Pictures (again)!

Baby On The Way!

Wow, so many things have happened in the past few weeks I have no idea where to start! The entire Christmas season was wonderful. Here are some of the highlights of my life recently: Having the opportunity to visit care houses and singing Christmas carols to all of the wonderful Elderly Japanese people and seeing their happy faces as they clapped along to Jingle Bells and Santa Clause is Coming to Town and other English Christmas songs since there's really not many options in Japanese. Going to a super fancy Lions House Club dinner for Christmas eve and being sung American Country songs by a Japanese man wearing an American Flag T Shirt and Cow boy hat. At that same event, an 80 year old man came up and grabbed my hand and put his arm around my waist and began dancing with me to the music for a moment before Eddy Shimai came over and saved me by cutting in. It was definitely a night to remember :) Then Christmas day we all woke up and opened our packaged from the Branch and from our families and we all got to call our families and just soak in the Christmas spirit. And despite the lack of snow, we were still able to have a white Christmas because one of our branch members 8 year old daughter decided to get baptized! It was a wonderful Christmas that I will never forget. This past Saturday, we had the opportunity to go to our neighboring area and serve at an orphanage. We made mochi (Which is basically just smashed up rice with warm water until it becomes a gooey paste that you form into balls around sweet beans) with the children, and played soccer and games outside (Yea its still that warm here) for a few hours until it was time to leave. That same day, our neighboring area was having a baptism which we got permission to attend. However, the church over there doesn't have a font built into it, therefore, we had a portable font that we literally had to fill up buckets of warm water from the sink upstairs and take all the way down stairs one by one and dump it into the font until it was full. It took like 2 hours with 8 missionaries doing it haha. Then we were dumb and didn't put the drain outlet by the door that led outside, which meant we also had to drain the font by filling up buckets and dumping them outside until it became light enough to move towards the door and drain completely. Anyway, besides that chaos, the baptism was wonderful! It was for a young man named Koike who has known missionaries for like 6 years now and has finally decided to get baptized! To add to the madness of Saturday, I received a call from the APs on Saturday evening telling me that I needed to come to Fukuoka on Monday to receive training in order to become a trainer!!!! I feel like I just barely got here, but now I'm gonna have to train a baby missionary all by myself! She's probably on the airplane heading to Japan right as I'm writing this. I'm a little bit scared, but super excited and can't wait to meet her! It's still just babies raising babies here in the Japan Fukuoka mission! Anyway, I want to send pictures of all this madness so I'll end my letter now. I know God will help me because there's no way I can do this alone! Thank you everyone for all your prayers and support and I hope you all have a Happy New Year!

Pictures from Christmas

Merry Christmas!

Its going to be a short one because P-day today has been a little bit crazy. Some of the events of the week: 1. I ate sushi for the very first time in Japan this week. Weird right? Usually back in Utah I have like sushi like once a month and now that I actually live in Japan I didn't even try it for nearly 4 months. Anyway, it's way better in Japan. And they have things on the menu like Octopus brain. Pretty legit. 2. One of our English Class Students and I were conversing after English class this past week when she asked me "So does this church have a worship service?" Of course I told her we do and when it was and she totally came and brought one of her friends to church on Sunday and they thought it was just great! We're meeting with them both tomorrow to teach them more about it! 3. We ate dinner at some other English Class Student's house with their family who just happen to be super musically talented and own a BABY GRAND PIANO! This might not sound all that exciting, but it is the first time I've played a non-electric piano since coming to Nagasaki nearly 4 months ago. Our church just has an organ and then little electric keyboards. And no one in Japan ever has a real piano in their house because Japan houses simply don't have enough room! (Everything in Japan is smaller, the buildings, the food portions, the clothes, the people.... you start to feel like a little bit of a giant after a while) I was able to play it for just a moment, but it made my whole week. 4. And now for the biggest miracle of the week! But I have to back up about 3 weeks ago. So at the beginning of this transfer, we went and did service at one of our member's houses that just had a baby. We wore P-day clothes, but then we packed our missionary clothes and changed afterwards to go finding. Part of my P-day clothing outfit was my purple Nike running shoes that I had to stuff into my bag when we changed and had to carry them around with me. Quite the pain. When we returned home that night, I discovered that I had come home with only 1 purple Nike. We made phone calls, checked the church, and searched around until realizing it was probably just wandering around Nagasaki somewhere not likely to be found again. Eddy Shimai, was determined however, and told us that her transfer goal was going to be to find my missing shoes. Fast forward to this past Friday, where I'm at the church waiting for our Christmas program practice to begin and in walks Eddy Shimai telling us that the biggest miracle just happened. I'm expecting a new investigator, a reactivation, a package from home, someone wants to get baptized, or something along those lines. Instead, Eddy Shimai pulls out MY PURPLE NIKE SHOE from her bag. Apparently they were walking along the streets of Nagasaki earlier that day when Eddy Shimai spotted something purple out of the corner of her eye on top of a mailbox. After further inspection, she shouted for joy, grabbed the shoe, and ignored the strange looks of all the Japanese people wondering why this American girl is screaming and stealing a purple shoe from the top of a mailbox. Moral of the story is, Set goals everyone. No matter how impossible they may seem, you can always achieve your goals! Ok, so that's not really the moral of the story, but that truly was probably one of the most remarkable things I've ever witnessed. MIRACLES STILL CONTINUE TODAY MY FRIENDS! Love you all, I have no time for pictures or more stories but have a Merry Christmas and keep up the prayers!

More Pics!

I'm Dreaming Of A Warm Christmas

This week was crazy wonderful. No other way to describe it. Basically, the first half of the week was getting everything ready for Yamamoto San's baptism. Monday we all four met with her and made sure she understood all that she needed to, Tuesday she had her interview with our District Leader and passed it with flying colors, and Wednesday we just told the whole world that they needed to come to this spectacular event and then came THURSDAY! It was a beautiful service that included all 8 of us Nagasaki missionaries singing 'I am a Child of God' in English and Japanese (And it was super adorable because her 2 little boys started singing along with us super loud because they know the song in English and Japanese because we sing it every week in our children english class) and Eddy Shimai gave a beautiful talk about the Holy Ghost and one of the ward members spoke as well and everyone was just in such a great mood! When we went down to the font area, my companion asked her if she wanted a hair tie for her hair because it was down and she just said 'no thanks, I want my hair down because that's how Jesus' hair was'. HOW ADORABLE IS THAT! Anyway, Harvey Choro, one of the Nagasaki missionaries was the one to baptize her and he did SUCH an amazing job. She came out of the water looking so happy! After she was changed, we all returned to the chapel and she bore the most beautiful testimony with tears running down her face while her adorable little 7 year old boy stood below her and wiped her tears away. It was definitely a night to remember. But as if one miracle baptism wasn't enough, we had so many miracles that stemmed from that night! One being that Keiko San, an English class student came to the baptism and was so moved by it that she totally wants to start meeting with us! She's our newest investigator and she came to church yesterday and was able to witness Yamamoto San recieve the Gift of the Holy Ghost. Just as a side note, she speaks SUPER good English. I don't know how we have had this luck, but right now our top 3 investigators all speak REALLY good English. It truly is the biggest blessing. God truly has perfect timing in everything because we are such young missionaries with such insufficient Japanese. Our Korean investigator was also able to come to the Baptism, but only for about 20 minutes before her husband called saying he was home and wanted to eat dinner together. We were super sad to see her leave early, however, this coming Sunday she is totally planning on telling her Protestant Preacher that she doesn't want to be part of that Church anymore. We asked her what it was like to fast about it and she said 'Oh yea, fasting was a little bit difficult. Actually my husband really wanted me to eat lunch with him so I ended up fasting for breakfast and dinner which I don't think is probably how it's supposed to be, but I actually feel like I've gained a lot of courage from it.' Haha she is so cute! And even though she fasted for breakfast and dinner I KNOW that God is seriously SO PROUD of her right now because she truly is making huge steps in changing her life. It has been so incredible to witness. Well, I want to send a few pictures so I'm wrapping it up now! Thank you everyone for the love and support and I hope everyone has a wonderful Christmas season! Wells Shimai

Detective Wells

Approximately One More Year!

I think we figured out a while ago that the transfer I go home on ends on December 5th next year!!!! Kind of scary because I still feel like a super new missionary, but the reality is, I ONLY HAVE ONE YEAR LEFT! Weird... let's forget that I mentioned that. Life in Japan is great. This past week, my companion and I kind of hit a wall though. Because we were both trained by the Lyles Shimai, and we've never been companions with anyone else, so basically we've realized that we just don't have anything new to teach each other. And we both know pretty much the same words and phrases in Japanese. So talking to people on the streets has gotten really repetitive feeling because we just don't know how to come up with new ideas! However, we're just trying to get creative and asking other missionaries their methods and ways so that we can improve! My real Thanksgiving day was spent in Sasebo for a Zone Training Meeting and then that night all of the Nagasaki Missionaries went out to dinner together and talked about things we're grateful for. It rocked. Not saying Thanksgiving in America isn't wonderful, because it definitely is, but I'm just saying that fake Thanksgiving in a small Udon restaurant in Japan with 7 American missionaries and 1 Brazilian missionary is an experience I wouldn't trade for anything. This coming Thursday, Nagasaki is having another baptism as I mentioned before! We're meeting with Yamamoto-San this morning actually to help prepare her for her interview tomorrow and make sure she understands everything. Let me just tell you, this woman has some of the strongest faith I've ever seen. She knows that this is all happening fast and she knows that she still doesn't understand everything perfectly, but she just keeps reassuring us that she knows God wants her to get baptized because it tells her to in the Book of Mormon and everytime she prays to God she gets an answer. This is coming from a woman who only 2 months ago told us that she doesn't really have interest in our message because she's super Buddhist. I'm telling you people, this gospel changes lives! This past week, we met with our Korean investigator two times. We went over the law of fasting with her and tried to help her understand how fasting can truly bring miracles and answers to our prayers. At the first meeing, she told us that fasting was going to be imopssible because she has to make meals for her husband and he'll be upset if she just doesn't eat. We told her that God always provides a way for us to obey the commandments that He gives us and asked her to just pray about it and think more about it. The second time we met she just straight up told us that "Oh, it's just two meals, and it's not like my husband doesn't have to eat, it's just me. So I'll be able to fast this Sunday." Wait what? We didn't even have to say anything about it! I swear this woman is just teaching herself sometimes. Anyway, yesterday, she didn't end up coming to church which we were a little concerned about her because lately her husband has been more and more bothered by her meeting with us so much. But after church we texted her and guess who still fasted?! Our investigator. Yea, that's right. She couldn't come to church, but she totally fasted still! I can't tell you how proud I am of her. And to top things off, this week we get to go to her apartment to have lunch together and meet her 2 baby kittens!!! I'm probably way more excited about that than I should be, but I just haven't held a cat in nearly 6 months! You can probably expect like 10 pictures of just cats with next weeks email. Don't say I didn't warn you. Anyway, Japan is great. Japanese is quite the adventure. This gospel is changing peoples lives every day for the better. I am SO GRATEFUL to all of my wonderful friends and family who have helped me get to the point I am today! Remember to be 100 percent thankful because if you're going to be 99 percent thankful, you might as well be 0 percent (Words of the oh so wise Yamamoto San). I'll see you all in about a year! (I can't believe I just said that. Barf) Crazy Cat Lady Wells Shimai

P-Day Pictures and Fermented Soybeans

It's Beginning To Look A Lot Like......December!

So we're just idiot Americans who don't actually know then Thanksgiving is. I totally thought it was last week. Apparently it's this Thursday. All last week we kept sharing messages about being Thankful talking about our American Holiday. Oh well, Japanese people have never heard of Thanksgiving in their life so they don't know we're dumb :) This past week was crazy. Lyles Shimai is now in Fukuoka being a Sister Training Leader and Eddy Shimai is now safely in Nagasaki. Here's the crazy part though, Last week Cullison Shimai and Lyles Shimai taught a lesson to their investigator named Yamamoto who was once mine and Heaton Shimai's investigator as well back when we were a trio. At the lesson, they challenged Yamamoto San to baptism and at the time she just wasn't sure if she really wanted to get baptized or not, but she said she would pray and think about it. Fast forward about 8 hours later, and Yamamoto san comes to English Class that night, and after it's over, she starts talking to Lyles Shimai and starts crying. Apparently, she had been thinking about getting baptized all day long and she recieved an answer that she wants to get baptized on her birthday! Well guess when her birthday is. NEXT THURSDAY. Fast Forward to the present time. Basically, we're all helping to prepare this woman to get baptized next Thursday by meeting with her basically every single morning this week so that she can learn all of the commandments and being keeping them in time. It's crazy! This morning all four of us sisters taught her about the Word Of Wisdom and it was one of the smoothest lessons ever! She just basically said "Yea, it's way good to be healthy. I love being healthy. I don't really even drink coffee or tea so I don't have any problems with this." Wait what? A Japanese person without Word of Wisom problems? Is this for real? I just have to testify that Japan is SO prepared for this gospel! Also, yesterday at church, between the four companionships of missionaries in Nagasaki we had 5 investigators at church! It was such a great day. And Sacrament meeting was wonderful. Malcom Choro, our new zone leader that just transfered here last week was asked to speak along with Eddy Shimai, and he calls me up Saturday night and says "Hey, I think I want to sing in sacrament meeting tomorrow and I hear you can play the piano." Turns out this kid has the voice of an angel and just blows everyone's socks off with a beautiful display of "There is a green hill far away" in English and Japanese. It was pretty rockin. Pretty sure we're going to have to do some Musical Missionary work this transfer and just sing Christmas songs to people so we can talk about Jesus with them. Malcom Choro is going to be our new secret weapon. Speaking of Christmas, IT"S JUST A NORMAL BUSINESS DAY IN JAPAN! Everyone just goes to school and work and no one really celebrates it all that much. Is that ridiculous or what? It's a little depressing. However, Nagasaki is one of the most Christian areas in Japan so luckily, we actually do have a few shopping centers with Christmas trees and various decorations put up. It always makes me happy :) Plus, we're getting out our mini 5 foot Christmas tree for our apartment today and I'm so excited! And we've all started singing Christmas songs while riding our bikes sometimes and then it feels a little more like Christmas time :) Well, I hope everyone enjoys their real Thanksgiving this week! I'm going to be in Sasebo on Thanksgiving for a zone conference where there's an Indian Curry all you can eat restaurant that we always go to. So at least we'll have a little piece of our beloved American holiday. Celebrating in Japan, eating massive amounts of Indian food. It's not quite the same but hey, beggars can't be choosers so I'll take what I can get! Love you all! Be thankful for peanut butter this week! And Wheat bread! Wells Shimai

Typhoons, Thanksgiving and Transfers

Wow, this week was just full of crazy events. Transfer weeks are always a little crazy. I'll probably start by talking about our transfer calls today. To put it simply, Heaton Shimai and I are still companions in Nagasaki!!!! That makes three transfers in a row with the same companion! But our dearly beloved mother, Lyles Shimai, is heading off to Fukuoka to be a Sister Training Leader!!! We're so sad, but also exciting because that means that she'll get to come back at some point next transfer to do splits with us! And the current Sister Training Leader, Eddy Shimai, isn't going to be a STL anymore, but instead is coming to Nagasaki to finish training Cullison Shimai! Wow, crazy times. Anyway, just some random crazy miracle events of the week: Our Korean investigator, come to our English class pretty much every week to improve her English and learn phrases (And sometimes to translate our English into Japanese because we're not so good at explaining things sometimes :)) But, anyway, this past week, we were learning the phrase 'from here on out' and after we explained it, we asked for example sentances. Our investigator raises her hand, and says "If she gets baptized, from here on out, she will have the gift of the Holy Ghost" All of us missionaries about died laughing! And pretty much everyone else in the room had no idea what was going on but she just looked at us and said "well that's what you guys always tell me!". Haha, I love our English class. Update on her, basically, she's planning on getting baptized. It's no longer a question of IF but more of WHEN. Because we've pretty much taught her everything she needs to know, but her husband still doesn't like her coming to church very much, and she still wants to tell her old preacher about leaving his church before she joins ours. I can't even express to you how much I love teaching her and I just am so excited to have another transfer here to watch her progress towards baptism! This past week we were out housing and we ended up knocking on an older lady's door who actually ended up letting us in and let us give her a Book of Mormon without making a big deal about it, (Quick side note, Japanese culture is kind of unique in that whenever someone gives you something, you're supposed to give them something as well, so it's often QUITE the challenge to give people a Book of Mormon even if they do want to read it because they don't have anything to give to us. Or other times, we give people a Book of Mormon, and they end up giving us some cookies or bread that they happen to have with them or around their house.) and she also scheduled a return appointment with us for next week! At first, she told us that she was super busy because she sews little stuffed demons (Japanese character demons, not anything too sketchy, dont worry) and said that it takes her so much time every day. You'd be surprised at the excuses people in Japan make up for being busy. Its basically just the socially acceptable thing to do is say that you're always busy. Especially the old grandmas. They're ALWAYS busy with SOMETHING. Don't ask me what. Anyway, after I told her we only would stay for 20 or 30 minutes and she was more than happy to let us come again! It was awesome too because she told us that just the day before, she had been talking to her brother who is Christian about Jesus Christ and thinking that she wants to learn more about it! I'm telling you, God is preparing these people of Japan! This past Sunday, our investigators Nozomi and Hikari who were baptized last week received the Gift of the Holy Ghost! Even though the blessing was in Japanese, and there were bits and pieces that were hard to understand, that still might go down as one of my favorite moments on my mission so far. I can't even explain to you the glow that those two young girls had on their faces during that sacrament meeting. It was just too wonderful! I just wanted to wish everyone a Happy Thanksgiving! My Thanksgiving will consist of sending my mission mother off to Fukuoka and welcoming Eddy Shimai to Nagasaki and inviting people to learn about Christ! It's going to be a great day, as most days in the mission are :) Even though Thanksgiving is an American holiday, our cute branch members put on a special Family Home Evening for us missionaries last night with a talent show and bit meal afterwards so that we could have a small piece of Thanksgiving even though we're in Japan. It was great fun. We sisters did our fake bagpipe routine for the branch members and they loved it. We also did a real musical number with Lyles Shimai playing the guitar while we all sang an arrangement of Jesus Savior Pilot Me and it turned out quite nicely. Anyway, I wish I had time to send pictures this week, but unfortunately time is almost up! Everyone eat tons of stuffing, yams, pie and turkey for me this week and always always always remember how much you have to be grateful for! Love you all! Wells Shimai

Check out the size of that Japanese apple?

Ohayo Gozaimasu! (Good morning!)

What a good week! First of all, we had a baptismal service! And, our investigator Nozomi and her sister Hikari got baptized! (Last week, I didn't mention that Hikari was going to get baptized because at that point we still weren't sure if she was going to or not. But Hikari is Nozomi's older sister who is 19 years old and has a mental disability. She is just the cutest person ever! But, we had to be sure that she fully understood baptism and all the covenants and parts of the interview before she could get baptized. And last Monday, things were still being discussed.) But Nagasaki Branch now has 2 new members and we are so excited! The service went wonderfully and we had quite a few people come. Nozomi asked us missionaries to do a musical number so we sang "He Sent His Son" From the Primary Children's song book and I'm trying to be like Jesus with some of the primary kids. Over all, it was just a wonderful night. Another awesome miracle of this week, our Korean investigator returned from Korea! That's not the miracle though. We met with her this past week and asked her about her trip. Before going, she had some fears about talking to her mom (A Protestant preacher) about the fact that she was investigating our church, so we asked her if she told her mom about it. Her response was: "Oh yes, actually I have some good news. I showed my mom the Book of Mormon and she read a couple of pages and told me that it is a good book and that it's completely ok for me to learn about this church. She still doesn't want me to get baptized, but she said its alright if I continue to take these lessons." Wait... did we just hear that right? It was a HUGE miracle. Also, her husband who is super Buddhist used to have objections to her coming to church, but she said that he is also seeming to be more and more ok with it these days. God answers prayers! We're planning on setting a baptismal date with her this next week for sometime in December! This past week we also met with our 80 something-year-old investigator who does Japanese Fan dancing for us sometimes (If anyone remembers me talking about that like 2 months ago) and we set a baptismal date with her as well! It was so cute too because we had out a picture of Christ's baptism while we were talking about it and we said that we want her to prepare for February 9th (Yes, quit far away, but her progress is very slow and we want to make sure she felt like she had plenty of time to prepare) and she looks at us all concerned and says "February, but that's the coldest month of the year. The water will be really cold!" Haha we tried not to giggle too much while we explained that she would be getting baptized in a font in our church. And that the water would be very warm and not cold at all. After that, she seemed much more at ease about the idea. This past Saturday, we met with a less active member and taught a role play lesson on the Word of Wisdom so that we could work on our Japanese and figure out how to teach the Word of Wisdom better. Random Japanese culture fact that you probably already knew: Japanese people drink TONS of Tea. All sorts of tea. And while some of them are ok with the word of wisdom, others are not. And for 2 random Utah girls who know nothing about tea and the differences between them, let me just say, teaching the Word of Wisdom in Japan is by far one of the most difficult things to do. Because "green tea is good for your health" and "but it doesn't have any caffeine" and "Well what about iced tea because it says 'hot drinks'" and other such comments inevitably come up. Japanese people love their tea. However, God's word is God's word and I know that sometimes we just have to use our faith and trust that God knows better than us. Teaching hard commandments like that always make me so grateful for our investigators that truly are willing to make these changes in their lives and take the leap of faith to follow God's commandments. That has probably been one of the coolest things for me to watch. People making big changes in their lives and coming closer to Christ is the process. Being a missionary is just the best life. I mean, seriously, we just get to go around all day and talk to people about God! What a life! :) Well, next week P-day is on a Tuesday because its transfer calls (dun dun dun!!!) and you should all pray for me and my companion and all the Nagasaki missionaries to stay here because the work is exploding and I just love all the people here way too much! However, I will go wherever the Lord wants me to go! Lay on your carpet this week for me and be thankful for it because it doesn't exist in Japan! Love you all!

Baptism Week!

Before I talk about what has happened this past week, I would just like to mention that we are having a Baptism this Thursday!!! Her name is Nozomi and she is a wonderful 14 year old girl who's mother has been a member of the church here for probably around 20 years now. However, until now, Nozomi has not expressed interest in getting baptized! Last transfer, Lyles Shimai, Heaton Shimai and I taught her quite a few of the lessons, and then when we got 4 sisters in Nagasaki, we had to split all of the investigators. So even though Nozomi isn't technically our investigator anymore, we are SO HAPPY to still be here in Nagasaki to be a part of her baptism. Her mom has expressed many times that she feels like all of us sisters have been placed in Nagasaki at this very time specifically for Nozomi because she has never before like the sister missionaries very much or gotten along with any of them as well as she gets along with us. Its going to be such a great event! Ok, now that I got to express my excitement about that, I'll talk about this past week. First of all, last Tuesday we had an awesome blast from the past when we all got to go to Zone Conference. It was only with our Nagasaki Zone and the Fukuoka Zone, but I got to see like 7 people from my MTC district including my MTC companion! It was just the craziest thing to see everyone again! Also, at Zone Conference we had a talent show which all four of us Nagasaki sisters decided to participate in. While preparing for our talent, we looked through different arrangements of hymns and primary songs for quite some time before we finally gave up and decided to be human bagpipes. Basically all you do is plug your nose, and make and 'unnhhhhh' sound out of your mouth and then hit your throat with your finger. It was the most hilarious thing I think we've ever done. All four of us walk up on stage after an hour of pretty spiritual songs and talented people, and we just make weird noises of our mouth to the tune of praise to the man. Everyone was cracking up. Including us. It was absolutely ridiculous. But SO much fun :) This past Tuesday, we found a less active record in the area book that we decided to go visit. After finding the location on the map we bike out to the area, to find ourselves riding along side the ocean for a good 20 minutes. I seriously felt like I was on vacation for a while there. It was gorgeous. Have I ever mention how beautiful my area is? If not, NAGASAKI IS BEAUTIFUL! I love it here so much. Plus, now that it's fall, the weather is perfect. Seriously, I'm convinced that the Celestial Kingdom's weather will be something like Nagasaki in the fall. I just can't get enough of it! Another fun event of the week, was Wednesday we came to the church really early before English class because my companion told me that one of the members wanted to meet and talk about the baptism. We arrive at the church and I'm led to the Kitchen where there's a chocolate cake and Nozomi and her mom and the other two Sisters waiting to say 'Happy Birthday!' They totally threw me a surprise party! Plus, they had printed out little pitcures of cats from the internet and taped them all over the room! (All of which are now taped into my journal :)) The best part about it was probably the chocolate cake. It was by far the best chocolate cake I've ever tasted in Japan. It was so happy! Also, that night after English class, our ward mission leader gave me a whole carton of ice cream too for my birthday!!! Have I mentioned that I love the people here so much?! And here is my quick spiritual message. This past week we did a TON of finding because our main progressing investigator was out of town. And let me just say, it can be quite draining to hear people OVER and OVER again say that they don't want to learn about God or that they're too busy. But, yesterday morning during my personal study, I read 3 Nephi 11 and in verses 3-7 it talks about when the people heard the voice of God. The first time they heard it, they didn't understand it. They felt something, but they weren't sure what. They second time, they still didn't understand it. Finally the third time they heard it they opened their ears and realized it was the voice of God and began listening. I realized that so many people are like that as well. Just because they aren't listening to us right now, doesn't mean that they won't learn about our message in the future! No effort is ever wasted and I know that as long as we have hope for all the people we talk to, the Lord will take care of everything. Well, this starting to get a little too long, but I just want to wish everyone a Happy Halloween! I realize it's now a week late, but here in Japan they don't exactly celebrate it so I'm just trying to still feel like an American. I hope everyone is eating plenty of cheese and mexican food for me because those are two things we literally never see. Thank you everyone for the birthday wishes and love! Love Wells Shimai

Halloween - Japanese Style!