An Earthquake and The Work of the Kingdom

April 16, 2013

Hello everyone! I hope everyone is find and dandy! I love you all so much.

Yes. There was an earthquake this week on Saturday. We woke up at 5 in the morning to an annoying beeping coming from the phone. With sleepy eyes we were trying to figure out the kanji in the message when our futons jolted on the floor and slid a little bit. Then we realized that the phone message was an earthquake alert.

I guess we aren`t very Japanese because we sat up. And after it stopped shaking we went back to sleep. We were lucky as there wasn`t any damage in our apartment or in Kyoto.

Some other areas had some cracks in the walls and stuff, but we were pretty far away from the center so we were safe. :)

Honestly, I forgot about it until I read your emails asking me about the earthquake. Haha.

The members and some of our investigators were all worried and were talking about it. They are a lot more nervous when it comes to earthquakes. Probably because they have had lots of previous scary experiences.

But all is well.

This week was so great!

We had a lesson with Fukushima San. She came into the lesson and had written out a bunch of lyrics of a song she either wrote or listened to....I`m not quite sure. But it was about a lot of weird stuff about this life. I won`t go into details but I am really glad that we started teaching her the plan of salvation that lesson. I think it really helped answer a lot of her questions. There isn`t a whole lot to do on updating about her.

We also had a lesson with Ni*** Shimai. Wow! Well first as we were following up on her reading and praying was going she talked about how much she is studying and praying. She pulled out her notebook of all the things she had been studying. Her references from both the Bible and the Book of Mormon. As she was showing the member the member just started bawling. She said, `Oh Sister! I can`t believe there are actually people like you that want to learn so much!` I think it was a good testimony strengthener for our member.

But if that wasn`t a strong enough witness, Ni**** Shimai then pulls out her little planner and turns to a page. There she had written peoples names, places of birth, and death dates. She said that they were mostly her grandparents and her husband`s siblings and parents. She said she has recently had a whole lot of time and she hasn`t been sure how to fill it. She said she felt like she needed to start gathering all this information on her relatives. So she did.

As the member heard this she turned to us and her mouth literally dropped. Then came the tears again. The member turned back to Ni**** Shimai and said, `This isn`t going to make any sense, but I am going to explain it anyways.` And then proceeded to explain family history and temple work. The member then said to Ni**** Shimai, `All of those people want you to do their work! Quick. Get baptized fast!!!` Well I am glad the member said. I wanted to, and her Japanese was much more understandable.

I am not sure how much Ni**** Shimai really understood. But the idea didn`t seem to bother her.

At the end of the lesson we ended up talking about baptism again. She really is progressing so well and we want to help her start working for a goal. But as we brought it up again she is still very set on the fact that she doesn`t know everything. She wants to know it all before baptism. We told her that wasn`t necessary and tried to explain that she would keep learning. That we didn`t even know everything. But she still wouldn`t take that for an answer.
We are going to keep working with her on that.

But she did come to both the Saturday and Sunday morning sessions of General Conference! Yay!! Obviously we were so thrilled. She said she liked them a lot and wants to talk about it at our next lesson. So we`ll see what she thought.
And that`s Nishi Shimai.

Next is Ay**** Shimai!!

Wow. She is really working so hard and everything is coming together very smoothly for her baptism. We are so excited! She passed her interview on Thursday! And we ended up meeting with her yesterday and just walking through the program, what it would be like. And you could just see the light that was coming into her eyes. She is so excited and said she can`t wait to get baptized. She`s actually going to make it!! This Sunday before church! Wahoo. I really am just so excited for her.

We didn`t get to meet with M**M** and Jo*** this week. Jo*** started college this week and M**M** started teaching so they both are way busy which is a total downer. But they said they do want to meet again so we are hoping to set up a time this or next week.

This weekend we watched GENERAL CONFERENCE!!! I have always loved General Conference but it is just so much better as a missionary. The 2 hours sessions just seem to fly by. I could hardly believe when they were over.
Obviously I loved all of the talks. I am excited that the rest of the world is catching the `wave` of missionary work. It`s so excited to see everyone get on board.

After the Saturday session we had some time before we had to go home. We ended up doing some housing pretty close to the church. There we met an elect. She is so prepared and we are so excited about her!!!!

She is a college student. She is Chinese but speaks fluent Japanese (way better than mine) and really good English. She has a boyfriend from Germany  who is studying at Cambridge right now. She said she misses him a lot and wants to meet with more good people her age group. Perfect! We actually have like 5-7 YSA in our ward!

She has been to Catholic church before with her boyfriend and said she is interested in Christianity. We ended up inviting her to General Conference. And she came! We asked her if she wanted to watch it in Japanese, Chinese, or English. She chose Japanese and we had her sit next to one of the cute members who just got back from her mission. I guess she had to leave 15 minutes before it ended but she wrote us a note. She said, `Thank you so much for inviting me. Everyone is so nice! I am coming again next week. Let`s meet again. Shall we?` And then her phone number and email address! What?! I have never had someone take that much initiative in meeting with us. So excited!

We contacted her. She said she is really busy this week but asked if we could meet before church. The ONE week someone wants to meet with us before church, we have a baptism. Ironic, isn`t it? But we invited her to the baptism and she said she might have to come a little late, but she will really try to make it.
I have such a good feeling about her. I am seriously so excited!!

Yesterday we had Zone training and Interviews. Interviews were great. We had training from Pres Zinke and the assistants. Sister Zinke always comes. And we had a good talk with her. By October we are supposed to have 80 shimai! And there could be more as they are still assigning mission calls! Right now we only have 22 Sisters in the mission. And that is including the new Sisters who just got here this transfer! There is no way that they are going to be able to train all of the new ones coming in. Because of that they probably won`t be able to implement that new Sister leader position in right away. They are thinking 3-4 transfers from now.
 

I really just feel so blessed to be in this mission at this time. It`s going to end up being a little crazy. Who knows what these next couple of transfers will bring. But I am excited for the challenge and ready to go to work! 
I love you all so much. Have a wonderful week!!

Love,
Dobson Shimai