week 10: finding the fancy ice cream moments

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first meal in Nihon
--shrimp tempura udon--

こんにちわ

So I have survivied a full week in Nihon! Its crazy how busy on a mission you are. We have packed schedules but we always follow the spirit and try to serve the amazing people of Nihon! So this week was a lot better than last week. Last week was really hard, missions are  just hard, but I was able to rely on Jesus Christ and make it through it. This week we taught eikaiwa (our free english class). Not a ton of people showed up, but it was so fun to help teach. We have amazing ward members here in Kurume. Akiyama きょうだい (brother Akiyama) helps in our eikaiwa. He came early and set up chairs. Nihara  きょうだい (brother Nihara) brings us milk every week. There are so many other amazing people here who love to serve. Tanaka San (our golden investigator)  grew a lot this week! We had a couple lessons and her desire to be baptized is growing more and more each time.

Spiritual keiken: This week we had interviews with Egan かいちょう (President Egan). We talked about setting goals. He gave me a challenge to put my goals higher, because then even if I don't reach the goal, I still did more than I would have with a lower goal. 
This week we had dinner with the Mimaki family. They fed us home made sushi ( おいしい). After dinner we shared a short message. I shared a personal experience that made sense and I did it without notes! It was really touching for me to see that I can do this.

Funny keiken:  Kids are kids. We have a recent convert named Sato しまい. She is super sweet and has two kids. The little boy is a firecracker!  He is so crazy but cute. Her daughter has a hard time focusing and is really shy. Well on Sunday at church, Sato しまい was conducting the music so we sat with her kids and it was so hard, and really funny. The little boy would take Dimmit shimai`s tablet and take random pictures. Such a fun way to help out!
We live across from this big shrine and yesterday we saw this couple sweeping leaves in front of it. We ran over to help and guess who we met.... the owner of the shrine! So funny. What are the chances of that! We helped them for a while and they were so sweet, and gave us fancy ice cream. The wife invited us to come teach english in a kindergarten class. We are super excited about that!

New words:   きょうだい (kyoudai): brother 
かいちょう (kaichou):  President 
しまい (shimai):  sister
かわいい (kawaii): cute

I love you all!
Love 
Thompson Shimai 

Bits and pieces from family emails:
My new bike is teal and it is coming today! Biking is great and hard. At the end of the day my legs are tired, but I haven't been super sore. I'm always dying when we are running late because we bike so fast! The streets are super full of people, especially on Friday evenings and Sunday afternoons. 
Generally, people are nice, but I mostly have no idea what they are saying!
We are the only missionaries in our area. I'm in the Nagasaki zone and our district is pretty spread out. We can only meet up for pday once a transfer. 
The ward here is awesome! They give us tons of food and are always willing to be our joints for lesson. We go to dinner once a week, on Sundays, at a members home.

Our typical day is:
Wake up at 6:30 and work out for 30 minutes
Get dressed and have breakfast
8:30 planning
9:00 personal study 
Leave the apartment by 10 to go dendou (proselyting)
Come back at 12ish for lunch and other studies
dendou again until 5:00 for dinner 
6:00 go dendou until 9:00 
Then do a review of the day, shower and bed

My biggest blessing this week: The feeling of I can do this! Last week was hard and I really wanted to come home, but this week I have felt like I can do this!


my trainer: Dimmitt Shimai
Our bikes filled up with groceries for the week!


Our first day in Nihon going on splits


Pday pic from the MTC...it may just be one of my mama's favorites!

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