Sister Malone's Mission in Fukuoka, Japan!: Another week in paradise a.k.a Okinawa / Week #13

Ohayo gozaimasu!

Well it's morning for me. I have no idea what time it is for you guys. So this week was really long and really short at the same time. I feel like we did so much and at the same time I feel like we could have done so much more. This is the life of a missionary I guess.

So we had interviews this week. Kaicho and the APs came from honbu to interview and give us training. Basically President just asked me how I was doing and asked if I was keeping all the rules. He did say one interesting thing though. He told me not to worry about my Japanese and just to practice and use it as much as I can. Then he told me one of the reasons he sent me to Okinawa was so that I could learn to be a good teacher. He's really focusing on preparing effectively and teaching good lessons. In Okinawa there are lots of opportunities to teach, more than in other areas. I just found it interesting because I like teaching. And usually Heavenly Father makes me do things I'm uncomfortable with which would be the contacting and finding part. So it's interesting that President felt like he was supposed to send me here to help me improve my teaching when he could have sent me to an area where I would have had to do a lot of finding and contacting. It was just interesting.

So we taught Karla again this week. We taught her Lesson 3 and really tried to emphasize baptism and what it means. But we also tried to emphasize that baptism is only the first step. There are many blessings and steps that come after it. I really think it went well. So hopefully this coming week when we teach her we can set up a concrete baptismal date that isn't in a year and a half.

We also taught Emi again this week. She's trying. She has work on Sunday so she can never come to church. But she has good support. There are lots of members who know her and fellowship her. We just might need to review some things with her because it sounds like she hasn't been reading and praying as much lately.

This week we had a lot of dinner appointments with members because we're teaching families about making their own family missionary plans. We want them to make specific goals to share the gospel. And of course whenever we want to come over to do this they include dinner. It's great!

One of the times we went over to a member's house and taught her friend about the gospel. She's not really investigating but the member just offered to share what she believes with her friends and invited them over for dinner and a discussion. It's a really great idea! I don't know if anything will come of it but it was fun to teach her friend about our beliefs.

We had another baptism on Saturday! The Japanese ward is doing really well. We are really trying to work with the members and fellowship those who may not be as strong. Nothing helps people's testimonies like sharing the gospel with somebody else!

We also visited one of my favorite less active members. He's just so awesome. I'm pretty sure he was in the Yakuza before. We taught him the first vision again because he hadn't heard it in a long time. But it was cool to see him remember. And I shared the first vision in my broken Japanese but Pinzon Shimai helped me and he didn't judge at all. He's one of the funniest Nihonjin I've met. If only he would come back to church!

There are so many things that happen each week and I can never remember them all. It's so great to be here! The work really is hastening! It's not always easy and sometimes I focus too much on what I lack but when we meet with investigators and I have the chance to share my testimony it's the best feeling in the world!

I hope everyone is doing well! Please write or email me! I don't care who you are!

Malone Shimai

Satomi san, Me & Pinzon Shimai - At the festival weeks ago