On Splits with the Elders?!

Dearest Family and Friends,

Wow, I feel like it has been forever!  So much has happened in this past week

Transfer day was really amusing to me, so I'll just detail it all out.

Sister Gottfredson was the only sister leaving our zone, so we didn't have much to do for transfer planning (Phew!).  But, since the Kasukabe sisters weren't transferring at all, they had a normal day planned and a lesson appointment already in place... this made it so that I wouldn't be able to join them for a few hours to avoid being alone... so... I got permission from the assistants to spend the morning with the elders (the Okegawa Sisters are too far away for me to go spend just a few hours with.  By the time I got there I would have to turn around and come right back).  Let's just say it was one of the weirdest mornings of my life.

I said goodbye to Sister Gottfredson at 8, and then she got on a train going north and I hopped on a train going south to Matsubara Danchi.  I arrived at the eki a bit early, so I decided to go use the bathroom at the nearest 7/11. The whole time I was feeling nervous about being alone.  Oh no.  I always thought I wouldn't be the kind of missionary to feel awkward being alone after my mission, but now I'm thinking I might be following Mom around for a few days.  Anyway, I went back to the eki where I found Mikatsura Kyoudai.  I talked with him until the elders came, and then we walked back to their apartment where they could take apart Elder Burch's bike.

We picked up the bike and then proceeded to ride the elevator up to the eleventh floor of the danchi... it was the most awkward elevator ride of my life.  There was me, Mikatsura Kyoudai, Elder Burch, Elder Viehweg, and Elder Burch's bike, all in that little elevator, and the whole time in my mind I was like "What am I doing in an elevator full of men?"  I had myself pushed up against the wall so as not to come in contact with any of them. (Apparently I'm okay with being in a crowded train full of men, but when it comes to elders in an elevator...)  Mikatsura Kyoudai and I stood outside the apartment door (I decided I probably shouldn't go inside) and watched as the elders took apart the bike and put it in the bag for travel.  I took the liberty to take a pano of Matsubara Danchi while I waited.

After that, we went to a nearby McDonalds and studied for an hour until Elder Burch left.  (The other set of elders had to take Elder Lloyd's bike to the bike shop for something, so that's why they couldn't join us.  That's why we had Mikatsura Kyoudai with us.)  I then found myself in a trio with Elder Viehweg and Mikatsura Kyoudai.  Weirdest day of my life.  We went back to McDonalds and studied for another hour or so, and I helped Elder Viehweg plan district meeting (never done that before!).  We had a very nice talk with Mikatsura Kyoudai about the Gospel and Joseph Smith.  I then travelled back to Gamou Eki where I met up with Sister Wadsworth.

All in all it was a pretty crazy day.  Definitely an experience I will never forget.  Sorry, I'm not the best at narrating experiences.  I would have loved to take pictures, but I decided that would probably be lame, so I didn't even try.

Other than that it has been a good week for finding.  We have decided that we really need to find solid new investigators if we want to see a baptism this transfer, so we did A LOT of finding.  Yesterday, we talked to (Sarah, you'll be so proud) 131 people!  We talked to two junior high school girls who might have interest and they took a picture with us.  We'll email them and try to get the picture from them.  They were way cute though!  They live in Matsudo, though, so I don't know if I'll ever meet them again.

Other than that, not too much has happened.  Just finding and getting all wet in the rain.  Brr!  My new companion, Sister Wadsworth, is amazing at finding, and I'm sure that I will learn a lot from her, too!

I love you all!  I know the church is true!

Love, Crandall Shimai

バレンタインデー！

Happy Valentine's Day to the people I love!

I was shocked yesterday at church when after Sacrament Meeting they announced that the Young Women would be handing out a treat to all of the men in the ward.  I had to remind myself that Valentine's Day in Japan is different than it is in America.  In Japan, women give gifts to the men on Valentine's Day, and there is a second holiday called White Day on March 14th where the men return those gifts with something white.  It's kind of interesting.

This last week was fun.  We met with one of our investigators, Imanari Yuka san, at her home and ate lunch!  We had a great lesson about the Spirit, and she is really eating up the Gospel Library app right now.  She listens to the conference talks or other chapters of scripture, and she loves it!  She has been really busy, but recently has been putting forth more effort to meet with us.  Her daughter Berina has ballet practice every Sunday, so Yuka can't come to church, but apparently she was trying to look up a church closer to where her daughter's practice is so that she could go while she waited.  She is so close to baptism.  We're planning on teaching her the Law of Chastity tonight, so we'll see how that goes...

We met with an investigator named Ismat on Saturday.  We made little crafts, and then we talked with her about church.  Nishimiya Eri Shimai showed up to practice the piano and joined our lesson (yay, miracle douseki!).  Ismat said that she didn't have time to take the lessons from us, but she didn't mind reading material we gave her.  We asked if she had a Book of Mormon, and she said no.  We were so surprised!  We gave it to her and she said, "Oh, my mom has this book!"  She said that she would try reading it, and she seemed really excited about it.  I believe that she could have a lot of potential in the future.

We had zone meeting on Friday, and it went very smoothly.  I gave a training about exact obedience... It was kind of intense, but I felt the Spirit.  It was a good zone meeting, and I feel inspired to work harder to use my time more effectively.

Today we had transfer calls!  I will be staying in Koshigaya, and I will be working with Sister Wadsworth!  She was my douki in the MTC, but is now my Kouhai since I came to Japan early.  I'm really excited to work with her, and I know that we will see a lot of miracles.  I am so grateful for my mission, for what I have learned, and for how I have changed.  I know that this experience is being fine tuned to exactly what I need.  I'm so grateful for my loving Heavenly Father and for His help in times of need.  I know that He is there, watching over me!

I love you all!

Love, Crandall Shimai

Japan Tokyo MLC

Missionary Leadership Council -- February 2016

Setsubun! 節分!

Happy Setsubun everyone! I hope you all threw some mame to get rid of all those evil spirits and invite in some good fortune! Sadly I was unable to throw anying, or even make any temakizushi. We did go out to eat with a member though at a super fancy shabushabu restaurant. I ate ALMOST everything on my plate. I still can't hack anything pickled.

We had MLC this last week, and the assistants gave a FABULOUS training on returning to the basics - simplifying our finding! I realized that I had started thinking of finding as successful only when I could talk with someone for as long as possible. If I could build a relationship with them and get their phone number, I would be successful. We talked at MlC about focusing on our purpose. Are we here to go eat ramen with people, or are we here to preach of Christ? From now on we are doing what we call kinjin dendou, which means we are going back to the most basic form of finding and just talking about Christ right off the bat. We are going to talk to as many people as possible, because if we only find one kinjin after talking to one hundred people, we want to talk to one hundred people as fast as possible. We've been implementing kinjin dendou in our dendou, and it just feels good. It feel good for people to understand our purpose right up front. It feels good to be preaching of Christ, and not trying to craftily convince someone to be our friend. It was interesting how the assistants put it. We aren't here to make friends. We are here to be missionaries. We should never have to transition from friends to missionaries, because we should be missionaries from the start. It was really insightful, and it led to a crazy cool miracle.

We were walking back to our bikes after some finding at Shin Koshigaya Eki, and we talked to a girl who was walking by with earphones in. She pulled out one to listen to us, and then started to back up when she heard we were church volunteers, saying she had work and was busy. We quickly said that God is our Heavenly Father, and that she is His daughter. Her other earphone came out so fast, and she proceeded to give us her phone number so that she could call us later when she had time. We were so in shock. I've never had anyone just give me their contact information without first having asked for it. It was an amazing miracle, truly a tender mercy of the Lord.

I want to bear my testimony to all of you that God truly is our Heavenly Father. We had an experience yesterday that made me so grateful for that knowledge, and also for the Restoration of this church. Three appointments fell through yesterday, so we decided to stop and say a prayer to determine where Heavenly Father would have us go. We prayed, and then waited. Nothing came. We were both so confused as to why we weren't receiving any promptings to go anywhere or do anything. A minute later, a black man walked out of a building and stopped to talk with us. His name was something like Reverend Pastor Uche, and he was in charge of the church that was right there (I didn't notice the church until after we had prayed). He and Sister Joy, a Filipino woman, were just closing up the church. He proceeded to dendou us for the next 45 minutes, telling us things like "the legacy you leave is most important" and "you can't call yourself a missionary until you've been homeless" and other stuff. He just wouldn't stop. The stuff he was saying wasn't too crazy or anything, until he said that all of the Japanese people were going to go to Hell because they didn't know God. My insides immediately felt gross – I knew right then and there that what he was saying was wrong. I felt my Heavenly Father's love, and I knew that He loved all of His children. I knew that He wouldn't damn His children just because they never had a chance to learn of Him. I felt so grateful for the knowledge we have of Heavenly Father's character. I am so grateful for the Restoration, for restored truths. I was grateful for the experience I had, for how my testimony was so strengthened.

I love this gospel. I love this church. I love my Savior and my Heavenly Father.

Love, Crandall Shimai

Weekly Email

Hello all!

I'm a little short on time, so I'll just give a quick overview of my week!

We had two exchanges this last week, but still no extra futon. One came today, and we assume the other will come soon... Exchanges were fun though, having four sisters in one area.

We went to an activity called Oshaberi salon, an activity where we can speak Japanese with natives. We've found it to be pretty good for meeting new people. This time we did calligraphy, and I even got to make some green tea (although I didn't drink it) in a mock tea ceremony.

We went out to lunch with some investigators and ate - yes - sashimi. Raw fish. And it wasn't bad.

I have a love for gatcha machines, like quarter machines but a bit more expensive. I got a black egg, which means you pay but you don't know what you're going to get. I was hoping for a Pikachu, but instead I got a Tenagagame (手長亀).

One of our investigators opened a bread shop, and we got free bread! Yum!

We taught family Eikaiwa at a referrals home! And she didn't freak outwhen we shared a gospel message!

I know that this is the true church. I know that God is our loving Heavenly Father. He hears our prayers and answers us. He strengthens us in times of trial. He will deliver us as we put our faith in Him.

I love you all! Have a great week!

Love, Crandall Shimai

Where are My Futon?!

Dear Family and Friends,

I hope you know that I love you all! It's chilly outside (except maybe in Tonga), so please be safe!

Recently we had been thinking that maybe we should let the elders do Sakaniwa Kyoudai's after baptism lessons, because Sakaniwa Shimai seemed to want that. She would ask us things like, "Didn't you say the elders were going to teach the ab lessons?" Well, last Sunday I told her, "We were thinking that from now on it might be better for the elders to do the ab lessons..." And then she said, "Really? No, I think the sisters should do it." ...okay. Sure. We were pretty confused, but on Saturday we went to the Sakaniwa home and taught the Plan of Salvation, and it was really good. It was such a comfortable atmosphere. Their home really is a special place now, and I love being there. We're looking forward to working with the Sakaniwa family more in the future, and we're especially looking forward to when Sakaniwa Kyoudai does baptisms in the Tokyo Temple for the first time!

Since most of our investigators disappeared in the last few weeks, we've found ourselves with a lot of finding time. We've practiced our streeting, our bike dendou, our housing... And we actually found someone while housing! Her name is Sekiguchi san, and she is way sweet! She accepted the Book of Mormon, and it wasn't awkward at all! She even went back into her apartment to get her phone so that we could become facebook friends! Every time people are so open like that, I think to myself, "What is happening right now?! Is this even happening?! What the?!" I love the tender mercies of the Lord!

The format of exchanges have changed (for those who don't know). It used to be that one STL (Sister Training Leader) would stay in her own area and one STL would go to another area, so there would be two sisters in each area, but now the rules have changed. The other companionship will always come to the STLs' area, so there will be four sisters in one area and none in the other. It's really interesting, and makes it so that the STLs don't have to worry about travel and meeting halfway or whatever, but a whole new set of problems come up. The first is the bike problem. We've already solved this by getting two extra bikes from Kasukabe and bringing them here, so now we have four bikes here in Koshigaya. The next problem is that now we need to have twice as much stuff to do. Another problem is that we only have two futon, aka only two beds. Most apartments have several, but Koshigaya just recently opened back up for sisters, so there are still only two futon. We've ordered more futon, but we had to cancel our planned exchange last week because they have not arrived. We received several package slips (saying that we missed a package delivery), and every time we got super excited. "The futon are here, the futon are here!" But every time we were disappointed. We still have yet to receive our futon, and we've decided that we don't have time to cancel any more exchanges. So, if our futon don't arrive by tomorrow, we'll be sleeping on the tatami mat. Woot. Our last problem is that we have to feed two extra mouths... We'll cross that bridge when we come to it. This whole exchange thing is starting to feel more like babysitting...

Lesson of the week: We had more than one lesson, but I just wanted to share a little about this one. One of our (only remaining) investigators, Imanari Yuka, came to game night on Friday, and I had the opportunity to talk with her about the Book of Mormon. She has a Book of Mormon and enjoys reading from it, but she has difficulty applying it. We talked about how Christ taught in parables, and we shared President Uchtdorf's talk “A Summer with Great Aunt Rose" and then we read 1 Nephi 1 together. We showed her a little bit how she could apply it to her life, and she got really excited. She said that now she feels like she can really apply the Book of Mormon to her life. It is always so uplifting being in lessons like that. I know that by reading the Book of Mormon from start to finish we can see all of the tender mercies of the Lord. We can see how He blessed and loved those people, and we can better see how He blesses and loves us. I love the Book of Mormon, and I know it is a true book.

I enjoyed watching the worldwide missionary broadcast this last week. It's a bummer that I was asleep while it was happening. But, I really felt the Spirit, and I am so excited to work harder at being a better missionary.

I love you all! Have a great week!

Love, Crandall Shimai

The Hachi Statue!

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Dearest Family and Friends,

Wow, this has been an eventful week! There is this building near the church that says エレベーターreally big (Elevator), so we decided that we wanted to go up it. We rode our bikes out there, and when we entered the parking lot this security guard ran out to us and said, "You cannot be enter!" I guess no one is allowed to go up the elevator.

We've started working harder at finding recently, since all of our progressing investigators disappeared over the holiday. While I still don't like finding much, I find that it's becoming more bearable. Maybe someday I'll actually look forward to doing it. I think the hardest part about finding is just starting the conversation. But once you've done that, it's easy to keep going. It helps though when your companion is way natural at speaking to people. I have felt that I've improved a lot, though, and I feel more confident that I can find people. Even us old missionaries struggle with things as simple as finding (yes, I finally feel like an old missionary. At transfer 8, I am the second to oldest missionary in my district, my companion the only one older than me.).

We visited with a member this last week, or at least we tried to. We followed the address to her home... but her house was gone! Just a bunch of rubble. We called her, and she informed us that she had moved a few blocks over. We visited with her, and she told us about how she had given a Book of Mormon to one of her son's friends. She then proceeded to give us a referral for another of her friends! This sister is on fire! We've tried a few times to visit this referral, but she is never available. We did visit with her husband, though, and he gave us some flowers from his garden. Really sweet guy.

We visited with Kanno Shimai (I think I mentioned her last week. She is a member from Kasukabe and is in the hospital here in Koshigaya area) a few times this last week. We visited her on Tuesday, and it was her birthday! Luckily we didn't try to take her balloons, because I think the hospital wouldn't have allowed them. We did give her a little charm for her phone, and she was way happy that we knew it was her birthday (thank you to her husband and the Kasukabe Sisters!). Later she called us and asked us to bring her three or four Books of Mormon. When we went, she was asleep, so we just left them and a sweet note. She called later and apologized, and asked us to bring two or three more copies. This lady is also on fire. She said that she will probably be changing hospitals soon, so she wants to write messages to all of the staff members that have helped her in the Books of Mormon and give them to them as farewell gifts. She also wants to introduce us to several people that work there, so hopefully we can work that out. She is such a sweet woman, and she knows how important our message is. She is an amazing missionary and a wonderful example to me. And her fake eyelashes are pretty great.

There was a wedding reception for our dendou shunin (ward mission leader?) on Saturday! Congrats to him! We really wanted to go, but we both felt strongly that we shouldn't. Instead we did some finding near Souka Eki, and it was great. I am so grateful that I didn't go. We've been thinking a lot about using time more effectively, doing activities that will help us see real growth among our investigators, and we both felt that the wedding reception would not be ideal for missionary work (even though there would be less actives and referrals there). It sounded like it went really well, though.

 Today we had the opportunity to go to the temple. I am so grateful for the peace and guidance I can receive there. I love the temple! And it is always so great to see friends and previous companions there. This transfer was a bit different than previous transfers. Instead of sending all the sisters on one day and all of the elders on another day, they just had all of the missionaries in the Chiba and Saitama zones go together. The other zones are going on different days. I was blessed to be able to see two of my previous companions there. Woohoo!

The last thing we did was run to Shibuya real fast so that we could get pictures with the Hachi statue, the dog that would wait for his master at the eki every day. It is such a sweet story. After that we came straight home. Well, we did talk to one girl who said, "I've been wanting to learn more about Christ!" Well, let us tell you more!  Way cool! I know that miracles happen! I know that this church is true! I know that God is our loving Heavenly Father, and that He listens to and answers our prayers!

Love, Crandall Shimai

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