A Week of Miracles

Takamatsu Chapel

Monday October 15^th, 2012

It has definitely been a great week. Full of mini miracles every day. Where to start?

This week was awesome in regards to contacting. We ended up finding a lot of PIs (Potential Investigators)  and even had return appointments for some of them. As we were riding away after a particularly good contact I said a silent prayer of gratitude. Then I had the impression in my mind, `You fasted, prayed and asked for them. Now I am giving them to you.` Whoa! Way cool right?! We had fasted last Sunday to find people to teach. We pray to do so multiple times each day. It was so cool to see the Lord blessing us. I feel so lucky. 

That is definitely not the only miracle that happened this week. We had an appointment with the lady I talked about last week, that we found last Sunday. I was so excited to go teach her! We went to her apartment at the specified time, rang the door bell and....nothing. You could definitely hear someone inside, moving around. But they never came to the door. We rang twice. Still nothing. I was heart broken. We had gotten spoked. We went to our back up plan and started housing in the surrounding area. No one was home or interested. Honestly, I was discouraged. I was so excited to have a new investigator and to start teaching again. 

We were going to head back home but we decided to ring the door bell one more time. We did and she answered!!! I guess she just didn't hear us. But she let us in and said we could talk. 

She was so sweet. She tried offering us drinks. But everything she tried offering us was everything we can’t drink. Bless her heart. She felt so bad. We felt bad too. We didn’t want to offend her, but we also can’t break the word of wisdom. 

So we sat down with her and we actually didn’t teach a `lesson` per say.

Every month President Zinke comes out with these training plans. They are specified things designed to help us with missionary work. This month`s training plan is all about setting expectations at the beginning of the teaching process and using the `how to begin teaching` section of Preach My Gospel. So we sit down with the investigator and get some back ground information about them, experiences that have helped them believe that God exists, our expectations, etc. 

So we just did that with her. Before we started however, we had a prayer. (Of course). I prayed very simply but the Spirit was present. After the prayer she was crying. She talked about how she had just gotten off the phone with her 14 year old son. He is living away at a boarding school and is having problems with being bullied. She said in the prayer she just felt peace when we prayed. 

The Spirit is so great! 

So long story short with her we set expectations and she is really interested in learning more. We asked if we could meet again and she said yes. And she asked to come to church before we could even invite her! Yay! We explained a little bit about General Conference and said if she wanted we were watching it on Saturday and Sunday. She said she would come. 

And sure enough. Saturday afternoon she came! She couldn`t stay for very long. But the Lord is definitely in the details in our lives. She listened to the talk by Elder Nelson addressed to those who should talk to the missionaries. I was SO excited that she got to hear it! She said she liked it and had questions. 

Awesome! 

On Sunday she came again! We taught her a brief lesson about prayer and God. The Japanese don`t really use the word love, or loving.  It`s hard to say `God is our loving Heavenly Father` when they don`t really understand what that means. Luckily we had a member there who helped build a bridge between cultures. 

The lesson went really well and you could see the Spirit working with in her. She is so tender hearted and is yearning to learn more. We are meeting again with her tomorrow. I think she is definitely one of the elect that is waiting for the gospel. 

I can`t wait to see what progress she will make this week! 

I don`t have time to share all of the miracles that happened, but I just love General Conference! It has such a power that can bring people together. 

Saturday night we went to visit the family we`ve been trying to teach. We had a great conversation with the mom. We talked outside their house for 30 minutes and she just really opened up. 

Basically she says she isn`t very interested in the church. She thinks she is strong enough without it. But she REALLY wants us to teach her kids. She thinks it could help them. We know that those adorable little Asian children of hers are going to be the door to her heart and being able to teach her as well. We hopefully will get to start teaching them this week.

BUT the cool miracle was that she brought her kids to part of Sunday`s Conference! I was so excited! They actually came. 

We didn`t get to really watch the Sunday afternoon session because we were teaching our investigator and working with the family. That was so worth it though! 

It was a great day of miracles! 

Oh! We got to start Eikaiwa (English class) this week. That was fun. All of the students there were so eager to learn. There is this new standard coming out from the church. Basically it`s like the MTC. We aren`t allowed to speak any Japanese.

It`s all English. 

That isn`t really a problem for me....I can`t speak Japanese, and I teach the intermediate class, but the look on the poor students` faces for the beginning class was great.  I wonder what my face was like that first week at the MTC....

Like I said. We didn`t get to watch conference. It was so great! (It was in English so it made it even better, because I knew what they were saying :) ) 

It`s cool studying about the gospel and the authority to preach the gospel, and then to watch conference and realize that the men who are speaking having God`s restored authority here on the earth. They are His representatives, and are truly amazing! 

Basically it was just a great week! The Lord is moving His work along. 

I love you all lots and lots! 

Love,

Dobson Shimai

Nato-Fermented Beans

"Not as bad as I thought"

Takamatsu District

The Lord's Hand is in the Work

Oct 8^th, 2012

Well. It is the start of a new transfer! It`s weird to think I`ve been
in Japan for only a transfer. It kind of has felt like forever.

Quick update on the week.

On Tuesday we taught a really great lesson to our investigator who is
a young mom. We both really felt like we needed to watch the movie,
`together forever` with her. We did and I think it went really well.
She seemed to understand it and was wanting to hear more, which is
always a plus! The only problem is that her baby was having a surgery
soon and so she didn`t know when we could come back. That was kind of
a bummer. On Sunday we went with some members to the hospital to visit
her and her baby. The surgery went well, but once they go back home
they are basically quarantined for 3 months. Her and the baby aren`t
allowed to leave, and they can`t have any visitors. They are worried
about germs leading to infection, especially because her baby is so
little. So even though she is still interested, we aren`t exactly sure
what we are going to do with her...Is she an investigator if she`s
interested but can`t meet for medical reasons? We`ll have to figure
that out this week.

Our other investigator, who did have a baptismal date, really doesn`t
want to talk to us anymore. We only called him once this week. And
that was to ask if he was coming to church. I made the call, so it was
REALLY short. (I can`t carry on a long conversation in Japanese,
especially on the phone.)
But as we were meeting with our ward mission leader on Sunday he said
our investigator called and said we were talking to him too much and
he was too busy.  Basically that we were bothering him. The ward
mission leader said that he will call him to set up and confirm
appointments from now on...

Basically we don`t have any investigators right now. Bummer.

BUT on the bright side! We still have some awesome potential investigators!
We have been trying to meet with that family  I`ve talked about, but
they are super busy and aren`t really home. Like ever.

They said they were going to come to church, but in the middle of
sacrament meeting yesterday we got a text from her saying she had an
appointment and wouldn`t be able to make it. Also a bummer. But she
did say we can visit this week. Hopefully we`ll finally get to start
teaching them!

We met with the Chinese potential investigator this week. It was a
really funny story actually. She asked if we wanted to go to lunch.
She said we could meet at this place called the shotengai. It is this
GINORMOUS strip mall basically. It just has a bunch of individual
stores and restaurants that are covered by this dome roof. It takes up
a couple of blocks and has different branches that go off.
Sometimes we go street contacting there. There. It has a lot of people
in a concentrated area which is nice. But because it is so big...we
have definitely gotten lost a couple of times. But those are stories
for another day.

So we were running late from our lesson with our investigator with the
baby and we were franctically trying to find the place she said she
would meet us. We talked to her on the phone the night before and
asked her where she would be. She said she`d be at `Albies` it was
really big and you couldn`t miss it.

Well we got to the shotengai and had no idea where to go. We started
asking people if they knew where `Albies` was. No one knew. They were
so nice and would try to look it up on their phones or help us ask
other people, but no one knew what we were talking about. We were
feeling panicked, she had an appointment right after we were supposed
to meet for lunch and we were afraid she wouldn`t be able to meet with
us anymore. We didn`t want her to slip through our fingers. She`s too
awesome for that!

We kept calling her and asking her where she was. She was trying to
direct us but it`s super hard to communicate when the person you`re
talking to knows as much Japanese as you, can say a few phrases in
English, and I only remember like 5 words in Chinese.

After much praying and running we ran into her. Quite ‘accidentally’.
She was standing outside this big clothing store. We asked if that was
`Albies`. She had no idea what we were talking about. Come to find
out, she was trying to say, `I`ll be at...` not Albies. After we
figured that out we laughed pretty hard. (Not with her of course,
after our meeting)

Anyways we ate some great `udon` noodles. They are famous here in
Takamatsu. They were delicious! We talked a little bit about her, she
is also 21 which is fun. We talked a little about God, but then she
had to go. She is super busy with work so we couldn`t get a return
appointment with her. Hopefully we can meet with her this week. We`ll
be praying and crossing our fingers.

We haven`t seen General Conference yet. They translate all the sessions
into Japanese first, then they mail it to all the wards and branches.
So we will watch it this weekend which I am SOOO excited about.
Although, we did hear about the big news. Crazy! There will now be
lots of young missionaries, including sisters, which is awesome! I can
hardly believe that!

There are two other cool little miracles I wanted to share before I finish.
First. As we were going through the area book last week we found a
great potential investigator (PI) who was interested in the gospel,
but for whatever reason they didn`t go back and visit her.
We felt like we needed to go find her. We set out one day with her
address in hand. We were optimistic and hopeful. But...then we got
lost. She lives in a relatively new building, so it wasn`t on any of
the maps. We spent forever trying to find it. We did do some
contacting inbetween that time, but we were still frustrated. We
really wanted to find her.

Well, it was time for us to return home and
we started riding back. We saw this cute little yellow apartment
building and decided to just trying housing it. We were knocking on
doors and people either weren`t home or weren`t interested. When I
knocked on the next door we looked at the name and realized it was
her!! The PI we had been trying to find all afternoon! She was
actually home and came to the door. Her name is Maria, she is from the
Philippines, and speaks about the same amount of Japanese as I do. So
there is definitely a language barrier there, but she said we could
take her a book in Tagalog. So we are doing that today. I am super
excited! I don`t know exactly how we will teach her, but the Lord will
provide a way.

Last miracle.
Yesterday after church we decided to go do some housing up in a
specific area that we both felt good about. We started heading up
there and we both thought that we needed to go to this apartment
complex that we saw. So we start biking out there, excited to find
some people to teach. We get to the apartment complex, and it is all
abandoned. We thought it was strange, but we were going to turn back.
I kept thinking, `why would we feel like we needed to go here, if the
Lord knew that no one lived there?`. I was thinking about it, and I
really felt like we needed to go to this other apartment complex that
was behind that set of buildings. We couldn`t have seen it from the
road. We talked about it and headed over there.

I was got there, there was 3 buildings. I felt like we really needed
to go to the second one. We went and at first weren`t having any
success. BUT then we met this amazing woman! She is probably in her
late 40`s. She has 3 sons. Ages 21, 19,  and 14. She is married and
really loves her family. We started talking with her and the Spirit
was instantly there. After we taught her a little bit we asked her
what she thought. She thought for probably about 30 seconds and then
said, `I think I want to hear more.` We didn`t even get to that point
of the contact yet! Then she asked us when we could come back. Those
are beautiful words. I actually didn`t know exactly what she was
saying at first, because I`ve never had someone say that they want to
hear more and ask us for a return appointment! Yay! So we are going to
meet with her on Thursday. I am SO EXCITED!!!

The Lord really does direct this work. His hand is evident in every
aspect. He wants this work to move on. Why would He not?
This work will move forward, it`s been prophesied that it will sound
every ear. We just get to choose if we are a part of it or not.
I am excited to see what miracles will happen this week!

I love you all!!
-Dobson Shimai


Here are some funny things we've seen around Takamatsu

This is a Hair Salon

"Maybe we should come check this place out after our missions :)"

 With an Interesting Title

At least it's better than MTC food

'White Washing' in Takamatsu

October 1, 2012

Well it was a pretty great week. There is always an adventure to be found in the mission field. Especially when you are white washing and one of the companions (that would be me) doesn`t speak the language. 

The beginning of the week was spent trying to find a lot of things. We had people we wanted to visit and things we needed to do. But everything is so new, and all the maps are in Kanji. Such an adventure!

There were definitely moments where we were completely lost and had no idea where to go. Luckily, however, we are in Japan. And the people here are very hospitable. If we were to ask someone where to go sometimes they would point us in the general direction, but also many people would stop what they were doing and show us the way for quite a while. One lady hopped on her bike and said to follow here. She took us through several blocks until we got to the general place we needed to be. Then she went back to wherever she was going. The Japanese people are just so great! 

We got to meet this SUPER awesome family. I can`t remember if I talked about them last week. The Elders contacted them. The dad was a less active, and his wife and 3 kids were not members. About a month ago the dad passed away from cancer. The family took a little break from speaking with the missionaries for obvious reasons. 

Well after much praying, looking at the map, and asking for directions we found their house. We got to talk to the mom and her 8 year old daughter. They are AMAZING! The mom has kept pushing on through life, even though I`m sure she is still mourning the lose of her husband. They ran a little business together and now that he has died she is doing the whole thing. I guess she is super busy and it was a miracle we even got to see her at all. We only talked for a little bit before she had to go, but I just love her. 

Later in the week we felt like we needed to go visit them again. This time we found her at work, trying to figure out some emails. Apparently the husband spoke English fluently, so taking over his part of the business has been a challenge for her. She doesn`t speak English. As we talked with her she asked us to help her translate some of the emails. She was getting these weird emails about something, and they were all in English. We went in and while cute Anderson Shimai was trying to learn the words and phrases for business Japanese and trying to translate the emails, I was playing with the 8 year old daughter. I taught her some hand games and about Christ. She said she loves church and wants to go. Awesome!

Long story short on that one, we didn`t teach a ``Lesson`` but I think the mom is really starting to trust us. I think it was such a blessing that we could be there at that time. The Lord`s hand was definitely guiding us there. 

This week we also found this awesome girl. She is about my age and Chinese. She is working right now but is trying to got to school. She wants to be an interpreter. We had a 20 minute conversation  in the middle of the side walk. (With lots of glares from passerby bicyclers). She believes in God and has some Christian friends. She is a hoot to talk to. She has a sense of humor, (which is something the Japanese don`t show you until you`re REALLY good friends. I haven`t really seen anyone with a good sense of humor for a while. Well except for my companion of course)  and she was just so great to talk to!  We`re meeting with her tomorrow and I hope things go well! I think she would be an AWESOME church member! 

We met our new district on Friday. I don`t have a picture with them yet. I`ll get one next week. I`m sure I`ll come to love them as much as I did my first district. Hopefully....

Anyways. I don`t know if you`ve been watching the weather but yesterday we had a Typhoon! What an adventure. Saturday night our Zone Leaders texted us and told us that we didn`t have to stay inside if we didn`t want to, but to be smart and don`t go out if it would be dangerous. In the morning we woke up to a lot of rain. The wind wasn`t super bad which was nice. But I don`t think I`ve seen so much rain in my entire life. I loved it! 

All of church was cancelled except for Sacrament meeting. The members INSISTED on picking us up and taking us to church. Which was actually super nice. We live about a 10 minute bike ride from the church. It could have been fun riding in that I guess. But I`m glad we didn`t have to find out. 

It was kind of a bummer that the rest of church got cancelled because our investigators didn`t want to come and we couldn`t teach our lessons. 

But there was a little adventure. We were asked to give a little thought and bare our testimonies for Sacrament meeting. 

I was really nervous at first, and I had practiced what I wanted to say all morning. 

When I got up there, I was only a little nervous and I said almost everything I wanted to. Everyone in the congregation was smiling and nodding their heads. I thought I had gotten my point across. I was happy and sat down. 

Later on I found out that I still have a LOT to learn in Japanese. I definitely said that through Christ we can receive sin. NOT strength, like I was trying to. I also said that I help Him everyday. Not He helps me. I hate particles. Who needs them. Right?....

Anyways...I am definitely the greeny making those awesome mistakes. 

For all of Sunday afternoon we studied and worked on some stuff in the area book. The area book is so important! It tells us everything about any person the missionaries have ever taught. And the area book here hasn`t been updated in ages. There are actually like 4 area books worth of papers we found all throughout the apartment. So we sorted all of that. 

The members all said the typhoon was supposed to be worse in the evening. But by around 7pm it cleared up. There was almost no wind and the rain was completely gone. We decided we had been inside long enough. We went and did some finding. 

It felt really good to leave. 

Well...I love you all lots and lots! I think you`re amazing. Remember that through the Lord you can receive strength...not sin. 

あいしています！

ダブセン　しまい

Here are pictures of our apartment in Takamatsu

Front Entry Way

Front Door

Our Apartment is on the 2nd floor (minus the front entry way)

View from our
Apartment

Outside our Apartment

Our Bathroom

Our Futons Folded Up in our Bedrrom

Our Study

Our Kitchen

Me wearing a borrowed Motorcycle Helmet (until mine could be shipped over from Akashi)