Jubile in Japan

Week 9: The Final Frontier

This past week has been a blur really. I have pretty much forgotten anything that happened before Thanksgiving. Thanksgiving was just SO awesome. We sang come thou fount. It sounded so beautiful and powerful I got chills, the whole shabang. And we sang that song for whom you might ask? David A. Bednar of course! He was our Thanksgiving morning devotional. It was so cool! He handed out phones to the audience and we got to text questions straight to his ipad and he answered them during the devotional. Out of the things he talked about, the one I liked the most was when he was answering the question, "How do we overcome trials without losing faith." Where Elder Bednar answered, "We receive no witness until after the trial of our faith. Be careful when you pray for faith, because in order to receive it we must overcome adversities. As long as we are living worthily, then God will give His will with His timing. It is not a lack of faith, it is a trial of faith." It's a simple concept really, but sometimes I need to be reminded of the simple things. Then we had a service project for Utah Food Bank to make some food sacks for children who don't know where their next meal will come from. And did we dominate. They had to move our bags to other tables because we were going so fast! Then we FINALLY were able to watch Meet the Mormons. If you haven't seen that video, go watch it. It is so good, and the people on that movie are so interesting. I am a very boring mormon in comparison. Maybe I'll try being an astronaut or something and be in the sequel. They even gave us popcorn. Then at the very end of the day we went out and they had turned on the Christmas lights! I love Christmas so much. And I am going to let all the Nihon-jin (Japanese) know about how much I love Christmas. Really just a perfect time to head into the field! Which, by the way, is tomorrow night!!! I can't believe that the time is already here! I am so grateful to be apart of this gospel and to know about God's plan of happiness for us. I don't think I realize sometimes how much the knowledge I have affects my life. It seems normal to me, but to some people this information is life changing and life saving. I hope to find these people in Japan. The Lord has prepared them, I hope I am the right tool to turn them towards their salvation.

We also had our in field orientation yesterday. It was 8 hours long! It was good, but I was about to fall asleep like nobodies business, but they kept moving us to different rooms and having us stand up so I couldn't fall asleep. Which is probably why they did that. But I also learned a lot of good stuff too. Baptism. Oh how the word seems so scary when mentioned. I think I have ever realized that people CANNOT be saved without it. How could I brush it off as something so small? But... I think it's the name tag that makes me so bold. There is really a lot of power in my name tag. I am so glad that I can be recognized as a disciple of Christ. I hope that after my mission even without my name tag I can also be realized as a disciple of Christ through my countenance, or like a gleam in my eye or something.

Anyways, I don't have a lot of time, but I hope you all had a wonderful Thanksgiving. Thanksgiving at the MTC is just awesome. I love my district, teachers, family, friends, neighbors and everyone. I hope you have a good week. Next time I email it will be in Japan!

Love,

Johnson Shimai

This is a picture of all the Half-misisonaries that are leaving on Monday. (left to right) Cannon-choro, Yamada-choro, Nicholson-choro, Yeakey-shimai, me, Wilkinson-shimai)