HI HI HI!!!!!!! Konnichiwa!!!! greetings from Japan!!! I love being a missionary in Japan! ahhhh! like what? im in japan!!! and absolutely loving it! Each day gets better and better! I don't even know where to start!
So I am absolutely exhausted! hahah! missionary work is tiring! but in the best way possible! Right now my companion and I do not have a ton of investigators so we do a lot of finding, and streeting! And because neither one of us has bikes.. we do A TON of walking.. We come home every night dead! its great! The problem is that japan is full of busy people so not every one wants to stop and chat with us. But when they do, we are the happiest people in the world!
My companion, Nagamine Shimai, is the sister training leader for our zone so she goes on exhanges every week with another sister missionary. So each week I get to be companions with someone new! Super cool experience even though I never want my companion to leave me because she is seriously the most amazing person ive ever met! Such a great missionary! Everyone always cries in our lessons because she is just that in tuned with the spirit. I love her! So this week I went on two exhanges. One with a sister who lives with me, Bagley Shimai! Shes from Michigan and has been out for 3 months. We went streeting in the main city of Chiba! Tons of people! Since we are both gaijin (foreigners) we thought we would try to speak English and see who would speak back to us! Surprisingly a lot of people came up to us! They wanted to try out their English skills on us! sooooo cute! Everyone wanted to know what two white girls were doing in japan! We talked to tons of people! Most just laugh at us! They laugh when we speak to them in English and then they laugh again when we try to speak in Japanese.. hahah! Then I went on an exchange with Champonis Shimai (I have no idea how to spell her name) We did a lot of walking around! I have honestly never walked so much in my entire life! And because its soooooooo insanely hot here we eat a ton of ice cream! hahaha! and that's basically my life.. walking and eating ice cream! its great!
Wednesday, Nagamine Shimai and I met with a lady we met on the train. Her name is
Umezawa San. She is in her 60s. She lives pretty far away so again.. we walked. I feel bad when we show up to peoples houses because I am a hot sweaty mess! Anyways she had the coolest house ever! Like soooooo Japanese! She is the cutest little lady! We sit down and she says she has food for us. I always get so nervous when people want to feed us because so far I have not liked a lot of the Japanese food... she came back with two trays FULL of sushi.. I literally almost started crying! hahaha! I was sooo scared! In japan it is rude to not finish your food especially if it is given to you by someone else. I didn't know what to do! There were huge pieces of red and white fish everywhere! my companion looked at me and was like "good luck!" hahaha! ughhhhh... I did my best not to make faces while I put nasty raw fish in my mouth. and I did my best to hide my gagging faces hahahah! im so weak! I kept praying the entire time asking heavenly father to make my fish turn into something else! anything else! didn't happen.. luckily my companion stopped eating when we began to teach the lesson so I stopped too! The lesson went amazing! Umezawa San's mother recently passed away. Umezawa San has read all of our church pamphlets and loves them! When her mom died she put the plan of salvation pamphlet with her moms body so she could read it in heaven! we were shocked! She is so ready! We talked more about the plan of salvation with her! We told her that their are spirits who are teaching her mother about Christ! She was so happy! She so desperately wants her family to be together forever! And through Christ I know they can be! Before we even asked she said she would pray every morning and night and that she would read the entire Book of Mormon! Like seriously... I love her! She is so sweet and already has an amazing testimony! Nagamine Shimai and I sang "I know that my redeemer lives" for here and she started crying! The spirit was so strong! I am so grateful for her and how she has helped strengthen my testimony about the Plan of salvation!
and guess what?!?!?!!? Heavenly father really loves me because... I found my camera!!!!!! ahhhhhh! best day ever!!!! we kept calling and calling the lost and found but no such luck. We went to the actual lost and found a week later and they had my camera!!!!! soooooo happy! most of my pictures on my camera are of my face showing how happy I was.. hahahah!
Sunday was definitely my favoritest day this week! I HAD MY FIRST BAPTISM!!! Eva San got baptized!!!! Nagamine had been teaching her before I got to japan and then I got to help teach! She was soooo excited! I have never seen someone that excited in my entire life! She was so happy that she had finally found what had been mission in her life! Her daughter came to her baptism which was a miracle! It was such a sweet meeting! It was just the best day! We got a member referral, a less active member came to church and told me that she wanted us to visit her this week, and the stake president invited us and Eva Shimai's family over for dinner! Like best day! That dinner was the yummiest food ive had since ive been in japan! I ate so much food! prior to dinner, our ward had a pot luck and they had peanut butter sandwhiches!!!! ohhh i was stoked! I ate six! don't even feel bad about it! hahahah!
So ya.. Japan is amazing! the food is interesting, its like deathly hot and humid, but the people are ready! We haven't met a ton of them, but the ones we have met have truly been prepared by the Lord to meet us! They make missionary work so rewarding! Missions are hard! But nothing good comes easy! I am so so happy to be here! I love japan! I love the people with all my heart! I love my companion! and i love my savior! Without him there is no way i could be here! He loves all of his children! I am so very blessed!
Love you all!!!!!!!
Christensen Shimai
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