Investateacher- What's So Fun About Being Normal?

Konnichiwa Kazoku to Tomodachi!

Life is peachy here at the MTC. The days feel like weeks but the weeks go pretty fast. Some days are harder than others but the Japanese is coming and it's pretty exciting!

Remember our golden investigator Ōta San?? Well. Turns out he's not really Ōta San or an investigator. He speaks perfect English and just got home from serving a mission in Japan. He's now our SENSEI!!!!!! Hahaha tricky tricky MTC. His name is Strauss Kyōdai (Brother Strauss). He's such a great teacher so we forgive him for lying to us. One day he told us we were going to have class outside so we walked outside and he just starts sprinting and yelling at us to follow. We sprinted around the whole MTC. In skirts. It was so great-hahaha. 

Sunday night we had a devotional by the Nashville Tribute Band. They started singing songs from their Joseph: A Nashville Tribute to the Prophet album and it instantly took me back to when I was young and couldn't fall asleep unless I was listening to that album. I bawled the whole devotional. It reminded me of the testimony I have of the Prophet Joseph Smith. I know he saw God the Father and His Son Jesus Christ. I know he was called of God to restore the true gospel to the Earth. "I knew it, and I knew that God knew it, and I could not deny it, neither dared I do it" JSH 1:25. There is no one that could ever get me to deny that Joseph Smith is a Prophet of God. 

Monday was the hardest day so far. All I wanted to do was be with my family picking up my brother. I was really frustrated with everything and just wanted to go home. I knew I could be with my family, I could be with my friends and I could be a normal teenager. But what's so fun about being normal :) I know I'm doing a much more important work. Plus for 30 minutes I got to be with my brother while we were both still missionaries and that's something I'll never forget!

I'm so grateful for all the love and support! I love reading your letters and emails! Thank you, thank you!!

ai shite masu!

Rigby Shimai

Favorite quote of the week: "If you want to know if Joseph Smith saw Heavenly Father and Jesus Christ, just pray and ask Heavenly Father. He was there." 😂

Spiritual Bootcamp Week One!

Konnichiwa!!! O-genki desu ka?! Genki desu! Subarashii!!

MTC life is great! We are in class by 7:00 am and don't get back to our room till 9:30pm. It's hard work but it will be so worth it when I get to Japan! Japanese is hard. You basically take everything you learned in English and do the exact opposite. Everyone in my district took Japanese in high school so I'm pretty far behind. It was pretty discouraging the first few days but I had to remind myself they've taken Japanese for years and I've been taking it for 3 days. If God believes I can learn Japanese than I know I will. I'll get back to you in 9 weeks :)

I'm in a trio with Watabe Shimai from Ohio and Lafaele Shimai from New Zealand! We get along great! We are the only Shimai (sisters) in our district with 5 Chorōs (elders) from Virginia, Massachusetts, Iowa, Idaho and Utah. I love them already. There are 6 of us are going to Sapporo and the other two are going to Tokyo. Ōtamugi to Hoshikusa is our catchphrase. It's amazing the things that become fun when you're a missionary.

Our second day here we taught our first lesson to our investigator, Ōta San. I didn't understand a word but I love Ōta San!! We taught him about God's love for him and how to pray. We've taught him 3 more lessons since then and I'm starting to be able to understand some words! Teaching him is the best part of the day! I love, love, love Ōta San. We spend a lot of time with the native Japanese missionaries and my love has grown sooooo much for the Japanese people just in the last week! They are the BEST.

Sunday night we had a devotional where they played "The Character of Christ", by Elder Bednard. When it was over Elder Bednar himself walked in IN REAL LIFE and we had an hour long Q&A with an Apostle of the Lord. No big deal. Just another day in the MTC. SO COOL!!!!! If you get a chance watch "The Character of Christ" because it's amazing. It's all about learning to turn outwards with charity, like Christ, rather than inward with selfishness like we all want to do when things don't go our way.

I love being a missionary and I can't wait to invite the people of Japan to come unto Christ and help them receive the joy of the restored gospel! (Hopefully in Japanese)

Ai shite masu! (shite is pronounced stay, be careful with that)

Rigby Shimai

"The Lord never asks the impossible. Often the difficult, but never the impossible." -David B Haight

OTA SAN

My dirstrict aka the people I spent 15 hours a day with.

Japanese Zone Selfie courtesy of Womack Shimai

My district

Out for a walk.

The Cafeteria

My badge

I had a native write "Rigby" in Kanji.  It means "prettier than the shining blue"

All the fish in the sea in Kanji

I get to see Warner!