Service with a Smile: JAPAN

Dear Brother and Sister Williamson,

We are happy to have your wonderful missionary with us in the Japan Kobe Mission.

Love, President and Sister Welch

Sister Williamson ’s trainer/companion is Sister Eddy and they are serving in the Maizuru Area.

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Kylie's email:

Hey everyone!　

Cora　-sorry, I haven`t been able to email at all until TODAY. First Preparation-Day in Japan! Crazy, right?

Abby - Cool! haha

Henry - Don`t make me taunt you with pictures of my food! It`s really good in Japan, and since I live by myself, I can eat whatever I want! I could eat cereal and ice cream for every meal if I wanted! Isn`t that awesome?

birthday song:

お誕生日おめたしょ！

お誕生日、愛するヘンリ！

お誕生日おめたしょ！

Happy Ninth Birthday!

Good luck reading it though!

Dad- Check out the song Dear to the Heart of the Shepard. We sang it a lot at USU and I love it so much!

Love you guys!

So here`s what has happened in the week and a half since I last wrote you.

After Bednar`s talk on Thanksgiving, we went to a Thanksgiving program, and me and other Sisters in my district got drafted into being Puritan woman for a little pageant thing. It was fun, but actually all we said was (I can`t figure out how to do quotes on a Japanese Keyboard so whatever) Oh Mercy Me a lot, so it was actually a little embarrassing. But there was this guy who played this super cool violin number and jumping around and honestly I kind of thought it was a fiddle for a while because he was just so energetic about it.

After that, we were able to help pack meals for a few hours for a service project! Then, we all watched Meet the Mormons and it was super good! The MTC surprised us after with Christmas lights, and it was way super amazing!

Then, on Friday, we had in-Field Orientation, which just went over a few aspects of missionary work (like using the planner and working with members) that we hadn`t ever really covered. I talked to Nihonjin for a finding practice but I had hontoni no idea what they were saying so haha pretty much predicted the field perfectly.

Saturday was a super sad day because we said goodbye to all our teachers! It seriously broke my heart. They made the MTC so amazing, and after they were all gone I just felt like we were all ready to go to Japan.

Seriously, sometimes I wish I could just gather all of these people who I love and stick them in a room and just be with them forever. But I guess that`s hopefully a bit what the celestial kingdom is like, so let`s get there!!!

Sunday rolled around, and guess who came to relief society? MY NEW ROLE MODEL SHARI DEW. Honestly, me and Sands Shimai were so excited when we found out, and she didn`t disappoint. In all his recorded talks, Bednar always tells the missionaries to write only what the spirit is prompting us to write/teaching us, and not anything that he says. Which I tried to do with Shari Dew but basically everything she said was stuff I felt like I had really wanted to know. She spoke a little on the need for spiritual struggles to find answers, the necessity of asking questions, and women and the priesthood. And then we all went on our last temple walk, which was sad, and then, for the evening Devotional, Vocal Point did a devotional and sang us a bunch of songs, which was way cool.

Seriously, that week at the MTC.

Elder Oaks

Elder Bednar

Meet The Mormons and Thanksgiving

Sister Dew

and then Vocal Point

It was a good week.

Okay, I`m gonna have to speed this up a bit if I want to finish on time, sorry

Then, FOR THE FIRST TIME IN FOREVER, we left the MTC and embarked to Japan. It was super sad to say goodbye to Sister Stewart and Sister Yeakey, but then I was off! We flew and flew and flew and got to Japan! Where I immediately crashed because plane rides are rough, you know? But I met the Mission President and His Wife and they are so amazing! I am so lucky to have them as my leaders. I really think he`s taking the mission in a good direction (but really, what do I know, I`m like 3 days old). We stayed at the mission home for a few days of initial training, and then they split us off! I am serving in... (maybe don`t put this on the blog) MAIZURU! Which is a smaller area, though by America standards its a city. Sort of the size of Meridian, probably. Really pretty, but it`s also one of the coldest areas... I`ve already seen quite a bit of snow. It`s a little crazy, there are only two Elders and then us assigned to the entire area. So here`s me, living in an apartment in Japan with just my doryo. Weird. We have a branch of 11 members. So small! The church is an apartment building with 2 rooms, one for general activities and one serving as a chapel area. We actually have a few investigators though, and a family with a baptismal date, so it`s progressing pretty well. I haven`t met really anyone yet though.

Saturday was a little hard, (my first day) but exciting. It was so cold! Rain would fall on our ponchos and then turn to slush if we left it there. All our appointments canceled, so we went housing in that weather. Were I found that I can for some reason speak some Japanese (very little, but I feel like it`s where it should be, so I`m trying to be patient), but I can`t understand anyone! Like ever! So, working on that.

Sunday was a good day. I met most of the church members, who are amazing, but I had no idea what we were talking about. Except, mini-miracle! The Elders got 2 investigators and (we got) one of the Less Active members to church! Which is a lot of people! And during Sunday School, we were talking about the Millennium and the teacher asked us what we could do to prepare for it (after we read from the book). One of the investigators raised his hand and answered Baptism. The teacher asked whose baptism? (Probably expecting Baptism for the Dead because that was in the book) And the investigator responded with Mine! Which is crazy, so I`m not sure what`s happening with that, because it`s the Elder`s investigator and they followed-up, but maybe he just committed to baptism. After that, we went and I was able to go to an investigators house and teach my first lesson! I had no idea what was happening really. I just talked about how God is our Heavenly Father and wants us to pray to him whenever my companion nudged me to let me know it would be a good time to speak. Apparently he has a hard time really understanding that, and I don`t really know if he believes any of it yet, but apparently he`s come really far since his first lesson. He started off really distractible and would tell stories about his past all the time, but now he seems more interested and stays on-topic and really thinks about it, so it`s really encouraging progress! I just wish I could speak/understand Japanese because I feel like I could help so much more! I just awkwardly sit there and try to understand things right now.

Another fun thing, one of the members likes to basically have seminary in the mornings, but there are no kids or anything, so we wake up early and come to the church and the member will teach/discuss with us a seminary lesson. Which is actually super cool. And would be way cooler if I understood more than the very bare bones of what he`s getting at, haha.

Anyways, it`s been crazy!

I love you all!

Williamson Shimai