Tuesday, December 17, 2013

Cake is done and it looks perfect!

Konnichiwa!

Thanks for everyone's birthday wishes.   For my Birthday we did weekly planning all day long!  Yeah!!!!!! Weekly planning is scheduled for thursdays in the mission so that's what we did.  So here's an hour by hour breakdown:

6:30 am  I wake up to our alarm, except the alarm is a recording of Pettit Shimai singing 'Happy Birthday' needless to say I was amused ;)

7:45 am- making my cake, I mix it and put it in the rice cooker.

9 am- cake is done and it looks perfect
study time 
study time
12 pm- lunch
I take the cake out and we cut it in two and frost it.. Or pettit shimai frosted it.  She did a really good job.

afternoon-  Weekly planning

dinner- raman place that turned out not so great

9:30-  open presents, eat cake and read cards. thank you for everything :)  I'll send photos next week... I forgot my connector cord.  Oops!

But this week we were a little low on lessons due to it being exam season and vaction season... But this week should be better.  We've made some goals and set up appointments so we are moving forward with high expectations.

Highlight of my last week was our lesson with one of our 'other' investigators or 'not progressing investigators'

Before our lesson, we ended up waiting for our member friend (who is really close with our investigator) and while waiting we got to know her a little bit since she hasn't met with the missionaries since August.   She has the cutest granddaughter!  I absolutely loved looking at the literally hundreds of photos and videos that she had.  

So then our member friend arrives and we go upstairs. Now, according to the teaching record she's been 'taught' prayer 3 times and the restoration and a little bit of plan of salvation.  We were planning on teaching the God lesson because most of the time with unprogressing investigators, they don't understand their relationship with Heavenly Father or don't have a correct image of Him as a perfect human person....

While talking with her she asked us to teach her how to pray. So we toss the God lesson we prepared and did our prayer lesson.  (we have all our lessons prepared and divided and practiced... or at least God, prayer, and the gospel of Jesus Christ)  
While teaching prayer, there's a practice portion. Most people in Asia have never prayed before.  So there's a time we spend when everyone in the room prays.  We then review our prayers and talk about what we prayed for and how we prayed.  

After our practice we asked our investigator how she felt.   She said she felt warm and happy.  We told her that that feeling was the Holy Spirit.  That's how God communicates to us.  She was so surprised!  Her eyes went big and she gasped. But it was a happy surprise.  Like a birthday surprise.  She finally saw how the gospel applied to her life.  

Because we have been preparing lessons and praying and relying on the Lord, we have 6 progressing investigators... Maybe even to become 7 or 8 this week.   Our progress record that we presented to our ward mission leader looked like it was American.  We filled out the front and parts of the back.  We never filled the back before.   So grateful. Heavenly Father is wonderful. 

Btw - the Ward Christmas party is this coming Saturday and there are no mission Christmas parties scheduled.  I've heard that there are just too many missionaries to do anything all together.

Call me at 8 pm on Christmas - that will be 11 am for me the day after Christmas!

I'm looking forward to doing more Christmas caroling this week.  Pettit Shimai and I plan on doing some caroling while we are housing.  We'll see how it goes. But I'm excited.  I want everyone to feel the spirit of Christmas.   The true spirit of Christmas.  We also want to go out on the streets with the elders or members and go caroling while passing out chirashis (pamphlets) for the ward party Saturday night.  I hope everyone is enjoying the Christmas season.  This year I have a goal to think about Christ every single day in the countdown to Christmas. I want to keep in my heart the true spirit of christmas and what Jesus Christ means to me.  Think of what He has done for us.  Because of Him, we are able to live with our Heavenly Father again.  I will try to always be strong, happy, confident and loving because I know that my Father in Heaven loves me.  

Anyway, back to work.  Thanks for everything.  I'm fine, I'm serving the Lord and having a great time. Time is flying by here, I can't believe it's almost the end of 2013!

Thanks for your letters and cards!  

Merry Christmas!

Love, Bevan Shimai 

(Since Sarah hasn't sent any photos the last couple of weeks I am posting some of the 1000+ photos from her SD card we recently received!)  Enjoy


RS Enrichment Activity - learning to play the Taiko drums!

Ok everyone, clap along to the beat!


Sarah and Sister Gomez at a Japanese Shrine