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Dear friends and family,

I couldn't think of anything better for the title. Sorry.

It has been another crazy week in Matsudo! It's hard to believe that we are already halfway through the transfer. Other missionaries kept telling me that the second transfer would go by faster than the first... But I didn't expect it to go by this fast!

We met with Hana san this last week. She is really struggling right now, and we keep asking her if we can help her, but Asians seem to have this thing against receiving help from people. She refuses to let us come over and serve, but I think we'll get to her at some point. There was a crazy miracle this last week. On Tuesday, Hana had to cancel our appointment because she had a bunch of work to do. On Friday, I was worried she would do the same thing. However, for some reason, our phone didn't charge at all during the night, so it died midmorning! We were worried about being late, so we just went over to her house. When we got there, she told us that she had messaged us to cancel on us. Just then, our douseki (member participant) drove up, so Hana decided to let us in anyway. We were able to help her understand more the nature of God, and we were able to understand her situation better.

We saw another really cool miracle this week. On Thursday, we were going to go visit a lady named Emi Ogawa. She told us that we could stop by anytime, although she didn't tell us when would be good and she did not give us her phone number. As we were finishing up with dinner, I felt that it would be more convenient to set up facebook at the church and look up her address and then visit her afterward rather than visit her immediately after dinner. I inquired of Sakamoto Shimai and she said that sounded fine. I immediately had the thought that we needed to go right after dinner, so we returned to our previous plans and biked over to Ogawa san's house, trusting in my memory to get us there. We were kindof disappointed when she wasn't there. As we were leaving, we took a slightly longer route to get home (like one block longer). We met a lady who was walking to dinner. She said that she didn't get anything from her kids for Mother's Day, not even a phone call! We gave her a Mother's Day card and walked with her for a while. We soon parted ways and continued our bike ride back to the church. We passed by several people who were all uninterested in the church. We rode past one girl and said "Konbanwa!" We couldn't stop her in the middle of the intersection. I then had a strong feeling that we needed to go back and talk to her. I told Sakamoto Shimai that we needed to turn around and she said that she had had the same thought! We talked with the girl for a long time. Her name is Sakura, and she was super interested in learning more. We promised to get her a Book of Mormon in Spanish, and we even set up a return appointment. It was amazing to me how so many things happened to help us to meet Sakura. If we had decided to visit Ogawa san later, if Ogawa san had been home, if we hadn't met that lady and walked with her for several blocks, we would not have been able to meet Sakura.

One of the chouroutachi's investigators was baptized on Sunday! His name is Morijiri Yuuji san, and he's super shy. It was really exciting! It made me super excited for Hibiki's baptism which.... We learned we probably can't do next week. Miyagi Kyoudai (the ward mission leader) wants her parents to come to church and support her. It was hard to go and tell Hibiki that she won't be able to be baptized on the 24th as planned. I feel like it's not fair to her. She has so much support from the ward, and she was even attending another church on her own for several years. We're hoping to get it figured out so that she can be baptized on the 31st. For now, we plan to start her on Personal Progress and maybe even Seminary.

We met with Mei san again last week and started talking about the Restoration. We are trying to take it slowly so that she really understands everything we are teaching her. She wants to find joy through knowing that God is real, and we testified to her that the Book of Mormon is the evidence that God is real. I know that as she studies with real intent, she will feel God's love for her. Her husband, Ning, is going to be baptized on the 24th! I hope that she feels the Spirit very strongly at the service.

Miki! We met with her on Friday! It had been almost a month since our last visit! She told us that she has been praying every day - we didn't even have to ask! Her dog, Lili, is sick, and so she has been taking her to the hospital every Sunday. I can truly see the lit of the Gospel in her eyes as we speak with her. She is so kin! Once she starts coming to church regularly again, I think that she will be ready for baptism! We set up a schedule with her to Skype with her every Monday, Tuesday, Thursday, and Friday. Hopefully she'll come to Eikaiwa on Wednesdays! I am so excited to see her almost every day! Although I will miss her super awkward hugs when we Skype.

For those of you who are not aware, I am now able to use facebook! Please like and share my posts (even if you can't read them). However, I will not be responding to any personal messages or comments.

I love you all so much! My heart is so full of love whenever I think of my family and friends and their wonderful examples to me.

Love,

Crandall Shimai

PS: Shout out to my amazing companion, Sakamoto Shimai, who was disappointed that I didn't mention her in my last email! Her Nihongo is so pera!