Come Follow Me: LAST P-DAY IN THE MTC...

September 17, 2015

Hello Family and Friends,

Wow, I can not believe the time is here.. I am writing my last e-mail here at the MTC. I am so excited but yet so nervous haha I can't believe I am now going to live in Japan and have to speak that language and teach real people! Like, it never seemed like that was ever going to be reality but I am only 4 days away.. AAHHH!!:) But before I get into my week and such. Everyone sounds so good and like life is just going and going. Busy as ever.. Brookie I LOVED seeing the video of the kids and the great athletes they are, way to represent kiddos:) Austin I am sure you are all busy as ever, mom sent a pic of Drey and Demi, oh how cute are your kids:) Lanny, cute kids you got and wow I can't believe all of them are growing up.. But keep getting that house together. Merc I hope the prego belly is going well and you are getting excited to meet that little girl.. Bry needs to send some more pics of it! T-dawg, oh thanks for the cute pic;) haha I am glad school is well and studying for four hours isn't killing you. I do it ALL day so come on, you can do four hours;) haha jodan! (jokes) But I am glad everyone is well and safe.

Well where to begin, it is always just kind of a normal week... first we will start with the fun/crazy story of the week. So there is this tradition here at the MTC called the cereal challenge. Here the cereals are in these HUGE tall towers and you just like pull a lever and some comes out.. Hope that makes sense and you can picture it but anyway, you get your whole district and you have to eat the WHOLE tower.. yup you heard me haha so us 11 missionaries ate the tower of stinking frosted flakes (cause that's what the Elder's wanted) and I had to eat 5 bowls of it.. we all felt so sick and some of us even puked haha I didn't but wow was that an experience.. Never again will I eat frosted flakes haha but hey we did it and it feels good now:)

Now to our investigators, Aoyagi San is doing great! We are finishing up his lessons this week because he gets "baptized" on Saturday!! YAY! :) He has made so much progress and is such an amazing person. Yonaha San has been struggling with understanding all we teach and with tithing but we are helping her. I don't think she will follow through with her date this week but we will keep trying to teach her as much as we can! It has been so great teaching them.

We also had our last Skype TRC yesterday and it was so amazing! I felt the spirit so strong in this lesson. We struggled to decided what to teach that night and through out the day I felt that we should teach about overcoming trials and having patience through them and we taught this lady about mom's age and she was so sweet and the spirit was there as we shared scritpures and our thoughts. She told our teacher after we were done that the lesson was EXACTLY what she needed and she felt the spirit so strong in our testiomonies. What a blessing the promptings of the spirit are in our life:) If we do our part and follow, he will provide the things we need to say at that moment and I know that to be true.

Now some spiritual thoughts of the week.. First we will start with Sunday with our branch presidents wifes talk. She talked how we are like her flower garden.. we look at it from a far and it looks perfect and like there is nothing wrong but when she goes out and looks close she sees all the little weeds that need to be taken out. We are the same, we think we are doing good in life but there are always those little weeds that we can fix. She challenged us everynight to ponder for a few mintues those little weeds that we need to repent of and change. And wow, that hit me. I know I am far from perfect but I don't think I realize how many little little things that can be changed that will make a huge difference in my life. I challenge you all this week to just take a few minutes every night before you say your nightly prayers, to think of those little weeds in your life that you want to change and pray to your father in heaven and he will help you change those. I know that to be true, she gave the perfect message for me and I am trying to use her challenge daily now. So please do that and see the change in your life i promise it will come!

My last Tuesday devotional was AMAZING:) we had Sister Wixom the Primary President and she is just the sweetest thing on this earth and I felt the spirit so much through out the whole thing. And there is one thing I want to share with you all. She said "Do you realize how powerful God really is?" and wow that question hit me.. I sometimes think I take for granted how much God can really do for us. Do we know that for ourselves? If not, I challenge you to find that out. Our Father in Heaven can do ANYTHING! Espeically with our faith and trust in him. Along with my last challenge, I want you all to pray this week to know how amazing your father in heaven is and how much he can do for you if you just ask and have faith in him. He is there and wants to listen and wants you to trust in him in all you do. I know that for a fact he will help you, it may take time because he wants you to grow but he will help and it will turn out okay. And lastly we sang Armies of Helaman for the closing song and wow was that a tear jerker... And when we sing it as missionaries, we sing "And we are NOW the Lord's missionaries.." and that little phrase brings so much joy and happiness to me. I was just crying like a baby. Being a missionary is the greatest calling I could ever recieve. I love being a missionary and the joy that I feel EVERYDAY from this work. And now I get to experience the real stuff and the even better joy. How exciting is that?

I love this work and I can not wait to write you next from Japan!! AAAHH, I am so pumped but oh wow I am not even close to ready haha but it will be such an experience for me and I am so excited to eat Sushi and rice everyday all day;) and ride that bike in 90% humidity and get doors slammed in my face but also having those moments of testifying and feeling people change because of the spirit they feel. How great is that? I know this church is true. I KNOW that fasting is real and it works. I have seen it so many times these past two months here. Prayer is real as well. I have recieved so many answers and help from my prayers. He listens to ANY problem you have and he cares about every problem you have. I know that to be true. I can not wait to serve the people of Japan here in a few days and I can't wait to write you and tell you about my amazing companion and all the great people I will meet. I am so excited:) Thank you for your prayers and for your love and support. I feel it everyday and I am so blessed to have people like all of you who I love and help me through this. I am grateful for the letters and packages. They are so sweet and I am grateful for all of you. I LOVE YOU AND MISS YOU!! Time is so crazy.. Bye bye MTC:) haha how great is that? I love this work and I am so excited for what lies ahead. #TRUST

-Smith Shimai