Sister Lane: Where Be the Fire Hose?

me and cook shimai last pday

Good Morning {insert your own city}!

Life in Nagasaki has been a roller coaster this week, but MAN I can always count on the little old ladies to fawn over us. They giggle like little girls. Its the best thing in the world. Well, some of them do haha. We have this relationship with this one lady- she is super old. And she likes chocolate. So we go by her house every once in a while to bring her chocolate...but mostly just to check and see if she is still alive. Thats kinda a thing here. People dying in their houses and no one knowing for a while. There are a lot of houses that are completely abandoned- just sitting there with vines growing all through them. Pretty cool!

It is SAKURA season! The beautiful cherry blossoms are out at last! We are going to go check them out for pday. They are beautiful :) I got a few good stories from this past week! Right after we emailed last week we went down to the dejima warf to dendo. Right before we crossed the street, Cook shimai got the hiccups. normal right? Then this lady comes up and laughs a little bit and in english says "I can fix that" and she starts waving her arms in front of cook shimai. We thought it was a joke at first, but she kept doing it. And then she got more into it. So I started laughing at the situation- she breaks her trance- hits me- and continues hahaha I cant stop laughing... Cook shimai is just paralyzed- looking at me like "do something!" but I'm just enjoying it too much. So finally cook shimai was like "...they are just hiccups...im okay. Please stop" hahahaha it was good. There are this group of people in Japan- Mahikari?- who

think they have power to control everything and to heal people. Its interesting. They feed off of the energy of others. We met this one lady who ran right up to us and was so excited to talk to us. She told us we had very strong energy- and we were just talking to her, getting SO excited that she was so interested. Then when we asked her if she had a religion, she told us she was mahikari haha. Silly us, thinking this lady was ACTUALLY super excited to talk to us. No no no...she just be trying to steal our energy! Its interesting. They think they can erase clouds and stuff.

One of the best moments ever- alright there is this guy the elders (were) teaching, expect his father was apposed and so they had to stop. It was really sad, and really hard for the elders. But this week we were walking across the street and passed him! So we stood at the other side of the side walk trying to get his attention (he stopped

what we have to do (supposed to do...) when we go into
changing rooms because ALL THESE JAPANESE WOMEN wear LAYERS of makeup haha

and was waiting at a densha stop) and so Cook shimai was yelling- but he was looking down reading a book. And so I yell with her and he finally looks up- sees us- gets SUPER excited (which is not like him- he is probably one of the most shy people I have ever met) and he smiles real big, closes the book and hold its up---yup thats right. It was the book of mormon. Cook shimai and I get so excited- she gets out her English book of mormon, holds it up, and we both just have this moment where we are smiling from ear to ear, jumping up and down and waving our book of mormons. It was such a good moment. That boy is gonna be baptized someday!!!

Kitagawa came to her lesson this week! Brought potatoes. So we sat for the first ten minutes. Just sitting there, eating potatoes. Thought came to mind- only in Japan hahaha. She is doing great! We talked about the Book of Mormon a whole bunch and asked her if she prayed about it. She said

this man in the branch....brings the missionaries CRAZY
amounts of food

she hadn`t, and so we were trying to explain how important that is to pray about it. She was like "wait, I already know its true"....us-"ehh?" her-"its the word of God right?" us-"Yes!" her-"then it is all true!". Anyways, she is so backwards from the people we normally teach, so its super fun!

New rules for music in our mission- no disney, no nothing except Mormon Tabernacle Choir, BYU Mens Chorus, and classical music authorized by the church. So.....we started listening to talks more- and I have a new goal!! listen to all the talks in all the general conferences that lds.org has to offer!! (which is from 1971-now :) we listened to April 1971 last week, and it was so good. Learning so much! I just put it all on my sd card and we listen to it during meals, in the morning when we are getting ready, and at night before bed. Its fabulous!

One night this week I woke up to these insanely loud sirens, and a city-wide announcement. It was like a scene from a movie- this is how the story begins. so I ran into the other sisters room- it was a fire. Super huge fire. When big things happen in Nagasaki- they have a big announcer the echos through the whole city. It reminds me of hunger games or something. The fire was in the elders machi- so we call them up and they tell us to look out the window. The biggest fire I have ever seen in my life was there- tried to get a picture but it didn't capture it. Anyways- it was all good, they put it out really fast, and I haven't heard anything about it since.

You might be wondering about Yuu Chan- She wasn't baptized on Saturday. There is a lot going on with her right now, but long story short- she is not going to get baptized in the next few weeks. She goes to America at the end of the month of April, so we will be passing her off to missionaries there.

This week is Dad`s BIRTHDAY!!!!!! I'm so excited for you!!!!!!!!!!!!! I love you so much! Have the best birthday Dad!! Get lots of Carlsbad strawberries and watch a good movie. I'm sending you a billion hugs in the mail!!! and they arrive as soon as you open all your other presents. Its like magic!

Have a great week everybody! Dont forget the lyrics to How Firm a Foundation! They came into my mind this week randomly and I haven't been able to get them out since. "Fear not, I am with thee of be not dismayed- for I

yamamotto shimai with her kids :)

am thy God and will still give thee aid. Ill strengthen thee, help thee, and cause thee to stand; upheld by my righteous omnipotent hand". Remember that All Things Denote that There is a God! (alma 30:44). If you doubt that- just look around you!

I love you all so much! Life is so good! Adventure this week and enjoy the weather warming up! nearly time for the first picnic of spring!

LLOOOOOOOOOVE YOU.

-Lane Shimai