week 23: junkais

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Crepes in Kumamoto during exchanges


 こんにちは！

Man crazy week with lots of fun stories! The biggest thing is junkais (exchanges). So on Monday, Sister Whitney and I and the 4 Beppu elders left on a bus together. Four hours later we arrived in Kumamoto. Our STLs (sister trainer leaders) and zone leaders were there. We got there late and so we pretty quickly got ready for bed. The next day we met President Mack, our new mission president. He is amazing and I am so excited to see the miracles that come! Then we started the exchange. I was with Sister Graviet and she is amazing! I love her! I learned so much! I also got to see 3 people from my doki (same group I came in with). Then on Wednesday night we came home to Oita. The week flew after that.

Spiritual keiken:  Okay junkais have some real miracles. The first night we got there, we had 15 minutes before we needed to be inside so of course we dendou.  Sister Graviet and I walked 5 feet and stopped a lady. She ended up exchanging numbers with us and wanted to go on a hike together, and she wanted us to teach her and her 10 friends English. Crazy!! Miracles are all over the place!

Funny keiken:  So last night Sister Whitney and I were getting ready for bed. It was 10:20 and we heard a lot of noise outside our apartment. We went out and looked at the street and there was some sort of parade going on. It is Ocean Day today so maybe thats what it was for, but it was so funny! We were dying that they were so loud so late at night. Lots of jokes about the noise.

New words:
あたたかい(atatakai): warm
ぎんが (ginga): milky way, galaxy

Sorry it's short email today, so much to do. This week I really learned that God cares about us. He answers the smallest prayers, and sometimes they take time. As Elder Uchtdorf has said “You can’t connect the dots looking forward, you can only connect them looking backward. So you have to trust that the dots will somehow connect in your future.” (Steve Jobs said it, Elder Uchtdorf quoted it) so true! I have seen the dots connect more every day. So have faith! I love you all!

Love Thompson Shimai


Bits and pieces from family emails:
It's been super sunny and HOT all week!
President Mack is really amazing, and his wife is so sweet. He said to say "hi" to papa! (They worked together at First Security Bank!)
I slept a lot of the bus ride...4 hours each way is long!
We're heading to a mall later today and getting indian curry for lunch...YUM!
I love my mission so much!


Seeing my doki while at zone conference


view from the bus ride


junkai adventures


Parade coming past our apartment at 10:20 at night!



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