Transfer Calls!

With Dean Shimai

I am staying in Higashi Osaka for one more transfer!!  Dean Shimai is transferring somewhere very cold and far away.  Her new area is super 田舎 and my new companion is Cain Shimai! She trained another girl in my doki, and from what I have heard she is a really fantastic missionary...and I am excited for what the new transfer will bring!

This week was good...and went by really fast.  As I am writing I am trying to remember what even happened.  We taught a lot of lessons this week, which was refreshing.  It is always nice to teach after not having taught very often for a while.  I love our investigators more and more the longer that I teach them.

Snowfall

On Friday we went to Habikino for a Zone Training.  It was so fantastic.  Our Zone Leader, Kato Choro is a convert to the church and converted through the Eikaiwa program.  He just became the new assistant to the president, and he gave us a really fantastic Zone Training. Often, as a missionary, the thing that is hardest to remember is to keep the right perspective.  We focused on that a lot.  We also talked about how faith always will override skill, but skill is still incredibly important.  Diligence is really a key aspect of missionary work - and one of the hardest ones.  To be doing something productive for every waking moment of the day is something that I have LOVED about my mission...but it is also a challenge to keep working hard when you are DEAD tired...and the last thing that you want to do is study Japanese.  The Lord will always work through our faith, but when we put our efforts into learning Japanese, studying the gospel and becoming a better teacher ("sharpening our tools and refining our skills") we will become a more able instrument in the Lord's hands.  I think this is something that particularly applies to me as I grow in missionary "years." New missionaries...really only have faith.  (I really still fall into this category...) but, part of showing the Lord our faith is remembering to continue to work hard to improve as the things that were hard at first...(like going to sacrament meeting in Japanese...when I first got here, that was an act of faith), become easier and more commonplace.

We divided up after Zone Training and I went on an exchange with one of our sister training leaders who is in the Habikino area.  She is SO awesome!  And I learned a lot from her.  We met a family that is super interested in the gospel and I am excited to hear how they progress.

Hospital visit to a friend

Something that I have really loved about this transfer is giving referrals. There were a lot of setbacks in my own area, but during contacting, area book dendo-ing and talking to people on the trains, Dean Shimai and I found a lot of people that didn't live in our area that were interested in the gospel...and a lot of those people are now studying the gospel. It has been so fulfilling to see that as a missionary sometimes the Lord will place me in a position to help another missionary, if I will just open my mouth.

I am so excited for what this next transfer will bring! Love you all!

 Grundvig Shimai

Love it Here!