Week 9- My journey to Japan

Gusman Shimai caught her chopsticks on fire








Minasan Konnichiwa,

Holy cow, what a week.
I'll start from the beginning

Monday:
2:30 am I was loaded onto a bus, and headed toward the Salt Lake City
airport. At about 4 in the morning I was able to call my beautiful
family and tell them how much I love them! It was great to hear them
for the first time in like 9 weeks. After we got on a plane and flew
to LA, I then hopped on a 12 hr flight to Tokyo, Japan. On the way
over I sat next to a lady, that was actually very nice to talk to. Me
being a missionary and all, decided that this would be a really good
opportunity to share the gospel. I tried using as much Japanese as I
could and talked to her. She was very interested to know how I knew
Japanese I told her I was a missionary. She wasn't that interested in
the fact that I was a missionary, but was really interested in the
fact that I knew Japanese. I later found out that she was Buddhist and
her kids were Christian. We talked for a little bit, and then she
decided to watch a movie. I tried all I could to drop so many hints to
this lady about the church. I thought I was pretty sneaky too. I
pulled out a Book of Mormon, got some pictures out of Joseph smith
casually... haha it was hilarious. But, she didn't look at any of it.
Oh well.

Tuesday:
Before I landed in Tokyo I looked out my window to see Mount Fuji and
that was a really cool site to see. When we landed we headed through
immigration services which was fun I got this cool card saying hat I
am now living in Japan. After we waited for our luggage and then I
realized that they had bidet, that was really cool to see. It had cool
water sounds, haha. After we hopped on a bus and went to another
building where we would get on our next plane to Osaka. When we got to
this building we got some good tasty salmon rice triangle wrapped with
seaweed called "onigiri" and this coconut milk drink thing. We then
went through security and waited for our plane, while waiting I could
not but just stare for a sec at a tv and all the people watching it,
it was sumo wrestling. Haha... oh geez, both young and old were
fascinated with this tv. We then hopped on another plane that was only
about a hour to Osaka. When we got off we waited for our luggage, and
then went through the doors to the amazing welcoming of the Welchs
(president and his wife) as well as some other missionaries. We hopped
in a car and drove to Kobe. One of the craziest things that I did not
know about Japan is that they drive like in London, on the left side
of the road. When we got the mission home we went right to bed, I was
so exhausted.

Wednesday:
Man, 6:00 came around fast, at the mission home we had to be ready in
the church parking lot ready to go work out. We then ran to a park,
where the elders played football, and the sisters played frisbee, and
ran around the track, later we did this thing with some old people
called radio taiso where old people stretch in parks all around Japan,
and work out every single day. It was awesome! We then went back, had
breakfast and started training. After training, the sisters and I
decided we wanted to try and do some street contacting, it was a
little discouraging, I tried talking to some ladies, and the said
something that I couldn't understand, and then she said "no" . But, I
tried so. After we were about to go inside, I saw this old man,
probably the oldest man alive, and I said konnichiwa to him, but he
kept walking, about to go inside, Easton Shimai and Epling Shimai ran
after him and came back saying he wasn't hard of hearing he was
ignoring us haha. Our president also told us his two rules in the
mission. 1. Laugh at yourself and 2. Get lost!

Thursday:
Thursday was a big day. We got up ready to Go and we started running
up this really big hill, I had to start walking with this sister it
was straight uphill almost. When we got to the top we had to go up
this really steep stairs to this look out point where you could see
all of Kobe, it was a sight to see. The also had radio taiso, people
right and left started popping out of the woods around it. We then
came back had breakfast and then had a little bit more training. After
we then met our new companions. My new companion/trainers name is
Sister Gusman she is from Hawaii and has been out for about 6
transfers which is about 36 weeks. She is really nice and we get along
so so well. Oh, and I saw Elder Winegar, he was a trainer for one of
the Elders that came with us. After we met each other we got some
pictures taken and ate some food, and that was when everybody started
leaving. We then hopped on a train to my new area which is called
Wakayama! I'm in the Sekai zone you might have to look up Wakayama on
a map! But, yah we hopped on a train and headed out! We talked to a
lady on the train and told her about our church, well my trainer did I
just listened... haha. We went through some crazy big cities, and then
we finally arrived to Wakayama my new home! We walked to the church,
and grabbed me a bike that they had that I could use, and man that
bike was crazy. It's called a mamachati? But, it's like a Japanese
beach bike, needless to say, that thing is crazy, and super hard to
ride. We then stopped at a recent converts home, he was happy to see
us, but was having a hard time reading the Book of Mormon. He couldn't
understand it very well. My companion talked to him, and then turned
to me and said would you like to say some things about what you feel
when you read e Book of Mormon, me being all dazed from the long trip
we made said alright and tried to the best of my ability to say what I
could say. He said something's and then waved goodbye. She then
explained that what I had said really helped he felt that what I feel
when reading the Book of Mormon, he feels peace and the spirit, and
cooled down. We then mad it to our apartment, talked for a little bit,
planned and then passed out.

Friday:
We got up, worked out, and then did some studies and then headed out
to get me a good bike. We got there and waited, we did some
companionship studies, and then found me a beautiful blue and white
bike. We then headed back to the apartment and got ready to go to a
members house. My trainer and I had just finished our lunch and were
talking, when all of a sudden, the table started moving, and I could
feel the house to start to shake. I didn't register until it happened
again. It was an EARTHQUAKE !!!! I'm from Idaho so I mean we have
them, but I have never felt one until that day, and that was crazy! I
could feel my heart racing afterwards, it was incredible, but so
terrifying.
We then headed out, on our way we passed by a Japanese castle. It was
beyond beautiful! When we got to her house, we had some really good
wheat/barley tea mogicha, a lot of foreigners don't like it, but I
really do. We sat at one of those tables close to the floor and had
this like heater thing on us, it was really cool. We shared a
scripture. And talked for a little, then headed out. We tried stopping
by and talk to a less active member, but she wasn't feeling good so we
headed back, but stopped to see the less active members mom who was in
a hospital. I thought that I have see scary hospitals, but when we
stepped foot into that hospital, I was scared. It was like in a movie,
really old, many people in one room. Oh man at hospital was a little
frightening. She was asleep so we left. Later that night we went to
the church, and I taught my first Eikaiwa (English class). It was a
little different, but I really enjoyed teaching.

Saturday:
Wow, Saturday was probably one of my favorite days.
That day we saw so many miracles. We did all of our studies and then
went to the church where we made these cute little origami santas with
the relief society. It was awesome, after we went to go try to find a
less active members house, couldn't find it, we literally were lost.
Well we listened to Our President really well. We then decided to do
some housing. Honestly I didn't know what to thing with housing, but I
did it anyways. One of the things that is weird about Japan houses is
that they have a place for you to press the doorbell and then they
have a camera that you look at and they talk to you through that and
if hey want to talk to you they will come to the door. So a lot of the
time we had a lot of people answer their call, and say no. But, about
4 houses someone actually came and listened so that was great. The
second to last house a young man answered and let us share a video. He
said we could come back. The last house we stopped at, we ran the
doorbell and a little boy answered the phone, we were very confused my
companion asked if we could talk to his mom. He came to the door and
opened it, we looked at him, and then his mother came, she looked like
she had just gotten up from a nap, and was rubbing her eyes. We asked
if we could share a quick message with her, she sat down and listened.
I could tell by the way she was listening, she was intrigued, my
companion then went on talking about eternal families, she said we
could come back. After we couldn't believe what had just happened, and
started hugging.

Sunday:
That was a hard day, we went to a meeting for the sisters and elders
where we talked with the bishop and counsel and talked about who we
were focusing on. That meeting was hard,I didn't not understand what
anyone was saying. After my companion explained. We then had relief
society, Sunday school, and then sacrament. I had to go up and
introduce myself which was a little hard, but I did it. After we had
this soup, that had many different variety of foods in it. It was
yummy though. We then met with some less actives and went housing. No
one would really listen to us, but we kept going.

Monday/today: we did some studies, and headed out and went shopping.
We went to a grocery store that had some really interesting foods that
I had never seen or heard of. We also stopped at a bakery and I
smelled some food that I had never smelled before, but it smelled
delicious.

Wow.. my area is incredible, it is very big, but it is a little but
more in the country in some area. I love it though and I'm so excited
to see what happens, love you all!

あいしています！
Love ロケット 姉妹