I'm Not In Vegas Anymore!!

In about 2.5 weeks, Jordan will have been out for a year.  WOW.  I'm so proud of her efforts and the things she has done.  She has overcome some tough challenges and persevered to find success.  She has kept a positive attitude when it would have been really easy to throw her hands in the air and exclaim something negative.  I told her when she left that she would develop a love for the peole and the place and she has obviously done that.  I'm so happy for her.  I'm also thankful for everyone who reads her blog posts, prays for her, emails her and supports her in any way.  Here is this weeks post.  Enjoy and thanks for reading.

こんにちは、

Hello to my favorite people! How y'all doing? I'm doing fantastic here in the promised land. I thought instead of sharing my boring experiences with you this week, that I would share an amazing story I heard from a member so enjoy :) next week will be back to the norm. 

Takemoto Shimai:

This week, we were invited to Takemoto Shimai's house with the young women to make takoyaki (fried octopus balls). While we were in the midst of distributing parts of an octopus into all the balls, I had the opportunity to hear her inspiring life story. Takemoto Shimai first met missionaries when she was 15 years old and wanted to get baptized immediately, but her parents were against it. She waited 3 years until she was finally allowed to get baptized. She went on a mission when she was 25 (after she had saved up enough money to be able to go).

She got called to Portugal where she served for about 9 months. After being in Portugal for 7 or so months, she got a call from her mission President saying that her mom had committed suicide. He asked her if she wanted to go home but she wanted to stay. She served in Portugal for about 2 more months before she got a call from her mission President telling her that she had been reassigned to a different mission, the Japan Nagoya mission. She was really confused because the Nagoya mission is where she was from and usually you don't get called to the mission in which you live.

She went to the Japan Nagoya mission and spent her last 9 months there. Her mission President had known her before her mission and was pretty close with her mom. Her parents weren't Mormon, in fact her dad abused her all through her childhood and her mother as well. Her mom was just starting to meet with the missionaries when she decided to commit suicide because of how toxic the relationship was with the dad. Her new mission President was so worried about her, that he asked an apostle if she could be reassigned to this mission. Takemoto Shimai served in mostly Portuguese speaking branches on her mission in Nagoya and was able to make a ton of good relationships with them. When she finished her mission, she had no where to go because her mom had died and her dad was abusive and she had no other family. The families that she had met while serving in the Portuguese speaking areas in Nagoya, took her in and she was able to start a new life. 

After her story she told me that during all of this, she never felt as if God abandoned her and she never asked why this was happening to her. She said, "In fact it's quite the opposite. During this whole process, I felt as if God knew everything about me. I knew that he knew my past, present, and what I needed for the future. He knows me still and he loves me." Her testimony was so powerful.

I'm not in Vegas anymore: 

On Wednesday this week, it was pouring rain the entire time!! Being the typical Vegas girl I am, I thought that the poring rain would last a total of 5 minutes and then it would be nice and sunny. Well I'm not in Vegas anymore. It was pouring for a straight 24 hours, I'm not even kidding you. Holy cow I've never been so soaked in my life, and I'm a swimmer! I was wearing a rain coat, but it stopped working after 30 minutes in the heavy rain. We were in the rain for about 4 hours straight because on our way to the place we were going to, we got lost and couldn't find our way... oops.. then by the time we got there, we had to leave or else we were going to be late for eikaiwa haha. We get back to our apartment, and in Japan, no one has dryers because it's way too expensive, so everyone just hangs their clothes on their clothes racks on their balconies. So we see through our balcony doors that all of our clothes that were suppose to be drying were soaking wet and some had just fallen to the ground. Our apartment is tiny so we just brought some to the bathroom and then had to leave the rest haha oh how I love Japan and all of the experiences I'm having.   

Remember that God knows you and loves you and I love you too!! 

愛しています、

Wunderli Shimai 

Pics:

1-4: p-day fun 

5. Sato shimai and tasukun - two of my favorite members ever 

6&7. Making takoyaki with the young women and takemoto shimai 

8. Went on splits with the one and only Modersitzki shimai!! 

9. We were in a huge, crazy train station in Tokyo and managed to run into someone we know!! 

10. Burger mania has my heart and my stomach 

11. Zone pday last week but cool pic so I thought I'd still share

 

That's all for this week.  I hope you enjoyed her post and the pictures.  Feel free to leave your comments or questions in the comment section.  Make it a great week.  We'll be back with more next week.