My Weekly Update!

Basically, Everyone is the best ever! And I had a great week!

So there is this sister here who is convinced that I am exactly like Rapunzel (the tangled Rapunzel) anyways, she is convinced. And I love it hahaha for my birthday she gave me this huge picture of Rapunzel, and I have it hanging on my wall now haha. Also- my mission mom bought me cake! and then ate it too haha annnnnnnd we went to this Nepalese place for lunch, and all these random people were being so nice. They all sang, and then this man came up and gave me like notepads, a pen, and a tissue box, and then ten minutes later another man came by and presented these perfect looking grapes...and THEN the owner guy comes and tells us he wants to give us all free ice cream....basically- I am blessed haha.  ---ps-Kimber, Emma, or Bennett...want to send me some songs from that movie? The nonromantic ones? That would be awesome if you could! If you cant though dont worry about it! I guess I will love you anyways...

This week....miracle #1---Karan came to church!! He has been investigating for a while, and he just stopped coming to church. but he just came! And It was awesome! ALSO- Yukari came....she is so afraid of religion but she texted us on Friday morning and was like " I think I will come to church this Sunday. Is that okay?" hahahaha oh my GOSH it was more than okay! Every time we ask her she cant...but this time she did!!!! It was so good!

Oh, and we moved this week into this bigger apartment, which is everything we hoped and dreamed it would be. We don't have a stove anymore...but we got our rice cooker! And it has given us the opportunity to be super creative with it! Which is awesome. Sister Roberts magically got a box of Kraft macaroni and cheese (her favorite) and she made it in the rice cooker hahaha it was awesome. But yes. Bigger apartment. AND it is on the top of this huge hill....we all know what that means!!! My muscles are gonna be so big, nobody is gonna know what to do! And I absolutely love the feeling of getting to the top of the hill haha. Everyday of my life. It is so good.

ps-thank you for all the birthday wishes!!! Opening up my email today was like PURE joy. I love you all so much! And even though I don't have time to email back---- I love you all so much and I am so grateful for all of you!

So there is this crazy lady in our ward- love her to death. Sat next to her on Sunday, and she was saying all sorts of crazy things. I told her I liked her necklace, and she went off on how I was just so good at Japanese, and these poor other missionaries trying to learn  Japanese....(we were speaking in English together at the time, which shows you how good my Japanese is...plus most of the missionaries here are all pretty much fluent...in the last months of their mission and my Japanese is..no good at this point, but it will get better!) but nonetheless, it was so much fun. She told me that I needed to cover that one part of your neck-- clavicle? Anyways, she kept touching it, and then she gets this heart key-chain and she was like " you need something right here...not a necklace....oh! I have this heart! Can I glue it to right there?" hahaha crazy lady. love her to death.

So we have been working a lot more with the members, and they have been responding so well! I actually have friends when I go to church now haha. But member work is really so important! When the members feel involved, they are so happy to go to lessons with us, and they are so sweet to all of the investigators that come to the activities. Roberts Shimai and I are determined to work on the Less actives. Japan has a 20% retention rate. 20%....that is....REALLY BAD. But, we are going to try to help fix that! So we went through the ward list yesterday with the bishops wife--- it was 28 pages long, and she had never heard of about 80% of the people, and then with the remainder, half were active and half were inactive. So. We are working with the less actives. Just make sure you are always super kind to everyone around you, it is so important! And I never ever realized how hard it would be to join the church in the middle of your life. If you can- try to read the section in preach my gospel about people who are less active. Sorry I don't have the page number! Just read it :)

Also--- We visited Emiko this week- turns out she is an amazing little chef! We went with her home teachers, and she made us dinner. Then after dinner she had me put away a whole bunch of things around her house, because "I has the height". So funny. She is such a cute old lady. She has stuffed bears all around her house, and lace, and everything old lady that you can possibly imagine. ALSO--- all the `cool` old ladies here are obsessed with Audrey Hepburn. I love it haha 

I have an o-negai! `Forgot Me Not`- By President Uchtdorf. You can find it on LDS.org if you just write in the title. I know that it was given fairly recently, but It is just like a little breath of fresh air every time I read it. So if you have never heard it- read it! It will make you feel so loved! And if you have heard it, read it again! because it will remind you just how much you are loved.

MM! Something I read today in the Book of Mormon--Ether 2:19, 23-25

Read Ether 2:19, and then think about how it can apply to us as people--put it into this new context. I basically is a plea to heavenly father saying ` There is no hope left in me, heavenly father, please help me, I don't know what to do anymore. Sometimes I feel like I cant breath, and my energy is just running out. Please help me`--- and then verse 23-25 is heavenly Fathers response--- which basically says- `move forward. Figure out how to lift yourself up, and when you start doing that, I promise that I will be watching over you. you must walk this path, but I will be right next to you every step of the way. I will protect you. "I will bring you up again out of the depths of the sea"..."I prepare you against these things". Anyways, it was beautiful reading that. Those scriptures, along with the Footsteps poem (look it up, print it out, and put it on your wall) it is just so peaceful, and it makes me feel like I can do anything at all!

 

Alright! one minute to say goodbye! moral of the story this week is that I love life, I love the Japanese people, and I love the Book of Mormon! I am so grateful to be a part of this church, because I know that it is the only church that has the complete, perfect Gospel of Jesus Christ. 

Time is out, simply put- I love you all!

Love,

Lane Shimai!