Members are the best way to do Missionary work!

February 22, 2016

Hello Hello Lovely People!
Another week has flown by her again... Time is crazy out here! I'm at 7 months already?! No, time STOP! Haha thanks for always emailing and supporting me while i serve the Lord. It means a lot. Sounds like all is well there though, I'm glad! Today we went to the biggest light house in Japan with some members, it was so fun! Heights are a little scary plus we had to walk up 200 stairs but it was worth it! I'll send some pictures of the view and weird things we say haha I love Japan🤗. So I told you about the ekiawa student who is another Filipina mom, I guess we will call her golden. She is so ready to learn about the gospel it is amazing. So we were able to teach her Tuesday after Ekaiwa and we had a member there as well and it was such a strong spirit filled lesson. We introduced the Book of Mormon and restoration and how the bible and Book of Mormon go hand and hand because she is very into the bible. So as we read the intro she looks at us and says "really?! This book will bring me closer to Christ? I am so surprised but I know it can." And we asked new what she felt as she read about it and she said it must be true. We were like uh what?! Ha yes, we are so excited for her. Like, who says that after hearing about the Book of Mormon once and wants to learn more so much? Rare, so we are keeping her close. We had an amazing 同席 douseki (I think it's called member lesson in English) for Filipina mother who gets baptized in two weeks! So we were teaching tithing and our member is Sasaki Shimai and she is so amazing and ペラペラ perapera (fluent) in English so it was perfect for it. So the miracles was, we were supposed to have her at our lesson last week but she couldn't make it cause Roselyn had to change the time and we were so sad but she came this time and it was amazing how it worked because she had such a life changing experience with tithing and let me tell you, the spirit was so strong in that lesson. As she told of her experience tears dropped down my face and all of ours. Tithing can be a hard thing, we were a little nervous because of her being a single mom and having to work two jobs but we committed her to pay tithing after she was baptized and she said of course! Her faith is amazing and I love her so much. I can't wait to see her in white in two weeks The nurse student, I don't know if you remember but she was struggling with letting go of her culture and old beliefs and we met with her this week and we finally found out what her real concern was. She is just worried about her parents, she expressed how much she wants to be baptized but she is nervous to talk to her mom. So we were so glad we figured that out and hope her moms heart is softened and we will keep teaching her and prepare her. Well the most exciting thing of this week is THE DANCER NOW HAS A DATE! March 20! We are so excited, she was nervous what her parents would say but she talked to them and they said of course. She is 17 so she had to get permission but it worked out because God sees her faith and desire. We had been wanting to meet her parents and they work all the time but finally this Sunday we met them. Wow, they are the most loving sweet people. They treated us like daughters of their own. We were able to teach them about families being forever and the importance of families in our church. They want to learn English so we will be teaching them weekly! We are so excited, little by little will this family be attending church together so that they can live with each other forever. We are so excited for this progress to grow and grow. Funny experience, I dreamed and talked in my sleep in Japanese! It was crazy haha it finally happened. I was so pumped when I woke up and told my companion about my dream being in all Japanese then she was like Smith Shimai you were talking in Japanese too.. WOAH YAY! Sorry just a cool weird moment for me this week. So my thought of the week is about LOVE! Isn't love the greatest thing but also one of the hardest things to do? So during district meeting I heard a great quote that I want to share with you. "You may be the only Jesus people see.." So this part of love is, example I feel. People may never hear of Christ, or learn of him but we can show that example to them of how he acted through us. I loved that quote, it's so true. We talked a lot about how love is the only way some people will change or open their heart and it is so true. Some people just need love. And love isn't just being able to say nice things or anything like that. SHOW love, I've learned how to SHOW it here since you know I'm not the best at speaking this language. But I love these people more than anything so I'll do what I can to make sure they know that. Even the simple things, a smile, hug, pick up something they dropped, and one HUGE thing I've been focusing on lately is listening. Just let them talk, it's always nice when people just listen right? So this week I challenge you all to do an act of service everyday. Pray for them, and then be aware of them when they come. I know they will come. Love is so powerful and I testify of Christ love for all of you. He died and knows every single pain or sorrow you feel. Never forget that. I love you all and thank you for the love and support. You're amazing! #RELY #LOVEスミス姉妹

"Filipina mom daughter who we are teaching and she wanted a picture together then gave us her favorite treat ha, so cute!!"

"We finally met the dancers parents today! Aaahhh we love them!"

"Love Them"

"We went to a Shrine and Lighthouse today"

"Squid just hanging there"

"Nasty Fish"

"More Fish"

So Beautiful

Me and Mami Bacera

More Beauty

Light House

イエスキリストの贖いにたよて下さい！

February 15, 2016 

Hello Again! Wasn't I just writing like yesterday?! Geez haha.. Well it sounds like all is well and I hope all of you had a great valentines! I totally forgot it was Valentine's Day until we got to church and we had a funny experience that I'll share later on. To start off the week I'll share the funny Valentine's experience. So I literally forgot completely it was Valentines Day (missionary life) haha but we get to church and one of our recent converts who is like 80 and just holding on, uh yeah I mean that in the nicest way possible, well he comes up to me and says スミス姉妹 it's Valentine's Day so I brought chocolate fondue for us to dip food in after church together ok? Can't pass that up so I tell him thanks and so after church we go into the kitchen and there he is melting this chocolate for me ha but the trick is, he is also skining this pitch black thing that is apparently food so I ask him what it was, tells me, don't know the word so I just move on and say okay do we eat it? He says of course, dip it in the chocolate please! So I did and ate it, NASTIEST thing ever. So I ask Mami Shimai the one who speaks English what it is and she bust up laughing and says, that's ginger Smith Shimai! I ate a whole cooked garlic clove dipped in chocolate... (time out, we are not sure if she ate a whole garlic clove or ginger, I think she might be in a hurry and writing a little fast) Yup I know... Now for the amazing blessings from our loving Heavenly Father this week to us missionaries. Well Tuesday was AMAZING! We were able to teach 6 lessons today that went amazing! Do you remember the new Filipina mom that we met at ekiawa like 2 weeks ago. Well she came again and we asked her if she read the intro to the Book of Mormon and she said yeah and the testimony parts too. Wow awesome! We asked her what she thought? And  she said, well I prayed before and after and I always felt peace, good, and warm. She said she loves the atonement of Christ and wants to learn  from us more about the gospel. We had Zone Conference this weekend and it was AMAZING! We talked a lot about the atonement and how when everyone thinks of it they think negative and about sin. But it does so many other things. I'm so grateful I have the mission president that I do. He is always so close to the spirit and teaches us exactly what I need at that time. I hope one day I can have a relationship like those two do. They are amazing people whom I will love and be grateful for forever! Saturday we had a concert in our zone leaders area which is Yonago. I totally forgot the mans name who was the singer sorry ha but it was such a neat experience. He tells of his conversion story and relates songs to the situation and he has an amazing voice. It was so cool to listen to and just feel the spirit touch me through word and music. I think sometimes music is over looked with how strongly it can bring the spirit in a room. While he was singing a song about the atonement I just had a thought that wow it is SO amazing and you just can't comprehend how much he really did. Then sunday we were able to teach about the atonement as well and I just had such an amazing love for the atonement these past few days. We went around the class and asked one small pain they have felt lately like a paper cut or things like that and after we just talked about how The Savior felt that pain.  Isn't that amazing? He felt the pain of stubbing your toe, the negative thoughts of not being good enough, feeling sad or missing someone. HE FELT THAT! Our Savior and Redeemer is amazing. He loves us and of course his Father in Heaven so much that he died for us and now helps us when we feel the pains he felt for us. WOW! Please this week, ponder the atonement more, every time you feel a pain no matter how small, think "Hey, He felt that." And it opens your eyes let me tell you. Sunday we had a lesson with the nurse student. This week her grandfather passed away and she was pretty down. BUT guess what we taught her? The plan of salvation of course and the lesson was so great! She started off by asking why do bad things happen? I don't like them. We asked her why she thought we had bad things and she said I guess so we can learn. And we said of course, if we didn't have bad we would not recognize the bad and we testified that through hard things she can come closer to God and we taught about how we can live with God again and her grandpa is watching over her. We told her that he is being taught this right now and we know that he wants her to accept it here on earth because he wasn't able too. And she said she knew this was true. Wow, did that make my heart SO happy. I LOVE THE PLAN OF SALVATION! I get to live with you all forever, that is one amazing blessing if you ask me. It's amazing how the Lord makes our work just flow. I don't want her to have to deal with hard times but this is what she needed to open her heart fully to what we will teach her. My challenge of the week, I will attach the picture but I saw this from my friend serving in Tokyo South and I just felt it needed to be sent this week. So do it! It's the Love One Another 14 day challenge. It is amazing. Not easy always because we are human but if we do this I know that your love for others will grow. You can develop the Christ-like charity and will see others through the eyes of our Heavenly Father. Isn't that such a great thing that we all need? I think so. So please this week remember to LOVE and also the atonement of Christ. You're life will be happier and better I promise you. I love my Savior, without him I wouldn't be here doing what I'm doing. I know he suffered and died for everyone and he knows how we feel in every situation. Don't ever think, "no one understands" because that is false and that's Satan. Christ understands and knows the exact feeling. I know that. I love you all and miss you daily but I know you're all doing great and I feel your prayers. Thank you so much! Keep being you and be safe. LOVE YOU! #RELY #HEFELTIT
スミス姉妹

High School girls always want to take pictures cause they think we are cute haha

Zone conference pictures

Chi Choro conference

The sunrise on our morning jog

Beautiful!

Valentine

Package

From

Home

Thanks Dad and Mom!

Fiipina mom's daughter who we are teaching and she wanted a picture together then gave us her favorite treat ha, so cute!!

Cute kiddos in our branch!

(otsukaresama) (thank you, hard worker etc.)

February 8, 2016

こんにちは 家族と友達！Hello Family and Friends,
Sounds like a good week! Chad, HAPPY BIRTHDAY! Hope it's a good day, love you favorite brother in law.

Hope the family treats you well for your special day. Sunday dinner looked good and yummy as always!  I'm glad all is well, everyone is for growing up and changing so fast it's crazy. But keep being great! Stay safe and healthy! This won't be as long this week, gomen! It was just an interesting week for sure.. Well this week was a busy and hard week for dendo in Izumo. We were gone a lot so we were unable to meet with a lot of people sadly.. But we still had some great miracles happen of course. First miracle was our Filipina with a baptism date FINALLY got her work changed and can come to at least sacrament every week. It is a HUGE miracle, we have  budge. We asked her if she had told him why she needed it changed and she said no so she told him she needed to go to church and he switched it to later in the day so she can come to at least part of it, YAY!!  When we asked her after how it was she said, it's been awhile and I forgot the feeling I get here. It's so different here then anywhere else. That is the best thing to hear. She is so ready for baptism, a few weeks!! So this week at Ekaiwa we had a miracle/amazing class. We had 5 new students. Two which afterwards talk to us after and wanted to learn about the gospel. Except one of them was GOLDEN and she will be so amazing to teach. We were teaching her after and she reads the bible and prays everyday. She loves Jesus Christ and his atonement. She wants to come to church and took a Book of Mormon and said lets meet soon next week. Ahhh... Golden. She is fluent in Japanese, English, and Tagalog. She has so much faith and we are so excited to start trenching her. So yes another Filipina on our life ha and Ekaiwa does wonders for our missionary work. So the reason we weren't in Izumo a lot this week was because we had zone meeting in Okayama and right after we had a kokkan (companion exchange) with the STL's there so we stayed in Okayama from Thursday till Saturday. So one of our STL's is Japanese and guess who got her?  ME! I was so happy it was so fun getting to do dendo with a full Japanese person for a day and a half. I spoke Japanese all day and it was great! My brain wanted to explode but it was such an amazing/learning experience. Fun experience of the week, we went to lunch with a less active at her favorite sushi place and while we were there we told her to pick out sushi for us to try and she chose horse meat (yes raw) and the other one was a WHOLE shrimp just dried basically and you eat the whole thing... Eyes, brain, legs, shell, etc. IT WAS NASTY! Well wait, I loved the horse but shrimp was just not right, enjoy the picture For the thought and commitment of the week is from a quote I found this week because I've been striving to improve my prayers and make them as my investigators, they just know he is listening and are having a conversation with Him. "Sincere prayer is the heart of a happy and productive life. Prayer strengthens faith. Prayer is the preparation for miracles. Prayer opens the door to eternal happiness. The Father of us all is personal, ever waiting to hear from us, as any loving father would his children. To learn to communicate with him, to learn to pray effectively, requires diligence and dedication and desire on our part. I wonder sometimes if we are willing to pay the price for an answer from the Lord. "As we learn to develop this two-way communication, the standard of our life will improve. We will see things more clearly, we will try harder to do better, we will see the real joy that can come through trials and testing. Although problems will still be with us, peace, contentment, and true happiness will be ours in abundance. So I just want to ask you all to evaluate your prayers, are you putting forth that effort and paying the price when you talk to Him? If not, change it. Repent and change! I know that prayer is real, we can talk to him about ANYTHING. No matter what we are going through, struggling with, questioning etc. he will listen. I have felt him answer and listen to me even about the littlest things, even being so cold and just needing a little warmth so I can keep biking.  He loves all of us and wants us to TALK with him, not repeat things we have learned our whole life. Please change that if needed. It'll change your life and your relationship with Him. I know this is true. I love being a missionary, I love you all, and miss ya lots!! Keep being member missionaries please and help someone come into Christ and have that joy we have. If something is that good, why would we not share it right? Love you all! 愛してますよ！#RELY #PRAY
スミス姉妹

Ran in the snow this morning

Burr.......

Bowling Alley

Bowling Today

Bowling with Filipina mom

Eating  whole shrimp, etc

Zone Meeting

Crazy Zone

Always beautiful skies

Always

March 5th

February 1, 2016

Family and Friends,
How is everyone?! I hope all is well. I can't believe another week has come and gone, I feel like I was writing last weeks email like two hours ago.. Not kidding! Time is flying by. First off, WE STAYED IN IZUMO TOGETHER! Yay!!! I love this place and ミラー姉妹 so much! Alright you you ready for this amazing week? Okay here we go! So here is a sentence that can describe how this week is going and what amazing blessings we can receive. 毎日改善する望みがあるので神様から沢山祝福を受けましたよ！(Because we have a desire to improve everyday, we received so many blessings from God!) We have been having so many blessings from God. It is amazing to see his hand in our work. I LOVE IT! First blessing and miracle of the week and the best one. The Filipina mother, well SHE HAS A BAPTISMAL DATE!! YUP! You just read that.  We are so excited and so is she. She wants to be a part of this church so bad and she loves how her life has changed since learning about the gospel. AH! We are so pumped! Saturday, March 5th, the last Saturday of this transfer.. YES! We had a great discussion with one of our Potential Investigators this past week as well. She has not been keeping commitments really so we visit her about every two weeks or so but last time we dropped off a Book of Mormon for her but she wasn't home so when we went this time we talked about it and she said because she is Buddhist she can't accept it but she loved what we told her to read and we were able to have a good discussion about gospels and better understand their religion and she also listen to ours. Her daughter has been having some back problems and she said she didn't know what to do so she said she remembered what I testified about last time with prayer and how we can receive comfort. So she prayed and asked for comfort and felt gods love. So awesome... Before I thought she didn't listen, but she totally did and it helped her. We made another appointment to talk more about her religion so we can little by little know there's more to help us and to slowly touch her heart. It was so neat to have a religious discussion. So we had a lesson with the nurse student this week and boy it was a hard one. So we planned to challenge her to baptism but as we got going she finally opened up to some concerns and doubts she had. She basically said she knew what we taught was true and loved it but she grew up being Buddhist and had a hard time letting go of that. And we both understood that,that would be hard to change what you've known and what your family does. So we were able to help her by reading scriptures about God and how we can know for a fact through the simple prayer. It was hard but wow were we so led by the spirit. There were some things I'm 100% sure I said wrong or I didn't know I could say but because of the spirit she understood and I was able to express those things. I have never felt the spirit feel my mouth more than then. He helped us and guided us exactly what to say so we didn't lose her. Now it is so much better, little by little she will better understand. So we have been trying to think of new ways we could find new people instead of just street/house contacting. So we both thought talking to the workers at Convinis. So we were buying cough drops and we decided to talk to the worker that was helping us and she loved us and was so glad we talked to her. And when we asked if she had interest or wanted to meet again she said of course. Please call me soon!! Ahhh yay!! So we are planning on calling her this week and hopefully meeting her soon. Two funny stories of the week: First I ate FISH EGGS sushi this week... Yup I did it and they were HUGE ones not just the little ones Brooke and Chad eat. And boy was it interesting. When you bite them they burst in your mouth, yup gross right? (Hopefully you weren't eating while reading this) I'll send a video of it haha.. Okay other one was we were riding and all the sudden my bike light broke off so I just put it in my basket and kept going well when you peddle is when the light works so I start biking and the light turns on and the basket illuminated so ミラー姉妹 goes "You have ET in your basket!" And we both bust up! You had to be there.. I think I say this every week but Sunday was amazing!! The best Sunday probably thus far here in Izumo. We had the nurse, the dancer, park mountain(the old man), and one of our Ekaiwa students who has little interest came as well! Aaahhhh, that's such a good feeling and we teach gospel principles every week and usually it's like 4-5 people maybe and it's usually like investigators, some more members, less actives, and the elders investigators. It was so awesome and the miracle is last week we were supposed to teach about Christ life and had this great lesson planned but no one stayed for Sunday school investigator wise and so we cancelled our class cause no one was there that comes members wise either so last week we were sad about not having but now we see why. He wanted all these people to be there to here about Jesus Christ life and the spirit in that lesson was unreal. I can't even describe it. So we had to watch a missionary broadcast this week about how we we can change missionary work especially with age change. It was amazing! So we watched it and after we discussed things and what we were going to change here in Izumo and while we were doing that I received an answer why I was made a trainer at this time and with her at this time. We are both young and have the fire to work our guts out but also President Welch is really trying to change the mindset of how we do work here and since we are new we don't have the old mindset so we can start it all fresh and boy did I feel peace in my heart that this is why I'm here with this calling right now. But also from the broadcast I have my thought of the week. A quote from President Packer, "What does the re in repent mean? It means we do it again, repeat repent." So this week just ponder that quote and how you can apply it to your life. When I heard it I received the revelation that I can not and will not stop being a missionary after. I have NO idea why that quote brought me that but it did and I'm grateful for that commitment now to keep forever. So please ponder this and see what comes to you and do it! ACT! I know you can receive that answer if you have a sincere desire. God knows what we will pray for before we even do it, how cool is that?! I know he hears us, he loves us, and will help us. I LOVE YOU ALL! Miss you lots!  #RELY #ACTスミス姉妹

Our plates of sushi we ate

Pretty Izumo

Nagai Shimai

Our protein bar collection

These are Photo Booths in Japan

Our investigator, the dancer..Haha

More photo booth pictures

The three of us

Sunday Pictures

This is an eyeball at our dinner on Sunday

Ishitobi Kyodai

A member in our branch

Filapina kiddos

So cute