I don't even know how to explain to you how incredibly merciful the Lord is but He is so incredible. 

So, first off I saw the Wakayama elders this week when they came to Kobe and they told me that my best friend in the entire world, Imade san, and her son, Kouta kun, are getting baptized this week!!! I don't know how much you remember about her, but she was our neighbor who we became super good friends with and her whole story is a compilation of tiny miracles, but they decided to take the first step in order to return to live with our Heavenly Father again someday. And so at this time we were in Kobe receiving training from President Welch so I was able to ask him for permission to go to Wakayama for the baptisms. It's about a 2 hour train from Kobe, so travelling would take up a lot of the day, but President is the man and he and I have cried over how much we love Wakayama before (he served there too) and he gave me permission to go to Wakayama last Saturday. I can't accurately describe what it was like to 1. go back to my favorite place in the entire world and 2. see and hug all of the people I love with all of my heart there and 3. be reunited with Imade san and 4. see how the gospel of Jesus Christ has CHANGED her.

Please don't get me wrong, I also love Kobe and I don't want to ever leave here either but Wakayama is where my Bethel is: the place where I've been stretched the most and become so much closer to God. And the members and my friends there are my family and angels to me. My heart was beating so hard and it truly felt like a dream. Many of the people that I loved the most went to the baptism and it was soo cool to hug them and see them. One of the young women that was less active that MacKenzie shimai and I worked a lot with was there with her mom!!! 

When the Imades finally arrived I was upstairs writing a letter for her and it was perfect because when we walked down the stairs she was faced the other way getting her baptismal clothes. I crept up from behind and just put my arm around her (totally got her-- she turned the other way (; ) and then she flipped around and saw me and her face just lit up and gave me the biggest jumping/crying/crazy hug ever and we just held each other and cried and it was one of the best moments of my entire life and I don't know how to describe it to you other than my heart was just flooded with a joy that you can't feel doing anything other than sharing the gospel and seeing people accept it and be changed by it. Neither of us could say much because we were crying and just didn't need to. But we understood. It was incredible. I imagine heaven being like that. 

Another tender mercy was seeing tons of members in Wakayama again and hearing the bishop tell me about their efforts to dendo with the missionaries and also telling me about Tateishi shimai and Megu chan and Morimoto shimai (that was surprising) and many of the less actives that we were working with were either active again or really progressing and coming back to church. 

Another tender mercy was meeting with a bunch of really awesome people this week. We had our last lesson with Farhad before he left for Iran for the next month and it was really sad to say goodbye. He gets back to Japan like 3 days after I leave. We met with our other Iranian investigator too and she is just the purest woman I've ever met who hasn't been baptized yet but she taught us how to make a super delicious Iranian food with raisins and lamb and cinnamon and lentils and delicious things. Another tender mercy was just being led soooooo much this week. It was so incredible. You don't meet people that you know on the streets in Kobe because there are just thousands of people here. But we ran into 3 less-actives and a few investigators and it was perfect because it was just what one needed to set another appointment and we had a super spiritual lesson with him last night. The church is true. God directs this work. I love my life. 

ALSO! We had a super awesome week of training on prayer and I've changed my prayers A TON this past week and I feel like maybe I've had this many tender mercies all along but I'm seeing them a lot clearer this past week. It's written in the Bible Dictionary under ''Prayer'' that prayer turns our hearts to the Father and our will becomes His. This is so true. I don't know if you've ever done this before, but one thing that I've done differently is whenever I say a personal prayer before bed or before study or planning I sing a song. As a companionship we do the same thing and the feeling when you pray is a lot more sincere. ''A song of the heart is a prayer unto me''. 

Life is super good. One more tender mercy: Grundvig shimai and MacKenzie shimai and their lovely companions Stevenson shimai and Ichikawa shimai stayed the night in our apartment last Monday for training the next day and it was just so happy and natsukashii. God loves me.

Have a wonderful week!!! (:

love,

Daniels shimai