Merry Christmas

Hello all!!!

   This week was my first full week in Muroran!! We were pretty lucky this week because it didn't snow... well until today. I'll let you know how that goes in my email next week. :)

   I have met so many people this week and I'm reminded again how hard Japanese names are to remember!! But hopefully once I've met with people more than once I'll start to put names to faces. The church members here are so awesome!!! Maybe I'll say that about every ward I serve in, but really the people are so nice to us. And when I introduced myself in Church last Sunday, I told people that I have a wheat allergy and right after church people were coming up to me and asking me what I could eat so that they know what has flour in it and what doesn't. They were all just so kind and thoughtful! 

   I was also able to meet some investigators this week. We have quite a few in Muroran so that is super exciting. It's a little strange going from only having 2 investigators in Obihiro to having around 8 here in Muroran, but I'm not complaining. :) We have one investigator named Wado San. She and her husband first heard about the church more than 20 years ago - right after they were married and just started having kids. They were super busy and didn't have time to meet with the missionaries. But now they are investigators again now that they are grandparents. :) I think she is really committed to coming to church and she reads the Book of Mormon and prays, but she is hesitant about getting baptized because she wants her husband to get baptized too. But he's not very willing to give up coffee or smoking.So we'll see how it goes with them. They are a very funny couple!! :) But they are so sweet! We had a really good lesson on faith and how if we have faith then there is no need for us to fear.

  I'll be sure to let you know in my next email all about what Christmas is like in Japan!! And since Christmas is in a few short days I'll say it now..........

MERRY CHRISTMAS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Hope you all have a wonderful Christmas season and remember to show your love to everyone this season, because really all we want is to be happy right?? So be happy!!!! :) hahahaha there's a little Jazmyne wisdom for you. :)

Much love!!!!!!!

Morrison Shimai

モリソン　姉妹

Transfer to Muroran

Hello all!!!

   Well I have finally left my hometown of Obihiro and have moved out to a city called Muroran!! It's about an 1 and a half hours west of Sapporo (by train). And it's right on the southern coast of Hokkaido.  My companion's name is Kuroki Shimai and yes she is Japanese. This area just opened for Shimai only 2 transfers ago so I'm the 3rd Shimai who has ever been here. Pretty cool right?? Anyway Muroran is very hilly and because it's on the coast it is very windy. And guess what?? There's snow here! And a lot of it!! Haha. :)

   My first day here  we went up Muroran Yama (mountain). And yes it's mountain. Not like Mt. Hood kind of mountain but like Ladd Hill/Parett Mountain kind of a mountain, and we took our bikes up it.  We walked our bikes up a mountain my first day here and then we were going to ride down, but because of all the snow it wasn't really possible. But we did ride our bikes down the last half mile or so of the mountain. Riding bikes down a mountain in the snow is just a little bit scary! But no worries! We survived!!   :)

   On Satuday we had the Ward Christmas Party!   I got to meet all the church members before Sunday. At the Christmas party all the missionaries (me, Kuroki Shimai, Lee Choro, and Brown Choro) did a little dance and sang Rudolf the Red Nose Reindeer. Everyone thought it was really cute. :) Which is good because we planned it exactly 10 minutes before the Christmas party started - since we just had transfers we didn't really have a lot of time to plan anything amazing. :) The ward seems really great and I'm excited to continue working in Muroran!!!!

   Hope all is going well!

   Much love!

Morrison Shimai

Snow Angels in Obihiro

Tempura Ice Cream

Getting Christmas Package

 Leaving Obihiro - At the train station

Leaving the Obihiro Shimai

Rudolf the Red-Nosed Reindeer, Muroran Ward Christmas Party

New companion is on Jazmyne's right, far left two Young Single Adult's.

New Investigators and Transfer Week

   This week we have big news!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! 

WE FOUND 2 NEW INVESTIGATORS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! AHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!   Basically we are super excited. :)

   This transfer we started out with 3 investigators, but then within the first week we went down to 2 investigators. So this transfer we have really been focusing on getting more investigators. We've been working really hard and trying our very best, even when we were discouraged. Then this last week we were lucky enough to find 2 people who are interested in hearing the gospel!!  It was truly a miracle week!!! :)

   I may or may not have told you about these people already, but since I can't remember I'm going to tell you about them again a little bit.

   One of our investigators, her name is Songumsuk. If you read that and think, 'that doesn't sound very Japanese, well you would be right!   She is from Korea!   But she speaks really good Japanese.  Anyway, she has a super interesting story about why she is in Japan. She is a part of a religion (I can't remember the name) but it's a christian church and everyone in the church has arranged marriages!  I didn't think there were that many people that did that any more, but I guess they do.  Anyway she got married to a Japanese man and they never met before thier wedding and at that point she didn't speak any Japanese and he didn't speak any Korean. So she moved to Japan to be with him and taught herself Japanese, and then he tried to learn some Korean. It sounds so hard!  But they made it work and it sounds like they are really happy now. So we first met her back in October and gave her a Book of Mormon but haven't been able to meet with her until now. She is really great and we have another appointment with her in a few weeks.

   Our other investigator is Sato San. She is married and has 3 children and 3 grandchildren. She was super open to listening to us and so we were finally able to teach her on Wednesday. We were only planning on teaching her the first half of lesson one, but since she was asking so many questions we ended up teaching her the whole thing. She has lots of really great questions and she understood everything that we were telling her! It was truly amazing. And I recited the first vison in Japanese for the first time (to an investigator). So that was really exciting too!!    REALLY, REALLY great week!!

   This next week we have transfers so I will let you know what the results of that are next week.  This is how the whole thing works..  

   Trainers get their calls on Monday night and all they tell them is that they will be traning (obviously in their same area) but they don't tell them who their bean (greenie) is. So they go to the honbu (mission home) on wednesday morning to pick up their bean.

Everyone else gets their calls on Tuesday (usually in the morning). They call us and tell us what our next area is and who our new companion is. Then everyone who is transfering and their companions (usually) all leave on Thursday morning.  We all meet at the "transfer spot" which is a specific spot inside the subway station in Sapporo. Then you all switch and find your new companion and then head to your new area. So usually Thursday is spent traveling all day. Sometimes it's different. Like this last transfer since none of us were transfering we all stayed and Miyamoto shimai just came with the elders. So they try to save money whenever possible because traveling in Japan is really expensive!!!  Our bikes are shipped to our new area as well as one of our bags so when we travel we only have to take one bag with us so that is really nice. :)  So that's how it works here. :) I've actually never been to the transfer spot, but who knows maybe this transfer I will. :)

   Hope you are all doing well! Much love!

 

Morrison Shimai

Fun in the park with Lundstrom Shimai when the weather was warmer.

A dog sled?

Jazmyne and her companion always seem to find matching outfits.

Sushi for Thanksgiving

   So this week was a really weird week. It started out on Monday, we had a little birthday party for Kozuma Choro, one of the elders in my district. He turned 20 years old so I am now the only 19 year-old in the district! Hahaha :) At the party the elders made this huge ice cream sunday. And I love ice cream so I ate a lot. Then on Tuesday, I woke up with a really bad stomach ache (probably from all the ice cream..... :)). So we weren't able to leave the apartment becuase I basically slept all day. :( Then on Wednesday I was feeling a little bit better, so we went and did some housing and then hung out with a member for about 2 hours, but that was just too much for me, so we had to come back to the apartment and then I slept for the rest of the day again. :(

   Ok but on Thursday we actually did stuff!!! YAY for not being sick!!! We met with a couple of people. We met this lady named Sato San. She is really nice and we talked with her for about 30 minutes and just got to know her. There is a really good possibility that we will be able to teach her a lesson next week! We also had a little mini Thanksgiving feast with the other missionaries and the Single Adults from the ward........ :) The elders made mashed potatoes and stuffing. And then me and Bastow Shimai made thanksgiving cake (since there are no ingredients to make pie).  Then we had to go to KFC to get chicken since they don't have turkey here. All in all it was honestly really lame. :) But we got a good laugh out of it. But the sad part was that I didn't even eat any of it becuase it all had gluten in it. So before the little get-together, we went and bought some sushi for me to eat. So I just ate my Thanksgiving Sushi. And it was really good :) It will definitely be a Thanksgiving to remember! 

   On Friday we had a sports activity with all the missionaries and a couple investigators: Akari chan and Koharu chan came. I think I've told you about them before. They are 22 and 23. They both moved to Obihiro for their work. And they come to Eikaiwa sometimes - they both speak very good English. We rented out a gym and we played basketball, volleyball and dodgeball. I wasn't very good at basketball. It brought back some bad memories of my last expirience playing basketball here.... :) Volleyball was really fun and we used a short net so I even spiked the ball once! Pretty amazing right? Haha :) Ok and I guess people in Japan don't play dodgeball the same way that we do in America. It's hard to explain in writting, but it is SO intense! Basically by the end it's like everyone against one person. I was the 2nd to last person out and let me tell you I was a little scared for my life at one point. Hahaha. :) The best part about Friday was that we were able to meet Agnes!!!! We were both really excited. Earlier in the week she wasn't feeling good, so we went by her house on Thursday to drop off some soup and that night she called us and asked to meet with us! It was a mini miracle! We talked a lot with her about prayer and the influence that prayer has on our lives. She really wants to teach her kids correct principles so she has been really focusing on reading the Bible with them. At one point she was asking us about our families back home and about our plans for the future. So as we were telling her she asks "Are you normal American young adults??" And me and Lundstrom Shimai just looked at each other and then together we both said, "No we are really not." :) What normal teenager would leave the fun life of college and take 18 months to go to another country to try to teach people about God and Jesus Christ? I can tell you that not many would. We just testified to her that we're the people we are becuase of the great things we have learned from our parents and from the gospel. It's truly why I am the person I am. And I know that I am so happy to have the knowledge that I do!

   Hope all is going well!! Much love!

Morrison Shimai

Thanksgiving Cakes instead of Pies

Thanksgiving Sushi

Doing service at a Care Center

BRT (Building Relationships of Trust)

   Minasan! Konnichiwa! This week....... Let's see what did we do this week.... I swear I am losing my memory. And I know it's only going to get worse! Haha. :) Oh right we had ZTM this week (Zone Training Meeting). This is where a bunch of us missionaries get together and have different workshops and stuff about how to be better missionaries. Out first training segment was about finding people to teach. This is probably one of the hardest things we do as missionaries and it also one of the most important because if we can't find people who are interested in hearing our mesasage, then we can't teach and help people. They talked to us a lot about the importance of making connections with people. We call it BRT (Building Relationships of Trust). If people can't trust us, then they probably won't want to listen to us. It really is the same in any sort of relationship that we have, with family, friends, etc. The 2nd workshop we had was about Obedience, Dilligence, and Faith. I really like what they said about Dilligence. We always have to be trying our very hardest to learn Japanese and to teach people. Sometimes it can be really frustrating and discouraging, but if we have faith in Christ and learn to trust him, then things will work out the way they are suppose to. It really helped to boost me up and make we want to try even harder!

   We also had some sisters from Sapporo come out and visit us this week. Vielstich Shimai and Call Shimai came! It was so much fun. I got to spend a day with Vielstich Shimai. She is so fun! She is from Utah and she is half Japanese and half German. But she only speaks English and of course Japanese. She went into the MTC the same day as me, but left after 2 weeks since she already knew a lot of Japanese. While she was here, we were able to meet with Agnes (the lady from Hungary). We had lunch with her and some of her other friends that she wanted to introduce us to, but sadly we weren't able to teach a lesson. She did tell us that she has started reading Bible stories with her kids which is really great news!! The other Shimai were only here for a day, but it was nice to see Call Shimai again too becuase I really hadn't seen her since we first got to Japan almost 4 months ago.

   We also met with Sakuyama San this week! She's the one who we gave a church tour to last week and she has the cutest little baby girl ever! Anyway, we were able to teach her about the plan of Salvation and she really seemed to like it. But I can tell that she still has a lot of questions so we're hoping to meet with her again this week.

   One last thing, so yesterday in Relief Society we talked about Elder Ballard's talk from this last conference. Do you remember what it's about? That's right missionary work and members! We really can't do it without the member's help!! And don't forget his challenge at the end - for everyone to invite someone before Christmas! You don't have to ask them to take the missionarey discussions or come to church, it can be as simple as an activity or a Christmas party. One thing I've learned is that it never hurts to ask. People may say no, but it's our responsibility to put the invitation out there. We've got a month people! I'm going to take the challenge too! To get one of our investigators to church before Christmas. :)

   Hope you are all doing well! Love you!

Morrison Shimai

Playing in the leaves

Obihiro Skyline

Obihiro

Missionary Purpose

   This week me and Lundstrom Shimai gave out first church tour!  We were a little nervous since neither of us have done one yet, and it started out a little rough but in the end I think it turned out ok. :)   Our investigator, Sakuyama San, she is 40 years old and she is married and has the cutest little girl ever, who is only 4 months old. We haven't been able to meet with her a ton, becuase first of all she is a new mother, and second her work schedule is very.... Ok I can't think of what the word is, but it's very easy to change so she basically never knows when she is working until the day of.   But she didn't have work on Wednesday morning, which was perfect for us!   She came to the church and it was funny becuase she called us saying she couldn't find a church and then when she finally found it she said that it didn't even look like a church, I didn't really understnad that, I mean it's a brick building with a steeple! There's nothing else like it in Japan! Haha. :) We also had a member there, Haruki Shimai, so that she could help us explain church a little bit more. I was so grateful she was there!  It's really great having members, so that when my Japanese doesn't make sense, there's someone there to help me out!   Our tour ended in the chapel.   We explained to her about the sacrament and why it's important. She thought it was all very interesting, but the best part was at the end. We asked her what she thought and what she was feeling and she said that she had a good, warm feeling when she was inside the church!  It was a good moment!

    Our next step with her is actually getting her to come to one of our church meetings. So she told us the next time that she doesn't have work that she can probably come! I'm so excited! I'll keep you updated on when she comes to church.

    I know that it is so important as a missionary to have the member's trust. I always wonder what it's like for missionaries in America, because I can bet that it's a completely different experience than it is here. I think when missionaries visit member's homes, the members should know what the missionary's purpose is there. It's not just to bond with the member (which is important) but they should always be asking for referrals!  Becuase our purpose as missionaries is to find people and then to teach them.  You can ask the missionaries who they are teaching. Ask them if they need a member to sit with their investigator at church. Ask them if they need a member to come to their lesson. TEAM UPS ARE THE BEST THINGS EVER - having a member present at a lesson. I know that especially here in Japan, if I can't explain something super well in Japanese it's so nice to have the member to back up what I'm saying and to give their own personal experience. Now that I've been a missionary I feel like once I get back home I am going to try to be such a better member missionary, becuase I know how important members are in this work. We really can't do it without the members. I think it was presidnet HInckley who said that every convert needs 3 things: a responsibility, feast upon the words of the scriptures, and they need a friend -- or something like that. People want to feel included and connected to others and the only way investigators are going to have that is if they actually know the members!! And how are they going to know the members?? If the members are there to help them along their own conversion process! :) Becuase as missionaries we leave and transfer to other places, but the members are the ones who stay. 

   Hope you are all doing well. Have a wonderful week!

   Much love!

   Ai shite imasu!!

 

Morrison Shimai

It's cold - but that's also a good thing.

Konnichiwa!!!!

   Things are still looking sunny in Obihiro, we have great members, I have an awesome companion and great roommates, the only problem is that we don't see the sun much anymore..... Winter is finally here! We haven't got any snow yet, but everyone keeps telling us that there will probably only be a few more weeks until we start seeing snow. It is definitely cold though! I have gone to wearing tights and a sweater everyday to thermals, big jackets, hats, scarves and gloves. Usually the day starts out pretty chilly, but the sun starts to set around 2 in the afternoon. And by 4:30 it's dark. That's the time of the day when it gets most cold. But since we ride our bikes everywhere, it does help to keep me warm. :) And sometimes people feel bad for us being out in the cold so they let us into their house - which happened this week.

   When we were out housing (going door to door asking people if they are interesting in hearing about our message), we met a lady and she asked us if we were cold. So we said that it was a little chilly, but we would be alright. She insisted that we come inside and have some tea so that we could warm up, so we took her up on the offer. She made us some orange flavored tea of some sort and then she asked us why we would be out in the cold knocking on people's doors. We told her that we're missionaries and because we love the gospel so much we want to share it with everyone. We didn't know it before we went into her house, but I guess she is part of a religion called sokogakai (not sure about the spelling). This church is very well known in Japan, and from what I have heard they are very strict and a lot of people in Japan don't like it. And she is a very prominent member of the church. For the next 45 minutes she was telling us all about what her religion believes and how it is different from our religion. She also pointed out that Johnny Depp and Orlando Bloom are part of that religion. Maybe someone can fact check that for me?? Haha. :) Anyway it was a good conversation, but she was using a lot of religious words that were hard for us to understand. It was a bit of a struggle, but we were able to bear a simple testimony of the restoration of Christ's church again on the earth. She wasn't interested at all, but she said if we wanted to learn more about her religion she would be happy to tell us more. We meet the most interesting people here. :)

   This week we got to meet with the Hungarian family!! We only got to talk to the mom, but she is so interesting. When she was going to school in Hungary, she applied for a scholarship to go and study in Japan since her parents didn't have a lot of money to put her through school in Hungary. She came to Tokyo to study Japanese and law. While in Tokyo she met her first husband and they had a daughter together, her name is Shairy, but sadly they divorced and then she moved to Hokkaido. Here she met her second husband, who is Hungarian. And they had 2 kids together, Emma and Aaron. Sairy is 11, Emma is 1 1/2 and Aaron is 3 months old. They are seriously the cutest kids I have ever seen! They are such a nice family! The mom's name is Agnis and she is so smart. She can speak Hungarian, Japanese, English and German - all fluently! So we usually talk to her in English, which is a little strange, becuase it's not often that I get to speak English with people here. :) She grew up Catholic, but doesn't attend church or anything now. We talked to her about the Book of Mormon and how we pray. She really liked that our prayers are more of a conversation with God instead of just something memorized. But when we told her about the Book of Mormon she said that she really wants to study the Bible more before considering reading any other scripture. So please keep her and her family in your prayers!

   That's what's up in Obihiro! Hope you are all doing well! Much love!!

 

Morrison Shimai