ganbaranba! (Nagasaki slang for work hard!)

You know how sometimes you watch movies and it suddenly starts raining and all of the people in the movie are just drenched in a matter of seconds and you think to yourself "That rain is so fake, it never rains that much."? Well, the fact of the matter is, that's how the rain in Japan is! It comes out of nowhere and gets you completely soaked! It's pretty awesome. And then we get to wear our attractive rain suits :) Anyway, on to more exciting matters. This week we saw tons of miracles! So a few weeks ago I wrote about our investigator who we gave a card to from the relief society and it just didn't go over as we wanted to. Well this week, we were housing nearby her house, and then we talked to some girls on the street for a minute, when she walked right past us! After we finished talking to the people we were talking to, we decided to stop by her house and just see if she was willing to see us. It was actually the first time I had ever met her, but she invited us right in and gave us juice and was just the cutest little lady ever! She apologized for being upset that day and said she had missed us in the mean time. She learned that I could play the piano and she made me play some hymns for her while she sang and we all just had such a good time! We made a return appointment with her too. Moral of the story is, we got our investigator back! This week, we also had splits with the Sister Training Leaders. It was an awesome learning experience. When they first came, Heaton Shimai and I went with Eddy Shimai who is just the most friendly person ever. She really showed us how to break the habit of just going up to people and saying things like "We're missionaries of the church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints" and other robotic phrases and instead, talking to people like real people and actually getting to know them. It was a good learning experience. Then, that night, the two sister training leaders went with Lyles Shimai to visit a less active a left us two newbies all on our own haha. Heaton Shimai is only on her 2nd transfer, so it was quite the experience. It was also really neat to figure out how much we could actually say to people when we didn't have someone else's Japanese skills to rely on. It was sure an eye opening experience and made me realize I just need to keep working as hard as possible so that I might be able to feel comforable with this impossible language! The next day, while we were still on splits, I was with Eddy Shimai and Lyles Shimai finding out by the Nagasaki Wharf and we ran into some Chinese college students with really good english. They were super friendly and we gave them a flier with our phone number and told them about church. The next day was Sunday and it was branch conference, and we were just getting ready to teach the young womens lesson before church when one of the Chinese girls and 3 of her roommates showed up to church! It was the craziest thing and we honestly just didn't know what to do haha. We ended up going on splits with a ward member so that I could go to relief society with them while my two companions went and taught Young Womens. They ended up staying the whole 3 hours and they all said they they wanted to come to English class on Wednesday! It was so crazy, but also super great. I often get asked if I like my companions and I'll just say we are all just the best of friends :) My mom, Lyles Shimai, is super good at Japanese, from Washington, half Philipino, and makes us yummy Phillipino food sometimes :) My sister, Heaton Shimai is from Provo Utah, her dad is Richard I. Heaton, the MTC director, and we always making fun of her because her dad is pretty much famous in the missionary world. We have fun every single day, and I'm so scared that this transfer is ending so soon because I just want to stay with them forever! We'll just have to see what transfer calls bring! Japan is truly such a beautiful country with the most interesting culture. Random Japan fact for this week: It's very fashionable here to have fair skin. People walk around with umbrellas every day when it's sunny to protect their skin from the sun. A lot of women also wear these peculiar arm sleeve things when they go outside so their arms don't get any sun on them. A lot of women powder their faces quite heavily to make their skin appear more light, and in the dressing rooms here there's these face covers that you're supposed to wear when trying on clothes so that you don't get your make up on the clothing. It works out great for me because I'm already pasty white by nature! Anyway, time is running out once again! Thank you everyone for the love and support and I pray for everyone back home each day! Ja Mata! Wells Shimai