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

June 13, 2011 -email

Hello Fam!

Wow- got lots of good mail this week! I got a letter from Uncle Jacob and Aunt Trista and one from Cam that was sent May 5th - both had been sent to the MTC and then forwarded here. It was so good to hear from both parties. AND, 3 Dear Elders. I don’t think they came in the order they were sent, but I got them all the same. Dad, thank you so much. I love knowing a few specific things about life at home, and I pray for your foot. I love, absolutely love, anything you send.

Dad- I don’t know when Fathers Day is exactly, but I know it’s coming up soon. I wish you the best of days! I have thought a lot about you lately, especially because of Fathers day, and because of your foot, and because of the DearElder’s you send. I will really miss being with you on the hike this summer. I love you.

This week seems to have gone so much faster than last, I think because I am starting to get the hang of things. Having a Japanese companion is a little intense. Before her mission Saiki (Sai-key) Shimai didn’t speak any English at all, but she has picked up some things in the past year thankfully for both of us. I’m still pretty much clueless most of the time though. : )

Every week the missionaries here teach English to anyone who wants to come. I teach the advanced class because they know a lot of English so I don’t have to do much in Japanese and they still understand. This week I was teaching and all of a sudden a couple of the people in my class stopped paying attention and started looking at each other with worried faces. Then they asked me if I could feel the earthquake. I couldn’t feel a thing because I was standing, but they were sitting and apparently had felt the ground moving a bit. They were very concerned. Since the events in Sendai they are on pins and needles waiting for another big aftershock to hit.

Yesterday we had a mission conference that was really good. And then last night we taught a lesson to Ko and Nie. Ko (the mom) is Christian but doesn’t understand how our church is different from all the other Christian churches.

On Thursday we taught a lesson to Misaki and asked her to be baptized. She said she would try to get ready, and then later we found out she is going to France for about 10 days (I have no idea why) so we probably won’t be able to contact her much for the next little while.

This week we were out streeting in a really random place and tons of people (literally... this is Tokyo) were shuffling by us on the sidewalk. A lady walked by and we were able to get her attention and we started talking to her. Right off she asked if we were the Mormon church. We told her we were and she got really excited and said that she had just been baptized in our church a few months ago! She was baptized, and then confirmed, and then hasn’t been to church since because her step-daughter goes to this weird religious school and holds a leadership position there, and one of the conditions of being a leader is that no one in your family can be associated with a religion except the religion the school has. So... this lady hasn’t been coming to church because she can’t be seen associating with us. She seemed so so hopeful and was really excited to have run into us. I could tell her faith is still strong and that when she is able to come to church in the future, she will. It was just crazy that we were able to run into her among all those people. Actually our ward mission leader had told us about her and her situation before, and had asked us to call and strengthen her even though we aren’t able to go visit her. Anyway, thinking about it later I realize how great it was that we were there and were able to meet her.

Also, we went to visit a lady the other day and right then she introduced us to this family that lives next door to her that just moved from Sendai area after the earthquake. They are apparently really struggling financially and are just trying to recover from everything. I am really hoping we can get to know them better and teach them.

Well, thanks for all your prayers. They are felt - I promise. I love each of you and pray for you everyday, often I pray specifically for you girlsies. Also, I’m so thankful for all my aunts and uncles and for Grandma and Grandpa Waite and Grandpa Wadsworth. I know they all pray for me and I think about each of them often. Mom, I love you so much.

Cousins- I think about each of you all the time! Being in Japan is a pretty neat experience. The people here really are especially gracious and kind. Every day I put on my nametag and see my family name and am reminded again about all of you. When I bear my testimony in Japanese it’s not very good, but I always talk about how important my family is to me. I love you all. I hope you are doing things now to help your own family - especially in reading the Book of Mormon together. Aishiteimasu! (I-shtay-moss). -Waite Shimai

Best-

Waite Shimai

PS- yes, all those areas on the map are in the Tokyo mission.

PPS- We ride the train quite a bit here (at least a couple times per week). They have these guys who stand on the platform and when there are really busy times, they tell everyone to squeeze in. And when it’s SUPER busy, like in the mornings when people are going to work, they literally shove people into the trains and pack us in like sardines. It’s pretty crazy to have your body pressed up against everyone else around you, and then to ride like that for half an hour.

June 7, 2011 -email

Hello Fam!

Thanks for the e-mails Mom and Dad! I’ll do my best to answer all the questions.

Sadie - how was your baptism day? How do you feel? I was thinking about you all week.

Well, today we went to Costco. Yup. There is at least one here in Tokyo and a couple Elders in our district have cards. So guess what I came away with? OATMEAL!!! I think about 15 pounds. I’m a happy gal. I also got a bag of granola, and some rain boots for about 10 bucks. And some frozen blueberries and a big bag of raisins.

I hope that doesn’t disappoint you all, at how normal my life is here... I was sort of sad about it the first couple days I got here. I thought it would be more different, but Tokyo just feels like any other really big city. Maybe sometime during my mission I will get out in a more rural area and see more traditional Japanese culture, but for now it just feels like I:m walking around in a really big city where everyone happens to speak Japanese.

Oh Japanese... I’m not very good, that’s for sure. The other day I prayed that as a companionship, Saiki Shimai and I would become separated. And the day before that I prayed that we would be able to lose many future investigators. And those are only the mistakes that Saiki Shimai actually tells me about, so there have got to be so many other random things that come out of my mouth. It’s kind of humorous to see the look on people’s faces when I say things.

Girlsies - I just want to tell you again how much I love the letters you wrote to me when I first got here. I will try to write you back soon but now that I’m in Japan we have a lot less time on P-day for mail.

Thanks for praying for our investigators. I have another one to add to the list: Misaki. (Me-saw-key). She is 19 and is fabulous. She’s received most of the lessons and we hope she gets baptized soon but she doesn’t know what her mom will think if she says she might join the church.

So, this week our whole mission all met at a church on Thursday night and got on buses and went to Sendai; very unusual for a whole mission to leave the mission boundaries. We split up and went to 2 different areas. My area went to this Buddhist shrine where the tsunami hit and cleaned up as much as we could while we were there. A lot of work had already been done but there was still tons to do. We cleaned out the shrine and a house and a little temple structure that were all next to each other. It was a lot of shoveling/sweeping mud and dirt out of the structures and putting random things into piles. There was just stuff scattered everywhere -- anything and everything. It kind of looked like the earthquake had had a sort of snow-globe effect on the area: everything that wasn’t firmly attached to the ground (and even some things that were) got whisked away into a big jumble and then slowly settled and just stayed wherever they landed. Books, shoes, clocks, dishes, shower curtains, cd’s, rugs.... It was quite an experience.

Then we all got back on the bus and drove to see the major disaster areas. Crazy. It’s just crazy what a bunch of water has done to these people. So humbling.

Also this week: I ate nato, which is fermented soy beans. It’s pretty gross. It doesn’t taste too terrible, but it literally has the texture of snot. (my apologies to those with weak stomachs). Also, we went to this Okonomiyakie shop and I had some of that. So so good. They make it on a griddle type surface and start by smearing a circle of pancake batter on, really thin. Then they take noodles and pour them into a same-sized circle and let them cook as well. They pile on tons of cabbage on the pancake, and throw on some bacon, and let it all cook. Then they add the noodle thing onto the pile and then they put an egg on top and let it all sort of cook together. I know this makes no sense at all, but then they add cheese and thick soy sauce stuff, and mayo, and fish powder and a bunch of green spice... wow. It was so good.

My apartment is one that has been lived in by missionaries for quite a while I think. It’s got lots of junk that would be just the sort of things sister missionaries would have hanging around. I think all the stuff us just things that have slowly accumulated. I’m secretly on an errand to get rid of about half of it by the end of the transfer.

Bike- The elder I’m getting the bike from is about my height. I don’t know the color. He said he would just give it to me but I don’t know if he was just saying that to be nice or if that’s normal for missionaries here. From what I hear it’s in really good condition.

We have an hour to e-mail, so it’s fine to just forward things. I think we will always come to the church to do it. There’s a printer here.

Mom, Ha! I am pretty sure Saiki Shimai knows how to make real pancakes, but I think her motto is “why stand there and wait when you can pour it all in at once?”. It’s more to save time. This morning she made me some French toast that was really yummy. And I take it that pancakes are a pretty normal thing to eat here.

PIX: there’s a picture of the church, one of the bathroom that was in the airport (some bathrooms here are kind of intense, others are just fancy holes... I don’t get it.), there’s a picture of me and Saiki Shimai on the way to Sendai, a picture of us at the major disaster area (sorry, I have a wierd face because I didn’t think the picture was being taken yet). I just can’t describe what it was like to stand there and see nothing but destruction in every single direction. The pictures don’t do it justice at all. The roads have been cleared, but still there are cars and boats and other things just scattered all over.

Ok, I need to read Dad’s email again and see what questions are there that I need to answer. So hopefully you hear a bit more from me, but if not:

I LOVE YOU ALL SO SO MUCH!!! You have no idea how often I think of you, especially when the going gets rough.

Ok, one more story -- this week we had a practice lesson with a member. She started crying and so did my comp, and even though I had no idea what was going on I started crying too because I didn’t want to be rude. Then her cat bit me on the finger. The end.

I love you!!

Waite Shimai

May 31, 2011 -email

No time to write- these are pretty self explanatory.

The one of me eating is today at a Ramen shop. Also, today I ate some raw fish at a taste test stand in the grocery store. Saiki Shimai just plopped it in her mouth like nothing. The rest of the pix are of our apartment.

I love you!!! -Waite Shimai