A new mission companion

Palmer Shimai is off and in my old zone <3 I will forever love the Osaka zone as I spent....a third of my misson there! But, she is doing great and performing all sorts of miracles like she did in Tokushima...and my new companion is named Payne Shimai! She is also an East Coaster! Whoo! She is my first companion that has not been from Utah...or California....(besides Daniels Shimai) But basically, all of my companions have been from the West Coast and so that is cool. We have a ton of stuff in common and we get along really well. Basically, I am pretty sure that our companionship will legitimately be unstoppable because she is amazing and I am getting to that point where I am becoming an older missionary and I have learned so much...and so Satan is trying way hard to stop us from being good missionaries right now...but we got over that hurdle...so the next hurdle is astonishing ourselves, and Tokushima, and Shikoku and Japan and then the entire world. So I am excited for that and it will be just way amazing. Payne Shimai has served in the Inaka (way country) area for her entire mission. And so to her Tokushima is big city....which is like the craziest thing in my mind because...this is nothing like Osaka. Nothing like real city hahahah. But, I guess I haven't even seen real Inaka yet.

We had a lot of planning this week and catching her up on the area. Payne Shimai brought lots of new ideas to Tokushima and so that was exciting. We have lots of great ideas for how to work with the ward better, how to help our investigators, and how to improve as missionaries...and just everything! I love it. That is something about new companions, there is always a lot to learn. I'm not gonna lie though, it was way weird to only have Palmer Shimai for one transfer...so that takes some getting used to. But, change is always exciting!

This weekend there was this broadcast for all of Japan and Elder Chrisofferson spoke (and he talked a little bit about when he came to visit our mission!) and it was just so good!! I loved it!  Plus, one of our investigators (the French speaking one) came all the way to Takamatsu for the conference (a two hour drive) with some of the members, and then was able to hear it in French because there is a French speaking member in Marugame. And I am pretty sure that they were best friends in the pre-earth life because they got along so well. Basically...it was a really amazing weekend of church and stuff.

And then this morning we went on a VERY long run! So, Payne Shimai and I decided to be adventurous and explore the area when we went out to run at 6:30....and we got dreadfully lost in a neighborhood. We ended up running for an hour and had to stop and ask for lots of directions, and we worked together and figured out where we were on the phone map and where our apartment was and we eventually made it back successfully...it just took us an hour of running...and so we were really tired, but we got good exercise in and we had a lot of fun with it!

So....the Lord lives. We can get through anything if we rely on Him. I have learned that more than anything on my mission. Where there is faith, fear will not come.

Much love,
Grundvig Shimai

Being Gurandobiggu Shimai

Helloo!

So somehow it is transfer calls again and I don't really understand how it is transfer calls because they were just here like....three days ago. This has legitimately been the fastest transfer of my life, and I love Palmer Shimai and she is leaving and so that breaks my heart. But, my new companion is named Payne Shimai! Oh and Palmer Shimai is transferring to the Osaka Zone (which was my last zone) into the area right next to Higashi Osaka where she will be a Sister Training Leader! That will probably be the last area of her mission and so that is crazy.

It was a really great week <3 I just really love Tokushima. It is so sunny and beautiful and Island-y and we visit Less Actives and work hard all day and I just really love it a lot!! I am so excited to stay here for another transfer...and hopefully I don't get us too dreadfully lost seeing as I have only been here for six weeks and the ENTIRE KEN is my area and somehow I am supposed to find my way around here on my bike....so that should be fun. But actually, that will be fun :)

Anyway, it was a great week and we did a lot of missionary work and biking and visiting and teaching and all of that fun stuff...but that is not what I am going to write about today. I am going to write about something that I have recently come to terms with in Japan, and that is my name.

When I got my name tag in the MTC it said: Gurandobigu Shimai. When I got to Japan it said; Gurandobihhu Shimai. As I was leaving the Hombu my first day, I was given a new name tag (for free!) because the first one I had received was a mistake. And the new one said: "Gurandobiggu Shimai". So I now had three different name tags, all of them with different names on them as I headed off to Higashi Osaka. When I introduced myself in Higashi Osaka I was met with looks of confusion, and asked to repeat my name at least six billion times, and eventually our ward mission leader gave up and just started calling me "Bigu" Shimai.

So, a quick break down of my name in Japanese -

Gurando + Bigu = extra large. Both words mean "big" and so there was really no good nick name to go by. Ever since I have been in Japan, my name has been met with looks of confusion and a few struggles to pronounce my name, and then after a while...people usually just give up and call me "Shimai" Or my companions name + tachi (the plural for people).

At first, this made me a little sad. I thought about changing my name to a shorter version of "Gurandobiggu" ..but there was not really a good option...gurando or biggu....and I just never actually got around to doing it.

As I became more confident as a missionary, I stopped being embarrassed when people couldn't say my name, and started just smiling along with them and laughing about it and patiently letting people struggle through my name...or just being called my companions name, and it stopped making me feel silly, unnoticed and even more out of place than a blonde girl in Japan already is.

In the past transfer (when I went through the introduction process all over again in Tokushima) I realized something. I realized that although people could not remember what on earth my name was, they remembered who it was that I represented. They remembered that I was a missionary for the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. One thing that I love about being a missionary in Japan is my name tag. They are unique because our names are written twice. Once in English, and once in Japanese. This results in our names being very small, making the largest name on our name tags the name of Jesus Christ.

My name is no longer a nuisance, but a reminder to me that my mission is not about me. It is not about my name or what I make of myself, it is about my Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ.

I am Gurandobiggu Shimai, a representative of Jesus Christ.

"Behold, I am a disciple of Jesus Christ, the Son of God. I have been called of Him to declare His word among His people, that they might have everlasting life."

3 Nephi 5:13

True Discipleship

This week was kind of a sad, happy...just mostly bitter-sweet week. First of all, IT RAINED A TON. IT RAINED SO MUCH. It rained every single day except for Sunday I think, but it was actually really nice because it cooled down a lot...even though I had to wear my rain suit quite a bit. We also had a week of finding! Last week was a week of crazy busy teaching, and so it was definitely a pace change...but it showed me a lot how the Lord is really the one in charge of this work...because we really can't do anything...like ANYTHING without him. And that really includes getting yakusoku with our investigators.

So - finding when we are working with the Less Actives consists of lots and lots of biking to homes all over Tokushima where the Less Actives live. Which we did. And it was really exhausting and a lot of fun! And my watch tan has turned into something crazy.

Sometimes we ride our bikes for three hours up a mountain....and visit less actives...and sometimes the less actives

 aren't there....so we ride our bikes for three hours back down the mountain, hahaha

One miracle this week was when we decided to go visit a less active lady who we taught a lesson to about a month ago. She has been incredibly busy (she is a nurse) and is never really home, but we decided to go visit her anyway. We biked the hour to her house and her car was home! Which was a surprise because usually she is not home on Saturday nights! We were able to meet with her and we told her that we would love to come back with a lady from the ward that she knew before she stopped coming to church. She got really excited about seeing this lady again, and we were able to set up an appointment with her for this week. This was partially amazing because it really goes to show how important it is to work with members. Working with members is just WAY HARD in Japan. I can't speak to them super well, and calling them is scary. And they all have like 600 callings and lots of children and work is busy and Japan is busy and school is busy and so I just never really want to onegai them for anything because they are just so hardworking and BUSY as it is! And they speak Japanese! But, when I just...do it...the Lord blesses us, and blesses the members who have the opportunity to participate in missionary work. (Although, my favorite thing ever is when members come over and ask us if there is anything they can do to help).

Sometimes we have to carry crazy things on our bike!
(Palmer Shimai with Microwave)

We also had a lesson with our 81 year old adorable investigator. She is super crazy and way genki and I love her a lot. She always tells me that I am really tall and that my feet are huge. She came to church on Sunday and the Zinkes were there for our Branch Conference and she was like "HE HAS NO HAIR." And she is just not very sensitive, because she is 81 years old and very genki and crazy, hahaha. She got really cold after sacrament meeting, and because she was cold she was determined that she couldn't stay for the rest of the meeting...so this genki 81 year old obachan just walked home...by herself...so that was little terrifying, but she is pretty fit and active...so we are pretty sure she made it home alright. She also wore a skirt we gave her because she had been all worried about coming to church because she didn't have a skirt. This week we watched finding faith in Christ with her, which worked miracles on her attention span...and really strengthened her understanding of her Savior. So.....I am planning on teaching with lots more visuals and videos with her from now on.... I really wish I could put into this how hilarious she is, but she is really just a lot funnier in Japanese. "KUTSU WA OKIIIIII NE!"

Grundvig Shimai with Zinke Kaicho and
 Zinke Shimai

Also, this week we had ZTM, the Bye Bye Taikai and Shibu Taikai.

All three of which changed my mission and my life in one fail swoop. Those sort of experiences seem to be happening a lot recently. With the Zinke's (Mission President and his wife) going home....I have had a lot of time to reflect on the things that I have learned. And I have also come to the realization that I am very close to half way through my mission. I think I hit the halfway point at some time during this month? And I have been able to think a lot about what I am going to be applying from my mission into my life. There are just so many things.

The mission pillars - the mission theme- of true discipleship has change me so much. My goals in life are just different because I always want to be a true disciple. When our Zone said goodbye to Zinke Kaicho, we got to hear him pray. I had never heard him pray before, but I know I was in tears. Our Zone Leaders were in tears. It was a really powerful experience for all of us. Elder Christofferson said that part of the reason we are sent to certain missions is because of the mission president that we are supposed to have. Zinke Kaicho has changed my life. When he prayed for all of us to all be able to raise "Little true disciples" I kind of had to hold back some laughter, but I also cried a little bit. I think that is what my mission has changed most about me - my understanding of what it is to be a true disciple. I have learned how to really pray, rely on the Lord...petition the Lord....and serve the Lord. Also I will forever be grateful for the Japan Kobe Mission encyclopedia of dendo.

It was a great week! We traveled a lot (to Takamatsu...in the rain...and home for Eikaiwa) but I learned a lot.

Love you all!

Grundvig Shimai

True Disciple - One and All

真の弟子一人と皆

Week 3 Rice Field

Week 4 Rice Field

A blue house and 森

Good Morning!!

It was a crazy busy week in Tokushima. We were unbelievably busy this week because out of no where we had tons of investigators who really wanted to meet with us, and Less Actives that we found....and the Lord just blessed us a lot. We saw so many miracles as we interacted with our investigators and the members and went out and worked everyday.

Sidenote- I am probably going to be in Tokushima for the summer and it is  SO HOT. It is only JUNE. And it was still May last week and it got over 100 degrees. (in the 30s for C). It was so hot. I almost melted off of my bike.

Anyway, we had an amazing experience with prayer earlier on in the week. There was a less active man that we were trying to find and we could just not find his house ANYWHERE. We didn't really have very much to go on because the only thing that we knew was that it was behind a Tokushima Ramen Shop...and in case anyone was wondering...there are kind of a plethora of ramen shops in Japan. Finally, we decided to say a prayer because we didn't have that much time left before we had a teaching appointment with a Less Active lady. We said a prayer to know where he lived. In the prayer, Palmer Shimai posed a series of questions: "Does he live in a house or an apartment? What color is the house? What way do we turn from the main street? What is the konji on the house?" With each of her questions, a very clear answer would come to my mind. We finished the prayer and she said that she had thought of the konji for "North" and that he lived in a house. I had felt that he lived in a blue house, left from the main street and that the konji on the nameplate was mori. We went back to the main street, found a street that had the konji for North on it, turned left and saw a blue house with the konji for mori (forest) on it. 森. No one was home. We committed to return and visit later (which we still haven't had time to do...) and left for our teaching appointment. During our teaching appointment we were talking about prayer, and the Sister we were meeting with expressed her doubts about receiving answers for prayers. Our experience came to my mind, and I shared it with her. The spirit was SO strong as I testified of the power of prayer and that the Lord will answer us if we ask for His help. She teared up a little bit and committed to continue meeting with us. She talked about how she had not thought about the things we talked about with her for a long time, and that she had not felt the feelings that she felt with us in a long time....

I may not know if that less active man lives in the blue house with the Konji for Mori on it...but I do know that the Lord gave us that experience, that tender revelation, so that we could share a powerful experience and testimony with a Sister who needed to hear that God will answer her prayers. He does so regularly. He did it for us that day.

We also had an amazing doseki lesson when we taught our investigator from Indonesia (who has the best Japanese ever. I was so impressed. I was expecting his Japanese to be easy to understand...I was wrong...hahaha) but, his boss called him during the lesson and told him that he couldn't have Sunday off. Our investigator begged to keep his off day on Sunday so that he could go to church. His boss very flatly said no. できない！今日会話だめですよ！といいました. It was super intense. After the phone call our investigator was like...I promise I want to come to church...but as you just saw....my boss....is a little hantai. So our Doseki was just on FIRE. And threw down like none other! This woman was just baptized less than a year ago and she was like: "I wanted to take that phone and yell at your boss- but you know what? If you have faith you will be able to come to church. If you pray, the Lord will soften his heart, and you will be able to come to church." Our investigator kind of laughed and she was like: "No. Really." And retestified and then we retestified and the spirit just testified of all of us and this amazing Indonesian man was like Ok YA! It was just the best moment ever and I loved this member more than anything after that lesson. She will definitely be doseking for us again hahaha.

Anyway....those are just a few of the experiences that we had this week! I hope everything is wonderful in America.

Love,
Grundvig Shimai

From Experience

こんにちわ皆さん！いつも愛していますよ！

私の新堂よと徳島が大好きですよう！いつも徳島に住みたいです！でも、たぶん私和いつか転勤し中ればなりません。

My current companion will sometimes send her weekly emails home, entirely in Japanese because her family can read them...and that just takes way too much time and I would die. So I think that two sentences will suffice. The above says: "Hello everyone! I love you all! I love my new companion and Tokushima! I want to live here forever, but I will eventually transfer." Or at least that is what I tried to say...who really ever knows! It is all Japanese! 

This week was SO amazing. We had the most packed preparation day of our entire lives last week and I was exhausted by the end of it. We went hiking in the morning, biked to email, went shopping at daiso, we need more daiso's in the United States. いつか. And then we went to this cultural center place where we watched awadori, which is the traditional dance on Shikoku and I love it. 

Awadori - the dance that Shikoku is known for. I wish I could send home the video it is legit

The Cake that we "made" for Palmer Shimai's birthday

 English is becoming hard. I just proof-read the prior paragraphs and made quite a few corrections. 

After our packed preparation day, full of biking and tons of fun we went and visited a less active lady who talked to us for about 45 minutes! She was super sweet and invited us to come back, so we are visiting her again tomorrow! It was an insanely busy week. We had a few days where we were gone for the entire day - leaving our apartment at 8 in the morning and not coming back until 9 at night, completely exhausted, slightly tanner and maybe a little bit sunburned and very sweaty. We were able to teach quite a few lessons this week and I just love all of our investigators with all of my heart. Our French investigator this week asked us when she could be baptized, we don't think that she really understands a lot of what we say though...so we are going to continue teaching her at a slow pace to make sure that she really understands why she wants to be baptized. I talked to one of the Elders (the french one from Canada) in my doki this weekend at the Christofferson Taikai (Conference, Elder Christofferson ) and he told me that he could get me some French teaching materials, like the chart, in French, so that was a life saver. 

On Sunday we had a lesson with a girl who has come to a few activities at the church with us, but had not actually become an investigator yet. Basically I love her and she is completely 金人 there is no doubt in my mind about that. I love her so much. We taught her that she is a daughter of God and a little bit about prayer and she asked the most amazing questions. She took notes throughout the three hours of church and made a ton of friends and by some miracle, her off day of work is Sunday. I love this girl. She wanted to know how to pray and if we keep a pray in our minds all the time. She was a little bit confused about why we don't pray to mountains and stuff...but we explained it pretty well. She asked us about experiences that we had had where God protected us, and we both shared experiences from our missions thus far about times when the spirit had warned us of danger, or protected us from crazy drivers while we are biking hahahhaha. 

Some of the highlights of this week were the taikai with Elder Christofferson and one of my follow ups with my zone leaders. Basically, I just really love follow ups. I get to hear amazing stories and miracles from my leaders and they are super inspiring and all of my zone leaders have just been the most inspiring people ever. Anyway, I was talking to one of our zone leaders and he told me about a guy who walked into the church while they were studying and he is going to be baptized soon. Basically, this guy was studying to be a monk or something like that and then the leader of his little shinto sect was on his dying bed and shared this secret with him that he had known his whole life. So the secret was that Christ was really the leader of this shinto religion but they had called him by a different name and so no one knew that Christ was this religions leader, and this little monk guy on his death bed was like: "The truth is in Christ....." or something like that. So then this man began his search for truth and walked into the church while the elders were studying! He was telling me the story and I was like.....this is the craziest thing I have ever heard in my life, but it is so cool.....miracles happen. The Lord sends the people that are searching for truth to us!

And then the Elder Christofferson Taikai. Oh my goodness I just loved it so much. I felt like I prepared myself really well spiritually for this taikai because I did not want to miss anything. I felt like I did not spiritually prepare myself well enough for General Conference and so I did not receive all of the revelation that I could have, had I gone into the conference with a more willing heart and more humility.  So I have been keeping this conference in my prayers for the past...month or so...and I fasted before it and prepared a lot of questions. Every single one of my questions was answered and the spirit was SO strong. It was one of the most amazing experiences of my life. It was so neat to be gathered with the entire mission in Ibaraki right before Zinke Kaicho and Zinke Shimai (mission President and his wife) go home. They have been so AMAZING...it was so good for them to see the whole mission all together. I have never seen all of the missionaries so well behaved either...but everyone was super quiet and serious and reverent and it was amazing. Pretty much, everyone was there like two hours early and spiritually preparing. We traveled for an entire day, and stayed overnight in Sekime (in Osaka) before the conference and then woke up at 5 am to make it on time. He spoke so powerfully and left an amazing blessing upon the mission. It was beyond words to shake hands with an apostle of the Lord, with a man whose testimony caused the room to essentially catch on fire with a vibrant spirit. And if this mans testimony could make Zinke Kaicho cry (I never thought I would see Zinke Kaicho cry, but he definitely did as he bore testimony to us). And Zinke Shimai cried too. I can't imagine how they feel leaving...because basically I just cry whenever I think about them leaving. Christofferson Choro said that this taikai was the Lord's way of thanking the Zinke's for their amazing service, it was His way of telling them that they have done all they can and done His will. He told us that the Lord sees us as worthy, that we are obedient and that we will see miracles here because we are true disciples of our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ. There is nothing quiet like getting that confirmation from an apostle of the Lord. His testimony of the Savior was amazing. I noticed two words that he used in particular that I just loved: "I know that Christ lives. I know that He is our Savior. From confirmation and from experience, Jesus Christ is our Redeemer...." 

This weekend was amazing. This week was amazing. And it went by way too fast. Somehow the transfer is nearing its halfway point....and I don't really know how because it just barely started....

Oh and I also translated Sacrament meeting again. And then I had to translate Sunday School. My Japanese is improving and the gift of tongues is real because I can understand Japanese and I don't really know when on earth that happened. And sometimes I can even speak Japanese which is craziness.

Have a great week!

Grundvig Shimai

 I have decided that I am going to take a picture of this rice field every single week on preparation day so that you can see how much time is really passing based upon the growth of the rice. I hope that you enjoy. Unfortunately I forgot to take the picture last preparation day, so this was on Thursday. But I remembered today! Thus the following picture

 

Basically those pictures looked exactly the same.....but.....there will be slow but sure differences throughout the weeks hahahah.

おいしい祖 ("It's Delicious")

I am really sorry, because I don't have very much time at all to write this email....but it was an amazing week!

I sent a ton of pictures that basically describe my week in a nutshell. We did so much! We visited tons of less actives, and most of them weren't home..but we did teach one totsuzen less active lesson this week. And it went really well so that was good :) 

We taught our French investigator from the Congo and she is the sweetest, most beautiful person ever. (Basically I think that about all of my investigators though). Also, we had a lesson with our 80 year old おばちゃん (Aunt) I love her. She is hilarious. She likes to randomly start singing songs about the United States in English during our lessons. 

Some highlights of the week!

I ate sushi roll! It was delicious. I love Sushi Roll with all of my heart and I would like lots of Sushi Roll restaurants to open up in Virginia. Because I love them.

I ate sushi roll for the first time and it is my new favorite food ever. I love sushi so much 

Also, we hiked a mountain at 5 am this morning. We hiked down the mountain with these two old men who were hilarious and kept taking pictures of us.

My Beautiful Tokushima area

Hello Sunrise!

Early morning hike to the top of a mountain

A stop during our Hike

We had a branch carnival on Saturday. I loved it. This branch is so cute and fun and there are so many KIDS! They are all crazy and we had an apple bobbing contest and somehow they all managed to get themselves completely soaked from head to toe while bobbing for apples.

At the way fun branch carnival on Saturday!! 

I translated Church again yesterday. There were two American speakers so it was significantly easier and my translation was more accurate. 

I love Tokushima! 

I am sorry that this email is so short! 

Much love,
Grundvig Shimai

p.s. We biked to the zoo last preparation day and I got very sunburned. :) 

Last preparation day we went to the zoo!! 

Palmer Shimai and Grundvig Shimai at the Tokushima Zoo

The Bird Cage at Zoo

East Osaka to Virtue Island!

I LOVE TOKUSHIMA AND PALMER SHIMAI! MY new area is amazing and my new companion is also amazing and I don't understand why people don't like serving on Shikoku because it is the most beautiful place on the planet earth. Ok, maybe I understand a little bit why people don't completely love serving on Shikoku...but only because we are kind of just our only little piece of the mission. The missionaries that are on Shikoku tend to stay on Shikoku for a long time...and I got here...and I had no idea who anyone was. I am emailing on Tuesday this week because we had a zone taikai yesterday, and it was a strange experience to arrive...and know absolutely no one in my zone. Or have even heard of any  of the missionaries in my zone. My current companion has been on Shikoku for all of her mission except for her first transfer, and so before coming here, no one really knew who she was, and she has never heard of a lot of the new missionaries...but basically she is an amazing missionary and she is really good at Japanese and she is really Christ-like and I just love her to pieces. Also, Tokushima is like a painting. It is basically what I had imagined when I thought of Japan, and it is not even that Inaka! It is a good mix of city and country and it is gorgeous. 

Tokushima Rice Field

  

The Less Active work is actually starting to wind down on Shikoku, because they started first, and so I don't know how much of the less active work I will actually get to do...but my companion is very experienced with it because she has already been doing less active work for about five months, and so that is very nice. Yesterday at the zone taikai, Zinke Shimai asked the Shikoku missionaries for help on how to train the rest of the mission for working with less actives....and I felt very useless...because I wasn't here for any of the work that they have been doing, but it was really neat to hear about all of the miracles and experiences from Shikoku that started the less active work for the rest of the mission. No one has really left Shikoku for the past 4 transfers because of the Less Active work, or really come onto Shikoku, so basically....it is pretty weird to have just transferred here. I think only me and one other missionary came from the mainland to Shikoku this transfer and we both were feeling pretty out of the loop! On Shikoku both the Elders and the Sisters have been doing less active work, so it is definitely different dendo!

Anyway, so a little bit more about Tokushima! My area is the ENTIRE PREFECTURE. I don't know if I spelled that right, but, basically it is HUGE. ALL of the areas on Shikoku are huge. Travel takes FOREVER and it is expensive. I was so spoiled in Higashi Osaka and I didn't even know it. Yesterday I had to wake up at 5 to get to our Zone Meeting....and we took a two hour train just to get to the area next to us! And then we had to rent bikes because the church is so far from the eki. It was the craziest travel experience of my life. In Higashi Osaka, we could bike to the next area in about 15 minutes. The Elders in the area next to us (who I met at the taikai yesterday) did a marathon bike trip and biked 100 miles in one day to go visit a less active. (These elders have the biggest area in the mission). I think my area might be the second biggest). I have biked more here in the past three days than I probably have in my entire mission, but I love biking so it is ok. Also my watch tan and other weird tan lines are ridiculous. Oh and it is SO HOT on Shikoku. And it is only May! The summer here might actually kill me. My first long day of biking and visiting less actives in Tokushima...I got a flat tire! So we had to walk my bike to the nearest bike shop...which was FAR and then we got home rather late. It has been a pretty crazy first few days, but my companion is a champ so it is ok :) The apartment is really nice, and it is right in between two rice fields. I think I have seen like...one rice field my entire mission. But I have seen SO many rice fields in the past few days. The frogs go crazy in the rice fields at night, and so it was really hard to sleep my first night here. Tokushima is beautiful and it is an entirely different feel than the Osaka Zone was. The air is cleaner, the sun is brighter....and it feels so PURE! Which is fitting.

Rice Field next to our Apartment

Oh random cool thing about Tokushima! So Toku means virtue and Shima means island! So my current area is called Virtue Island! I love it!

The investigators here are amazing. I love them already. I have only met a few of them....but they are wonderful. We have a few investigators from the Congo. And we have an 80 year old obachan who is the cutest little genki grandma ever. I love her so much. She is so cute. She told me I was pretty and then she got really worried that I wouldn't understand the word pretty. It was hilarious. The branch is HUGE. It is way bigger than my ward was in Higashi Osaka which doesn't really make a lot of sense. We had 91 people at church on Sunday. In Higashi Osaka we would maybe have around 40 every week. I am super stoked to get to know them better. There is a guy in our ward who just moved here from Michigan, and so my companion has to translate church for him. On Sunday we had our investigator who is from the Congo  (she is this tall, beautiful African woman who mostly just speaks French and a tiny bit of Japanese and a tiny bit of English....) so on Sunday I had to translate sacrament meeting into English for her. MY BRAIN ALMOST DIED. The gift of tongues is real because there is just no way in the entire world I could have ever done that without the power of God, because usually I barely understand sacrament meeting myself. But, this week I understood almost all of it...and I was able to translate it. When I realized I was going to need to translate, I was basically just completely terrified...but when I would hear words that I wouldn't know, somehow the translation would just pop into my brain. It was a miracle. Where there is a need, the Lord provides a way.

We have already seen a lot of miracles in Tokushima! Between people just calling us on the phone and asking to meet with us, meeting less actives on their doorsteps and singing them hymns, to finding lost apartments through the power of prayer. We even had a lady walk up to us while we were outside exercising and ask if we were Mormon Missionaries, and then invite us over to her house for a later visit. It was pretty exciting. I love Tokushima. It is beautiful, the ward is wonderful, biking is fun, rice fields full of frogs are noisy.....and the summer is HOT.

I hope that everyone has a great week!!

Much Love,

Grundvig Shimai

Oh P.S. I should probably write a little bit about my last week in Higashi Osaka...it was basically the best and worst thing ever! I was so sad to leave Cain Shimai and my investigators...but I only cried like a tiny little bit and I don't think anyone noticed maybe? But, I got to say goodbye to some of my most favorite members and lots of people fed us delicious food and gave me presents and I felt really loved. But, my suitcases are going to have a hard time making it back to the United States probably. Also, we met some wonderful less actives who were excited to meet with us and that was great. I didn't get to say goodbye to my 16 year old investigator and so my heart cried but she promised that she would write me....which is wonderful...but I mostly won't be able to read that hahaha. Also! I got to see Daniels Shimai and Violette Shimai at transfers and it was the happiest reunion of my life and I love them with all of my heart  

Leaving Higashi Osaka