just continued to work.
The Lord promises to be with us every step of the way and I have 100% faith in that promise. I know He helps me in every way, shape, and form. I am so grateful for His help! I can't wait to see what the Lord has in store for me this upcoming transfer!!!!
The work is working, ya'll!
Heimuli Shimai
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| We went "finding" at Oukura Beach Park this week. Isn't it lovely? |
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| My investigator, her adorable daughter and just me at church yesterday. She's the awesome one -- I absolutely love her! |
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