Pictures of Sister Wells The Giant

Life As Ususal

This past week has been CRAZY.

For starters, Tuesday night, we had our schedule get a little bit mixed up, and ended up with just an hour of random time that we decided we would just fill with housing. We go to our bikes outside of the apartment, and then the phone rings. Apparently there was someone at the church waiting for us, wondering where we are. We respond that we will be there soon!

We arrive at the church at meet the lovely Shimabukuro San (Pronounced she-mah-boo-koo-dough, or something close to that). She responds that she was in the area, and decided to stop by the church because she had met some missionaries before about a year ago, but at the time was too busy to meet. We took her into a room and taught her about the restoration of the gospel, and she told us that she just wants to continue to learn more! She also told us that she plays the piano, to which we responded that we have a baby grand piano in the chapel if she wanted to go see it and play it. (Side note, you RARELY see real pianos in Japan. They are almost ALL electric just because of space. We are SUPER lucky to have a nice piano here) We then went to the chapel, and proceeded to listen to her beautifully present her piano skills to us. Safe to say, it was an awesome night. We've been able to meet with her a few times since then, and will continue to do so, so I'll be sure to have more updates next week!

Also, this upcoming Saturday, we are looking forward to having a baptism! We were able to meet with Takeshima san this morning and review all the interview questions and he'll be interviewed this Thursday! Please continue to pray for him so that everything goes smoothly! We went over how his baptismal service was going to be and we actually convinced him to let the guest list be about 20 people :) Still a small service, but better than the original 5 that he was so insistant upon. As long as everything goes as planned, I'll be sending baptism pictures next week!

This past Friday, we also got to go on a companion exchange down south to Urasoe, where it just so happens my old companion Sister Nihei is serving right now! It was super weird because my current companion Sister Nagamine was companions with Sister Nihei for three transfers at one point, I was with her for 2 at another point, and then she was with her current companion sister Doi. So she was just surrounded by her companions! It was a lot of fun and kind of weird to not speak any English all day long since there's not Americans down there. 

Anyway, life is wonderful. We're just keeping working hard until the end! Hope everyone has fun starting school and all that jazz that's going on back in the real world! Love you all! 

Sister Wells

Someone Had a Birthday

Baptisms, Birthdays and Billions of Calories of Birthday Food

This past week was full of fun! Sister Malone (The bean) had a birthday on Tuesday and my companion had her birthday on Thursday. We ate WAY TOO MUCH JUNK FOOD. Just sayin. 

Notable events include: 

George, one of the Elder's investigator, got baptized on Saturday! The Elders met him housing a few months back. and he is half Japanese, half American, lived in Okinawa his whole life, is fluent in both languages and SO funny! He calls me Nicole, for some reason, and I actually don't even remember telling him my name so I'm not sure how that happened and hasn't stopped despite my constant efforts of reminding him I am a missionary and he should call me Sister Wells. Or Ueruzu Shimai if he wants Japanese. But it's ok, because we're pals, and his baptism was AWESOME. 

This next week, the other Elders are having one of their investigators Gisuju San be baptized on Saturday. And then the Saturday after that Takeshima San is scheduled to be baptized! August is proving to be a month full of miracles! 

On another note, that lady that we met 2 sundays ago at a nearby store before church who couldn't come that day, came to church yesterday! We were starting to worry just  a little bit because she wasn't answering our calls, and we even stopped by her house a couple times with no response, but then she just showed up to church! Her name is Toshiko and she's Okinawian, but married (maybe was married? Still not sure) to an American from the military, and thus had WAY good English, and all of her kids live in the states and are members of the church, so she's been quite a lot, and the first thing she asked me when we came into the chapel was "So who's the bishop?" so it appears that she is pretty familiar with the church organization. She made friends easily and even invited Sister Crosby, on of the Senior missionaries, over to her house so she can cook her some Japanese food. We still haven't actually taught her much, but she sure has a lot of potential! 

Anyway, there is always TONS of things that happen each and every week, but when it comes to Pday I'm just too tired or can't really remember much so I'm sorry for the slightly short emails. Thanks again everyone for the prayers and support. See you all in 3 and half months!

Sister Wells

Only One Picture. But it is a good one!

The Good Life

This week was really good! I don't even remember what exactly happened, so I guess I'll just report on the progress of some of our investigators right now. First of all is Takeshima San! We originally planned his baptism for August 23rd, but decided this week that we don't want to have to rush anything, and we've still got a bit to teach, thus it will now be August 30th! He is progressing super well. Every time he comes to the church on Sunday, or on Thursday for English Class, he makes more and more friends and seems to be getting steadily more and more happy as time goes on. He has been taking quite a bit of time with the lessons because he had absolutly no Christian Background, so we had to re-teach prayer like 6 times before we felt like he really understood what he was doing. However, we now only have a few more commandments to teach, and then get him ready for his interview and he will be ready to enter into the waters of baptism! There is also a little boy in one of the American Branches who we are teaching right now because he's 9, and hasn't been baptized since his biological father lives back in the states and they haven't had a chance to get together since a plane ticket to Okinawa Japan is quite a bite. But they are all flying out to Hawaii to meet this November for his baptism, and since he's 9, he has to recieve the lessons in order to get baptized. Not your typical investigator, but it has been SUPER fun teaching him and finding fun and creative ways to teach the lessons to such a young investigator. We've also been visiting a young American couple lately who has been looking for a new church to go to since they came to the island at the beginning of this year. It's super weird because we run into young married couples here all the time and I end up finding out that they're like 20! Because with military rules and such it just makes a lot more sense for people to get married. But it throws me off every single time! I always think married people should be older than me. Anyway, we feel like they have a lot of potential and are excited to see what happens in the future! Anyway, my brain is a little checked out, so I'm just stopping things there. I love my companion, I love my area, and I love my friends and support from back home! Have a good week! Sister Wells

Pictures!!

Tropical Storms, Transfers and Testimonies!

This past week has been a little weird, as the week of transfers usually are, but it was definitely a week of learning. My companion and I are still together (Woot!) and we became the Sister Training Leaders of Okinawa. Olsen Shimai, who we lived with, transfered up to mainland, and Sister Pinzon is training a brand new bean! Her name is Sister Malone, and she's super great so far and has filled us in on all of the random things we've missed in the past 13 months. Quite enlightening. Notable things of the week: During Soccer on Saturday, when the ball was flying in the air towards me, I hit it with my head, in the right direction! Small thing, you might think, BUT I was pretty dang proud of myself. This past Saturday night, the Japanese branch here threw a Karaoke Activity. Let me just fill you in on Japanese people in general. They are shy, quiet, don't much like to be the center of attention, and super polite right? I was a little concerned about this activity. Much to my surprise, the stage was full, the ENTIRE time we were there, everyone wanted to sing, everyone wanted to do a solo, and they all got WAY into it. Our investigator, Takeshima-San, who's biggest concern about being baptized is the number of people who will be watching, even got up and sang a solo! I couldn't believe my eyes! Ears? Anyway, just thought you all should know, Japanese people go CRAY when it comes to Karaoke. This past week, we ended up having a tropical storm for a couple of hours which threw off some of our appointments and made us end up calling a bunch of past investigators to see if anyone had interest again. I called this one lady who said she wants to come to our church again and she didn't know exactly where it was, but she knew where the store closeby was, so we told her we'd meet here there Sunday morning. She wasn't positive about her schedule and said this week might not work, maybe the week after, but maybe just call Sunday morning and we can see. Fast forward to Sunday morning. We call her, and she doesn't answer. Tried again a few minutes later, and still nothing. I figure we'll just shoot for next week and tell my comp that she's probably not going to make it. My companion says "Well, why don't we just run to the store and see. We did say we'd meet here there." I still was a bit hesitant, but Nagamine Shimai thought we should go, so I faithlessly walked to the nearby store. We wait outside about 20 minutes. Still nothing. I decide to call her one last time. Still no answer. We decide to call it quits and go to the church. Just then, a lady walks out of the store, looks at me and says "Are you the missionaries?" I was so shocked! She actually was feeling a little bit sick, and couldn't make it this week, but she came all the way to the store so that she could tell us! We talked to her for a moment, learned that ALL of her family is members, she had just spent the last couple of months in Utah visiting her daughters, and she LOVES church. At which point I asked her "So are you a member?" to which she responded "No, I haven't been baptized. But maybe soon?" I was speechless! It was definitely a humbling experience. Fact is, this truly is the Lord's work, and I've gotta stop trying to do things my own way! I was really grateful that despite my lack of faith, the Lord provided me with a faithful companion, and a way to see such a cool miracle. I love being a missionary in Okinawa Japan! Thank you all for the love and support! Mata ne! Wells Shimai

Divine Intervention

This past week was EXHAUSTING! Started out pday when my companion and I got our death calls! A death call is basically when the Assistants call you and ask when you're going home, because we can usually choose between two different dates. Our choices were December 5th, or January 15th. Because of school we both chose December 5th. IT WAS SO WEIRD TALKING ABOUT GOING HOME! I still feel like I just got here. Yeesh. This past week we feel like Heavenly Father was really trying to direct us and take care of us because there were a lot of plans that didn't work out at all like we thought they would. Things varying from an unexpected flat bike tire, to a stolen helmet. My stolen helmet to be exact. It wasn't a big deal except that we were like a 40 minute bike ride away from home, had JUST BARELY had a training about bike safety, therefore biking without a helmet was out of the question, and it was like 3:00 in the blazing hot Okinawa sun. The real question here is who in the world would steal one of those unattractive white helmets? No one in Okinawa even rides bikes, and anyone that does NEVER wears a helmet. Thus, I am convinced God just translated it or something because we ended up calling the senior couple in our area to come and get us so we didn't have to walk home for 2.5 hours and possibly die of heat stroke. The weird thing is, we kept having little adjustments in our daily plans like that all throughout the week, and even though we didn't immediately recognize the reasons for them, or see crazy big miracles right after, we got to the end of the week and realized we had had one of the best weeks of the transfer by far in terms of new investigators found, and lessons taught. Moral of the story, God is in charge here. Not us. This is HIS work, and HE will make sure that whatever needs to happen will happen. Our role is just be willing to follow promptings, take things as they come, and leave the rest up to Him! One last funny miracle of the day. We were in a fairly American area the other day housing and we kept on running into American men married to Japanese women. (It's EXTERMELY common here.) And while noticing this trend, I thought aloud to my companion "Some day I just REALLY want to see an American Woman married to a Japanese man. I've NEVER seen it before!" And we went on our way housing. The VERY last door we knocked on that night was a cute little black girl from Florida who was here with the military and she was married to a JAPANESE MAN!!!!! It made my day :) Best miracle of the week by far. Tender mercies and miracles are happening each and every day here in Okinawa Japan! Hope you are all enjoying your Summer and staying cool! Just to give you an idea of how much we sweat, I drink about 4-5 liters of water every day in order to stay hydrated. Its good fun. Don't forget to pray for us missionaries and those we are teaching! Thanks for the love and support! Sister Wells