Happy Thanksgiving

November 26, 2012

Making a "I'm Thankful" Turkey in English class

We are going to play a game of `Where`s Waldo?` except Dobson Shimai style. Guesses as to where I am? .....

The winner is....TAKAMATSU!!!

Yep! I am still here. Who is my companion you might ask, well....Anderson Shimai stayed too! This transfer all of the sisters in the whole mission stayed. Cool right?!

And now we have a pretty nice rhythm when we teach. I think I`ll miss that when that goes away. The transfer ends the first week of January. So we`ve got about a month left together. :) 

We are seeing so many miracles and our investigators are really progressing. We are excited to be staying! I can`t wait to see what miracles are waiting for in this new transfer!

 

Oh! And our whole district stayed the same. I am so happy! I just love those Elders! (In a STRICTLY platonic way or course)

Ok, not much time today, I`ll try to explain everything quick.

Last Monday was great! We were teaching Izumikawa San and we were reviewing the Restoration. She really didn`t understand it before and we really wanted her to. At the end she seemed to understand more. And she said she thought it was true!

Then an interesting experience happened...We definitely had NOT planned to invite her to baptism. But as we were teaching I really felt the Spirit urging me to ask her. At first I immediately pushed it aside. I was afraid that it would mess up the lesson, it wasn`t going in the direction towards baptism and I didn`t want to.

Again, stronger this time, I felt the Spirit. I was so scared! I looked at Anderson Shimai, wondering if she was feeling this same thing. I don`t know how, but I could tell she was thinking about it. She mentioned a little bit about the Doctrine of Christ, I don`t remember exactly what, but then I knew I needed to invite her. I did the soft invitation. Asking her if when she felt these things were true she would follow the example of Jesus Christ and be baptized.

Immediately she said yes! We were both stunned for a second, yet elated at the same time. Anderson Shimai jumped on that and asked her if she would start preparing to be baptized in January. She agreed and we were all so excited! I definitely am so grateful we listened to the Spirit. Our investigator was able to progress more than we thought she would. We are so excited for her! Our next goal is to start teaching her boys. Hopefully that will happen next week.

Then on Wednesday we were teaching her again. We had an awesome miracle! We were teaching her the Plan of Salvation. We had really only planned to teach up to `Our Life on Earth`. But as we got to that part she asked us for the rest. She said, I really want to know! So we taught the rest and she understood it really well!

Although that was cool in and of itself (normally she has a hard time understanding deep concpets) she told us that she was part of this religion. It`s this weird religion in Japan. A guy went to BYU, studied the organization of the church, then came back to Japan and used the organization and took out God. It really is not a good thing, and normally there are weird people in it.

When she told us this, everything made so much more sense! We felt from the beginning there was a little something that was off. We didn`t know what, but now we know it was because she was in that religion. She told us she was in this religion and then she said, `but you have changed the way I think`. Then she started crying and we started crying we were all just so happy and the Spirit was so strong. I just love her!

After the lesson her prayer was AMAZING! She said, `Heavenly Father, thank you so much for this wonderful plan that you have prepared. I am so excited!` She has really grown so much from our first few meetings. It is fun to see the gospel illuminate her life. Every time we go back she has a little more light in her eyes. She is great! We are so excited for her.

Another cool miracle that happened. So we felt like there was someone we needed to find from the area book. We started looking through past investigators and were looking at all of the ones with some potential and calling them and asking if they wanted to meet again. It was my turn to call. I made the call and asked for the lady. She was a mom of 3 little girls and they hadn`t written why she stopped investigating.

When I called a man answered the phone, I asked for the woman and he said in English, `Sorry this is Peter. Can I help you?` Long story short. Peter is also a previous investigator from a couple of years ago. He is from Zimbabwe and is going to school here. The number I called was for some reason on the other lady`s record.

Well I explained who we were and asked if he would want to meet again. He agreed and we set up an appointment for Wednesday.

Wednesday at 7:00 we showed up at his apartment with our cute little ward mission leader and his wife. We thought Peter was the only one there so we needed a male. And then....Surprise! Peter just recently got married to Tatenda. She is also from Zimbabwe and just moved here 3 months ago. She doesn`t speak any Japanese.

It was weird teaching in English. I haven`t done that forever! I also prayed for the first time in almost 6 months in English. That was weird. Sometimes I had to stop and think about what to say. That`s a good sign that my Japanese is getting better though, right?

They are both Seventh Day Adventist. I don`t know a whole lot about their religion. But they are really devout.

At first I was afraid that it would turn into a Bible bash. But it didn`t. They were very respectful and listened to us. We just did some ‘how to begin’ teaching points with them. It`s cool because they also believe that the Godhead are 3 separate beings and have different roles.

We actually have a lot of the same beliefs. We asked if there was anything they were expecting. The wife wants to see if there is more light that we could add to what they have. She really is interested in life after death and eternal relationships. They believe you stop existing when you die. And you don`t remember anything from life. But they do believe in the resurrection. Peter has had almost all the lessons, but Tatenda hasn`t heard anything. She`s genuinely interested in what we believe and I think Peter is interested too.

We are going back this Wednesday and teaching the restoration.

At first it was kind of weird teaching someone with a Christian background. I am so used to teaching someone who really doesn`t know who God is. When you say, `There is one God, He is your Father, you are His child and He loves you` It blows their mind. That is even too much information for the Japanese sometimes. But teaching this cute couple we can go more into depth. It`s scary but fun at the same time.

One more cool miracle that happened. Preach My Gospel has a part where it talks about how the Lord is really preparing people to receive this message.  It says, `He will lead you to them or He will lead them to you`.

Yesterday He lead them to us; her to be exact. Right at the end of sacrament meeting this super cute girl, probably around 20, showed up to church. All the ward members were excited and kept asking us where we met her. However, we had never seen her before!

Her name is Shi Fuku Sai. She is actually Chinese and has only been in Japan a couple months longer than me. She doesn`t speak any English and my Japanese is actually better than hers...and mine is not very good.

We don`t know very much about her. There is definitely a language barrier there. But we learned that her older sister also lives in Japan and came to church a couple time years ago. Shi Fuku Sai San told us she wanted to go to church on Saturday so she walked all the way from her home (about 45 minutes one way) to the church. No one was here. She went back home. But Sunday morning right before church started she called the church and asked what time church was. Someone answered the phone and told her 10. 1 hour later she was here. At the church!

We asked why she is coming.  She said she believes in God and wants to learn. I have never seen so much real intent and desire as I have in this little Chinese girl. She is amazing! We sat down with her during Relief Society and had a little lesson. At the end she said she wanted to hear more and asked us for our numbers. Of course we were ecstatic. Before we even asked her if she could, she informed us she was coming back to church next week.

Cute her! She doesn`t understand what is being said. But she believes in God, wants to learn about Him, and loves the feelings that she feels here.  I can`t wait to see how fast she will progress! I am sure she will progress as fast as the language barrier can be torn down. Hopefully that is sooner rather than later.

She is awesome!!!

There are even more miracles that have happened but I don`t have time to explain all of them!! Life is so hard! :)

Miracles are waiting to be wrought in Takamatsu!

Well that is all I have time for today. I love you all! Thanks for your support and prayers. I need them every day. :)

Much love!!!!

ダブセン　しまい

Thanks for the Thanksgiving Package.  I made this apple pie.

It was oishii!! Delicious! This is our humble Thanksgiving meal.