PICTURES!!

Nagasaki International Branch

Wow, what a week! We have lately had quite a few investigators either drop or become really busy or just not progressing which means.. FINDING! Whoooot! If you think that was a sarcastic whoot, it totally wasn't. Finding might be one of my favorite parts of my mission. I don't really know why, but I honestly love talking to random people on the streets and at their houses about God and religion and Jesus Christ. It might just be because Japanese people are super nice, and when they're not, they're at least polite, so even when they flat out reject us, they generally apologize and say it with a smile haha. So this week we've done quite a bit of finding. Which is great, because I definitely need to improve at talking to people on the streets. And it's been a good opportunity for Cook Shimai to speak a lot of conversational Japanese with people. Speaking of Japanese, I still often get asked about how It's coming for me. Basically, when we're on the streets talking with people about the gospel, and when we're in lessons or at church talking about church things, I probably understand like 60 percent of the Japanese perfectly, and can infer another 30 percent just by context and the words I do know. So with church discussions, I'm at around 90 percent, and only 10 percent of asking people to say things again, or whipping out little electronic dictionary to look things up. However, when I happen to be talking to people about subjects that aren't so gospel related, my percentage probably goes down to like 40 and 30. However, I honestly LOVE learning this language and I can't believe how much I've learned in the past 7 months. The gift of tongues is real my friends! Just thought I'd mention too that my district leader, who is in my area, is currently teaching approximately 9 Nepalese Investigators who are in Japan learning Japanese so they can attend college. They all come to church each week and we set up a translating system for them in English because they understand it better than Japanese and they all sit together and are just the funniest little bunch of men I've ever met. Take all of them and add it to Zan, the Chinese investigator who is getting baptized on Tuesday (WOOT WOOT!), our Korean investigator, the Elder's Vietnamese Investigator, our Brazilian Zone leader, 7 American Missionaries, and members from the Phillippenes and Afghanistan and we've got quite the diverse congregation on Sundays! It's great. I kind of never want to leave Nagasaki. It's my new home. Japan is the best! Anyway, I want to send some pictures, so I'm coming to a close. Thank you everyone for all you do! The work is certainly hastening all over the world and I'm so happy to be a part of it. Love you all! Wells Shimai

Lucky Number 13!

Another week of ups and downs! First of all, our investigator who was progressing a TON and had a baptismal date dropped us just the other day out of the blue. Apparently her parents didn't approve of the baptism, and even though she is 31 and doesn't necessarily need their permission, she decided it wasn't worth going against her parent's will. Which is quite a common occurance amongst Japan missionary work. EVERYONE here is Buddhist even though they don't exactly know what they believe in or what that really means. But to be anything besides Buddhist is considered strange and looked down upon as if it is a betrayal of their culture and thus, many many people who investigate the church end up dropping due to families that don't approve of their desire to change religions. It's quite sad to watch :( No fear though! We still had faith and went out finding with a fury! Wow, that was quite the unplanned alliteration. This past Saturday, our plans got really messed up when the other sisters asked us to teach the Children's English Class last minute because they weren't going to be able to be there in time, and thus our evening schedule didn't leave us enough time to do what we wanted to. Instead we just decided to get out of the house and go finding. We didn't know exactly where we were going to go so we just decided to start walking and found ourselves in a neighborhood on a hill close by with a billion steps that we began to climb up. About half way up, we knew we wouldn't have time to house everything so we decided to go up just one more flight of stairs to the small apartment building above us and began knocking. The very last door of the building was opened by a young man wearing only boxers. After realizing who was at his door and realizing what he was wearing, he apologized and said he would be right back after he put on some pants. Long story short, he totally wants to improve his English, AND he's been super curious about religion lately and accepted our Book of Mormon and we scheduled again with him the next day! Moral of the story is that GOD IS IN CHARGE and even when our days don't go as planned, God still has something in store for us as long as we're willing to get out there and try! Last HUGE miracle of the week. This past Sunday I got asked last minute (aka Saturday afternoon) to speak in church. As I sat up on the stand waiting for the service to begin, I watched 1, then 2, then 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, and then THIRTEEN investigators show up to church!!!! Between us 8 missionaries in Nagasaki Branch, we literally had 13 people in the congregation that came to learn more about our church!!! Even as I'm typing this, I still can't believe it. I remember writing a few months ago about how we had 5 investigators at church and that was unbelievable. The work truly is hastening. I can't even begin to tell you about the miracles that we see on a daily basis but I just want to say that there are so many people out there ready to hear this gospel and it is our responsibility to bring it to them! I feel so blessed to be in Nagasaki at this time to be witnessing these incredible miracles. I want to thank everyone for their prayers and support that I know are always helping us through each and every day. I wish I had more time to talk about how much I have been able to see God's hand in my life lately but just know that He truly loves and cares about each of us personally as well as all of His children who still don't have this gospel knowledge. Thank you again! Wells Shimai

I've Been Healed!

This email will probably be a short one but I do want to include a few interesting experiences of the week. First of all, our investigator T is making super good progress! This past Thursday we had a lesson with her in which we reviewed the restoration and talked about Joseph Smith. We then brought baptism back up and asked her what she thougth about baptism. After telling her that we wanted to make a goal with her for baptism sometime in February, she agreed! We then explained to her that we had plenty of time and for the next month we would be meeting a lot to help her prepare. She then looked at us confused and said "Wait, this year? I thought you meant February next year! This year is too soon!" After we sorted out the miscommunication, we simply asked her to pray about it and think more about it. We then had a lesson on Saturday and we followed up with her about whether or not she prayed about baptism. She responded that she had, and that she wanted to get baptized on February 8th! I'll admit, I was shocked. Prayer is a powerful gift my friends. I'll be sure to keep you updated on her progress! Next experience that I just feel like mentioning. This past Friday we stopped an older lady on the street and began talking to her about our message and she told us she wanted to hear about it but she also wanted to tell us a little bit of her message too. We didn't see any harm in it, so we set up an appointment at her apartment the next day. Saturday after lunch, we bike to her apartment, and are welcomed by not only her, but two of her friends as well. She asked if she wanted us to talk first or if she could share her message first. I told her to go ahead, because I wanted to try to end on a spiritual note. She then tells me and my bean to stand up and move our neck and sholders and do a couple of other various stretches. It seemed harmless, so we did as they asked. Then they asked us to sit down in these chairs in the center of the room , and then they started moving their arms all around us in a circle and asking us where we had pain. It was at this point that I said a quick prayer that went something like this "God, if this is some sort of black magic that I shouldn't be part of, let me know and I will leave. Otherwise, I'm probably just going to let these women wave their arms around me. In the name of Jesus Christ, Amen". I didn't feel like there was anything sketchy really going on, so me and my brand new bean just sat there for like 10 minutes while they waved their arms around us and did some interesting dance moves and tried to "heal" us of our physical pains. Afterwards, they asked us if we felt better, or if we felt any power, and after a "no" response, they didn't seem very phased. They still seem convinced that they had just healed us of all of our pains. They then proceeded to try to turn salt into sugar, and asked us to taste the difference (Which there wasn't one), and tried to convince us that they held God's power. After a quick message that we shared about the Book of Mormon and how it can help them in their lives, we handed them a flier about English Class and Mormon.org and left. Haha I just thought I would mention that because it was by far one of the most interesting encounters I have had with Buddhists in Japan thus far. Japan is great :) Sorry I don't have much time today but I love you all and hope you're enjoying the snow! We don't have any here in Nagasaki, but it sure is getting cold! Love you all! Wells Shimai

I Think Sister Wells Has Met Her Kindred Spirit i\In Fashion

Sister Wells Just Had A Baby!

Wow so much has changed since last week! Sister Eddy is now in America, Heaton Shimai is now a Sister Training Leader over in Kagoshima, and Sister Lane (who was my sister training leader back in the MTC) is now sister Cullison's companion and my green bean is here! Yes I am still in Nagasaki and I am SO HAPPY! I could honestly stay in Nagasaki my entire mission and I would not complain :) My new companion is wonderful. Her name is Cook Shimai, no she does not like to cook, as all of the Japanese people keep asking her. She is from St. George Utah, is 21, has a degree in chemistry, is fluent in Spanish, and I think she's wonderful! We've been able to do quite a bit of finding the past couple of days since a lot of our investigators were gone for the holidays, and she is just fearless. She'll say hi to and stop everyone she sees! Much more fearless than I was when I had only been in Japan 4 days. Can't wait to see the miracles that this transfer will bring! This past week was New Years in Japan which is a much bigger deal that Christmas and we had meals with members like the entire week. It was great. I got to eat all sorts of unidentifiable food with varying degrees of deliciousness. One of the most interesting dishes consisted of cracking a raw egg into a bowl and then dipping cooked meat and vegetables into the raw egg and eating it with rice. It was actually pretty yummy as long as you didn't get a huge glob of raw egg in one bite. Then it was just kind of gooey. A good lesson I learned this week came from one of our investigators that I will refer to as T. We met T at English Class about a month ago and have been teaching her ever since. However, last week after church we had a short lesson about reading the Book of Mormon just a little bit each day. It seemed to go well, and we scheduled an appointment for the next day. However, the next day she did not show up to the appointment, nor did she respond to any texts or phone calls. We tried again a few time later in the week with no avail. I was quite stressed as to what had happened to her, what someone might have told her, or what we did wrong. This past Saturday, we were just waiting at the street car stop to head back home for dinner when I just thought, "I'm going to try to call T one more time". SHE ANSWERED! And she just happened to be like 10 minutes away from where we were and she agreed to meet us. Cute little Cook Shimai just worked her magic and helped T feel at ease right away by being super friendly and excited to meet her. We then walked to the church together and talked about how she had been lately. Turns out, she decided that studying the Mormon church was simply too much work! Looking back, I now realize that we taught this woman, without any Christian background whatsoever, all of the lessons in the space of like 2 weeks! She is currently looking for a job, so she was able to meet a lot, but that doesn't change the fact that we were seriously asking this woman to change her life for someone that she had only heard about a few weeks ago! Basically, my new goal is to really listen to these investigators and check for understanding and help them develop a relationship with God and with Jesus Christ rather than just spouting off a bunch of words that they've never heard of before. Otherwise it's basically like I was talking to someone saying "Have you ever thought about jdsfue3nslhdgsdgvn before?" Or "How do you feel about asl;kfjsdlfj?" For real though. That's probably what it sounds like sometimes when I go out and talk to people. Just a jumble of sounds that they've never heard before. How will they even know how they feel about baptism or repentance or Jesus Christ if they don't even know who that is or what those words mean?!?!? Anyway, lesson learned. We got our investigator back, and we're staring from the beginning at a pace she can understand! That was the lesson I learned this week. Because I know what it feels like to be spoken to in a language that I don't understand, and that is not what I want other people to feel like when we teach them about this gospel! Anyway, pray for me. Pray for my investigators, and Pray for my bean! I thank you all for your prayers already and I love JAPAN! Mata Ne!