Weeks 23 & 24: I Have a Japanese Companion

At the church with Brown Shimai

Brown Shimai, my withered mikan, has gone the way of the earth... Dearly missed Brown Shimai is probably now wearing RIPped jeans in the real world, because her mission is complete! I learned a lot from her, like what it looks like to build trust with your investigators, never giving up, embracing mission life--the small rules, gross, battle-scarred skirts, mayo bread, all of it... She taught me how to
always be optimistic about investigators. A baby step is still a step. She was so good for this area! Her faith is immovable. Maybe she didn't drink enough water, but she fought a good fight. And I'm staying in Shimizu Ward (Kumamoto) to pick up the pieces and keep going... now with my new Japanese companion, Sakamoto Shimai!!!!!

Brown Shimai's funeral (sorry Brown Shimai's mom if she ever sees this picture)

Well, this is the first picture I have with my new companion!
Sorry bad quality. :P

I'm trying to not speak to her in English, but it's really hard. The first day with her, I had a mini breakdown because I just cannot. Speak. Japanese. Fun fact about Rogers Shimai. Yup. I say I want a gloomy quesadilla (kurai) instead of a spicy quesadilla (karai), and laughing about little things like that makes the language struggle easier to bear.  Sakamoto Shimai is the cutest human being on the
planet, and her laugh is the best! I want to be just like her. Her English is actually way good because she has been studying English for six years and also being with American companions throughout her mission. If Sakamoto Shimai were a country, she would be Japan, because that's the best one. It's been a very humbling experience so far to be with her. Maybe I'm insecure in the language, but I'm secure in the knowledge that God is on my side.


D&C 84:88
88 And whoso receiveth you, there I will be also, for I will go before your face. I will be on your right hand and on your left, and my Spirit shall be in your hearts, and mine angels round about you, to bear you up.

Much love,
Rogers Shimai

We all try to draw like Sister Henderson...

This is a picture of Moriya Shimai's family years ago... The kimono
she is wearing in this picture is the one she gave to me!

I tried on another kimono. :)

The district picture before transfers happened

Spring in Japan

Mac Shimai drew the elders, who were in a San-nin (tri-companionship)

We got to model clothes for a less active. Her boutique is so cool!

 

Snack of the week: mango lassi from an authentic Indian restaurant. So good.

Our investigator, Leena, wanted to say goodbye to Brown Shimai

"Avoid collecting too many personal items and souvenirs." -White Missionary Handbook pg. 44 #returnwithhonor

In front of the church

Weeks 21 & 22: For Death There Is No Mercy

Shinto Shrine in Kumamoto

I tried to dye my hair again. Didn't work. Soooooooo

This weather has been perfect lately. I just really really want to go to the ocean though... Maybe next week.

Japanese is so hard! I think when you go to a Spanish-speaking mission, you get pretty close to fluency, but um... this is still the best mission there is so it's worth it even with the language struggle. Whenever I go on exchanges (which is a lot since my companion is a Sister Training Leader for all the other sisters), I'm with the other STL companion--the new missionary Sister Hansen. Talk about jumping in the deep end. A first transfer and second transfer dendoing for the day... crazy stuff is bound to happen. Sometimes when a guy says they are Buddhist, you accidentally say your message is "from Buddhism" instead of "for Buddhist people" (Particles smarticles). Or sometimes when you are talking about Buddhist temples with a stranger, instead of saying the word for temple--"otera"-- you say "otearai" instead, which is a fancy word for toilet. Fun fun. Or sometimes you say, "For death there is no mercy." Or sometimes you ask about the temple a person goes to, and they say, "ikimashou," and they take you to a Buddhist temple and you tour the temple during dendo time. iinjanai....(why not... might as well). And at the end of it all, the thought comes to mind, "I never ever, ever want to train someone." It would be a hot mess.

Me and my bike, 4G

Well, on a separate note, I found a really weird thing I like about Japan.... TOFU TRUCKS. Imagine these sketch white vans driving slow with this mournful two tone song, and there you have ice cream truck's creepy older brother that you definitely don't want to mess with. I just picture these kids running out of their house like, "Mom!! It's the tofu truck!! Mmmm what flavor should I get... How about tofu. Mmmm what size should I get... How about tofu size." Haha

With my investigators... jeez we have a lot of English speakers. I mentioned Tris and Leena (the Filipino sisters) a few emails back, and I probably should give an update on that situation. So, Tris has come to church once, but her work schedule makes it hard. Her work schedule will change on March 18. I pray for her everyday. Right now, she really wants to know if this is the right church to be baptized into. She is praying and reading the Book of Mormon, seeking an answer. Her parents in the Philippines told her not to change her religion. Since that happened, Leena hasn't met with us anymore, but according to Tris, she is reading the Book of Mormon still. We are going to follow up and see if she wants to be baptized, and we are asking her today. I'm way stressed about it actually.

This scripture has helped me get through the hard days of mission life:

Mosiah 24:13-14
"And it came to pass that the voice of the Lord came to them in their
afflictions, saying: Lift up your heads and be of good comfort, for I
know of the covenant which ye have made unto me; and I will covenant
with my people and deliver them out of bondage.
And I will also ease the burdens which are put upon your shoulders,
that even you cannot feel them upon your backs, even while you are in
bondage; and this will I do that ye may stand as witnesses for me
hereafter, and that ye may know of a surety that I, the Lord God, do
visit my people in their afflictions."

I know that God supports us in times of trial. He will never give a challenge that is more than we can handle. He gives us what we need to grow. I'm learning to love this journey.

Lots of love,
Rogers Shimai

My weird mission family

And they say this place is "inaka" (rural)

After Pres. Whiting Zone Conference

Octopus in Japanese is "taco" so watch yo self. It has a mild flavor with same softness as crab.

Kumamoto Kumas

No words

Elder Ballard was emergency transferred--another elder went home for medical reasons. :(

Ichigo being Ichigo <3

Miajima-San, one of our investigators, showing us all her adventures

This is Miajima-San and she gave us diamond necklaces... I don't know whyyyyy. People are soo nice sometimes.

Weeks 19 & 20: #Shimizutemple

Out on the street

Spring is here. The elders down in Okinawa will take their suits off tomorrow. The Sakura blossoms are beginning to show. The sun rises the same time that we do now. Meanwhile, there is fresh rivalry...
In our district, there is a little rivalry between Shimizu and Tsuboi. Four missionaries are in each of these wards. It started off when one P-day, Elder Johnson said, "I've noticed that Shimizu has gotten more baptisms this year, so it's probably going to stay Shimizu district..." Little things. The hashtag #tsuboistake2017 was born. A note found in a bike basket read, "#shimizutemple." The Tsuboi sisters gave apple cinnamon bread to the elders, and they got a text that read, "Thank you for the bread. It is fueling us to continue building the Shimizu temple.... #tsuboistake u da best." Mac Shimai responded, "All the flavors and you chose to be salty." Later that night we return to the apartment and find chocolate swirl bread on the doorstep." When we thanked the elders, the text response was, "I didn't choose salty. I chose chocolate." All in good fun. 😂

Please pray for our Filipino investigators! Being Filipino in Japan is so hard. The cultures are so different. Filipino people are so warm and outgoing and the religious landscape is so different here from what they are used to, but Japan has better living opportunities. I know they are sacrificing a lot to live here in Japan so far away from family. Their family back home is telling them not to change their religion, but Tris came to church yesterday. She hugged us so tight and said, "I want to come back. I'll get my manager to change my schedule so I can have Sundays off."

When missionary work is challenging, that's when it feels right. To be able to teach by the Spirit, it requires 110% concentration and effort from both people. I'll look over at Brown Shimai as she is testifying or sharing a personal experience and if her ears are red--oh snap it's about to get real and my heart starts beating faster. When her ears are red, I know contributing to the lesson with anything less than my full heart, might, mind, and strength wouldn't work.

I think the fastest way to gain respect for the people of a country is struggling to talk to strangers in the native language. I am truly at the mercy of the Japanese people. I'm facing this huge language barrier, and to have people kindly stop and talk to us for a few minutes... well, I find it very humbling.

Missionary life is so fast-paced. My schedule is constantly changing. Sometimes, I go to church twice for investigators that can't make the 2pm time. Sometimes, I have to Kiki delivery service all the way home before curfew when the lesson takes longer than expected. Sometimes, we need two backup plans when appointments fall through or people just aren't home. That's just how it is. Brown Shimai's three adjectives to describe a mission: wonderful, hard, fun.

Also, going to a member's house for dinner feels like going to my summer home in Babylon. Riding in a car has become a great luxury.  After dinner we have to go right back to dendoing in the cold and my body says, "zetai yada, baka!" (Absolutely not, fool!) But is it worth it? An investigator's prayer (paraphrased): "God I am a sinner. I make mistakes everyday, and I pray to you everyday that I might be forgiven. I don't know which is the right path for me, but I am so grateful you have given me this chance to meet with the missionaries. Thank you for them... God, I don't know why I live here so far away from family, so please help me know what to do. Thank you for my many blessings. In the name of Jesus Christ. Amen." Yes, it is worth it.

Don Quixote is an insane(ly awesome) Japanese store.

Yeaaah idk

last picture with my old hair (sorry mom)

... the result? my hair smelled thrilling for a day. The end. Also I own this kimono--a sweet recent convert gave it to me!

MTC flashback-- look how much shorter my hair was

Brown Shimai lookin snazzy as ever

The generous recent convert folding the kimono she gave me

It was so pretty I didn't eat it all. (as in there was coffee jelly at the bottom)

The melon pan brings all the missionaries to the yard.

Weeks 17 & 18: Kimonos :)

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

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

Brown Shimai

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)

Shimizu District is where it's @

Brown Shimai is the kind of girl that can make holding a glass of water look classy.

Suizenji -- Famous garden of Kumamoto

Suizenji

It's not even spring though....?

Mac Shimai insisted on pregnancy pictures because she is training a new incoming missionary... Sister Hansen. I wish her companion good luck. haha!

Weeks 15 & 16: I Cried in Front of a Stranger

It was snowing and we were happy!

Wow! Weird week! My MTC companion probably still has her eyebrows on fleek, so life goes on. Here in Japan, given the choice between a college-age person and an obaachan (grandma), I would choose the obaachan any day. Yesterday, we revisited this obaachan we had given a Book of Mormon to about four weeks prior to see if we could continue a religious discussion. Well, she slid open her door with the Book of Mormon in her hand and told us she hadn't read it and wanted to give it back. "I can't have a big book like this! The words are too small. I have no time. I'm an obaachan."  This was the beginning of a long discussion on who was going to keep the book. I could tell my comp was thinking we should have taken the book and left looooong ago. But I swear by being a crazy lil bean chan at all times and didn't want to walk away yet. Rejection is hard to swallow all day every day.
We said, "We'll take the book if you let us sing this church song ("I am a Child of God")."
And she said, "You mean I have to listen to you sing to give you the book?"
Long story short, we sang the song (without her being offended), and then there was a brief silence. Brown Shimai saw the obaachan lock eyes with me and start to push the book into my hands, which was kind of a long overdue transaction at this point and we all knew it was time to leave. So the obaachan started to give me the Book of Mormon, but then she took it back and held it to her chest, and Brown Shimai was way surprised. So she looked over to see what in the world was happening, and saw me crying for the first time ever. I was probably as freaked out as she was about it. And the obaachan said, "Akewatashita, akewatashita!" Which is to say, "I surrender!"
And then it started to rain, and I said, "The rain is getting in my eyes. I'm sorry!!!"
And she said, "Because you are crying, I will keep the book, but it will take me ten years to read it, ok??"
This whole conversation lasted about twenty minutes and then the obaachan came out of her house and waved goodbye in the pouring rain, clutching the Book of Mormon, smiling at us as we biked away.

Funny thing is that there is this stress test all new missionaries take, and earlier that day when I had taken it and gotten a green score, Brown Shimai had commented on how weirded out she was that I was so well-adjusted and calm with all the new changes happening in my life. She said, "All new missionaries cry! Why haven't you had a breakdown?" Later last night I had a breakdown. I guess getting asked how I am managing stress gets me stressed. Haha :P

I want to tell you about the biggest miracle I have had on my mission thus far (but that's not saying a lot is it?): we have two baptismal dates with these Filipino sisters! :D We discovered them when I was on exchanges last week with Hunt Shimai. We had decided on just this last row of apartments before biking back before curfew. We knocked on the far left door because it smelled like good food cooking. The woman answering the door spoke in English and told us she wanted us to come back, because she had met with a missionary two years ago that had been inviting her to church, but the communication had been lost somehow... turns out, she was still in contact with the missionary, but she was back in America and married two years ago. When Brown Shimai and I came again this week, we had a beautiful lesson, and they are so excited about baptism! One of them had almost been baptized when the other missionary had asked her two years ago, but now she feels actually ready. At the end of the lesson, they said,
Tris: "Thank you for coming and sharing the word of God with me. It's been a long time since I have felt this. "
Leena: "But weren't you studying the Bible everyday in your 7 day adventist school?"
Tris: "Yes, but I felt they were trying to convince me. Today you (looking at Brown Shimai) explained the scriptures so I could understand. And today as we read these scriptures, I felt you explained it so clearly so I understand not just with my head but with my heart."
I shared a story and after Leena smiled at me and said,
"That's why you're here! So you can share this with me."
I could be sent home tomorrow and feel as if my work here has been performed, because of the great spiritual joy I have felt from being with these two Filipino sisters who have such a strong faith in Jesus Christ and who are willing to be baptized on March 4, if they discover the Book of Mormon to be true. The work here is sweet. It feels like I got here just yesterday, but it's already been over a month!

The shimai-tachi in my apartment are the best! We've decided if each of us were flowers, this is how it would be:
Brown - cocoa plant
Mac - lavender
Hunt - daffodil
Rogers - snapdragon

Also princesses:
Brown - Anna from Frozen
Mac - Ariel from The Little Mermaid
Hunt - Belle from Beauty and the Beast
Rogers - Jasmine from Aladdin

Before I came to the apartment, when the Shimai would make this food called gouma pasta they would throw in whatever to enhance the flavor, including this clear liquid that made it taste "really fresh," but they had no clue what it was. Five weeks later... I'm here and Brown Shimai says, "Here, put this on your pasta."
Mac Shimai looks at the bottle more closely and says, "That's cooking alcohol."
My trainer was trying to get me drunk. She saw me writing this story and she just said, "What? Nooooooo." Because she had been hoping I forgot this ever happened. "It's cooking vinegar," she says. Nice try, Brown Shimai. ;)

I read this talk called "He Will Place You on His Shoulders and Carry You Home" and this is a quote  from it that I really like:
"Surely, I thought, if man can take the ruins, rubble, and remains of a broken city and rebuild an awe-inspiring structure that rises toward the heavens, how much more capable is our Almighty Father to restore His children who have fallen, struggled, or become lost?"

Two years ago, Tris didn't feel worthy to be baptized. I just want her to know of God's mercy. I want her to know that she can be freed from past feelings of guilt and worry. Baptism is a miraculous new beginning, and I'm on cloud 9 right now that she has that desire to be baptized. God is always ready to help us. We need only seek Him.

Much love,
Rogers Shimai

Sorry the pictures aren't as good this week I think!

Mac Shimai and Hunt Shimai secretly used my camera and created this story using stuffed animals, and this is my favorite one from the series. ^__^

 

"I'm a missionary and people are gonna think I'm drinking champagne right now."

A recent convert has spent soo much time and energy creating these lists of Japanese sayings. I have over a hundred now. She's an angel. 渡る世間に鬼はない (there is kindness to be found everywhere.)

Hey guess what? 7/11 sushi is really good here! Haha Also I loved the coconut drink. 

 

 

 

Can't get over my comp's hair...

Queen Hunt surveying her empire

 

My squad

Trying to make a 1000 paper cranes before I return from my mission.

This is Ichigo (it means strawberry), and her mom always dresses her up in strawberry clothing. She is the cutest!