End of Transfer 10!

It's the end of another transfer!!!!!! Tomorrow we get transfer calls. I really hope I'm staying in Kushiro because it's awesome and we have so many great investigators! Our philippino investigator is doing awesome! She has a baptismal date for next month and we are meeting with her a lot and she's really progressing and loves hearing our message! It's super weird teaching in English though. Like kind of a struggle haha. Most of the time while we're teaching we'll try to explain something and all that comes to mind is Japanese! It's normally what we want but when you can't remember or figure out how to say it in english it's a problem haha. We rely very heavily on the Spirit. But it's been a really amazing experience.

This past week was obon. It's like day of the dead or something like that in english I guess.  Families all come back together and visit the graves of relatives and clean them and put flowers and food I think and stuff on them. They believe they come back from the spirit world or wherever they believe they are. But so basically everyone was really busy this last week and a lot of people weren't home. At night in the parks they had dances that the kids do with their parents and stuff. It's actually really cool. There's a park right near our apartment so we could hear very clearly at night the music. It was fun. The picture is of the park near our apartment.

The other night a family who comes to eikaiwa, the one who took us on the road trip last transfer, took us out to eat and it was the real Japanese dining experience. I ate I don't know what. Raw squid, octopus, shellfish, oyster and some other stuff. Most of it was actually pretty good. Oh and a huge raw shrimp. There was one for me and Wagner shimai to share and she was like, I don't really want it and so I took it and started peeling it's shell and head and legs off. I started pulling the body shell stuff off and nasty brown guts and stuff squished out haha! It was gross. So I finished peeling everything off and I held the shrimp body up and the string of gut stuff is still hanging off the body and I asked the dad if we were supposed to eat that part. He said, "Yes, it's perfect, eat it like this, it's delicious!" Haha. Ya so my throat kind of closed at thinking of eating the slimy brown guts. So I just took a bite of the clean body part and it was pretty good. Then the dad turns to Wagner shimai and says to her, "You eat! Try, Try!" and all that was left was the bite with the guts haha. She took it from me and stared at it for a few minutes and then pops it in her mouth. They're all like, "How is it? Is it yummy?" And she looks up and like a champ keeps a straight face and says, "Ya, it's really good!" haha!! Afterwards she asked me if I could tell she was lying from her face :D I still have no idea how she kept a normal face during that experience. I respect her haha. It was really funny. 

Anyways hope you all have a great week!

Love,

Murray shimai

Welcome to typhoon weather!

Big email...

Hey everyone! 

Another great week here in Kushiro! We're having like sort of a Typhoon here. Not a full one but it's pretty fun to ride bikes in. This last week we had some hot weather which I didn't quite know how to handle but I made it through so it's all good. Wagner shimai and I had to take a few icecream breaks and that's probably what saved us haha. 

This week was pretty busy and some cool stuff happened. Lately so many people have been coming to english class and this last week we had 3 of our investigators there! It was really fun. And our philippino investigator came to church again! She is so awesome! She is such a testimony builder to me that the language of the spirit is universal because she can't understand most of what is being said in church but she always tells us that she feels so good when she comes and she feels her stress go away! The Spirit is so powerful!

We also had a neat experience about praying for guidance and receiving it. In the beginning of the transfer the elders passed us this lady investigator and told us we could go anytime  and we tried to visit her several times but we couldn't find her apartment. We finally thought we found it but no one was ever home and we found out it was the wrong place, so that was awkward. But yesterday we decided we really needed to find it so we could visit her and again we couldn't find it but we both felt we needed to find it or just really wanted to because it was so frustrating that we couldn't. So we said a prayer and then decided to go to the main road and then weave up and down all the streets in the block. We started doing that and we were biking down one and out of the corner of my eye a blue building sticks out and I look over at it and at first glance thought it was right but then realized the name was wrong on the building. But it was kind of close to what the elders told us it was called and we just decided to do it anyway. So we go there and ask a lady out in the garden near it if the investigator lives there and she told us yes! We found her!! So there's a lesson for you. Even when the elders give you wrong information, the Spirit can still guide you right haha. But seriously, it's true. 

Anyways, hope you all have a great week!

Love,

Murray shimai

Matsuri!!

This past week was really really awesome!! We had some really super duper lessons and one of our investigators told us that she wants to go to church and another one came to church yesterday!! It's really funny because right now our two strongest investigators aren't even Japanese. One of them is Korean and it's really cool because none of us are Japanese but we're teaching her in Japanese and it's just a really cool experience. She's making Korean food for us tomorrow so that should be excellent! We went to a festival with another friend on Saturday night and ate really yummy food! We randomly met this lady who we're sure is a less active member because we were walking down the street and this lady in front of us turned around and started talking to us in english and then she told us that she went to BYU forever ago!! Like, what?! haha. And we asked her if she is a member and she said right now she is too busy. So not exactly sure but she might be a member. She's visiting Kushiro with her son because she's making a documentary video about old whaling towns. Random. So that was fun.

We had zone activity and zone training meeting! For the zone activity we went to the sports center and played sports for 4 hours. It was so much fun, but let's just say that your body does not appreciate it when you don't play sports for a year and then suddenly do it for hours straight. It was pretty rough the next few days. Sitting on the bike was especially a bit of a struggle. Just had to ride standing up for periods of time haha. In zone training meeting we had our first interview with President Nakatsuka and he is way awesome. He speaks fluent english too so that's cool. 

After zone training meeting we had splits with the STL's and that was a blast. Me and Lundstrom shimai met some really cool people on the street who want to see us again so that was a success. 

Lots of amazing things are happening here! Lots of new people came to eikaiwa last week which was tons of fun! I love being a missionary!

Love,

Murray shimai

saikou! - July 27, 2014

Hey everyone!

Well another great week has past. This past week we had some pretty awesome stuff happen. We have a new investigator who is Korean! And she is so special! We had our first lesson with her last week and it was one of the all time best first lessons I've ever experienced. The spirit was so strong and she was so excited to receive the Book of Mormon and read it and I could just feel God's love for her and feel that she really is His special daughter. It's so amazing how you really can tell when someone is prepared to hear the gospel and instead of us having to nag and repeatedly ask someone to do something they want to do it! She said she wanted to read the BOM before we even invited her to! That's not something you experience too often. My companion and I were kind of in shock I think haha.

But really, I know, because I'm witnessing it, that The Lord is preparing people to hear the gospel and that these people are all around us. The Spirit will lead us or lead them but either way if we are prepared we can be the Lord's instrument to bring these people closer to Him. It's such an incredible feeling as we invite people to do things that will bring them closer to Him. 

We had ward FHE on Saturday and we played signs for one of the games. It was pretty entertaining. I don't think they play it here because it took a while to catch on but it was still really fun. 

We also biked to the other edge of the map and visited a member who lives out there. Her mom isn't a member and we were able to visit with her for a while and that was fun. The other day we were doing some housing and it was pouring and we pinged one house and the lady told us she wasn't interested and so we left. As we were walking down the street we heard someone calling out to us. We turned around and it was the lady from that house who had just told us she wasn't interested. She told us to wait and she went to her shed and brought us her umbrella and told us to use it and then bring it back when we were done. People are so nice! We meet people all the time who have no interest in our message but they give us food or tell us to do our best or just show so much kindness to us and it's so amazing. I feel so blessed everyday! I love being a missionary!

Love,

Murray shimai

A member has a massage chair in their living room. Ya, that was a cool surprise.

Wagner shimai and I

Another week in Paradise!

So we finally are getting summer weather for a consistent amount of time! Although compared to everywhere else it's probably still spring weather. But it makes it really nice for biking. So this week was pretty awesome. Here's a quick recap:

*Had a lesson with a phillipino lady who understands a little Japanese and a little english. It was interesting, not really sure how much she understood. We asked her if she would be baptized if she knew this was true and she said, `ya if I don't have anything going on that week`.......awkward pause from us.....okay....haha ya so it was interesting. But she did come to church yesterday so that was cool.

* Found this less active sister and she invited us in and talked with her for like an hour. And guess what we held while we were there? I bet you can't. A baby flying squirrel. Ya, bet you didn't see that coming. It was so cute. 

*Met this lady housing who spoke really good english and told us she lived in Ireland for a year or so when she was young. That was cool and she also teaches classes on bread and cake making apparently. She wasn't interested in our message but she did give us an entire loaf of freshly baked sesame bread. Best bread ever. 

*Biked to the farthest area on the map while fasting

*Went to same 7\11 4 times in 15 minutes for various reasons. Ya it got a little awkward.

*Played basketball with the elders and some youth and now my arms don't lift above my head without much added assistance. We ride bikes all day. Our arms don't really do much.

*Had some really good lessons with investigators and members and really saw some growth. 

It was a pretty fun and really interesting week. Tons more but you know, I gotta save some stuff to share later. 

Hope everyone has an awesome week! 

今週、皆さん、楽しんでくださいね!

愛してます!

Murray shimai

Yep, that's a baby flying squirrel..sooo cute!

Sunset

Wagner shimai and I

Transfer 10! I'm a grandma!

I'm in double digit transfers! That's the most frightening realization I've had lately. But anyways. Here's the update. The trio has unfortunately been broken. I'm staying in Kushiro with my new companion Wagner shimai and the two Johnson's got transferred out. It's a little sad and lonely but Wagner shimai is awesome so I'm excited. 

Last week was transfers so half our week consisted of traveling to Sapporo and traveling back. Oh, last pday was awesome. So there's this way awesome family that comes to eikaiwa and they are like our family. On pday they basically took us on a road trip. They drove us to all these famous sites and it was sweet. It was super hot and sunny which wasn't normal I guess but it was so much fun!

Ya not really much to say this week. Weren't able to meet with investigators but this coming week is going to be crazy busy so that's good. 

Have a great week! Pictures will be more exciting than this email so enjoy!

Murray shimai

The really beautiful lake is called Lake Mashu. It was created from a volcano erupting. It's gorgeous.

Hokkaido is pretty much one of the most beautiful places ever.

We ate the best soba in the world. At a soba farm!

And went to a place that looked like the moon. 

This picture was taken after the onsen so our hair is all lush and beautiful haha.

Transfer week!

Another transfer is over! Too fast! But it's been a blast! This past week was really fun. President and Sister Nakatsuka came to Kushiro! They are way awesome! It was really easy to just love them right away. I'm really excited to be working with them. We also had a 4th of July party at english class! It's really handy having two companions because you can represent all the colors of the flag. So that was fun. We also met with one of our investigators who we haven't seen in a while. It was really fun. She's awesome and we recommitted her to read the Book of Mormon and she said she will and we're really excited for her. We also visited a PI that the sisters found several transfers ago but hadn't gone back to visit and she was way sweet. She's near our age and has a little baby girl and we talked with her for a while and introduced more of our message and asked if she has time if she would want to hear more and she said yes! Super stoked to go back there and visit her again. We also found this really awesome neighborhood the other day where we went housing. It's like on a mountain and is all filled with trees and greenery. It was super fun and it felt like we were in the jungle haha. 

A family that comes to Eikaiwa took us out to eat sushi the other night and today they are taking us around to show us some cool stuff around Kushiro! They're super cool. 

Wow. I really can not remember what else happened this past week at the moment.

Anyways hope you have a great week!

Love,

Murray shimai

The elders heart-attacked our apartment!

Dinner at a members house.

A member gave us kimonos yesterday...having a little fun with them. :-)