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