Area 1: Nagasaki

Wow so many things happened this week I don't even know where to begin! I guess I'll start at the beginning. This past Monday, we depart from the MTC at 2:30 in the morning and head off to the airport! We board our plane, all 32 of us, and sit there for 2 hours before they tell us that something is wrong and this plane is not leaving the ground. We all get off the plane, and wait for our travel leader to tell us the news that they've rescheduled us to a flight that night at 5:45! All of our travel plans are way off now, but we're all in good spirits because we have faith that we'll get to Japan eventually! We then proceed to spend the next 12 hours in the Salt Lake Airport finding things to do and feeling like celebrities because EVERYONE kept talking to us and asking us where were going and then telling us about all the missionaries that they know right now and getting offered food and money. It really wasn't such a bad experience. We flew to Dallas that night, spent the night in a hotel, and the next day flew to Tokyo! It was a 13 hour flight with 31 other antsy young people and when we finally landed and stepped of the plane it was like stepping into.... a sauna! Seriously though it was SO HOT AND HUMID the second we got off the plane. Fast forward a couple of days and about 3 hours of sleep later and I found myself on a bus to NAGASAKI! As soon as I got here I met my 2 new companions names Lyles Shimai and Heaton Shimai. Heaton Shimai has only been here 6 weeks so she's still getting trained. Lyles Shimai is our super mom training two green beans at the same time! Lyles shimai is only on her 5th transfer too. Her Japanese is extremely skilled because she had a native companion about 2 transfers back, so she does about 60 percent of the talking, Heaton Shimai does about 25 and I attempt to do about 15 percent when I can. Usually when I try to talk, it just ends up that Lyles Shimai has to take over after about 2 sentences anyway because my Nihongo is still a little scrambled in my brain. But that's ok because I've only been here like 4 days and I speak a little bit more each and every day! The first day, we went out to lunch at an indo curry restaurant (yes, my very first meal in the field was Indian, not Japanese) and then biked home in skirts. Hahah what a joke that is. Picture weaving in and out of millions of Japanese people in narrow streets in the pouring rain, up hill, in a skirt! Quite the adventure, to say the least. Apparently we're in a typhoon right now, because it literally rains 80 percent of the day. Sometimes we get to put on our rain suits which consist of some super attractive waterproof pants and water proof jacket. I'm still trying to really figure out the point of them because they 're supposed to keep you from getting wet, but whenever you take them off you're drenched in sweat anyway! Missionary life is great :) Japan is truly such a beautiful country. Where I am there are just hills upon hills covered by so much green! Our apartment is tiny and awesome. We sleep on futons every night, eat with chopsticks, and take our shoes off before we enter the house. Every morning it's still weird for me to wake up on a futon and think "I'm in Japan!" It's also wonderful too. As for missionary work, we've seen a few miracles just in the few days that I've been here. The very first time we went out finding on like my second day, the very first door we went to was a cute old lady who totally wanted to hear more about our message! We have an appointment with her this week! Yesterday, after church, we went out housing and for about an hour had no success whatsoever. We then took a moment to see if we wanted to try a different area or continue where we were. We gave ourselves a little pep talk about how important our message is and how we really want to share it with others and then proceeded on to housing. After our little pep talk, the very first house we went to was a sweet old lady who was SO receptive to us! We gave her a book of mormon and a pamphlet and asked her if we could come back. She said we could come in right then if we wanted to! It was the strangest thing but also super amazing. People in Japan don't just invite random people into their houses. But we sat down with her and prayed and got to know her a little bit and talked about how our message could benefit her. It was only a short visit, but we're going back next week, and she gave us cookies! After that house we were all dying of thirst, but still had about an hour before we needed to go home. I said "maybe someone will offer us a drink" and we proceeded onward. Literally about 6 houses later a super nice older woman asked us if we wanted a drink of water! She let us in to eat some grapes and some weird fruit that I still don't know what it was, and had a nice drink of water. She also gave us some interesting (aka really gross) fish tasting crackers. Despite the nasty crackers, she was really such an answer to our prayers. It made me realize that God really does take care of His missionaries. Well, I wish I could talk about every little mercy and miracle that happened this week but there simply isn't time! Japan is wonderful, my jet lag is finally wearing off, and I can feel the prayers from back home as I've received strength I haven't earned and been blessed with miracles that did not come from my own doings. Thank you everyone for your love and support! It's time to go save Nagasaki! Wells Shimai