Pictures from Nakagawa

Children in the local congregation!  Super cute!

Morning hike in Nakagawa, my new area, with Sister Crump.

Red arches along the path.

Our morning hike!  Beautiful!

Sister Crump, my new companion, and I in Nakagawa.

Children in Japan…so friendly!

A sword fight with a boy we met while knocking on doors,  I lost!

Saying goodbye to sweet Sister Williams.  A sad day!

Happy Halloween!

Sorry I did not write earlier... We live so far away from the church now that the mission president gave us special permission to email on a different day than our Preparation day.  Typically we will email Tuesday, but this week we had mission leadership conference and then Sister Owada, my Sister Training Leader companion, and I were super busy running to and fro doing trainings for the two zones that we just barely had enough free time to hop on the computer and email! 

Let me tell you a little bit about my new area.  It's really interesting.  We have MONKEYS!  Seriously though.  Blue butt monkeys!  We live in the Jungle.  It's a cute little place.  It takes us about an hour on our bikes to get to the church.  Luckily no hills, but it is a long way.  Lots of good exercise.  I will send pictures.  I like my new companion, Sister Crump.  We have lots of fun together.  She is great at directions, so she really is heaven sent.  I am getting lost more often than ever.  We have kind of been starting from scratch, but we had two really neat experiences that I wanted to quickly share with you.

We have the cutest high school student who is currently investigating the church.  I got to meet her for the first time this week at Eikaiwa and we taught her a lesson before English class started.  We talked a little bit about the Plan of Salvation and where she has been reading in the Book of Mormon.  I was beyond shocked when she told me that she had read 10 chapters in 1 Nephi since the week before.  She asked wonderful questions and then shared her testimony with us about the peace she feels when she reads even though she might not understand 100 % of the context.  I was pretty much in shock at this point after our investigator said that.  That has got to be a first on my mission.  Especially coming from someone so young.  Then when we finished the lesson I asked her if she had any questions for the church member who joined us in the lesson.  Yuki Chan sat for a minute and then said, "So the sisters mentioned Baptism in the last lesson and I didn't understand it at all.  What is it?"  Our member did a wonderful job of explaining what Baptism is and the meaning behind it.  I asked Yuki Chan if when she felt that what we had taught was true and the God really does live and this is Christ's church would she be baptized... She said yes!  We set a date with her for November 29th.  That girl was just so excited about the whole thing too.  I asked her after the lesson how she felt and she just beamed and said she felt great and wanted to feel like that all the time.  I love seeing that happiness in our Investigators lives.  It is just priceless! 

Lastly, Sister Owada and I due to scheduling problems had the opportunity to work together a lot this week.  We were out housing and no one was super willing to listen to us.  We stopped and prayed and looked at our watches.  We had about 2 more minutes before we had to go home, so we decided to house one more door.  We knocked and a young 21 year old came out and started talking to us.  We talked to her about Christ and she just burst in to tears.  She said that she was at home with her 6 month old daughter and was having a hard time all day.  She kept remembering her nice Christian neighbor who she used live next door to.  But the girl we were talking to had just moved from Kita Kyushu about a month before and had no family or friends close by.  When we knocked on her door she said she felt like it was destiny.  She invited us in and we got to meet her daughter.  It was absolutely wonderful.  Owada Shimai (Sister Owada) and I practically floated home.  I know that God answers prayers.  And most of the time those prayers are answered through other people.  Especially this Sunday when I went to church. I was so nervous!  I felt like a brand new missionary again and there were so many new faces and names to memorize, at the same time I tried to figure out who was our investigator and who was a member.  I don't think I have ever had so many people come up to me and give me a hug or tell me how happy they were to see me even though they didn't know anything about me.  Tender mercies! 

I love you all!   Have a wonderful week!

Hawkins Shimai

Mission leadership training….Sister Leader Trainers and Zone leaders

Our mission president's wife, Sister Gustafson

Saying goodbye to Sister missionaries who are finishing their missions.

Working in Kurume.

I am transferring to a new area!

I`m transferring!  We just got the call today.  I will be going to Nakagawa.  It is in the Fukuoka Prefecture.  It is a new area that they are opening and I will be a Sister Training Leader there with Ogada Shimai (a super, cute Japanese girl).  She will be my Sister Training Leader companion over the 2 zones we will be helping.  My normal day to day companion will be Sister Crump.  A relatively new missionary.  She was in Nagasaki a transfer ago so I know who she is.  I am SO sad to be leaving.  I love Sister Williams and I have ABSOLUTELY loved Kurume.  I was quite upset to leave Okinawa, but I just cannot believe how quickly I have come to love Kurume.  I am so grateful I had the chance to work here.  It is so hard to leave somewhere when you have invested so much into it.  So many hours of labor and love have gone into these streets.  I love these people.  I love this area.  I have grown to love it and now I don`t know if I can stand to leave it.  When I first got here I never thought that I would be sad to leave.... we had no investigators and it was a dead area.  But now as I think about our investigators... I start to loose it.  I love them.  They are so much fun to teach!  I am learning so much from them.  Nakagawa will be great I am sure of it.  But I am so so sad to leave.  

This week was just wonderful... I want to tell you about two lessons really quick!

• Our totally cute Chinese investigator!  He is adorable.  20 something and just so smart.  My Chinese is horrible, but with our investigator it all works out.  He is fluent in Japanese and Chinese and his English is not half bad either.  We stopped by to teach him this week and his roommate was there.  Normally with college age students that means talking about religion is not OK.  But he was great!  He invited his roommate to come listen to us (awesome missionary!).  The friend had a close Christian friend in China and had even prayed once before so he was a great asset.  We taught about God.  Something neither of them had particularly thought about.  I just love teaching about God!  Religion doesn't have to be used just as a Bandaid when something goes wrong.  It is the source from which we can constantly receive strength, guidance, peace and assurance from during ANYTIME of our life, wonderful or horrible as it may be.  When we taught about prayer both of them kneeled down with us in their genkkan (entry way) and we said a prayer.  It was just the neatest thing.  The spirit was definitely there and even though it was a strange mixture of English, Japanese and Chinese I am sure Heavenly Father got it :)
• Lastly, one of our friends from Eikaiwa (English class):  He is a great guy and has a cute family of four kids.  He has been letting us practice the lessons with him.  He is a huge help and we love teaching him.  He always has great questions and reads the Book of Mormon thoroughly.  He is great!  We had a lesson with him last week.  The Plan of Salvation.  It was a really neat lesson.  It just is so applicable to each of our lives.  And as we taught I could really feel the spirit.  Just peace and happiness as we talked about eternal families and where we go after we die.  I think death, especially in some cultures is viewed as really scary and as the stopping point.  When we talk to people on the street about the after life they just shake their heads and say they don't know.  A majority also say that if they could live with their family eternally even after they die that they would love it.  That is what the Plan of Salvation is about! And our Eikaiwa friend really liked it.  I have felt the very real peace that comes with the knowledge of the plan of salvation.  What you don`t know is naturally scary but when you come to know, when you learn, study and pray about what the Bible and Book of Mormon teaches it is a huge source of peace.  It was a great lesson and really fun to teach.  Our friend even called us afterwards.  Said that he already had read the 3 chapters we had assigned him in the Book of Mormon and wanted to know if we could teach him "for real" not just for practice, that he wanted to learn :)  

I am excited for these next six weeks.  I don`t know what I am more sad about.... that I am transferring and leaving all these people I love and pray for in Kurume or that the next six weeks are my last that I have on my mission.  Words cannot describe how grateful I am to have served in Kurume.  It has strengthened my testimony that the Lord has people prepared to hear the gospel everywhere.  I know that God lives.  That He knows us and our situations.  He hears our prayers and knows our hearts.  And most importantly He loves us.  One of my favorite scriptures is in Acts 17:27 That they should seek the Lord, if haply they might feel after him, and find him, though he be not far from every one of us:  If we seek God we will find Him, for He is not far from everyone of us.  I know that this is true.  

I love you guys.  Have a wonderful week.  P.S.  Please pray for me :)  Rumor has it that Nakagawa is pretty darn cold in the winter time.  I am still living from my Okinawan "winter" closet :)  It will be a fun 6 weeks!  :)  Poor Crump Shimai (Sister Crump) has no idea what she is getting :)

Love you!

Hawkins Shimai

Typhoons!

They thought the typhoon would be as bad as the one they had in the Philippines so they put us all in "lock down" ;).  Don't worry, we filled up the tub and all of the tea containers we are given during our daily dendo (teaching) adventures with water and we went shopping ahead of time so we wouldn't starve.  It was probably a good thing we didn't go outside Monday.  It was super windy and rainy, the weather overall was just nasty... but we kept power and the Mission President was kind enough to let us move our preparation day from Monday to Tuesday.  Hence I am writing to you a little late.  

Transfers are not until next week.  Exactly a week from today we will get the transfer calls.  I never realized until going on a mission how NERVE RACKING transfer calls are!  Especially on your last transfer.  You get a random phone call that tells you who and where you will be living for the next 6 weeks.  And two days later you are gone!  Williams Shimai (Sister Williams) and I want to "kick the bucket" -so to speak- together, but we'll see how it goes.  11 transfers teaches you that guessing the next transfer call is useless.  Crossing our fingers!  Although, I can tell you I am not sure I am ready for America.  Looks like skinny jeans are still in and I walked in to a sports depot today for bike stuff and I didn't recognize a SINGLE song!  They were all American songs too!  Culture shock is coming...

Sister Williams and I just got back from teaching Otosan (dad).  I just love him.  It went really well.  I was SO nervous.  His baptismal date is coming up and trying to reverse 70 plus years of habits in a foreign language is not simple.  But he has so much faith.  We brought a member with us today that was just incredible.  Members do so much!  As a young 20 year old I know that the church is true and I know that God lives and I know that commandments are for our good.... but when the testimony of a "normal" person (... a member) backs that up it goes so much smoother.  Otosan is quiting tea starting today and Williams Shimai (Sister Williams) and I will be finding some great substitutes for coffee. :) 

On the way back on the train (that we sprinted to make :) we talked with two cute elementary school girls that came and sat down by us.  They were convinced Sister Williams and I were twins. :)  Something about companions makes you end up becoming one.  

The rest of this week in a flash (so much happens!):

• Otosan told us that he got an answer from God through his prayers!  He said that although he has been Buddhist his whole life he has come to find a special amount of peace through prayer and scripture study of the Book of Mormon.  He then looked at us weird (probably because we usually cannot stop talking and this time we were in shock) and said "lets pick a baptism date!" We reminded him that he already had picked a date.  He laughed and replied "oh yeah"! Regardless he is pretty excited. 
• Our Eikaiwa (free English class) is coming to life!  Class sizes have doubled and I became the kids teacher (probably because my English is the most sketchy).  
• Winter is apparently the time for new ice cream flavors to come out in Japan.  Sister Williams and I are pretty happy missionaries! 
• Getting lost and getting directions from a little 7 year old girl (we were desperate!) went housing around the same area the next day and we met that same little girls mother!  It was a total miracle!  She was about to shut the door, but asked if we had talked to her daughter the day before.  After some deep thinking (24 hrs is a long time) we realized we did and we got to teach a great lesson!  ALWAYS ask for directions!  
• I love Asian Pears!  
• Found two solid new investigators this week!  A Filipino college student and a Chinese man.  We teach them both in Japanese.  :)  So fun!

And of course General Conference!  We got to watch it this week and it was SO wonderful!  Thanks mom for letting me know that Elder Bednar`s talk was awesome.  Our investigator came and only had 20 minutes before he had to leave for work so we just pulled up Elder Bednar`s talk and let him listen to it.  Problem was it was in Chinese so I didn't know what it was talking about (a little nerve racking!) But when we watched it after he left I was grateful for your input!  Good job Mom :)  

So sorry that was a lot!  I am just SO SO SO happy!  :)  I know this work is true.  I love it.  It`s the best thing I could be doing with my life right now.  I am grateful for this opportunity that I have to share the message that means so very much to me with my brothers and sisters in Japan.  I am a lucky missionary! 

Have a wonderful week! I love you! 

Hawkins Shimai 

Hitting my stride :)

I'm just so HAPPY!　I feel like I'm hitting my stride (knock on wood).  Squatter toilets, eating eel and dried eel bones (a first that happened this week.  I recommend it!), riding through wind, rain, typhoons, popping tires, teaching lessons and loving missionary life.  Remember in the movie Cast Away when the man comes back and can`t sleep on a bed and instead sleeps on the floor?  That just might be me pretty soon.  A lot happened this week, there always is.  But all I can remember is the lesson we just taught this morning (haven't had a real preparation day (the day that missionaries use to buy groceries, do their laundry,clean etc.)  in MONTHS.  But I I can't complain if you get the wonderful opportunity of teaching lessons!)

Fukuoka, Nagasaki, and Yamaguchi zones in the Fukuoka mission.

Sister Williams and I have the cutest investigator ever.  He is in his 70's and was a referral from his daughter who is a member of the church.  She was back in Japan visiting a couple of months ago and introduced us.  The daughter went back home but we continued to teach him.  He has Parkinson's Disease and when we first met him Sister Williams and I were in shock.  He was just downright depressed.  There was no light in that man.  When we taught he laid on the floor totally incoherent and not participating.  We semi-willingly continued going.  He lives about an hour away by train, but we decided to give it a couple more shots.  A couple of months have passed since that first visit and having just gotten back from teaching "Otosan" (we call him dad).  And little by little he has been changing.  He is Buddhist (most people are here) and we had to beg him to read the Book of Mormon.  Some how he did and he got his hands on Liahona Magazine talks and General Conference editions of the Liahona and fell in love with studying.  Otosan, who was so depressed because he couldn't walk and couldn't contribute to his community or family, began to open up!  When Williams Shimai and I heard him laugh the first time we were in shock.  He is just the cutest old man ever!  Day by day he has been praying.  When Sister Williams and I first asked him to pray for us we were really surprised.  It was one of the most sincere, heart felt prayers I have ever heard (or even said!).  He most definitely speaks with God.  Little things like reading the Book of Mormon and praying, coming to church and testing his faith have brought about a NOTICEABLE change in him.  His daughter sees it via skype, his wife sees it as well and Sister Williams and I most certainly see it.  It has been an absolute privilege to teach him.  A little trying, it's taken a lot of patience and encouragement, but it has been the neatest transformation I have ever seen.  The gospel of Jesus Christ changes people.  It enables each and every one of us to lift ourselves up and out of bad places; be it physical or mental.  Otosan is a changed man.  Today we got on the train and visited him.  We had left him with some reading to do from the Book of Mormon and the Liahona (a church magazine printed in many foreign languages) we gave him.  And when we asked him how the reading went he just lit up.  He explained to us that there are a lot of similarities between Buddhism and Christianity, lots of the truths are the same.  However, he has felt the peace that comes from Christianity and that is something that in 70 years has not come to him.  He said he has been really sick lately, not able to walk at all.  But he has never been so happy.  He said he got his answer... he wants to be baptized!  To have Otosan come to that conclusion by himself was really incredible.  But we still had to teach the lesson we had prepared.  We taught the principle of tithing.... dun dun dun :)  It's a little bit tricky.  But we taught it and Otosan just laughed (still not sure why, but that should be a good sign, right?).  He said 10% to give to God is kind of high, but he would pray about it.  I can't adequately describe the lesson, but every time we shared a scripture, told a personal experience and/or testified he would just nod his head and grunt and then say something along the lines of "Well I guess if that is what God wants me to do..."  If we had taught that lesson when we first had met him he would have kicked us out of the door faster than we could have said "amen".  But his faith is so, so much stronger that I have ever seen it.  He wasn't willing to just take our word about tithing, but he was more than willing to ask God and that is all that matters.  I love him!  Please pray for Otosan :)  

Lots of other stuff this week, but that is just what stands out to me the most!  I love you all!  Have a great week.  Good Luck! 

Hawkins Shimai

An open house

This week was AWESOME!  The biggest news this week was the church open house we put on.  Our mission president asked all of the areas in our mission to put on an open house to give our members opportunities to invite their friends.  It was a busy week preparing for it and following up with our members to see what help they needed in inviting their friends.  Finally Saturday morning came around and Williams Shimai (Sister Williams) and I were running around like mad "men" trying to get the finger prints off the walls and get things looking presentable.  The more I am out on my mission the more I realize I am becoming my mother. It was mainly the missionaries putting on the open house, so Sister Williams and I would be biking around the city when I would spot some flowers and then I would insist that on our morning run we would come back to that place so we could sneakily snip some for our open house.  Even stole curtains from our apartment for table clothes :)  One of my only memories of selling our house in Texas was mom baking cookies and going throughout every room in the house so the smell of freshly baked cookies would penetrate every corner of the house.  Well, no ovens in Japan meant that was hard, but boiled vanilla worked just as well (Thanks mom!)  :)  The tours went really well.  Lots of members brought their friends and the spirit was way strong.  Before I transferred from Okinawa they had just completed the largest church building in Asia on that island.  It was BEAUTIFUL!  There were seven HUGE bathrooms!  Seven!  I would get lost constantly.  Coming from a new building like that to our modest little chapel that has just a handful of pictures and only the bare minimum had me wondering if people would be as willing to stick around.  Of course :)  The spirit we felt in that chapel this Saturday was so wonderful.  It was peaceful.  It didn't matter what our walls looked like or what language we had just given the tour in.  I have seen the spirit work miracles in the lives of the people we teach.  It is something you can actually see.  The open house was a huge success.  I was so grateful!  The flowers did look great though :)  

I LOVE you!  I am having so much fun.  Lessons, biking, finding, adventures, sushi, WASABI, lessons and finding those who are prepared to hear the greatest message in the world  :)  It's a blast! 

I hope you all have a wonderful week!  Good luck!  頑張ってね!

Hawkins Shimai

A new experience!

This week was a great week!  Lots of first time experiences...  I had an experience that I imagine a South American serving missionary might have.  Sister Williams and I knocked on a door and a family of four, mom dad, daughter and son (about 8 year old and 2 year old) opened the door.  That is pretty neat in and of itself because most apartments have what we call "kekko boxes", a nice black video box where people say "no" so they never have to open the door.  This family opens up the door and they are adorable.  Philippine mother and Japanese father and these two cute kids.  We explained who we were and why we were in Japan and invited them to hear more.  They said they would like to hear about God and Jesus Christ.  Wow!  So that was pretty cool, but it gets better.  No one in my entire 16 months has ever let us teach them the same day.  They are always too busy so we make a return appointment usually for the next couple of days.  So we asked them if we could come back a different day and teach them.  They asked us if we could teach them right now and to be honest I wasn't really sure what to say.  "You mean right now?"  "Yeah is that OK?"  Umm.... yes!!!!!  Of course!  WHAT?  I am really happy about it now, but at the moment I was just in shock.  Then they invited us INSIDE their HOUSE.....!  THEIR HOUSE!  We typically teach lessons either at the church or on people's door step.  We are invited into someone`s home once out of every 40 times someone actually agrees to listen.  I can count on my hands how many times I have gone in to someone's house on the FIRST time we've met them.  It was way cool.  So we just walked in and TAUGHT A LESSON.  Like with an opening prayer and everything.  I didn't know what to do.  It was great :)  They said it was alright if we came back and their little girl said the closing prayer.  It was a pretty great night :)

"Otosan" (Dad) our investigator, came to church with his wife this week!  My bike was fixed!  (Just a minor wreck mom don't worry) And we are having a blast teaching, teaching and doing lots of teaching :)  I feel so blessed!  I know this message is true.  The hope and peace that comes into people's lives as they learn and live the commandments and gospel is real and it is recognizable in the lives of our investigators here in Japan.  I love it here!  I don't know if I will be able to come home :)  

Love you!

Hawkins Shimai

Learning Patience

Practicing my Japanese poses!

Cockroaches….yuck!

This week was interesting :)  The following story pretty much sums up the last 16 months of my life:

• We stopped a girl in her 20s on the street the other day and started talking to her about God.  As we were talking to her, I asked her some questions to get to know her better.  I asked if she was "大学生" (a college student) and she said "no".  Then I asked her if she was "社会人” (a working person) and she said "no".  Those are basically the only two options in Japan so I just looked at her a little dumb founded and she said a word Sister Williams and I both didn't understand and we figured she was talking about a different kind of trade school and her major.  So naturally we did what any 2 missionaries do when they don't perfectly speak the language and we faked it.  Typically we say "WOW" or "you are so smart"!  Luckily this time Williams Shimai (Sister Williams) just spit out an "us too!".  We carried on with the conversation.  We got back home and decided to look up that word... It means "college drop out" or that you "failed to get in to a university".  Luckily we didn't say "wow you are so smart!"  I am guessing she probably wouldn't have made a return appointment with us.  Everyday is an adventure here. 

This week was transfers!  Sister Williams and I got our transfer call.  We are both staying in Kurume for another transfer.  We were both SO excited to hear that.  It has been a blast and we work really well together.  We are excited to have another 6 weeks of fun, craziness and miracles.  

• This week was kind of crazy.  Lots of running around to and from appointments which was absolutely wonderful.  We had a surprising amount of member referrals which was incredible.  It is a little difficult to work here because people do not have a great image of religion.  Out of 150 contacts in a week probably 60 of them are immediate "結構” (rejections).  I am learning patience.  A lot of it!  It is so hard for me to just smile and keep going.  I love this message!  I believe it with my whole heart.  I just want people to feel the same happiness and joy that comes from the knowledge that God lives.  He knows you, loves you and created you.  Through a personal relationship with God, we become better and more at peace with what is going on in the world.  But that is why I love member referrals.  The people we meet already have a good image of the church because of their association with members.  They know we are coming and that gets us inside.  And usually that is all it takes.  We had a member from a different stake call us up with a friend of hers that lives in our area.  We went and visited them and it was incredible!  We shared the message of the restoration and gave her a Book of Mormon.  We were able to come back and follow up a couple of days ago.  She is reading the Book of Mormon and praying for the first time.  The funny thing is that as we were sitting in her living room listening to her tell us how much happiness she feels from the Book of Mormon she stopped, paused and said "thank you" and that she would not have opened her door to us if we had just knocked, but she was so HAPPY that she had this chance to learn about God.  
• Lastly, we are teaching this adorable family.  Mom, dad and three little girls.  I was talking to the mom and asked her why she believed in God.  She quoted scripture unknowingly.  She said with tears in her eyes that her mother had taught her.  I am grateful for strong mothers and fathers that teach their children through word and example. 

Happy September!  I hope you are having a great time at school, work, etc.  I love you!  Have a great week!

Hawkins Shimai