Dobson Shimai: A Roller Coaster of a Week

April 22, 2013

Hello everyone!! I hope you are all doing great.

Things over here have been a little bit Topsy Turvy. Such is life though.

Like Grandpa Carl always says, `We know what tomorrow brings... Lots!`

Where to start? I guess this week we can start backwards. Starting with today.

Today we got transfer calls!

So me and Davis Shimai are both staying in Shimogamo.

BUT....

We are also both training. Not in a three-some. We will each be training a new sister. So now we are going to be living with 4 Shimai in our apartment. And that makes for 6 Missionaries in our area.

Wow! That`s a lot of missionaries, but I am way excited!

I guess there are more new Japanese Sisters than there are Gaijin. So President said we may end up training Japanese Sisters. But he has to wait until he meets them to decide. But it would definitely be interesting to be training a new Japanese Sister! Who knows what Friday will bring...You will probably be able to know via Sister Zinke`s blog. She`ll probably get it up faster than I will be able to email you.

We haven`t decided how we are going to split up our investigators yet. But we will have to. I am going to be way sad to stop teaching some of our investigators, however I will be able to keep seeing them at church and stuff. So that will be good.

So yesterday.....Ya. We were supposed to have a baptism...But on Saturday afternoon Ay*** Shimai called us. We were talking with her about her baptism and she kept saying how nervous she was. Which is kind of weird for her because she has been SO excited to get baptized. When I asked her why she was so nervous she said that she drank coffee on Friday. noooooooooooooooo!!!

We were so bummed! After talking with our leaders about it, the decision whether or not to let her be baptized kind of fell on us. But we felt like she needed to realize the consequences that come with our actions. It was so hard to do, but we told her she couldn`t be baptized. She seemed kind of bummed on the phone but I couldn`t really tell what she was feeling.

Then Sunday morning she came to church at 8:00. When we asked how she was she said, `I am so excited!` And showed us her new church shoes she bought. When we asked why she was so excited she said for her baptism. Apparently it hadn`t totally sunk in that she was not getting baptized. We sat down with her and talked about why she couldn`t get baptized this week. But then set a date with her to be working towards again. She needs some more review because she still doesn`t quite understand why we have commandments. Which is probably a big reason why she is having such a hard time keeping the word of wisdom.

Of course I wanted her to get baptized on Sunday. But I think it might be good to have a little bit more preparation. She is now going to be baptized on Mother`s Day! That will be a good goal to help her start progressing.

I think the reality started sinking in as we went throughout the day. She talked with one of her favorite ladies at church. She started crying and just was talking about how badly she wanted to get baptized. Luckily the member was gentle and just soothed her and told her it wasn`t the end. That she would be able to make it. It would just take some more work. I think not letting her get baptized was a good decision. Kind of a wake up call for her. I think she is going to work harder now and I am excited to see her baptized in 3 weeks.

As sad as we were not to be holding a baptism on Sunday, the Lord did bless us. So the Chinese PI who came to General Conference last week came again to church this week! This week was Ward Conference and so there was a lot of sustainings. I wasn`t quite sure what she would be thinking but after Sacrament Meeting we pulled her into a room and taught her a lesson. To start off I asked her what she thought about Sacrament meeting and everyone raising their hands. She said, `I think this is what it means. Everyone in the church has a job. And you raise your hand to say you support them.` Well. She explained as well as I could have explained it. She is way sharp!

We found out that she is doing her Master`s degree at Kyoto University. She is studying dialectology. She studies different dialects of languages, why there are dialects and how a word was said in the same area 1,000 years ago. Crazy! She is way smart but she is very open to learning more. She said she doesn`t really have a certain belief about God. She isn`t sure if He exists.

But during our lesson when we were talking a little bit about eternal families she said, `My family means the WORLD to me. I would do ANYTHING to be with them forever.` Perfect. We can help with that. :)

We are meeting her again this week and I can`t wait to teach her! She is so golden!!

Friday we had a good day with investigators. One of the members wanted to do something kind of like Family Home Evening with Ni**** Shimai. Except for that it was a Friday, and at noon I guess it was pretty close. It was us, the Elders, the member and Ni**** Shimai. We ate lunch, played a game, had a talent show, and treats. At first I think Ni**** Shimai was a little confused about the whole thing. She wasn`t exactly sure what we were doing, or why. But she soon settled in and opened right up. All the members just love her and are working so hard to help her out.

After our `FHE` (if you can call it that) with Ni**** Shimai we had a lesson with Fu**** Shimai. We felt like we needed to go back to the beginning with her. Start over. Do some more expectation setting. We started off talking about God. And all of His attributes. We asked her who she thought God was at the end of teaching it and she that He was scary. Well, we retaught it. The second time we asked her she talked about all of His wonderful attributes. Sweet. It made sense. Then we talked about how He wants her to go back to Him. She said she would like that. We then asked her a question that President Zinke suggested we ask. We asked her why she thought we were meeting with her. She had no idea. We explained that we are here to help her return to God. The wheels were turning in her head and she had some good questions. She had some questions about the commandments. The member in our lesson explained that they help us get ready for baptism.

Fu**** Shimai then taught herself. `So if I want to go back to God, I have to be baptized.` `Yes` came our response. `If I want to be baptized, so I can go back to God, I have to keep the commandments?` Deep doctrine spoken right there! That is the simplified version of what President Zinke said at interviews. He said that Commandments qualify us for Ordinances. And Ordinances qualify us for Eternal Life.

I like how simple that is!

Well in the lesson we also talked a little bit about coming to church. How it was one of the commandments. We told her we would teach why it was important in the next lesson, but we invited her to come. She readily agreed and seemed excited to come.

But I don`t know what power is influencing her life. But not 45 minutes after the lesson she called us. In English she said, `I believe my God. Me no go to churchi.` Ugh. Really?! What change happened in less than an hour? We tried calling her the next day, but she doesn`t want to talk to us on the phone. She gave the same response and then said we could talk to her about it at our next lesson. I am not exactly sure how to help her.

Anyways. The rest of the week we had a couple of lessons with Ay****

Shimai, getting her ready for baptism. We talked simply about the temple and after looking at all the pictures of the temples she kept saying over and over again, `I want to go. I want to go!` We are hoping that will help her stay on the path even after baptism.

I love you so much! Thanks for everything!!!

Love,
Dobson Shimai