Week 14 & 15: Sakura is the Best!

Hi friends and family! It's week 15! Sorry I skipped last week! It's been like hecka crazy!

I honestly don't even remember where to start! I went to the temple in Fukuoka this Saturday! It was gorgeous! 

This Monday we went to a place called Karatsu, which is very far away, in order to visit a member. The rain was pouring. I was convinced we were going to die. 

I'm so sorry. These past two weeks have been nuts. So I'm just going to share a couple of experiences and lots of photos because I can't even remember half of the stuff that happened! 

One experience was with an old newspaper photographer. We knocked on his door and he invited us in. We talked about his jobs for an extensive period of time, during which he took several pictures of us. This was two or so weeks ago, so we forgot about it. This Sunday the pictures came in the mail to the church. We all about died. 

We were also able to perform Come Thou Fount of Every Blessing in church. They don't normally have musical numbers unless missionaries ask, so Sister Page played the violin and I played the piano. It was awesome.

Another experience that we had with a recent convert, we'll call her Kanako. Kanako has had a really rough life. Her husband abused her, and she eventually ran away from him, and eventually joined the church. She also had an abusive boss at work, and had recently started a lawsuit against him. However, it's not going good, and now his mother is saying that Kanako actually abused her. So it's really not going good. And then next she discovered that she had Menyl's disease, you've probably heard of it, and so her hearing will get progressively worse. She had been saying that she didn't even know if God was there or listening to her anymore. We tried a lot of stuff, but she was still not having it. The last lesson we had with her we discovered her making one thousand cranes by herself. In Japan, usually this is made for people with cancer by loved ones, and it's really serious. She told us that she thought that if maybe she made all these cranes, that it would show God her hard effort and that maybe he would bless her. Her faith astonished me. Throughout the lesson I had this prompting, "Tell her I love her,". When it finally came to my turn to talk, I bore testimony that God loved her and was constantly aware of her. We all cried, despite all of us not being criers at all. The Spirit was so strong. God's love can change people so much. 

Sorry y'all, that's all for this week! I promise I'll be more organized and send more next time! Love you all!

愛しています!

Dimmitt Shimai

1. Temple!

2. Hugest Toori (shrine gate) ever

3. Yeah, I made that...

4. Sakura is the best!

5. Sakura

6. Sister Page teaching a member violin!

7. Sakura!  

Week 13: Sakura Season!

Hi friends and family! It's week 13 and it's sakura season!

Okay Japan, I'm sorry. I'm sorry I ever questioned or doubted your cherry blossom obsession, because now I understand. I too have become obesessed. Imagine a tree filled with ethereal, breathtaking, cotton candy flowers. Then have the petals fall off and look like snow. Okay, you actually can't. You have to see the sakura for yourself. It's so dang pretty! My comp and I freak out now whenever we see a sakura tree. There's a mountain in front of our apartment balcony, and half of the mountain is just pink because of all the cherry blossoms. Prettiest thing you will ever see. I will probably put more than enough pictures of sakura in the next couple of emails, so I'm sorry (but actually way not because I'm obsessed).

Last Monday I went to my first sushi conveyor belt restaurant! You can either order sushi and it comes to you on a little train, or just pick up sushi plates from the conveyor belt thing. Afterwards you play a game with your plates and slide them into a slot to see if you win a prize. SO TASTY. We met a Slovenian man that night who spoke English and gave him a BOM. I raced with a junior high kid on my bike even though we're technically not supposed to do that. I'm repenting right now. He won. 

I also got my bike this week! It's my new favorite thing. I named it Saikou-chan. Saikou in Japanese means the best. Which she is. We can bike really fast. The other day my comp and I were late for an appointment and we biked a normally thirty minute bike ride in ten minutes. Please, hold your applause. Still repenting. 

My comp and I made a bentou this week for a less active, and we had tea in super cute heart shape cups with a member. We also ate oranges called belly button oranges. We gave a Book of Mormon to a lady who owned a dried fish shop. We had the door answered by a naked ten year old. It was an interesting week. 

This week my comp and I also got to watch general conference in Japanese. It was very distracting because I could hear the English under the Japanese interpreter. But general conference is still the best. 

It's been pretty rainy and not very sunny for the past week or so. A sweet member in our ward made us little sakura shaped cookies, and so we've been giving them out to people as we got out dendouing. That has been super fun. We like to ask people where they think sakura come from. One time we were talking to one lady, when this little old gramma calls out to us and tells us that she is a less active. Then she asks us if we want to go see the cherry blossoms together. We didn't know her, nor had we ever heard of her, so we agreed. The ride to the cherry blossoms has aged me ten years. She refused to bike on the sidewalk, and the majority of the ride was either in the middle of the road or a third of the way out. Cars would honk at her and stuff, but she just kept biking. I prayed aloud to Heavenly Father, begging him for her not to die or to cause a car accident, or end up killing one of us. So much stress. Luckily we made it there in one piece. 

Something I've been thinking a lot about recently is the tender mercies that the Lord gives us. Because He loves us so much, He gave us beautiful things, like cherry blossoms. In Japan especially, where it's incredibly beautiful, I often marvel at how much Heavenly Father loves us to give us such beautiful and complex things. I'm so grateful for this wonderful earth we live in. 

I love you all! 愛しています!

Dimmitt Shimai

1. Sakura cookies!

2. My comp looking like a freaking model

3. Bentou!

4. Sakura covered mountain

5. Saikou-chan!

6. Tea party with one of our favorite members

7. Hanami with a less active  

Week 12: My bike is out to get me!

Hi friends and family! It's week twelve and I'm still alive!! This week has been crazy nutsos. 

First off, I'm pretty convinced my bike is out to get me. I've fallen off my bike five times this entire week. It's actually not my actual bike, since I have yet to receive it, so I'm pretty sure it isn't happy that I'm not the former missionary who once rode it. Let's just say my whole leg will be black by the time I get home....

This week has, as said before, been crazy nutsos. As I've said before, our area is ridiculously huge, so we have to take the train a lot to get to a lot of our lessons. And zone conference. And district meetings. We spend a lot of time on the train. Nobody likes to talk. It's kinda funny. I inappropriately laugh at certain inappropriate occasions just because everyone tries to fake going asleep or find something incredibly intriguing on their phones. 

Japanese people here are obsessed with cherry blossoms. Like obsessed. There is a sakura (cherry blossom) broadcast and everything. Everyone talks about when the sakura will bloom. McDonald's has sakura-flavored (what does that even mean?) everything. One of the sweet members in our ward made sakura cookies for us to pass out and dendou (missionary work) when the sakura bloom. 

When you're a gaijin (foreigner) in Japan, you're basically like a celebrity. Everyone turns and looks when you ride by, and when you talk to people they get weird. Like uncomfortable weird or excited weird. Especially when you speak Japanese to them, and then they look at you like you fell from the sky. One of my favorite things is saying "Hello!" to Japanese kids, and then they all hello in English back. 

But being a gaijin has its perks. You have excuses to talk to people because you don't know what or where anything is. Since people are already looking at you, you can explain why you're here in Japan. If they say something rude to you, you can pretend you have no idea what they're talking about. If they like English you speak English! Since you're American, you can be as outgoing or friendly as you want, because you're a gaijin. It's pretty awesome. So many opportunities to dendou come from being American. 

The people here are also incredibly kind. They give away food and other items very freely. Even people that reject us will sometimes give us food. Whenever we visit someone elses home they always provide drinks and snacks. The members of the ward put together a basket of food to give to us on fast Sundays. People just love to talk here too. I've had some awesome experiences of just feeling how much the Lord loves His children in Japan. 

This week the Easter initative video came out! I love it so so much, and we've been showing it to as many people as we can, be it in the streets or during lessons. I know it's way inspired. I usually don't do challenges in my email, but maybe it comes from the missionary lifestyle. I think it would be great if all of you shared the video with one person. Just one person. It's like two minutes. They should live. The music and the videography are great if anything. It doesn't matter if they agree or not. I think testifying of Christ is the most important thing. As Easter approaches, share the peace that you've received from the gospel with others, and I think that this is one way you can do it. 

I love and pray for you all! 愛してます!

Dimmitt Shimai

P.S. Weird things that have happened:
- cotton candy and pizza party with an investigator
- chocolate yakisoba with sprinkles (yeah, you didn't see THAT coming)
- finding HUGE fish in the gutter thing
- yeah, that's it

Pictures!!:

1. Chocolate ramen with sprinkles

2. Can't believe how delicious these cream puffs are

3. Normal dinner

4. THE CHERRY BLOSSOMS!!

5. Japanese moneys

6. White strawberries??/

7. Me freaking out because that park was so pretty