Less Actives and A Whole Lot of Mountains‏

Konnichia Kazoku!
 
Well it sounds like there was a lot of good things going on at home :)
Yeah, I got to watch part of the womens conference but we had to leave
early for an appointment, but we will watch it on our ipads maybe
today or tomorrow. It was a lot about chastity I thought and the
meaning of virtue. I cant wait to watch the rest of it and to watch
conference too. It will probably be us and the elders watching it
upstairs in English haha.

Saw the ocean.

Taniyama is a lot more mountainous than Nakagawa was.. haha? I am
pretty sure i have lost weight from biking up all the hills but its
killing my bike breaks. We went up like four different mountains this
week. The hardest was we went to a lesson with the Elders and a member
and it was 50 minutes at like a 30 degree angle. It was terrible. It
is amazing how sweaty you can get in such a short time. Sweating
literal bullets, salt water streaming into your eyes despite your
luscious eyebrows, but there is absolutely nothing you can do about it
because if you dont hold on with both hands and keep pedling, youre
done for. Yep. That was basically my week. But yay for losing weight!
;) Taniyama is was fun. I am really loving it here so far. We don't
have a lot of people we are working with, so it's hard work because we
are trying to build up our teaching pool, but we are working and
trying. It's weird to be in a four man apartment. It's not quite what
I expected. I guess it depends on the people, but we are all trying to
figure each other out still.

Just a Volcano (sakurajima)

I kept saying "Kire!!! Kire!!!"

 
Snacks. Yeah. That's whats up.

This week we had a few little miracles. We went on a less active hunt.
We are trying to figure out who even still lives here, maybe who has
passed away, maybe if they are even willing to let us in.... Anyway.
We had one person left to find for the day and we were super exhausted
from biking around trying to find people, trying to contact people and
share the gospel while we look for these lost members. Well, we found
the certain block he was supposed to live on, and we knocked on every
single door. But I was really determined that we would find out what
happened with him. We tried so hard it seemed a waste to not find him
then. Well we asked people his name, no one knew him, we were a little
discouraged but then as we crossed the street I saw one house hiding
behind another house we had already knocked. It was in a really
awkward spot. You have to go through the other persons yard to get to
their front door. So we awkwardly walked passed that house again, and
knocked on the last door. And he was there! It was amazing. He hasn't
been to church in 30 years, he was baptized 40 years ago but he
remembers a lot of the members in our branch. We are way excited to
try and work with him. He doesn't seem too interested right now but he
seemed to light up when he was talking about the people he used to
know, so we have faith and are going to try our best to help him to
become reactivated.

 
Having fun during dendo.

We had a few lessons but they didn't go over too well, so we still
don't have new investigators but we are trying our best still. We
found one lady and when we came back for the return appointment she
was really surprised. She took the Book of Mormon but didn't want us
to come again. It was a little disappointing but the Lord works in
mysterious ways.
 
We have a lot of activities here. We have Kodomo Eikaiwa, regular
Eikaiwa and we have Ping Pong night. They are all for the purpose of
helping people just come to the church, be comfortable with members,
and then from there we find investigators. We are trying to help more
people to come to those activities too. This last ping pong night we
had we had a lot of less actives come and a lot of potential
investigators as well. It was really good, so, that's fun too. I
really love teaching Eikaiwa! It's way fun.
 
We had zone conference this week in Kagoshima. It was fun. They talked
a lot about how Nephi says "I will.." (1 Nephi 3:7) and I have been
thinking a lot about whether the things I do are my will or the Lord's
will. Everything we do should be to please the Lord. I loved in Sister
Reeves talk how she was talking about when we meet the Lord, all of
our trials will be so small compared to the blessings we receive to
where we will say "is that all that was required?" I hope that I can
work hard enough now to show the Lord that I love Him, not that I love
anyone else not even myself, but Him.

What a cute ugly little guy.

Yesterday the Elders and a really AWESOME member and us drove down to
the bottom of our area like an hour and a half away and tried to find
more less actives. We met Michiyo Shimai. She is probably 35 or
something, but she loves history and so does Iki Kyoudai, the member
who took us. It was so awesome! We think she will actually come to
church this week! We have been keeping in contact with her so far and
we are way excited. We think she needed the reminder that this church
is true, she lives far but has a car and we are way excited. It was a
blessing we found her.
 
Well, that's basically it. Lots of less actives, finding, housing,
picture taking, laughing, mountain biking haha. Lots of good fun.
Today we are going to the volcano! Yahoo!
 
Have fun without me! I can't wait to watch conference! I got your
package finally and I loved the scarf dad it's was beautiful! Thank
you! I can't wait to eat the candy too! And thanks for the drugs :)
 
I love you! Aishitemasu!
 
Love, Raines Shimai
 
Sent from my iPad