Week 15

Monday July 20, 2015

The weather has been pretty nice, its getting hot but it feels good to get outside and sweat. It feels like when we sweat a lot, we are working hard!  We went on Splits this week, I went to Sasebo and was with a Japanese missionary! It was so fun! We spoke Japanese pretty much the entire time, from Thursday night to Saturday afternoon.  Luckily she understands a lot of English so when I didn't know how to say something in Japanese, she could understand the jist of it in English :) 

This week in Relief Society we read Chapter 13 in the teachings of Ezra Taft Benson about the importance of the Temple.  The Temple is such an amazing place, how wonderful is it that we have a place on Earth where we can do work that lasts for eternity. It's hard to fully understand the entire scope of the Temple, but I do know that the work we do in the Temple and the promises we make there are eternally significant. 

Sorry it's so short this week!  
I love you all!
Lowe Shimai
ロウ姉妹

This is one of my favorite pictures of Christ, when he is in Gethsemane and an

angel comes to comfort him.

More Ramen! (above) More Okonomiyaki a member made for us! (right)
Me and Kawahara Shimai! (below) We went on splits together in Sasebo! She taught me how to make Okonomiyaki!

This is Tonkatsu it's delicious!

You grind up your own sesame seeds! So Fun!

I love being a missionary!

Monday July 13, 2015

Yesterday we went to Saga to meet our new Mission President, Egan Kaicho and his wife. They are such an awesome couple! They came in and greeted each missionary by name and already knew their hometown as well! They said they've been studying our pictures for 6 months now! We just met them but we could already feel the love they have for us! Egan Kaicho has worked for the Amusement Park industry for about 40 years now. He seems like a really cool person. I'm excited for them to be our new Mission Leaders!

We met with Yuki Chan a couple times this week, she was able to come to church again, which is awesome! We taught her last night about how important prayer is. She has such a strong desire to follow Christ. We also met with Shiori Chan who has been investigating the Church off and on. She loves the members and comes to church when she can, but she's just not sure if she really believes in it. Clements Shimai and I have been thinking and praying a lot about how to help her come to know that God is really there. And we realized that it really all comes down to praying and asking, believing that God will answer you, if He really is there. 

This is one of the reasons I love being a missionary is because everyday I get to reflect back on experiences that have helped me come to know that God and Jesus Christ truly exist. When we wanted to help Shiori have that same experience, we thought back to the very essential acts of faith. One of which is prayer. I haven't seen God or Jesus Christ. But I know they exist. I know because of the truly indescribable peace and strength I've been able to receive even in the most difficult trials of my life. I know because when I put my Faith in Him, and pray for help, guidance, and strength, He guides and strengthens me in a way that by no other means would I be able to receive. 

We went to a make your own type of place, so much fun!  This is Okonomiyaki, before we mix it up and cook it (above);  Okonomiyaki being cooked (below):

Okonomiyaki after we cook it:

Dessert at the Okonomiyaki place, not really sure what it is but...it

was good

Tried real Ramen for the first time! It was delicious! It's one of Clements Shimai's favorite foods 

More Ramen

 Our two friends that are visiting from China joined us for Ramen, they

are so much fun!

We found a super cute children's bathroom in a mall!

my grace is sufficient for thee - Wk 13

Monday July 6, 2015

Sorry it's short this week but I hope you enjoy the pictures!

In celebration of the Fourth of July, we wore red, white and blue, sang hymns about America, talked about why we love America basically all day, and had the only American food in Nagasaki besides KFC - McDonalds! It was definitely a lot different than I've ever celebrated it before! But still fun! It was a little strange to be here where nobody else was celebrating.

We met a really really nice lady the other day and she invited us back to have Okonomiyaki which is like a savory eggy pancake with cabbage and such with a barbecue like sauce and dried fish on top. It was really yummy!

Yuki Chan is still doing awesome! She came to church for the first time yesterday and really liked it, she said she felt really peaceful during the service!

Since coming out, I've realized how important member missionary work is! It's just as, if not more important than normal missionary work! The missionaries move around and change, but the members will be there when the missionaries aren't! And so we need awesome member missionaries to share the gospel and also to help those who are new!

This week I've been focusing my scripture studying on "weaknesses". Why do we have weaknesses? And I found some really great scriptures. My favorite is when the Savior says in 2Corinthians12:7,9 "my grace is sufficient for thee for my strength is made perfect in weakness".  Our weaknesses help us rely on the Lord for strength and when we rely on the Lord and have faith that he can help us, he truly will give us strength to become better.

I love you all!
Lowe Shimai
ロウ姉妹

The lady who made us Okonomiyaki also gave us these stuffed animals! And a bunch of other random stuff!

 Meal with the Matono family! They are so awesome!

 

Clinger choro made us bread

After church with adorable Reika chan

Sunday dinner with the Ohira family

 

The infamous Nato (fermented soybeans) it's really webby and the

Japanese people love it! Usually missionaries think it's disgusting,
It's not too bad once you get over the texture, which is super webby, and kind of like mucus but it's not terrible.  They usually eat it for breakfast here, some people like to mix in a raw egg with it...yum

 

 This is Aiko Shimai and her adorable baby!

View from our apartment at sunset

View from a members house

Awesome flowers!

 

Here is a picture that someone else's mom posted on Facebook :)

Transfer Week, Wk 12

Tuesday June 28, 2015

So this last week was super crazy!  We got transfer calls really late on Tuesday night, 9:30 pm and found out that Klein Shimai would transfer to Fukuoka on Thursday morning! She's been here for about 6 months I think and it was really hard for her to leave, she loves the people here so much!! So yeah we were busy getting her all packed up on Wednesday and then my new companion Clements Shimai came in from Okinawa, which is far away so I spent most of Thursday at a members house doing my best to communicate in Japanese! it was fun! She likes veggie smoothies too, so we made some together (: 

Clements Shimai is really awesome, she's a lot of fun to be around and I've really enjoyed working with her for the past couple days! This next transfer is 7 weeks long so we've got lots of time together!!

The high light of this week was Kou Yamamoto's Baptism! He's 8, his mom was baptized two years ago and she is such an awesome single mom! After he was baptized he was SO happy, it was amazing!

Much love Everyone!!

 

Lowe Shimai

 

I was so excited to receive a package from home, which included this picture from Emily!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 Kou Yamamoto's Baptism!

Yamamoto's sons before the baptism! they are so adorable!

Klein Shimai and I went to the Nagasaki Penguin Aquarium! They were just walking around the beach!!

Hundreds of elementary students painted these three giant murals to celebrate/promote peace in Japan and around the World, we filled up their paint bottles!

Saying Farewell to Klein Shimai

We made Gyoza, which is a Chinese food, and two of our Friends from China came!

 

Nagasaki Week 11

Monday June 22, 2015

One of the ward members gave us some tomatoes this past week, I haven't had tomatoes in so long! they were so delicious!! I miss being able to just pick them off the plant!

Last week we found an awesome girl named Yuki to teach! We've been able to have 3 lessons so far and she is awesome!! She is really excited about learning more about our church! We are so excited to teach her!

Yuki San; we found her last week & her baptismal date is July 25th!

Also, we've been teaching Kou Kun, an 8 year old whose Mom was baptized last year, and he is getting baptized this Saturday! We are so excited! It's been so fun teaching him about the gospel in such simple, fun ways! 

We also went to Sasebo for a day to go on splits with the Shimai there, it was really fun. It's cool to see how Nagasaki is different from the other places in my Zone. Nagasaki is really big, and has a lot of people walking around all the time. It's a fun place too, there's an international college nearby so we get to talk to a lot of cool college students, and we've met some from Nepal, China, Pacific Islands, Ireland, Kenya, Myanmar.  I love it here! It's so beautiful too!

A scripture I really love that I came across this week is John 14:27 Jesus says"peace i leave with you, peace i give unto you, not as the world giveth give i unto you" And the peace the Jesus gives us in our lives truly cannot be found anywhere else. There have been really hard times that the only way I have been able to make it through is because of that divine peace that He gives to everyone who trusts in Him. 

Love you all! 

Lowe Shimai

We went to Sushiro with a member & they literally pulled every plate off the conveyor belt! 

 

This pizza place uses these scooters to make their deliveries!