Momma's Babies are All Grown Up!

Transfer weeks are always a bit crazy, but here was the final outcome: All three of us sister missionaries get to stay in Nagasaki! However, me and Heaton Shimai have become a companionship and Lyles Shimai got another baby! (Sorry that I keep using mission family member terms. In short, your first companion than trains you is called your mom and you're usually trained by them for 2 transfers to complete the 12 week training program) So Heaton Shimai was Lyles Shimai's first baby, and I came along 6 weeks later which made us our trio, and now Lyles Shimai is a mother of three of us all living in the same apartment! The new bean (in Japan brand new missionaries are called beans or green beans) is named Cullision Shimai from Utah and she took like 5 years of Japanese before coming to Japan. Her Japanese speaking skills are awesome! And she has rapunzel hair. Not even joking. Her hair is the longest I've ever seen someone's hair. I'll try to send a picture this week so you can see it for yourself. Anyway, now we've got me, the still-being-trained-bean with Heaton Shimai the just-barely-finished-her-training-trainer out taking on Nagasaki all by ourselves! We no longer have our mother to translate the super hard Japanese and tell us where the buses are going so its been a little interesting to say the least. It has also been a pretty neat experience. I've been surprised at how much Japanese we are able to understand despite the fact that we've only been here a short time. I guess you never really know the extent of your abilities until you're forced into using them! All I know is that this transfer is probably going to be absolutely exhausting, but I'm so excited for it! Plus, this morning I read in my scriptures about the 2000 stripling warriors and decided that we're totally like that. Young and inexperienced and have pretty much no idea what we're doing, but you know what? God is on our side, so we have absolutely no reason to doubt! We can totally accomplish everything we need to because this is God's work anyway, not ours. We're so ready to go conquer Nagasaki! We were able to watch General Conference this past weekend as well which just boosted everyone up! It was so refreshing to just sit and be spiritually rejuvenated for hours at a time this weekend. I will never again take general conference for granted. It is just too wonderful of an opportunity to ever pass up! Just a little bit of information about the branch where I am serving, Nagasaki is still a branch, not a ward and each week I'd say we have around 50-60 people at church. Oohira Kyodai, our ward mission leader was the very first church member in Nagasaki after world war 2 so that tells you just how new the church is in this area. Basically every single member is a convert unless they're super young. The members are some of the best people I have ever met in my life and they are SO willing to do anything to help us out. Its crazy to see the dedication of some of these members that live 2 hours away from the church or that come by themselves every single week. They seriously are some of the strongest people I've ever known. Well, time is running low yet again, and we've got people to go find and teach and help so I'll be sure to keep in touch again next week! Continue to pray for us because we're going to need some serious help these next 6 weeks! Love you all! Wells Shimai