What if you couldn't pray?

こんにちはみなさん！

So one large event of this week was a Typhoon which resulted in a lot of flooding. Which was a lot of fun to bike around in! But, we survived. The church survived. (We had gotten stuck at the church when the district president showed up to try and make a sand wall, so we tried to help with that...however due to a lack of sand we were not successful...) 

The car that was stuck

This email will probably be a little short because Payne Shimai and I have spent our email time laughing and talking and so that was a fail. 

But, this week was amazing and full of lots of rain and miracles and delivering thank you cards to people who helped us overcome our various injuries, and also Books of Mormon to those people, and ultimately all of these injuries will result in conversions to the Gospel of Jesus Christ and everything happens for a reason...even falling into rice fields and various surgery experiences...etc. 

With Payne Shimai in our Kappas, after our day of biking through the Typhoon

But, a quick thought on missionary work! My companion is a little bit old in missionary years. You can count down the number of weeks that she has left on your two hands, and it is basically the most heartbreaking thing ever. And mostly we just don't talk about it. But, when you hit a point on your mission when you have less transfers left than you have already completed...or when your companion has hardly any weeks left...you just start thinking about where you want to be and what you have already done. In reflecting on this, I remembered a quote...from someone...it went like this: "You won't be a missionary forever, but you can always pray the way you did when you were a missionary." 

I can't count the number of times on my mission (or in my life) that I have been promised that my Heavenly Father hears and answers my prayers. That He really loves me, and that He is aware of me. I also can't count the number of times before my mission where I said a quick prayer before bed that had about zero heart in it so that I could say a prayer before I fell into bed exhausted. (I know - missionary confessions :) ) But, on my mission I have REALLY learned how to pray. My prayers have become a revelatory time, a real conversation between me and my Heavenly Father. I don't get to devote all 24 hours of every single day for the rest of my life to missionary work...that just isn't how life is supposed to be. But, I can always pray the way that I do now. Anyone can pray the way a missionary prays. Anyone can give thanks to God for their blessings, plead with Heavenly Father for the help that they need, pour out their heart and soul in prayer...and then listen as heavenly direction is delivered in the form of guidance, quiet thought and feelings that enter our hearts or promptings that come throughout our days. Our Heavenly Father speaks to us, I have an undying testimony of that. 

A few weeks ago our zone leaders did a presentation for the Takamatsu District. In the presentation they posed the question: "What if you couldn't pray? What if you didn't know that you had a loving Father in Heaven?" What if you didn't know? 

And that in a few words summed up why I am here.

What if I didn't know? 

I know why I am here, and I know who called me here. I know whose work this is. I know who it is that I represent. It is all because of my Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ. 

And because I know. I am here.

イエスキリストのおかげで頑張りましょう！

I love you all! And always pour out your hear to the Lord. Miracles will happen beyond what you could ever imagine!

グランドビッグ姉妹

Love,
Grundvig Shimai!