July 19, 2011 -email

Hello Everyone!

Wow- it was fun to read various comments from everyone! I sometimes forget that when I e-mail I am speaking to more than just my little sisters... sorry if I seem to talk about silly things. Thanks to each of my aunties or uncles who wrote. Uncle Craig, I can’t tell you how great it made me feel to have someone call me Mariah Chan! Thank you! :)

Well it’s a great time to be a missionary! Here are some things that happened this week:

Today we went to the temple with Yufie. That first picture is of her and Saiki Shimai and I at the temple. Yufie is an interesting person. She has been seeing the missionaries for over a year. Last week we were starting to teach her about some commandments at a member’s house and somehow the Celestial Kingdom was brought up. She asked what the celestial kingdom was and we reminded her about the plan of salvation, which her record says she has already been taught. She had no clue what we were talking about. So we quickly changed gears and taught about the plan of salvation instead (have I told you this already? I get confused between what i write in my journal and what I write home. Sorry if I have!).

Anyway, so Saiki Shimai taught her about the celestial kingdom and then Yufie started talking about it and saying things that I didn’t at all understand. Then she stopped talking and there was sort of a silence. Usually, that’s my little cue to bear testimony, so I proceeded to bear my testimony about how families really can be together forever, and how the celestial kingdom is such a great place because there you can live with your family for all eternity, and what a happy place it is because you can be together. When I finished I sensed that I hadn’t quite made the impression I was trying to make. Later Saiki Shimai told me that when Yufie had been talking she had said that if families live together in the Celestial Kingdom then she didn’t want to go there because she hates her mom. Also, her boyfriend is the only person she trusts, and since he’s not really the best of people he probably won’t go to the celestial kingdom, so she just wants to go to whatever kingdom he will go to. Wow. Also, apparently Yufie has dreams a lot that she is screaming terrible words at her mother. She really doesn’t like her family.

After I bore my testimony, Saiki Shimai asked Yufie to pray about the plan of salvation and we ended the lesson. The next morning at about 6:50 we got a call from Yufie saying that she had prayed. Then that night she had had a dream that she was with God and was very happy. We were so happy about that. She is beginning to trust God.

So now her struggle is Joseph Smith. So this morning we went with her and walked inside the temple and explained a little about temples and showed her the Liahona about temples. Then we had a lesson on Joseph Smith. It was powerful to be in that place talking about those things. Then we prayed together. Good lesson.

After the temple we went to this great little restaurant and ate Indian Curry. I dare say I:ve not tasted such deliciousness before. It was a "legit" Indian restaurant (to borrow a term from Elder Waite). Yum. I sure do love the food here.

Kurosawa - Is progressing along. We taught her yesterday about the word of wisdom. She loves wine and tobacco. Saiki Shimai (without telling me beforehand) told her that we would also give up something we love along with her. Then she volunteered me to give up eating apples. Wow. So for the first time in a very very very long time, I am not eating apples for a while. As soon as she said it I was really sad and thought about the 2 apples I had waiting for me in the fridge, one of which I was planning on enjoying that evening after we got back from the lesson. I’m almost ashamed of the sadness I felt when I thought about the idea of not being able to eat them. So, here goes. It’s all for the cause – I’ll let you know how both myself and Kurosowa have done next week.

This week we had another earthquake! It was more than just a little vibration too. It lasted about 40 seconds and our light was still swaying back and forth for a while afterwards. It sort of felt like we were on a boat all of a sudden. Not that I hope for more, but it was interesting to experience a bigger earthquake. Tomorrow we are supposed to have a typhoon. I’ll let you know next week how it goes.

Something about Japan: It gets light super early here, around 3:30 things start to get light and by 4:30 it seems like it:s midday outside. All the time I wake up in the middle of the night and think I’ve overslept because its light outside.

Dad - you asked a while ago why all our investigators are only women... I don’t know how things work in other missions, or even in other areas of the Tokyo mission, but here, as sister missionaries we only talk to women. We have two wards whose areas we are over, and each ward has a set of elders. So if we somehow run into a male, we refer them to the elders, and if the elders run into a female they refer them to us.

The other pictures I sent earlier are just places around our area and the last one is just outside our apartment.

Ok, wish I had more time but we need to go! I love you all!!! Best wishes on the trek!

Enjoy the summer!

-Waite Shimai

July 12, 2011 -email

Hello Fam!

This is a video about our trip to help after the tsunami. I haven’t watched it yet - but I’m pretty sure I’m not in it.

http://youtu.be/PS_7vAvXFOM

Sorry it’s so late. Today we took a little extra time out of p-day to try and find one of our investigators in a park and talk to her. We found her! But now I only have 30 minutes to write. Gomen. (sorry)

Wow! So the hike was post-poned? I have been wondering at random points of the day what my family might be doing these past few weeks with all the various activities planned.

Mom- I got your packages this week! Thank you!

So, Investigators: Misaki hasn’t responded to any of our communication for a long time. We still pray for her but are focusing on other people. Ko and Nie as well have stopped progressing, so we still keep in touch sometimes but right now are mainly focusing on:

-Kurusawa (Koo roo sauwa). We met her in the park a couple of weeks ago. She’s about 25 or 30. Maybe I already told you all this? Anyway, She came to church this week! Hooray! She hasn’t really gotten into the Book of Mormon yet, so we are going to try and focus on that more as we teach. I don’t really know what she thinks about the church or us yet, and I don’t think she really knows what she thinks of us either. We have set a baptismal date with her and are praying she will keep progressing (In our mission, we usually follow the rule of setting a baptismal date with someone after lesson 1. That sort of shocked me at first.. and to be honest I’m still getting used to it). The other day after we taught her we were leaving and she invited us to go out with her for drinks. : )

-Saraa is from Mongolia. I’m pretty sure I told you about her. She is a great person. The sort of person I would love to be roommates with if I weren’t a missionary right now. We had our first lesson with her Sunday night and wow... she had some tough questions. I’m afraid I didn’t do too well in answering them. It was a learning experience for sure in becoming a better teacher. More about that later, but anyway she thinks that if we are really God’s children then we shouldn’t make mistakes. If God is perfect, and He made us, then why aren’t we perfect? ... A lot of questions like that. I am really happy though, because at least that means she has a desire to know the truth. It’s a really sad thing when people seem to sincerely not care about whether or not something is true.

Wow, 3 minutes left:

So, I’ve learned lately that I’m not the greatest teacher. I get so confused about what I’m supposed to remember to make sure and do and the order of teaching a doctrine, that I’m unfortunately fairly ineffective right now. But, Lately I’ve been focusing on 1 thing:　Ｉ　ａｍ　ａ　ｃｈｉｌｄ　ｏｆ　Ｇｏｄ． And even as important, so is everyone around me. It has helped a lot. Somehow, things are a lot clearer when I actively keep that in my mind throughout the day. This week I have realized that when we truly know that single truth, our lives naturally align with the Lord.

Best wishes all! I love you!

-Waite Shimai

July 5, 2011 -email

Oh Family!

It would be a lie to say I’m not a little envious right now of all you who were able to get together and enjoy the holiday. The night of July 3rd I realized that the next day was Independence Day and started humming the National Anthem. Then I didn’t even have time to take note of the occasion until about 9pm on July 4th. I’m glad I didn’t have any time to think about it and all the things that would be happening that day. I sure do love America.

Maren - thanks for the note! I think about the hike sometimes right before I fall asleep because here we only sleep on futons... I guess I find it entertaining that I’m in one of the most populous, technologically advanced places, and I’m sleeping on the floor. I don’t know what I’ll ever use a bed for from now on : )

Sadie- Good to hear from you! I am 21, but in less than a month I’ll be 22... whaoh. Mom’s favorite year! And next time I see you I’ll be 23! Wow. And then the next year I’ll probably be so old I’ll die! Ha.

Mom, thanks for all the letters you send me from Cam. I love them. Really though, you don’t need to worry about "catching up"! Mom, I’ve been thinking about you lately when we go to visit the houses of less active members. Sometimes, as we are on our way I think about how great it would be if they could just have you as a visiting teacher. That’s pretty much just what we do - go visiting teaching once every couple weeks. Actually I heard a quote about how missionary work is just visiting teaching to our non-member friends, and visiting teaching is just being a missionary to our member friends. Anyway, I think about you a lot when we are trying to figure out how to help people get to church.

Investigators: Last Saturday we met a lady from Mongolia named Saraa. She had heard of our church in Mongolia and we talked a little bit about it and got her number. Then last night she came to FHE. I found out that she had actually been thinking of joining our church while in Mongolia, but her friend who is a member told her that Mormon men can marry two wives. So she got scared and lost interest. I think she’s our most promising candidate for baptism right now, even though she hasn’t even had a lesson yet from us. She’s the sort of person that you just look at and know they are good and honest. Her full name in Mongolian means moon-flower. She’s here in Japan getting her Masters so she can teach English at a university. We have a lesson on Saturday.

I’ve decided that the #1 saddest thing to see as a missionary is people who are inactive. People who have tasted the gospel, enjoyed its fruits (sometimes for their whole life) and then decide they don’t need it any more. We talked to a lady like that last week. She served a mission in Washington DC, got married in the temple, has 5 kids, and was released as Relief Society President this January. Then in March the earthquake happened. All the missionaries were evacuated. People just left to go to other places and a lot of things just shut down, yet the day after the earthquake her son still had seminary. That was just too much for her. She lost faith in the way the church was run and the things it asks of its members, and her family hasn’t been to church since. She was flat out honest with us. She said she’s just plain tired and worn out from being a member of this church. I have to say, more of me than I’d like to admit empathized with her. The church does ask a lot of its members. And it seems to ask more and more, the more you give to it. It was weird to talk to her - she looked and reminded me a lot of Aunt Megan, oddly enough. And I could tell she had not too long ago been a real strength to the ward. One of the "truly faithful". I wondered how a woman like her, after all these years, would let an earthquake shake her faith. She wasn’t at all angry, or mad. Just tired. I realized how important enduring to the end is. She’s come so far, and I’d like to hope that she’ll come back, but in all honesty I don’t see that happening. She knows the church is true. She knows the gospel. And in the back of her mind I think she believes that "someday" she’ll come back to church, but for now she’s just taking a "break". She will probably procrastinate like that for the rest of her life. It reminds me of Alma 24:30. It’s true that we are never safe until we are dead. We have to work out our salvation for our whole entire life. Ok, I’ll stop ranting now or whoever is reading this will fall asleep thinking about all the work they have left to do. But, I guess I just realized the importance of choosing NOW to always do what the Lord asks.

Dad- thanks a bajillion for the DEs. Best luck in preparing for all the summer festivities.

Favorite scripture of the week: Ether 3:5. Yonde Kudasai! (Please read it!)

In a letter I got from Cam he said he always gets so confused between Spanish and English. Well, Japanese is coming pretty slowly, but at least I NEVER have that problem! Japanese and English are so completely different that there’s not really a way you could confuse the two. I feel like I’ve spent my whole life using my English brain and now I’m trying to create a brand new Japanese brain...

But the two are so different that I never mistake one for the other.

Pictures: The first - "Missionary parking". Our district all went and got lunch one day.

The second is us and the Yamanita couple at church the day they gave their farewell talks. They are going on a mission in northern Japan. Some of the BEST people I have ever met. We went to their house my first or second day here and Brother Yamanita had some questions for me to answer about some scriptures in English... he is reading the English Book of Mormon! Great people.

Ok. Gotta go. SO Sorry I can’t write more often to you all. This hour for e-mail is the only writing time we ever get. I love you and miss you!!!

-Waite Shimai

June 27, 2011 -email

Hello Family!

Wow, this week was good. Really fast. Today is Saiki Shimai’s birthday. She is 23. I drank a lot of water right before bed last night so that I would have to wake up and then I could decorate for her- it worked. I decorated the apartment with all sorts of balloons and streamers and doo-dads, and put out a dessert I had secretly been working on every night while she was in the shower. It’s sort of difficult to plan a surprise for someone you aren’t supposed to ever let out of sight or sound. Sunday night I had also gotten up and blown up a bunch of balloons and hid them in the back of my closet so that I wouldn’t have to do it all this morning. Then, Monday morning while we were eating breakfast one of them popped. She was concerned, but didn’t know what it was. Then during personal study, another one popped. It must have just been getting way too hot in the closet. We study in the same room as my closet, so she knew that the noise had come from there. I tried to brush it off but she wasn’t about to rest with those random noises, and she opened the door and saw my whole pile of balloons sitting there! It was pretty funny.

Then about 5 minutes after we got up this morning the doorbell rang. It was the other 4 elders from our district. They sang happy birthday and gave her a card and a ball of rice (a joke). Then they shoved a piece of bread full of whipped cream in her face. I knew they were planning to do all this, and was having fun watching until suddenly there was whipped cream in my face too. It was pretty fun. Yesterday was our last district meeting together this transfer and we have had a lot of fun the past 6 weeks.

Last week I got a letter from Cam that had a page torn from a Jehovah’s Witness’ bible and in the middle of the page was.... The Black Spot! HA! What a guy. Then I heard from you that he sent you a whole book full of pressed flowers and such. Wow. A couple weeks ago some Jehovah’s witnesses knocked on our apartment door one morning. Kind of funny. Also, we were knocking on doors at this huge apartment complex a couple weeks ago and finally we found this lady who seemed interested and already like the bible. She never let us in (everyone in Japan just sort of talks through their intercom if they have one, or just through the wall/window... people very rarely actually open the door), but we talked to her for a while and gave her a Book of Mormon through her mail slot. A week later we decided to go back and see if we could talk to her again. We went, and as we approached we could hear multiple voices, so we wondered who else might be there since we were pretty sure she lived alone. Saiki Shimai listened for a while and started to grin really big. It was the Jehovah’s Witnesses and they were all having bible study together. : ) We just left.

Dad- How is the foot? How was the recovery for everyone after the hike last weekend? I can’t believe there will be 6 13-year olds... maybe this was a good year to miss out on. HAHA! Just Kidding! So when is the actual date that you all hit the trail?

Mom- How was Aunt Sara’s house? I wish I could see Lucy. She and Evelyn will be walking and talking before I ever meet them.

Girlsies- How are you all! Hannah and Maren - how is personal progress coming along? I love hearing about that. It would be fun to be doing it together. Any luck finding jobs this summer? Hallsie and Sades - are you ready for the big hike? Ainsley - are you getting used to living at our crazy house? Janes- how was the birthday?

Investigators: This week we met with and taught a lady from Brazil named Veruzka. She about 28 and speaks English, Portuguese, Japanese, Spanish, and a little bit of Italian. She believes in Jesus Christ but is skeptical about the Book of Mormon (the gold plates, and that there were people inhabiting the Americas from Jerusalem). Interesting lady.

We also met a lady named Joy on the street who is from the Philippines. She actually asked for something about our church that she could read, and we are meeting with her next week to give her a Book of Mormon because the only ones we had were Japanese. (The Japanese BOM has a lot of old characters in it and is difficult to read if especially if you aren’t a native speaker.)

Also, we met a lady from Mongolia named Sara last week who went to our church twice when she was in Mongolia. She’s coming to a little dinner-gathering we are having this week.

And, a member in our ward has a friend from the Philippines that we met while at the members’ house and are hoping to be able to teach.

Plus, Ko and Nie are from China, as well as Lilly. The point is, we seem to find ourselves talking to and teaching foreigners more than native Japanese people. Tokyo has so so many foreigners. (This isn’t a list of people to pray for, I just thought you would find it interesting.)

Prayer list: Misaki - she missed her interview and now she is rethinking baptism. Ko and Nie - they are really poor. When they come to lessons, Ko rides her bike and Nie rides the bus because they don’t have money for both to ride the bus. Also, she is in pretty poor health right now - i think mostly because of stress.

Culture: Lots of you probably already know some of these things about Japan... but I didn’t : )

-People in Japan only use cold water to wash things (their hands, the dishes... etc.) When we shower we turn the hot water on, but other than that nothing but cold water comes out of the tap.

-Everyone here carries around a little personal towel/washcloth to wipe their hands on. Public restrooms rarely have anything available to wipe your hands on. And they also use the rags to wipe the sweat off their face in the middle of the day when it’s so humid. You always see people walking around carrying their little rag.

-Japanese people don’t really care if they match. You know how a lot of people are sticklers about whether or not you can wear brown and black together, or black and blue... well anything goes here.

-Seiza: Usually when we go to people’s houses, if we are invited inside to sit down we usually kneel (seiza) on the floor. Normally they have little pillows for us to kneel on, and they are usually situated around a coffee table. A lot of people have normal couches and tables too, but pretty much everyone has a little table to kneel at and talk or eat. Anyway, after a couple of minutes of kneeling down, one’s feet and lower calves begin to go numb. Its lots of fun! There have been lessons where we get up and walk out the door and I can’t feel my toes until we are half-way down the road. I thought it was just because I was American, and wasn’t used to it, but even Saiki Shimai had to use her umbrella as a cane the other day as we hobbled away from a members’ doorstep.

Dad, you know that quote that is in my sketchbook from the guy who was in Rwanda - the one that says he won’t stop until he has done everything he can for the cause of Christ? Can you perhaps send that to me sometime?

Alright, well, I can’t think of anything else boring to tell you so i:ll wrap this up. I love you all so so so so much. Tell everyone hello for me.

-Waite Shimia.

P.S.- 4th of July is SOON!!! Celebrate my FAVORITE holiday with some watermelon just for me please : )

June 22, 2011 -email

Hello Fam!!!

I’m so sorry I wasn’t able to write on Tuesday as usual. We went to the temple and then yesterday was booked. This morning we just had a mini zone conference which was great.

Well, first of all: A happy birthday soon to Janie!!! Hooray Janes! I love you! I sent a card but it will be late.

And Dad, I hope Fathers Day was wonderful. I thought of you all day, especially when the little Japanese kids in church sang to their fathers. I didn’t understand a word, but the tune was the same.

I am the recipient of so much mail!! Thanks to everyone! I literally do not have time to write everyone back and I’m so sorry! This week I got a great letter from Nancy Cox and one from Mary-Alice Westover, and a card from Hallie that was addressed to Cam (which I forwarded on to him) and a card from Sadie. Plus, Last night I received a letter from mom and a DE from Dad. Wahoo!! I love them. Thank you!

Mom, I have a card that I need to send to Aunt Helen... but I need her address. Can you send it to me?

Also, yes I did take almost $800 dollars out of my account. I did it when I thought I would have to buy a bike. Now, I can’t put the money back into the account- we tried at an ATM and it won’t accept it. A lady even tried o help us. grr. But anyway, do whatever you think is best as far as my account goes. I’ll try to figure out how I can get the money back in there.

Mom, can you send me the recipe for lemon bars, and the recipe for brownies, and the recipe for sweet potato soup? That would be good. This week I made mashed potatoes for Saiki Shimai. She’s had them before and likes them.

We are always so busy I don’t know exactly what to say... We ride bikes SO much. Nylons and bikes don’t get along very well.

It’s pretty hot here too - yesterday was hands down the most humidity I have ever experienced in my life. And things are only going to get hotter. .. : ) Usually I rarely sweat even on the hottest of summer days, but with the humidity I get drops running down my face all the time. I look great, I’m sure. Even so far though, I would still take this heat any day over being cold. Ha!

I’m glad to hear Ainsley is enjoying the house of Waite! That’s good.

Thanks everyone so much for your prayers for our investigators. Nothing has really happened with Lilly. She is too busy to make time for us. Misaki has a baptism date (!) that we set last week, but this morning was supposed to come for a lesson and baptismal interview but called a few minutes before and cancelled. Hopefully that still works out. We haven’t been in very close contact with her the past week because she went to France ( I have no clue why).

Ko and Nie are slowly progressing. They haven’t been reading the Book of Mormon so we decided to have a special Book of Mormon-reading lesson and emphasize the importance of it. Also, we really wanted to have a member come who could speak Chinese because Ko is from China. Nie (11) LOVES food, so we decided to have a dinner with them too. The lesson went really well, but was sort of strange. A member who is a butcher had given us some really good beef so we had decided to cook that. And we made soup and rice and cookies and I made some french fries. Nie piled his plate way high and started chowing down... well, the beef that the member gave us was literally the best meat I’ve ever tasted. It was perfectly marbled and sort of melted in your mouth. A few minutes into the meal, Nie got a glazed over look and pretty much fell asleep into his plate because the food was so rich. And Ko and the member were just going at it speaking Chinese. Finally we got to a point where Nie woke up a little and Ko and the member stopped talking and we all read Lehi’s vision together and talked about the Book of Mormon being the iron rod. When Ko would have a question she would ask the member and they would talk about it in Chinese. It was really good for Ko to hear the explanations in her own language and I think it cleared a lot up for her. I kept thinking about that scripture that talks about everyone hearing the gospel in their own tongue.

Also, we have another investigator with a baptismal date: Yufie. She’s in her 30s I think. She’s been ever so slowly meeting with the missionaries this past year. She’s doing pretty good at keeping commitments.

Well, I don’t know what else to say.

Best wishes to the girls on their young women’s projects! Gambatte kudasai! (Keep it up/persevere!) I love hearing the updates about that. And about everything actually: the hike, things Janie says, Aunt Sara’s baby, things about the extended family and people in Clifton. I love you all!!

-Sister Waite