Hey! Life is fabulous!

So remember my email last week how I was sort of

expressing feelings of sadness haha. Anyways this last week we found a

really awesome lady while housing! She talked with us for 45 minutes

in her door. We taught a really short restoration lesson and gave her

a Book of Mormon and she said that anytime we were close to come back

and we exchanged phone numbers. We asked her to read the Book of

Mormon and she asked us if there was a specific area we recommended

her to read and me and Muraoka shimai were like, oh uh yes we do haha.

That's the first time someone asked us for a reading recommendation

so it took a minute but then, thank you Spirit, I was like oh ya,

Moroni 10:3-5. That really awesome scripture with a really awesome

promise. So we read that with her and she was like, mm so desu ne.

Which is like agreeing with it. Then we went back yesterday and

visited her and we talked with her for an hour and a half haha. She

had actually read a couple pages of the Book of Mormon! Yes! She said

she didn't understand a lot of it and we're like well did you feel

anything as you were reading it? And she was like, no not really. I

was reading it while I was watching t.v.....uh haha. But hey God is

all powerful right? The Spirit can do amazing things and I believe it

can still touch her heart while she reads the Book of Mormon even if

the t.v. is on too. We're praying hard for her.

So that was the miracle of the week. A pretty big one. That was really

a testimony to me that if we work diligently and continue to exercise

our faith in the hardest times, when it feels like we aren't having

any success, that's when the blessings come. That's when we see the

miracles. I know that's not just for missionary work but for all of us

in every stage of our lives.

We also ate a lot of really yummy food with ward members. That was

great. Sorry this is a short email, we're busy today. This week is

Thanksgiving! Yay! Next transfer is Christmas! What?!

Love everyone and hope everyone is fabulous!!

Love,

Murray Shimai

BRRRR

So hope everyone is fabulous! Life in Hokkaido is still fun and cold.

We’ve started using the bus to go to and from Teine. The snow all melted and so now it’s just plain cold. It’s kind of a problem when we go to talk to people and our mouths are numb, haha. but this week was pretty much normal missionary life. We did A LOT of housing. We’re really struggling to find new investigators. When we go housing, people will interrupt us after we’ve only said where we’re from or sometimes we can even say the name of the church, but they’ll interrupt us and be like, “I’m not interested!” and then shut off the intercom. We’re really trying to work with members and encouraging them to invite friends or family to church or activities or to meet us. I know there are people prepared to hear the message of the gospel in Teine, we’re just having a bit of a hard time finding them. But we have met some really nice people and the members are way awesome and all the sisters are super excited about us being in Teine and want to do missionary work. I think as we continue to encourage them and as we try our hardest to find people, together will will be able to find people to teach the gospel to.

So I’m just going to get on my little soap box here for a sec and just say that everyone really is a missionary. The full-time missionaries really do need the members help. Knocking on doors for 4 or 5 hours a day is sort of fun and we meet some really interesting people, but it results in very few investigators. When members invite their friends to listen to the message of the gospel they are more likely to accept. Every member can do missionary work! We need your help!  Okay, I’ll get down now.

Anyways, so sorry I didn’t really have anything exciting to write about this week. A lot of walking. A lot of walking. A lady we stopped to talk to on the street at first was like, “Ya, I’m not interested.” But then she kind of leaned in and said “I do have a question about something.”  And we’re like, Oh yay, please ask! And she said, “I received this necklace from my grandma and it’s a figurine of Mary (I think that’s who it was, I don’t really remember.). But she was like, “I want to know what it means and stuff." We’re like, "uh….we don’t really know the meaning…" and she was like, "oh, okay". And then we were like, so….you don’t want to hear our message? haha and she was like, no. So that was a let down. But she was nice and maybe someday she will decide to learn more about the church.

While we haven’t found a solid investigator here in Teine, we have been able to share our testimonies countless times and introduce people to the church and the gospel. Every time we get to do that I feel so great and I just hope everyone of those people that say they aren’t invested or have a religion someday meet the missionaries again and choose to listen.

I hope everyone has a fabulous week! 
Love, Murray Shimai

SNOWWWWWW!! (For real)

Yay for lots of rain!

Hey everyone, it's snowing!!! It started this morning and it's been pretty constant throughout the morning. It's pretty darn chilly outside. So ya life is great. Last week we had stake conference, so yesterday was our first sunday in the Teine ward and it was awesome! The members are super nice. One of the members runs a cafe and invited us for dinner on Thursday night there. Then she brought us pudding to our apartment last night. The best pudding I have ever eaten in my entire life. That is not an exaggeration haha. 

Last week was pretty good. We had splits on Thursday night and Friday and that was fun. I was with a 2nd transfer bean and so I basically had to speak and understand everything.... that was a little scary but it was also fun to dendo with another gaijin. While we were out biking trying to find a house it was pouring and then it started hailing and it was super windy so that was a blast. Luckily it didn't last very long. Then the other day Muraoka shimai and I biked to one of the farthest places in our area to visit an O.I. (it took us 2 hours to bike to the house ;) ) and right away the man who answered the door was like "No, I'm not interested." That was a little disappointing but a lady across the street was outside working in her garden and so we went over and talked with her and she was super nice. That was fun but it gets better. So we're like super far from our apartment right, and my back bike tire decides to go flat. Ya. At first it wasn't horrible so I still rode for a ways because we had a ways to go to get home. Well pretty soon it was completely flat and there was a bump or something on the rim so I was riding, basically dragging the back wheel, riding on the rim and every few seconds "clunk, clunk, clunk..." haha. So we walked for quite a ways and then it was getting close to curfew so we rode for a little while and I clunk-clunked the whole way haha. That was a fun adventure. We're going to be using the bus soon though because of the snow. I guess it could have been worse timing. In happy good news, yesterday we met with a girl that we met on the street! She's so cool. We met her our first day working in Teine and she can't hear but she can read lips super good and she can speak really good. She's 22 I think and super nice and fun to talk with. Yesterday we talked a little about church and stuff but hopefully we'll be able to teach her more. We're still working on finding new investigators but on Tuesday we're going with the Elders to meet a few of their investigators and they'll probably pass them to us so that's exciting! With the snow coming we'll be able to do shovel dendo haha. Carry a shovel everywhere and shovel people's driveways for them and shovel anywhere. Should be fun. I'm excited! Snow!! 
Anyways hope everyone is fabulous! Love from Sapporo!Murray Shimai

This picture is the view from the balcony of our apartment

Let it snow let it snow let it snow!

We love eachother :-)

Okay it's not actually snowing here yet but I saw yuki mushi yesterday and one of the lady's we stopped and talked to on the street last week said it might snow this week!! Yay! Tanoshimi!! Oh oh ya I forgot, transfers were last week. So I got transferred! I'm in Teine now. It's still part of the Sapporo areas and it's an open area for sisters! Ya I'm opening another area but this time I don't have a senior companion to rely on which is a little scary. Oh ya and I'm follow-up training again and oh ya my companion is Japanese again haha. If my Japanese isn't improved after this transfer something is wrong. My companions name is Muraoka shimai and she's also from Okinawa! Ya! My Japanese is probably going to be a little abnormal :) 

 So we actually live in Kotoni with the Kotoni shimai and ride our bikes to the Teine area everyday which is fun. Teine is like at the base of mountains so it's basically a bunch of steep hills that people decided to live on. It's also super pretty. There's the mountains which are super pretty right now and then there's a lot of trees that are all red and orange so it's a really beautiful area to be in right now. 

Muraoka shimai actually speaks less english than Nagamine shimai which is a pretty big feat haha so that's fun. The Kotoni shimai are Hisakawa shimai (mtc doki!) and Johns shimai so when we're all home we like all automatically split to english people and Japanese people and talk like crazy haha. It's fun! Anyways life is great! Last week for P-day we hiked Maruyama yama which was totally fun and you could see all of Sapporo. Super fun! Hope everyone is fabulous!

Love,

Murray Shimai

My mom (trainer) went home :(

Hiking Maruyama yama

Transfer spot!