9-29-13

My favorite kazoku,

Konnichiwa! Things are great, here in lovely Miyazaki. Seriously, tangent time - Miyazaki is beautiful. There are palm trees and we are right by the ocean, and I just super love it. That is all. But back to the subject at hand - it has been a great week! Thank you for telling me about everything you are up to - it sounds like things have been crazy for you all and will continue to be with everything going on! Ganbatte! You will be fantastic.

I am sorry that I don't always answer all of your questions - but I will try to do my best with that!

Yep, language-wise things are definitely improving. I am able to understand a lot of Japanese. Just normal conversations, when people speak to me, etc. It is a little harder when they speak super fast, but yes, on that end things are a lot better. It is still hard to speak very well *sentence structure, and such* but things are slowly improving with that as well. Yep - it is awesome seeing Angela and Casey every so often. Their baby is the cutest thing. Everyone here in the ward absolutely adores him. Oh and I am sorry, I forgot to mention it but this transfer the new elder, Elder Tolman is from Oregon. He is only a transfer ahead of me, so I knew him from the MTC. Cool stuff. Sister Suzuki is still great, helping me tons every day. We have quite a mix of Japanese/English conversations. We have reached a great compromise, because sometimes it is hard to speak in all Japanese all day every day especially when we have to communicate something with details, so our compromise is that we speak all Japanese, no exceptions, from when we wake up till after lunch. Then we still try to speak as much Japanese as possible, but if I have specific questions and such it is all good. This has worked out pretty well - the only problem is that we like to talk so much that sometimes we just have to speak in English for a bit, then we remember the rules... it makes for some great times. 

Jaaa, this past week - - - the volleyball activity was AWESOME. T-san's friends weren't able to come, but he came, some of our other investigators, less active members, and potential investigators came as well as some awesome members. It was so much fun! We played volleyball for about 2 hours (rented out some courts) then had some food and a short message - it was a great time. :) This past week, I made pizza. That was also exciting. Sorry for all the food news, but I am not that sorry so I will continue to talk about it. There is a restaurant here called Joyfull *kind of like the Japanese version of Dennys, but WAY more delicious* and we went with N-chan and some friends last week to celebrate her engagement!!! Awesome times. And random note - I don't want to worry you, mom, but about a week or so ago my gums really started hurting and I was worried that I would have to go to a dentist. Which I did not want to do - I feel like I have spent entirely too much of my life inside dentist offices and in oral surgeries. But anyway - I mentioned it to one of the ward members, who is a dental hygenist, and she brought over a bunch of dentist -ish stuff for me to apply every night, and things are good! Super nice of her. Oooh and yesterday we had a dendo fireside for our ward! Woot! Aka the four of us missionaries gave a presentation that the APs put together about member missionary work. It was based off of Elder Nelson's "Catch the Wave" talk and it was great. Pretty stressful preparing everything we needed for it, but it went well and I think it helped people see that member missionary work really is so important and not that hard! One fun thing with that - so several of the points we talked about, after presenting them, we did a little roleplay. In one of the roleplays, we were going back and forth a bit (sister Suzuki and I) and things were going well, but then I started saying something and realized halfway through the sentence that I did not know how to finish the sentence in a grammatically correct matter. But, I knew that I knew all the words I wanted to say so I just kind of stumbled my way through and we kept going. The good news is, according to SS it was endearing, and understandable. So its all good! Huzzah for dendo firesides, and member missionary work!!!

Kyudosha time!!! (Investigators!) --- Okay, the big news you have all been waiting for is here. PERMISSION GRANTED. As in, N-chan now has permission to be baptized!!!That is the happy news. The news that is still happy but maybe a little bit sad for me and Sister Suzuki is that the baptism will be this coming Sunday or the following Sunday (whichever works best with her parents' schedules). Hopefully. But she also said she might want to study a bit more and push it back a few weeks. You may ask why is this sad? I will tell you. Next week is transfer week. As in one of us will most likely be gone. But it is not that sad of news if one of us misses the baptism. Because we had the awesome opportunity of the preparation, teaching, getting to know her, etc. So I will keep you posted on that!!! Other investigators - so here is the thing. Essentially she is the main progressing investigator we have right now. We are teaching other people, but lots of things keep happening, such as Buddhism happens. Or they don't keep commitments. Or randomly after teaching a few lessons they decide it is just not what they want. So, we have the great opportunity to do a lot of streeting/housing. Yay! 

Also, the other day the biggest realization just hit me, out of the blue. The first transfer, especially, was pretty frustrating for me. Culture shock, missionary shock, not understanding a word anyone was saying, etc. really was hard. I kind of sometimes had the attitude of 'I wish I was serving in America, so I could know what was going on" and would get a little sad. But my realization the other day was this -- if I served in any other mission besides this one, I would not have met all of these people that have totally changed my life forever! Everyone I got to know in the MTC, my companions, senseis, other missionaries here in Japan, the ward members here, our investigators, random people we talk to on the street, etc... And I can't even imagine not knowing all of these people! I love them all so much! Therefore, that was my aha moment. And I have only been here for almost two transfers. I am so glad I have got a bit of time a head of me still to meet more people and continue discovering more blessings every day. Heavenly Father sure does know us and what is better for us, even though sometimes we may think we really know. We don't. He does. True story. :D That is why 1 Ne 17:3 is a favorite right now. He really does strengthen us, and helps us to do all that we need to do!!! I have seen this over and over again. Anyway, sorry for the supa random email, but I am outta time. Love you lots, thanks for everything, and have a lovely week!!!!

Ai shite imasu!

-Flake Shimai.

Fun fact:In Japanese, the subject is implied a lot of the time. Therefore, the phrase "Inorimasu" is a complete sentence. Pretty cool, right? (it means I will pray).

PS. Nope, General Conference is a week later for Japan, so we will watch it the following weekend!