JANUARY 24, 2016 Oh Man, Brother!

Monday was pretty uneventful.

Tuesday I woke up to find it completely white outside! The wind blew right through all the 7 layers I had on to my bones! Kyoto is known for its kama "kaze"winds (wind is kaze in Japanese).   I know, bad pun. We eventually made it over to the church for our weekly games night that just got switched to Tuesday.  No one came except two brothers, Sam,
college student, mission leader person, and Hohaia who tags along on all of out missionary activities. We had KFC and played scum.  It was lots of fun because Sam gets a little too into it.

Wednesday: MORE SNOW!!  Flippin cold! but we had great time at eikaiwa and we talked to this girl and she's way interested in the Book of Mormon and so we swapped numbers but then afterwards getting home realized we didn't ask her name....she had this awesome cat phone case and so she now is katphonelady in our phone and area book....

Thursday we had international broadcast for all missionaries in the world.  It was cool and lots of training and such. We are too far away to watch it live so we watched a little while after.  During the broadcast though, a Sister Karahashi, gave us a phone call frantically saying she is seeing colors and devils and it was way strange. She's an interesting old lady. After a bunch of phone calls later she calls me and the Elders to tell us she's okay now that she read the Book of
Mormon in a really loud voice! And they went away.....ya...she keeps calling us to tell us other things similar to that every day since.

On Friday we had a mission tour with Elder Choi and his amazing wife.  So much revelation received it was so awesome and now we're going to try and baptize one person a week.  Yup it takes a lot of effort but we can do it!  I don't at all have time to write what I learned because it took up like 8 pages in my note book! Afterwards we as a zone went to
dinner and I really do love these people I work with they have become my best friends.  We all work together will finding or streeting and the team effort always gets us lessons :)

Saturday we went to the Ishida's house and we had what's called Nabe or Japanese rock stew.  I'll send pictures. Then later we had ping pong night. Hohaia Kyodai had his wall of chairs to keep the ball from going to far away.

Sunday was Elder Goff''s last Sunday he "dies" on Thursday. Your mission is your life so where you start is where you were born and where you end is where you die also your first comp is your mom and second is your dad and then there are other details but too hard to explain, also your last comp is the one who kills you.  Anyway I digress, one recent
convert Ishida Kyodai....kinda innocent/ignorant, and a little creepy. ..all day started to taking pictures of Goff and it was funny and then he does it while he is speaking in sacrament, the poor guy almost literally got his hand slapped by another brother and kinda shout whispered dame! (Which means bad).  During sacrament I sat next to Karahashi Shimai and she grabbed my hand and put it on her back to warm it up...it was way weird. She had a heat pack there and I was
like ya, it's warm and so I go to take my hand away and she pulls it back and she tells me my hands are still cold.  And so I sat there with my hand on her lower back for 7 minutes....way awkward also trying so hard not to burst out laughing.

Sister Mizoguchi, which another brother keeps saying I look like and Goff keeps teasing about looking like her which I don't see it actually but you know ii n ja nai。(I don't know how to translate this.....) anyway I went to go hug her and she gives good hugs and I told her that and she told me I was like a daughter to her. Ahhh, another hug ensued! Good hug.

Life is hard but it's good! It's full of ups and downs and cliche metaphors but you know it's okay because I love this life!  I love what I do!  I love who I am!  I had an interesting experience on the train few days ago where we were trying to get home and I met eyes with this foreigner (always happens because we look way out of place) and he smiles and my missionary self kicks in and I start talking to him.  We converse and it turns out he is from Israel. His smile was warm and
happy and his eyes kind.  I felt so happy to be talking to him and then he had to get off at a stop but we shook hands and it was warm and welcoming....after he left I was taken aback and I could figure out why until later I realized who he was. This man is my brother.  I knew him. I still feel like I knew him. I love him! I saw him a and looked at him as if he were apart of my own family. And I was genuinely sad that he left the train. I had experienced this great amount of love
and compassion for him and It is because we knew each other before this life.

At the Choi conference Sister Choi (if you are wondering it's pronounced Che and they are Korean) got up to bear her testimony she said, "You were the front line in the pre-earth life, we (gesturing to her husband and Welchs) followed behind you. You led us! You fought in the war in heaven and you were our leaders, the front line.  Heavenly
Father prepared you for this day.  He kept you in a special room and trained you.  He knew that you were one of the strongest!  The 1/3 that fell know your faces because you were in the front line. What do you think you fought with?  A riffle, a sword, dynamite? Your testimony.  You are so strong!   The people you pass by, they know you they just don't
remember you."  I knew him.  My heart is filled to the brim with so much love and joy for him!  I only wish I could have talked to him longer.

Who we were and who we are now and who are going to become is all so important. I love this gospel. I know Christ lives. I love you all!

Love,

Oswald Shimai

P.S.  I am in desperate need of healthier recipes.

My Brothers!

Beta Max

Then we made Panda

JANUARY 18, 2016 Mahalo

Monday, we went to a movie village but it was not as exciting as I like....but we took some awesome pictures and had a good time anyway and then we had an FHE at the church and we played scum and it was way fun :) we had recent convert Gi come and afterwards he gave the four of us (sisters and elders) really nice pens with an inscription on the side that said mabudachi, which means best friend and it was so nice of him. They were like $20 pens!! It's still in its nice box that is came in, sitting on my desk.

Tuesday we tried crane dendo and gave people paper cranes and some were confused and didn't want it and others it made them smile! Also there was this old woman who literally had to hold her eye lids open to see us! She was talking about her great great great grandchildren who live in New York who can't speak Japanese and that we knew more than them. It was sweet and kinda funny. Then we went to a family's house for dinner. The Yoshiokas are so awesome. The two daughters both can speak English and one is less active but is so sweet I love her!  There they fed us and gave us HUGE plates of spaghetti and they only had tiny plate and I mean like a third of the size of our servings. We
talked about so many random things like how dad was born on leap year and my prom (which was way weird actually), and I showed pictures of my family to them and they couldn't believe Liam was only 16 he looked 21 to them they also asked if he was my boyfriend....Liam you're just too good looking.  Brother Yoshioka is so cool! He's like 64 rides a motorcycle and paints on kimonos.  Like the beautiful designs and patterns on fancy ones? Yeah, he does that!  We talked about paint and other such things for like 15 mins! Anyway we realized at 9 we had to get back by 9:30 but it's a 45 min bike ride.... As we were leaving Yoshioka Shimai handed us a cup of hot chocolate to drink...politely
we took it and chugged it and as we were getting on our bikes one of the daughters says you have 13 mins. I told her we can do it! Needless to say we made it home 15 minutes late but it was like 45 min bike ride and got there in 20!   Dekita (done did it).

Thursday we had a four something hour lesson without recent convert Tomoko. A few days before she texts with no explanation(slash we couldn't get one out of her before hand) to have the elders come also.  So when we came, we talked and she expressed that she wanted a blessing. The elders had to go though but said they would come back to give one. So while they were gone we taught about blessings, patriarchal blessings, and forgiveness and our good and bad choices and the tree of life and Satan and the atonement and so much in depth doctrine.  It was awesome but next thing we know it's 7 and then the Elders get back. Mind you we started our lesson at 4.  We talked about why we get blessings (again) and then Elder Goff and Elder Gosney gave her a blessing.  It started out in English and then went into Japanese but it was so powerful. The elder who was the mouth piece spoke so reverently, with stillness. The spirit was so powerful and overwhelming.  We talked to her after and asked if she thought it helped and it really did. I love the power of the priesthood it's amazing! I'm so grateful for its influence in my life! It was long lesson but it was so worth it and full of the spirit.

On Saturday so much happened!  We started our morning with a relief society activity which was fun.  We made Mochi, a Japanese New Years food, but to be honest I feel like I'm choking every time I eat it.  It's way thick and not very tasty...later that night we had ping pong but because there was a stake activity and a young women's activity the
missionary activity got bumped to this tiny room where we set up a table and played ping pong. It was way more fun in my opinion because we all were kinda forced to watch and because it was so tight the games got intense! In between games Yoshia, a member about to go on a mission, showed a few of us how to box. He had gloves and such and it
was way fun!

Sunday we had so much food!  I was so happy!!! We had a pot luck thing after church and there were a few people moving and so we had kind of a goodbye party.  Afterwards people started to leave and we talked with the youth for a bit, making jokes, eating American candy. Joey, a member who just came back from America with a bunch of stuff and the two
best candies I've missed are Skittles and Starburst. I love watching people's faces when they try Skittles for the first time in their life. It's a face of joy, amazement and a sugar head rush :).  (Letter continues after the photos).

This Ayako, she is so sweet!

Us at Tomokos place and we disovered that the light moved so Gosney shined it on me and it looks like I have a halo.

This is Rie Tsukamoto and I love her to bits.  She got baptized in May.

Discovery of Skittles

Trying to be a Sumo falling over

This is down the road from our house

Yoshioka Family

Moshi

Before we went to our dinner appointment (I love those days when I don't have
to cook food for my self:), we had people come to the church and such and we were talking to members and then Kaya, the elder's investigator came for a lesson.  Elder Goff, Max Kyodai, and I were talking about Zion and such (way deep conversations) and he came to talk to us.  Eventually we got on the subject of why the Bible and the Book of Mormon are important. Why did we even have them? Our discussion eventually led into the question, What did you think or feel when you read the Book of Mormon. Kaya said, "I don't think I've felt anything, I just read it to read it." I told him how we can't just read it to read it, we have to have a purpose to reading it, we have to put effort into it to get something out of it. Goff Choro asked us all then to open to Moroni 10:3-5.  Kaya pulls out his English and Japanese
BOM and that was cool.  We read these verses together and we told him that you can't read this book like a text book, it's not a book just filled with facts and dates, it's a record of prophets, teachers, people's lives; this book is a testimony of the Living Christ. (Okay
not that direct and in more simpler terms).  This experience with teaching Kaya was so amazing the spirit was so strong and we asked him to read and pray with a true heart if it was true. He is a sweet kid and so willing to listen to our message. This lesson I think was the highlight of my week.  And also when we (again) climbed up the mountain
to the Mizoguchi's house. We had fun and I the food of course was delicious!

Pray that we can find some new investigators, were bit of in a rut right now and we will take all the prayers we can get. I love you all! And I mean it! Stay safe and eat jalapeño Cheetos for me!!


Love always,
Oswald Shimai

JANUARY 11, 2016

Hello my lovely parents and beloved others,

Life is great! Especially right now because I'm at a restaurant eating delicious food. It's lovely! This last week was interesting but to be honest I don't remember what happened....ma, anyway now I'm on a train going home.  We went to a movie village (which wasn't entirely worth it...so sad) but anyway you live and you learn.  We still had some good laughs.

We had ZTM or Zone training meeting this week, which means our whole zone gets together and we learn new things given to the zone leaders from kaicho (president). We found out that now at transfers we will not have transfer points where missionaries meet and gather together but will instead travel on their own to a new area. Scary.  It's a good thing I can figure out trains :)  I love my zone, they are the best. We learned about how to have fun while doing the work and I think it's something we needed. Hopefully I can show my comp how to have fun :)

Also had a kokan or companion exchange this week and I got to be with my previous companion Edwards Shimai. We had a lot of fun being reunited but every time I'm with her I eat too much junk food :/  We roasted marshmallows (the jumbo kind)over our stove. I learned a lot and I also had a follow up with my zone/district leader that night and it went on for almost an hour!  We talked about deep doctrine and such and afterwards Edwards Shimai was like was that long enough for ya? Go talk to your new best friend! It was all said out of love but it was kinda funny :)

There has been a lot of dancing in the apartment when my comp isn't looking and then she caught me and it was way embarrassing......until she joined in and it was a huge awkward dance fest.

I wanted to talk about my dear friend Brian Grover, who has recently been called to Turkey. Wow!  That is seriously so cool!  I also want to say it's so cool to see and hear about all the people I grew up with and now see them on missions! (Regan Smith, Parker Walton, Ryan Gibb and more because I don't have the time to write everyone's name out(isn't that happy?!))  Ganbatte!!  After several weeks I have come to this conclusion about missionary work. The work can and will be accomplished if we 1. Allow God to work through us and 2. Believe and truly believe with no doubt that we can do this! I've noticed from other missionaries, members and return missionaries that say that because we go to a country, for example, Japan, that it's going to be too hard to try to teach them, baptize them, bring them closer to Christ so just try your best but nothing's gonna happen. Don't worry your testimony will grow but don't think this will be like Brazil.

WRONG, this is wrong. If you tell a missionary it's going to be hard and you won't baptize (not in this exact wording) then we'll if feels like we really can't that our even trying is useless. Our mentality about going to a place where the culture is different and not being
able to be an effective, productive missionary is wrong.  We are Christ's disciples!  We have been called of God, we have been given the ability and authority to change the life's of others for the better. It is all mind over matter! Members, don't tell the missionaries it's hard, they already know that, they are trying to move past that fact.  Missionaries, don't say you can't do it because your going to a place where no one is Christian!  Return missionaries don't you remember how hard you worked for that one person?  From what I have experienced so far is that, yes, my mission is 'hard' but so what?  That's not going to stop me from talking to someone who clearly has headphones in, is on a bike and about to cross the street.  The church in Japan is dying!  We have been told by our Mission president that we have to change the mentality of the world. Japan is a baptizing mission! And you bet I'm going to talk to that person across the street because she is a child of God. This work is so important! The FIELD IS WHITE ALREADY TO HARVEST!  If you have a desire to serve him you are called to this work.  I don't know about you but if you love God, love this gospel doesn't that mean you too are called to help others come into Christ. So what do we do? We act. We don't sit idly by waiting for the Second Coming. I'm so happy for all those who have realized that the work needs to be done, for the living and the dead.

I know Jesus Christ lives. I know that his sacrifice was for us. I love what I do, I love teaching and Shouting to the world of its truth. I bear witness that this is the true gospel of Jesus Christ and we privileged to partake of it.

Okay desu.

Okay I'm done with my rant now.  It turned into a rant, but that is okay, because I’m not actually mad, haha.

Love Oswald Shimai

Elder Goff on his last transfer

We found a see-saw

We found this guy crawling very slowly across

JANUARY 3, 2015

Wow,  I've been out for a long time.  On the 22nd of this month I will hit my 6month mark...Ohhh weird...yikes. I only have a year after that!!!  NO!

Well over all it was a pretty interesting week.   With New Years, everything got crazy.  Let's start with Tuesday.

We go to the church because we have interviews with President Welch about our Bible challenge to read Matthew through John.  We talked about what we learned and how we can use to in dendo (missionary work (it's so much easier to type dendo then missionary work so just learn this word okay!)) it was awesome and I love talking about Christ because there is still so much to learn and I only get an hour to study each day....wow...never thought I say those words, but really all you lovely cream puffs have so much time to do so many things!

Anyway skipping over the fact that I just called everyone a cream puff, while we wait for our turn to talk to the President we can sit and talk to Sister Welch.  I love her so much. She always has a smile on her face and a testimony like no other!   As I was talking to her I mentioned that Makin Shimai and I have a lesson at the church with a JW (Jehovah's Witness), and she pipes in and asked, "Do you want me to doseki (member present lesson? (why is English so long?))"  Yup, that's right we had the mission president’s wife help teach our lesson with the JWs.  So Welch Shimai can't actually speak Japanese and she's lived in Japan for at least 13 years now...lucky our JW can speak enough English.  The lesson was going...good...and we talked about life after we die and Sister Welch asked if they thought they were going to heaven, and they almost shouted  No!  In English.  Wow, we calm down and Welch Shimai turns to me and says, "Well I'm going to heaven," I almost lost it.  It was so funny and so unexpected, the JWs were so confused at my sudden change in simple smile to I gotta hold this laugh in face.  In English, Welch Shimai told them her simple
testimony and she kinda stopped them for a moment.  After awhile the other woman that our original JW brought opens her Bible and then starts going through scriptures and such and Welch Shimai types something on her phone and kinda glances it towards me, "You should
testify and close this Bible bash" and at the right moment I  did bare my testimony of the love of our Heavenly Father and how I knew that we could live with him again, and I thanked them for coming.  Note to self:  don't ask to pray with JWs.  They freak out because we don’t pray to Jehovah.  They said that that name is the name of God, which is true but the God of the Old Testament is Jesus Christ.  That was another like ten minutes trying to sort it all out.  Did you know that they watch someone else take the sacrament once a year!  They don't even partake of it!  How sad is that!  Anyway we finally finished, Welch Shimai turned to us and we all kinda gave each other a look of, 'well that just happened.'
We all learned that the spirit is so important in lessons, praying for it to guide us is so important, the only time any of us felt the spirit was when we testified of the truth!

Wednesday we met a Korean guy who came up to us and said, hey I'm Mormon!  It was kinda surprising and turns out he served his mission and is now in Japan for internship but he was so nice!  Then we had English class and two people came because everyone is on holiday for New Years.  But it was fun all the same.

Thursday was weird mainly because all we did was plan and map people out that we have never heard of before. You think you have a huge number of less- actives where you are? Try almost 1000 less or in-actives.  Yeah, we have a lot to do. (Not even joking on this number.)

2016!!!! What did you do for the New Year?  For me my district and I got up at like four in the morning, took a train to Kyoto station and went to Kyoto tower for the first sunrise of the year!   We were all squished together trying to see the sun but I'm short and couldn't see at all so I had a nice man in front of me take pictures for me.  Eventually I got pushed to the front and got to see when the sun came over the mountain!  It was so beautiful!  We then went to McDonald's for breakfast (first bad choice of the year) then went and had district meeting, and after that went and got buffet pizza (second bad choice of the new year).  After wards went back and we separated from the Elders. The Elders were on a exchange and so we had Smith Choro with us instead of Gosney.  Those two are insane and after we left they went and ate more food!  Then we went through the Jinja or shrine and  they had set up tables and stands to buy food.  We bought more food (bad choice numbers 3-7) so far not doing so hot on the New Year’s resolution.  It was delicious, but it kind of reminded me of the merchants selling and trading in the temple in Christ's time.  It was an interesting thought.  You thought Thursday was done!  Nope then we went to bishop’s house and had make- your own sushi!  Let me just say I love salmon and tuna raw better than cooked.  So good!  (At this point I've lost track of my bad decisions and decided to embrace food because I love it),

We got home and I didn't want to ever eat food again....the Elders told us the next day they gained 3 kilos from the day before!  (For you Americans that's about 6 pounds). Then for lunch our 'group' consisting of mission leader Sam, Hohaia kyodai, Gi kyodai, Shogo, the Elders and us  went to an all you can't eat buffet but for the senkyoshi we didn't really eat as much and everyone thought we were strange because we are known for eating haha.  But then we went to this Game Center afterwards and we had a good time playing pool and air hockey.  Then later that night we all got to get her again for our weekly Ping Pong night. I don't actually suck anymore and can play an actual game and it was a lot of fun!

Sunday was good.  We were standing by the door greeting people and walking to the church was...TOMOKO!  I was so surprised, concerned and happy all at the same time. Turned out she came back from Hokkaido to visit home and I was so happy to have seen her because she was going to come back probably after I left Shimogamo.  She is such a sweet heart.

I'd like to say one more thing about the cranes that I received for Christmas!  Those notes from all who wrote one, made me smile, laugh, and tear up a little, I really do love all of you at home and I know that Heavenly Father cares and watches over you for me!   To the Young Women and  Deacons who wrote me thank you so much!!! To answer the questions of Teagen Bowman, yes they play soccer, there is this cool place that sells soccer jerseys from teams from all around the world and Japan is flippin awesome and Brandon Lui, the priesthood is awesome!  I can't believe you can pass the sacrament that makes me so happy!  And also keep watch over my car for me!  Maybe if you ask Brother Oswald he'll let you ride around in it :)

As always I love you so very much and I hope for the best for you. I pray for you constantly!!!

John 6:
33 For the bread of God is he which cometh down from heaven, and giveth life unto the world.
34 Then said they unto him, Lord, evermore give us this bread.

35 And Jesus said unto them, I am the bread of life: he that cometh to
me shall never hunger; and he that believeth on me shall never thirst.

It is only him that we can have eternal life!

Me, Zhou, Tanaka, Smith

Pizza!

Ran into Misato while trying to get to the Bishop's house

This beautiful thing was at the bishop's house and I want to take her home with me!

Ran into this lovely member

Top of Kyoto Tower and First Sunrise of the Year

Shot Two

Below, Christmas Entertainment