O-hayo gozaimasu! Ai shite iru yo!

Dearest Dearest Family who I love with ALL MY HEART! 

Lovely Japan :) 

Mount Iwate 

Here are some tidbits from this week:

- Valentine Shimai (who finished her mission this week) sitting straight up in bed in the middle of the night and bearing her testimony in Japanese, even finishing it properly "in the name of Jesus Christ, amen." and then laying back down.  

- A dear sister in our ward, Kumagai Shimai, who I love and who is spunky and classy and who reminds me a lot of Grandma Kerr, came over to us before Relief Society and asked us to write down all of us Izumi missionaries` full names so she could take our names on the ward Tokyo Temple trip this week and put our names on the prayer list. That was so sweet and made me feel so loved!

- On Saturday me and my companion went to an elementary school performance because the family we are teaching:s two kids were in it. So we went to support them! I had this little moment of just sitting there looking around the auditorium and getting a little teary - feeling I love my Japanese family!

- It was so interesting going to the school play and seeing the Japanese culture. Everyone who came to watch, brought along a bag with their little slippers to change into to wear inside the auditorium. We all take off our shoes and go in slippers or stockings inside homes, auditoriums, and sometimes restaurants!

- The family we are teaching is so cute and I really hope that we can help them develop faith in Christ and the gospel. This week when we taught them we decided to introduce Baptism. So we  taught them simply that we need to get baptized 1) in order to follow Jesus Christ. 2) in order to return to Heavenly Father. 3) to be made clean again. We did a fun little object lesson too which the kids loved. We invited them to get baptized, but they weren:t ready to accept. But we will keep trying to share this glorious Gospel with them! 

- We went on our first splits this week! I worked with Alcazar Shimai (I was in the same apartment with her in Yamagata)! It was great, and I:m just so grateful I get this experience to serve and I know I have a lot to learn and become over these next few weeks. On our split we had a lesson with one of our investigators, and we also tried visiting a less active sister for her birthday, but it turned out she wasn:t home. So we decided to walk across the street and knock on a couple doors. We met an older man and he seemed a little hesitant to talk to us, but we were able to chat for just a little bit, and he told us that he:s read the entire Bible! We weren:t able to talk to him for much longer, but we will try going back again this week to visit him! 

- Something we do for service is we help a man, Sato san, teach his own little English class. This week I showed our family picture to him and the few other women who were there. And all the women were like "Your mom is SOO beautiful!!" :) I love you Mama! 

All my love, 

Kingu Shimai

Mama! My heart is rejoicing! So much JOY! Oh, how very good Heavenly Father has been to our family. Miracle after miracle. He just keeps blessing us, and I feel very grateful! 

THE HOUSE IS SOLD!!!! 

Please be careful in all of your flight and road trips and travel, during the holidays and with moving back to Utah, especially since its turning winter. Okay?

Now I really feel like when I come home, I will be COMING HOME. Like not just having Mama there for a few weeks, and then have to go back to Kansas. It will be real! Home sweet home! 

I would want to go to the Root-tech conference thing! I want to do family History work so bad! 

I will love my mission to the very last moment! I will try and not get trunky. I want so much to honor Dad through my mission. And I want to serve Christ with everything He:s given me. And then, when I come home, I will love that too. 

I love you Mama! Hoorah for Israel! 

 

a Buddhist goddess!

A DRAGON head at a random train station!