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| Fulfilled my dream of being a burrito (also a Japanese empress!) |
Well, I think the pictures are more exciting than anything I'm going to write this week, but hiiiiii! I probably shouldn't say this in an email I'm sending to newer missionaries, but here I was thinking first transfer was hard. JK--second transfer and you die. But it's still ok, because I have awesome investigators and an awesome companion!!
Some investigator updates:
Kurihara - she was the first person we set a baptismal date, but now she's in the hospital right now indefinitely, and she doesn't want us to come visit her while she's in the hospital. My trainer says that, just because she is in the hospital, it might be a few transfers before she gets baptized. Pray for her!
Tris and Leena - they have had their own set of challenges as well, but every time we meet with them, I feel the Spirit so strongly. Normally, great lessons make me think "Yeah, this is why I'm here!" But last lesson I walked out asking, "Why am I here? Why do I even have this responsibility? I'm just a lil punk missionary!" Brown Shimai says she's had that feeling many times. This is God's work and we are His instruments so we just gotta ganbaru (try our best) and trust in God's power and grace. My teaching skills are far from being tight like unto a dish.
We have a lot of other investigators, but these are the ones that have especially been on my mind lately...
In our apartment, we were deciding which characters from the BOM we would match up with (yeah, ok, I know our apartment is weird), and for me they said Lehi (the visionary one). Whenever someone has a weird dream in the apartment, I tell them to write it down in the shared dream journal, so I was all about it. 😇 But when I told them why I thought it was a great match, Mac Shimai said, "Umm that's not what I meant." Haha oh well. If Mac Shimai were my breaker (my second companion), that would the best and the worst thing ever. :D
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| Sister Mcnoneofyourbusiness and I eating cold tapioca drinks in the freezing cold. 🎉 |
I love reading the BOM as much as Brown Shimai, and I think that's the reason why we've seen so much success giving them to people. I finished the one month BOM challenge today and this time my favorite part was King Benjamin's speech. Brown Shimai says my smoothest Book of Mormon handout was this:
A guy answers the door, and we start talking about if Japanese is harder to learn than English. He says Japanese is harder because of kanji. Then I say, "Yeah, kanji is way hard. I'm trying to read this book in kanji right now... just a little each day, but mainly I read the hiragana instead. I have it with me actually. It's called the
Book of Mormon and it's my favorite!...." Then I always end with "doozo"(go ahead/go for it)" as I put it into their hands. I love saying "doozo" when I give people the
Book of Mormon, but I just realized how weird it would be for me to say that in English. Oops.
Stay safe everyone! Know that I love you!!
"Every challenge you face, every hard thing you confront, every bad thing that happens to you, every unfairness, every conflict, every sadness, tragedy, every disappointment and heartache, every temptation and every opposition happens for one purpose only: to give you opportunity to respond by applying in your life the teachings of Jesus. As you do so you are changed to become more like Him.
"If you were never presented with some advantage to be gained by dishonesty, such as recognition, or money, or a better grade on a test or avoidance of punishment or embarrassment, you could never develop integrity. If no one ever offended you, you could never learn to forgive or internalize mercy. We're you never wearied by the annoying behavior of another or the repeated failures of someone else you could never become patient. Without opposition the plan would be frustrated, you could not progress and the purpose of life would be unachievable." - The Fourth Missionary
Over and out,
Rogers Shimai
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| Brown Shimai |
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| Snack of the week! Yogurt water was an experience. A little tangy, a
little sweet, and whole lot of weird. Baskin Robbins Love Potion was ok,
but Melty Kiss is better. (Fam, you know it) |
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| Shimizu District is where it's @ |
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| Brown Shimai is the kind of girl that can make holding a glass of water look classy. |
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| Suizenji -- Famous garden of Kumamoto |
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| Suizenji |
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| It's not even spring though....? |
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| Mac Shimai insisted on pregnancy pictures because she is training a new
incoming missionary... Sister Hansen. I wish her companion good luck.
haha! |
