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| Nanjo Shimai and Sugihara Shimai |
Hello my favorite family and
friends!
First off, thank you so much Harpers
for your wonderful package, the art book is beautiful! Jonathan, thanks for
finally telling me about your mission call yourself ;) I squealed when I read
your call [to Thailand]. My companion just laughed but I was freaking out, in a very
missionary way of course.
I can't believe another week has
gone by. And yet, I totally can. I feel like I'm in a time warp. Time goes by so
fast, and yet so long at the same time. I've officially been on my mission a
month now, so that's exciting! My Japanese is getting better, but there are still
times when I get frustrated and just say never mind or revert to English. My
companion's English is pretty good. I told Nanjo Shimai to correct my Japanese
and one of the first things she told me was that I say' arigato gozaimasu' [thank you very much] like a
shop girl. So I'm working on my intonation to not sound like that haha.
Explaining church doctrine in Japanese is hard, but its getting better. It's slow
but its progressing.
Everyone loves our family
pictures! When we were visiting a family, there were some hilarious comments.
They're an investigator/partmember family and when the mom looked at our
pictures, she said Mom was a bijin [beauty], Sho an ikemen [handsome boy], and then her 5 yr old son
said Dad was a 'futsuu no ojisan' [regular-looking man] haha. I'm pretty sure she said Jonathan was
kakkoii [cool]too. So funny, I love that family. I'm slowly getting to know the ward
but with general conference, not much progress there. So remember how I said
the church is huge? Well its a stake center, that's why haha. There were a bunch
of wards here for general conference on Sunday. ALSO. The Japanese brother who
was called as the area seventy during conference? Otahara Katsuyuki is in the
Atsubetsu ward! And his wife is the Relief Society President of course.
Everyone was and still is, really excited.
Wasn't general conference
incredible? I've never looked forward to it as much I did this time. Luckily,
they had an English gaijin [foreigner] room so all of the American missionaries were in
there. I've never wanted conference to last longer, either, but I did this time. I
felt like the speakers were all speaking to me, it was great. I loved the talks
about missionary work! For the first time, I felt like I really understood what
they meant by the true importance of it. From not just full time missionaries,
but from members too. My favorite talk though was probably Elder Holland's. I
love that he draws from the Bible and from Jesus' ministry. Lately I've felt like
my faith has been a little lacking and I haven't been sure how to deal with it.
Don't get the wrong idea, I have faith and know that serving a mission was the
right thing, but I've had so many gospel questions lately. His talk made me feel
so much more at peace with myself. If I have the desire to believe, then I
will.
I think I talked about this
last time too, but missionary work is really really fun. The first time I really
had fun, I wondered if it was okay haha. I think I braced myself before coming
that missionary work is hard hard hard and that a mission is backbreaking. I
think that's what I took from everyone's advice. Yes, its hard. It can be cold
and rainy and there are times when people don't want to hear what you have to
say. But it's still fun. It's hard to describe. Also, getting to know the ward
and other missionaries is a blast. I think it all depends on your attitude. If
you go into a mission thinking it's going to be hard and terrible, well it
probably will be. But if you go into it thinking you'll work hard and make it
fun, well then it will be! Remember the talk, the 4th missionary? Well I
studied it again and loved it even more. Jonathan, or anyone else considering a
mission, I seriously recommend reading it and studying it. Its long, but so
worth it.
I'm happy and loving being
here. I had my first thought last night of not wanting to go home and back to
BYU haha. The faith of the people here is strong and growing still. I'm so
grateful to be able to be a missionary here. The gospel is true and through it,
we can experience true happiness. I love this church and love how it
changes lives. Love you all!!
Love,
Sugihara Shimai
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