Week of Kisekis

October 21st, 2012

Hello to everyone I love! It has been a fabulous week. The one with the most miracles and success than any other week since being here in Japan. 

I will get to all of that in just a little bit. 

            

First, on Thursday we had interviews. We all got together as a zone in Okiyama, had a little training, and then President interviewed us. 

There was a fun surprise waiting for me when I got there. I guess I wasn`t the only one who transferred recently. Hansen Shimai also just transferred. She got sent to Okiyama with a new trainer. I had no idea! But it`s great! It was fun seeing her. Hopefully we`ll get to see each other a little more now that we are in the same zone. 

In my interview with President he just talked about being confident in the work. It`s okay that I don`t speak Japanese. The Lord knows that, and is willing to work with it if I turn to Him. It was edifying and uplifting. I have a great mission president! 

Ok. Now to attempt to explain some of the miracles. 

So this week we felt like we needed to go to this place we saw on the map. We were feeling adventurous so we went out on Wednesday. We packed a dinner of hard boiled eggs and rice. To add to the excitement it was raining way hard. We are not talking like a little sprinkle. It was a full on down pour. We put on our rain suits and started biking. 

After an hour and half of riding we got approximately where we wanted to go. There were groups of houses nestled nicely into the side o the mountain. We felt like we should start there. 

We took off our rain suits, popped open our umbrellas and started knocking houses. One by one people weren`t interested. We honestly didn`t get passed the name of the church before people rejected us. 

We were a little deflated...and soaking. We were also hungry. So we decided to put our rainsuits back on and we found a little abandoned drive way. We sat down and had our meal of eggs and rice. We laughed at the sight we must have been. 

It was still a little light outside and we felt like miracles were yet to be seen. So we packed up and got back on our bikes. We rode to another cluster of houses. We both felt good about them so we parked and started knocking again. The first door we tried was this cute mom with 3 boys. We talked with her for probably about 10 minutes. She seemed relatively interested, not totally enthralled. But like any good missionaries we asked if we could come back. She said yes, but didn`t really give a specific day or time. 

We thought it was a success and kept moving on. 

Here in Japan, most of the houses have these intercoms. When you ring the door bell people can pick up a phone thing in their house and talk to you through it. 

As we were continuing to knock doors we rang this door bell and a young girl answered the phone. We asked if her mom was there. She said to wait a minute. We patiently did, then the girl and her mom came to the door. 

The mom is deaf and her daughter translates for her. She told us to come in, and we talked in their entry way for about 20 minutes. The mom is just this wonderful person! She said she`s met people from Utah before, when she was at college. She said they were so nice. 

As we were talking I the Spirit was so strong. Even though every layer I was wearing was completely soaking, my whole body was warm. It was the Spirit confirming to us that we were exactly where we needed to be. 

As we were talking with her I kept remembering this member in our ward. She is a cute mom of 3 kids and also served a mission. I also knew that she spoke Japanese sign language. I asked if we could come back with our friend on another day. She said we could and we set up an appointment. As we were leaving she said, `Thank you. I love you`. All in English. 

We were obviously thrilled about this whole experience! She was just amazing. As we were continuing to knock doors we were discussing when we wanted to contact the sister from our ward to make sure she could go with us. 

As we were doing so I knocked on a door. A little girl answered the door and then her mom came to the door. IT WAS THE MEMBER WE HAD JUST BEEN TALKING ABOUT! We had no idea that is where she lived. 

But just 3 houses down from our major miracle, we had another one! We talked with the member about what had happened and asked if she knew the family. She said she had talked with them a little bit and that she would love to go with us and teach. 

Isn`t that just the coolest thing?! There are definitely no accidents in the work of the Lord. 

Well our appointment with the deaf lady was for this last Saturday. We decided to go a little bit early and see if we could talk to the mom of the other family again. 

We got out there a little later than expecting so we were just going to try and get a return appointment, we weren`t really going to teach. 

As the mom answered the door she looked a little surprised to see us. And awkward. She wasn`t sure if she wanted to listen. But we asked if we could share a message on another day. She said if we wanted we could share it right then. 

Sweet! So we ended up teaching her and her 3 boys a little lesson. At first they were a little skeptical, but at the end one of the boys said he thought that God existed. That was a great success! 

We asked if we could meet with them again. And they actually said yes!! Yay! So they became new investigators! It was so exciting! I felt like we were actually being missionaries.  We are meeting with them today. We hope this next lesson goes well! 

After that lesson we went to our neighbors house and then went together to our other appointment. The mom was so cute and very good about being genuinely interested in what we were saying. Again, the Spirit was very strong as we talked. We set up another appointment with them as well! We are meeting with them next Monday, which we are thrilled about. 

As we were leaving we met the husband who was just coming home from work. He is also deaf. I am very impressed with their daughter, (sorry they have 2 daughters but the older one who is 9 is the one who translates) she is fluent and has a great relationship with her parents. 

They are a great family! The dad is super nice and was very warm towards us. We are tickled to death that we get to start teaching this wonderful family! 

Even though both of our new investigators live so far away we are excited that our legs are going to be in such good shape! 

In regards to our other investigator, U----- Shimai, she is doing well. We had a great lesson with her this week and taught the whole restoration. She came to church yesterday which was a great step for her. The only probably is that she has a lot of family opposition to her investigating the church. Both her husband and her 21 year old son are opposed. I guess the Japanese just have bad ideas about religion and don`t like it at all.

She is not a very self confident person. Even though she is starting to come to know that the church is true, I`m worried if we don`t figure out something to do with her family, we`re going to lose her. That would be tragic. She is so close to coming to the one thing she needs in this life more than anything. I don`t want her to let it slip through her fingers. 

Last night we had a cool experience. We went back to the house were the wife is Phillipino and the husband is Japanese. They both have the Book of Mormon in their native tongue. We went back a week ago to see if we could teach them, the husband said he hadn`t read the book and wanted us to come back in a week. So we went back! He didn`t seem very surprised to see us. After talking for a minute we found out that he had been studying about the church and missionaries. He said he was interested in why were were so persistent in talking with them. 

From what he talked about, it sounds like he studied a lot! He did most of his research on the internet. He had some correct information, but also some incorrect information. We tried to correct some of it but he still had a lot of questions. We asked if we could teach him more about what we believe, but he said he didn`t really want to hear. Anderson Shimai just plowed through anyways and taught the whole first lesson in 3 minutes, while standing in his door way. I think he was starting to understand more. We gave him the churches web pages and said that they had all of the right information. He said he would look it up and that we could come back and ask him how it went. 

So, I think he is going to investigate. He just doesn`t know it yet. He will take time, I think he will come around. He studies harder than any of our current investigators. So, he`s golden! 

Well that`s all I have time for today. 

But I love you all so much! The church is true! 

Love, 

Dobson Shimai