Come Follow Me: "Smith, Shimai......" *keep reading to see the end*

April 4, 2016

Hello People of America,
How are you? Happy General Conference weekend for you all. I hope it is awesome and that you receive answers and revelation you need. I know if you go into general conference with a question or something in need them Heavenly Father will help you receive that. This week was AMAZING!! So many miracles and just Gods hand in a lot of things. I love the gospel! Okay first, just a fun part of the week, I'll send pictures but we went and saw the famous 桜 or Sakura or in English Cherry Blossoms. WOW! They are just like people say, and just like the pictures you see. They are beautiful and we just sat and ate a picnic together and played apples to apples with investigators and members. It was AMAZING. Just an update on the dancer, we are having a hard time... She believes in our church teachings like 70% and her church teachings like 60% but she doesn't believe in one completely. We are not sure how to help her right now because no matter what it's the same response... It's hard but it was a miracle to see her open up about still believing in her other church too. But yeah any advice with this, please do tell because ah I love her and want her to receive baptism so bad! We love her and know she will come around soon. A miracle of the week, so we teach this Brazilian family English every week right? Well we forgot they had youth camp so they weren't home when we went there so we didn't have any back up plans so we prayed about what we should do and we both had this impression to visit our branch president. His family has been going through a very hard time lately and it's been a rough road lately. So we decided to go there, we knock, no answer... What? I know we both got the same prompting, why would he not be home? Well we knock one more time and he answers. We share a message and as we shared the message, he just teared up and we testified of our Saviors atonement and he said he needed this today and it helped. Isn't the spirit amazing? It was a simple thing of not having the girls there to teach English so we pray and just an idea of go visit him and we followed luckily and it was just right. AH, God is good people, God is good! Okay okay, THE BEST PART OF THE WEEK! The nurse student RECEIVED BAPTISM! Yes she did. It was awesome. But before I go into that, we were teaching her Saturday and we were reviewing the baptism and such then she said I have a question, "Do I have to serve a mission when I become Mormon?" We explained to her girls don't have to but they are encouraged and etc. well she looks at us and said "Well I want to go so is that okay?" And we were both just on cloud 9! WHAT?! Of course you can go! We testified of how we should pray to know if it's our path or not but she had a few fears and concerns about leaving work etc but we were able to testify of the blessings we will receive through sacrificing that time. She will do amazing things as a missionary, her dream is America and especially Utah for her mission. Awesome right?! Okay now her baptism, it was great! It was before church at 9 so we had to get up at 5:30 to go start the font so it would be ready etc so that was early and fun. But then she was baptized by the branch president and the first time her toe came up and we had to do round 2 but it's okay the second one worked! She was just smiling so big! So we were helping her blow dry her hair and stuff, she looks at me and in English says "Smith Shimai, IM MORMON!" Haha it was so cute! I said yes you are, and just got huge tears in my eyes. Then she kept blow drying and she stops again and says, "I feel so warm and pure now." AH! I love the spirit... She even went up and bore her testimony during fast and testimony meeting. She got to nervous and forgot how to end it so she said "owari desu." Which is 'Im finished" haha and walked of, so precious! But wow it was spirit filled.. I love seeing this part of the missionary work take place! Well last, I just want to share a quote, "God made you as you are in order to use you as HE planned." I know this is true, He is our Father and he made us all so we need to love each other and love ourselves. Please never forget that He is your Father and He loves you. If you do ever forget that, wrote this quote down and look at it and also say this quote in the mirror and I promise it'll change how you feel about yourself. He loves you and I love you all so much! Miss you lots and I hope you're all safe, healthy, and happy!スミス姉妹