Sister Zone Leaders?!?

This week was busy busy! First of all, we got to go to Fukuoka for MLC which is just a meeting with President and all the Sister Training Leaders and Zone Leaders. I must admit, it was a little intimidating. I was the youngest missionary there in terms of mission age. But I did get to see Lyles Shimai and Heaton Shimai which was super fun! There we discussed different things we all want to focus on and improve upon in the upcoming weeks and received training from President and the APs. I quite enjoyed it. Then we came back to Nagasaki and prepared our Zone training meeting which is just a meeting with the whole zone the first week of the transfer where we talk about things that were said at MLC and set zone goals and such. Previously this had only been taught by the Zone Leaders but now that there are Sister Training Leaders in Nagasaki we helped teach it. It was also a little intimidating. Going up in front of all of these missionaries, many of which have been in the mission field much longer than I have, and talking to them about my methods of study or teaching. It went really well though and I know that opporunities like this just help me to learn and grow more. This past week we also had quite the miracle. So a little while back we had an investigator with a baptismal date who dropped and stopped meeting with us and ignored all our attempts of communication. This past week I couldn't get her out of my mind for a couple of days and when we did our weekly planning session we decided to try and call her again. She didn't answer. However, like 8 hours later that day, she texted us and said sorry for ignoring all of texts and calls. Long story short, it turned out that that day was her birthday! She didn't have evening plans so we asked her if we could come eat come ice cream with her! She agreed, and dropped our evening plans to go see her. After a nice chat and my companions Japanese power, we were able to schedule with her again! We got our investigator back! It was truly a miracle. Updates on other Nagasaki people: Our Korean Investigator told us this past week that she really wants to get baptized in Utah by her uncle who lives in Orem. I think that plan sounds great! Except that she isn't planning on going to Utah until either this July or sometime next year. She seriously is ready to be baptized right now if we can just convince her husband that we're not a cult. Anyway, we're still trying to figure out exactly what to do about that situation. Pray for us! Hope everyone is having a wonderful week! Love hearing about the news back home and keeping in touch with everyone! Mata Raishuu ne! Wells Shimai

Nikki Gets A Kimono!

Nihongo o Tabemasen!

Wow, big changes this week. But also, a lot stayed the same. Basically, last Tuesday we got a call from AP telling us that me and Cook Shimai are both staying in Nagasaki!!!! Woot!! Pretty sure I'm never going to leave this place. They should have just called me to the Nagasaki Branch Mission. However, Cook Shimai and I are not companions anymore! Lane Shimai is going to finish Cook Shimai's training and my new companion is.... Nihei Shimai! And we are now the Nagasaki Zone Sister Training Leaders. I'm still not exactly sure what that means besides the fact that we're going to Fukuoka tomorrow for some sort of Missionary Leader meeting and we'll get to go on companionship exchanges with other sisters in the Zone. Should be a fun adventure! I'm a little intimidated because I still feel like I just barely got here and I have no idea what I'm supposed to do to help these sisters. Good thing God is in charge! Now I'll tell you a little bit about my companion. First of all, she's Japanese if you didn't figure that out from her name. Her full name means Lily Two Bottles. In case you were wondering. All Japanese names have some sort of meaning. It's usually things like Mountain Valley, or Middle of Rice Field or something. So I'm companions with cute little sister Lily Two Bottles. She is from Chiba Japan which is where Tokyo Disneyland is. She loves Disney and is probably about 5 feet tall. She's absolutely adorable. Sometimes I have the urge to call her Polly, as in Polly Pocket, but I don't think she would quite understand. She actually does speak a good amount of English (As do most Japanese people because they study it from Elementary school) but we speak mostly Japanese throughout the day. Now I've got to say, I am super lucky to have a Japanese companion. Pretty much all of the Americans in the mission pray to have a Japanese companion someday so that they can learn Japanese. So when I first heard the news that I would have a Japanese companion I was super excited. However, I've got to admit, the first like 2 days were super exhausting. I went from being with Cook Shimai and speaking a lot of English throughout the day, and having people speak to us in super simple Japanese, to speaking mostly Japanese all day long and feeling like a brand new missionary again when people start talking to my companion and there's large chunks of the conversation that I don't understand. Haha it was quite the humbling experience. However, I have since done some very serious praying to God promising Him that I will work really hard this transfer to learn this language with the hopes of receiving some divine help from above. I just have to say, the gift of tongues truly is real. In a matter of just a couple of days I can already tell that my understanding is starting to increase significantly just from hearing so much Japanese throughout the day. And my brain is starting to get up to speed slowly but surely, and the past couple of days I have been able to understand most everything that's going on. All I have to say, is it's going to be an awesome transfer! I'm so ready to learn Japanese like the Natives! Anyway, that's the latest news on Sister Wells in Nagasaki Japan. Oh! But I did forget to mention that the Elder's recent convert from China got to pass the sacrament yesterday at church and it was so cute! Just thought I would mention that. It was adorable. The church is true. Nagasaki is my second home. Japanese people are super cute. And they eat weird food sometimes. But I love them all so much! Hope everyone back home had a happy Valentine's day! Mata Raishuu! Wells Shimai

Pictures, pictures, pirctures!

Transfers?

Wow what a week! Today is transfer call day so we're all just eagerly awaiting the news! But let me start back a little. Last week on Wednesday we were spoken to by Elder Auyagi of the Seventy in Fukuoka! We actually slept over at the sisters apartment the night before in Fukuoka which was super fun because Lyles Shimai (my trainer) and Messer Shimai (My companion's MTC companion) live there! We had a blast catching up on everything. And then of course being spoken to by a general authority was crazy. He spoke to us about how the Japanese people are "allergic" to religion and how the word religion here just has a negative connotation. The way that he told us to overcome that is through loving these people and helping them feel how important and special they are before we do anything else. Really good point, but still hard in practice. We're certainly working on it! This past Thursday, we were able to do companion exchanges with the Sister Training Leaders from Fukuoka and I got to spend the entire day with Higashi Shimai (who is Japanese in case you didn't infer that from her name) and it was wonderful! She speaks fluent English, but for practice for me, we spoke in Japanese most of the day. I'll admit, it was just a little exhausting, but I was quite surprised at how well I was able to do it! And Higashi Shimai seriously made me feel like a million bucks and kept telling me how good and natural my Japanese was and that I'm going to have a Japanese companion soon. I guess we'll just see what the future brings! This past Saturday one of the Elder's investigator, named Ishihara San got baptized! They only met him about a month ago, but he chose a baptismal date like the second day they met him, and they were able to teach everything and have no issues whatsoever so that he was able to get baptized in less than a months time! It was a wonderful experience and I just consider myself so lucky to have been in Nagasaki long enough to now have seen 6 baptisms with another one scheduled for tonight and 2 or possible 3 more scheduled for this Saturday. For all of you out there that thought Japan wasn't a baptizing mission, I beg to differ. There are so many prepared people here that are just waiting to hear the truth and want more purpose in their life and I have been so blessed to be able to witness the change and the happiness that has come to these humble wonderful people. The work is most definitely hastening. Anyway, to wrap it up, I'll just mention that Lane Shimai (who I live with right now and is Cullison Shimai's companion) went to the Trainer training meeting yesterday so that she can be a trainer! She doesn't know yet who she is training, but it's possible that she might be stealing my companion from me to finish training her! I'm a little scared because I took for granted the idea that I would be in Nagasaki for another transfer but now I realize nothing is for certain! I guess we will just wait and see what happens! No matter what, I know I'll go where I'm supposed to and I will love it. God is in charge after all. Well, I hope you all have a wonderful time watching the olympics and enjoying the Utah snow! Continue to pray for the missionaries! We certainly need it! Wells Shimai

Nagasaki or Nepal?!

This past week was wonderful! We spent some time this past week preparing for our branch activity of music night this past Saturday. It was great fun! My companion and I sang together, played the piano and violin together, and we had some branch members sing, play guitars, doing a rap, dance and of course our Nepalese posse did some sort of Nepalese dancing and singing that was great fun! It's kind of weird, because before my mission, I wasn't a really big singer. Just the occasional choir was good for me. Since I've come to Japan though, people keep making me sing solos and duets. It's not too bad though because for some reason, I don't really get nervous in front of the Japanese people. Maybe it comes from not being able to speak their language very well and making a fool of myself all the time in Japanese, that now I've just come to realize that embarrassment is a waste of energy. Anyway, music always brings people together. It was a wonderful night. We've still been doing quite a bit of finding this past little while and we've actually found quite a lot of potential investigators! Now we're just trying to get them to the point of meeting with us and learning on a regular basis rather than just whenever we show up for a short chat. It was pretty amazing though because just the other day, our schedule got all moved around and messed up when some things didn't go as planned and we ended up at the apartment during dinner not knowing what our night plans were going to be. We said a short prayer, decided to just go finding by foot in the area around us, and walked to a neighborhood nearby that I had never housed. We found 3 potential investigators in that one night that all said we could come back! One man was a super interested middle aged guy who had tons of questions that he said no one else had ever been able to answer. He was really excited when he discovered we weren't Jehovah's Witnesses because he had already asked them all of his questions. I feel like he has a ton of potential and is genuinely curious about his purpose in life and the nature of God. I'm pretty sure God just messes up our schedule sometimes because there's somewhere else we need to go. Well tonight, we're going to the Chinese New Year lantern festival downtown with a bunch of investigators and some members and I'll be sure to take tons of pictures! Thank you everyone for the love and support and for keeping in contact! Wells Shimai