konnichiwa!!!!!!!

hahaha Spencer's little highlight in the school newspaper is super classic, I love it despite all of the lies. ahhahah you are my favorite brother named spencer. I think you confused the part about you being 1/8th native american with grandma being 1\8th native american. hahhah how many squirrels have you shot? I'm sure mom is proud. Also Lizzy- GOOD LUCK WITH YOUR PRESIDENCY CAMPAIGN!!!!!!!! I would definitely vote for you. I don't know if you are allowed to bribe people with cookies or candy but I found it's really successful making friends about your age. Or really any age to be honest. Especially in Japan-- their love language is gift-giving.

ELDER CHRISTOFFERSON CAME TO KOBE AND DID A SPECIAL MEETING WITH JUST OUR MISSION AND IT WAS AMAZING. We woke up at 4 to be able to travel with enough time to be early to the meeting and spiritually prepare and it was so insanely awesome. The mission had all spiritually prepared really well and the spirit was SOO strong in that room and throughout the entire meeting. I received so much revelation for our area and our investigators and for my life. It was awesome. We got to shake his hand! each missionary had about 5 seconds with him so I didn't get to ask if he remembered me when he came to Michigan or really thank him properly for coming and for being the spiritual giant that he is, but I'll suffice with the simple thank you I was able to squeeze in. Also, Black shimai pointed out that when he shook my hand and read my soul he probably recognized it from the last time he read it in Michigan. hahaha but I feel like I'm super different from before my mission so maybe he didn't recognize it. He opened up time for questions and I didn't get a chance to ask mine, but the questions that the other missionaries asked were super inspired and I really just don't know how to describe to you how precious of an opportunity this was. I feel like it was an Alma 7 kind of moment. We have excellent leaders that helped us all prepare. Elder Christofferson told us at the end of his remarks that he feels like the Lord is pleased with our work and that He wants us to understand that more than anything. We weren't perfect, but we were definitely trying to work with and rely on the Lord and Elder Christofferson said he could feel that. He blessed the mission to feel that peace of conscience and assurance. There are few feelings better than knowing that the Savior of the world approves of your work.

also, another cool experience. The elders referred us their strongest investigator named Yuko chan. She is as pure as an angel.  Last week when they passed her over to us, we all invited her to church, and during weekly planning we received some little tidbits of revelation for her. She came for sacrament meeting (which is the last block of the 3 hour period here in Wakayama?) and I slipped her a little card with really unfortunate kanji written on it asking her to remember what she's learned about Jesus Christ and her Heavenly Father and remember them throughout the meeting, and also to pray and ask Heavenly Father if He is pleased that she came to church. She's soooo special and the whole meeting I was just pleading with God for her to receive an answer because this Sunday was key to her becoming progressing. The entire meeting the spirit was super strong and like none of the children were screaming and then as the first speaker began to speak, she started to cry and we helped her out and comforted her and did all of those sister missionary things, and at the end of the meeting we talked and she was like ''I've never felt God's love so strongly in my life. I feel so much peace and comfort and happiness and my heart is overflowing and I don't know why I'm crying because

 I'm so happy. I prayed the whole meeting to ask God if He was happy and I didn't hear a voice but I just am so happy.'' and I said ''do you think that could be God's answer?'' and she thought about it and ''yes, He's really happy that I came today. I feel like this is right.'' And God answers prayers and blesses us with revelation and I'm repenting and never not following through with revelation for as long as I live. Sometimes, espeically as missionaries, there is literally no time because you are sosoosososo busy but God created time. and He entrusted you with that revelation and also the accompanying responsibility.  So really I'm never letting the super tiny nudges in my brain escape my acts ever again. I wonder what my mission would be like if I'd followed through with every revelation right away in my previous areas. And I'm wondering why I haven't connected this really before.

This is the Lord's work here in Wakayama. The Lord's work is the Father's work: to bring to pass the immortality and eternal life of man. That's why I'm here in Japan and it's what I'll be doing for the rest of my life. I love my Savior, Jesus Christ. I know He lives. I know He loves me and He loves each of you and each of these amazing japanese people. I know that He'll guide us in our lives if we ask Him and we listen and we follow through. I know that repentance is real and that Satan is real. I know that if we repent every day and ask God to show us what we need to repent of He'll keep us on track. He will forgive us. As Elder Holland taught at conference, Christ always forgives sin, but He never condones it, not even once.

I want to leave you with a question that Elder Christofferson left us that I've considered a lot. How much time passes in between your prayers?

fun fact: Elder Christofferson's mission president was Elder Richard G. Scott. whaaaaaaaaat!!! Argentina!!!

Mom! how was meeting Elder Holland?!?!?!?!

I love you all and pray for you each day. I'll try to send some pictures today for once haha.

all my love,

Daniels shimai

2. this is a woman from Thailand named Flower shimai (nickname from missionaries because her name is impossible to say). I wish she was in my area. She needs love. also, she killed all of us in ping pong in those heels

3.  the Gobou sisters stayed over night with us in Wakayama so that they could make it to Ibaraki for the conference with Elder Christofferson. Madison Bowman from my hall at BYU is the one in pink (: it was so fun to be with her

4.  the biggest church in Japan (that I've seen). Wakayama is AWESOME. We have about 80  members and 300 less actives. As of today.

Ai suru kyoudai, shimai, tomodachi, ryoushin! Genki desu ka??

I love wakayama with all my heart. It's a little toasty here but we're on the coast of the Pacific so it's bound to happen I guess. hahaha this week we got really lost a few times and thought we messed up by taking a half hour train to a city called ''ki'' to visit a less active becasue the elders showed us a different kanji of 'kii'. so we got all the way there, thought we messed up so took the 34 minute train all the way back to wakayama and then we called the less active and she clarified that it really was the right one so we rode all the way back and felt kinda dumb. BUT she was soooooooooooooooooooooo awesome and is amazing and her son looks like TJ Devries if he was japanese and had hair longer than mine in a pony tail. hahahaa. we did a quick measure, it was impressive. she was in the super huge Kobe earthquake like 20 ish years ago where tooons of people died. She saw her coworkers die and her entire family besides her son and ex-husband didn't make it. She saw people get burned to death and had a really strong impression (guidance of God through the Holy Ghost) that she needed to help these people and that He had preserved her life for a reason. So she quit her truck driving job and started volunteering and gave up like everything she had for the victims of the earthquake. She has a bio in like a book they use in a lot of high schools. Anyway, she's awesome and her son is also the most service oriented person in the world and they joined the church 8 years ago. They're so cool. And also huge harry potter fans? I love them.

anyway, I don't have a ton of time but this week was incredible and awesome and amazing and I love my companion. She is a sweet heart. She hasn't gone housing and streeting in a long time because she's been completely engrossed in helping the less actives for 3 transfers, so we've been trying to build back up her confidence in that. She is really worried about messing up her japanese and talking to people. I think she's just had really chill companions in the past that just speak all the japanese for her but we're going to change that!! hahah. I feel like the Lord has really been helping me A TON with japanese this transfer. ahha the gift of tongues is the best feeling in the world and I'm sooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo grateful for it. I still don't understand people perfectly, nor do I speak normally BUT I catch what's important and somehow I'm able to say a good percentage of what I want and need to say. This work is led by the Lord. Sometimes when I talk to people I don't even have to think about how to say it and my brain just translates it and it runs out of my mouth and my prayers are being answered and my dreams are coming true and then I can't understand what people say back and I'm humbled again, BUT we're making progress! woooo! I love the Lord. I love the gifts of the Spirit. I love being a missionary. Remind me to tell you next week about the most awesome member in the world named Yabutani Kyoudai. HE IS THE MAN.

ALSO I GET TO MEET ELDER CHRISTOFFERSON THIS SATURDAY AND SEE GRUNDVIG SHIMAI AGAIN. we're going to get lunch <3 also our companions were companions earlier so it worked out well.

I love you all!! take care!

meg

ohh and here are some pictures!!!

1. black shimai had hot sauce and refried beans and we bought ''mexican rice'' and tortillas and had mexican food for the first time since America.

2. our newest member- Yuse kun. he rocks. and this is Elder Asai's 3rd week of baptism. this does not happen in Japan. But now it is. Also evidence of the work moving forward at an accelerated pace

3. most of our zone found a mexican restaurant after zone conference!!! we had 3 latinos in our group and one is Ochoa shimai?? Spencer-- she's Elder Ochoa's daughter. woo! she's awesome. 

FAMILY! happy mothers day!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! MITCH FELIZ CUMPLEANOS (pretend there's a tilde there) and TANJOBI OMEDITOU GOZAIMASU!!! I'm so happy I was able to talk to you on the phone (:

slash it was so nice to talk to you all on the phone! (:

I mentioned a lot of things over the call so this email might be really short because time is blurring together. My companion hit her half way mark last thursday and she's a transfer older than me which means I'll be half way done with my mission next transfer. hahahha and I've decided that sisters should be allowed to serve for 2 years because I still feel like I've only been here for like a month. But then sometimes I feel like I've been here my whole life and that family and college and anything that's happened before September 18th of 2013 was a dream. 

Wakayama is AMAZING and a super good mix of city and farmland. Actually there are only a couple of small farm/gardens that aren't being taken care of and I'm　trying to imagine how any of my Toyooka friends would feel about this. But the people here are YOUNG!!!!! except for our ward mission leader who is 80 years old but he is the most on-top-of-missionary work person ever and has so much dendo fire and is really just a 30 year old man in a 50 year old man body born 80 years ago. He is marvelous. We have a WARD <3 and when we biked over here today we ran into some ladies who were talking in the parking lot and told us they wanted to go visit less actives with us THEY DIDN'T EVEN KNOW THAT THAT IS OUR NEW RESPONSIBILITY. #intunewiththespirit. Sunday was fantastic because the whole ward was 1. shocked and 2. beaming that there are now sisters working in Wakayama. No one in the ward remembers ever having sisters before ever and the sisters in relief society were getting super pumped up and I love them. 

Leaving toyooka was the hardest thing of my whole life. I haven't changed: I still cried when I left them all. I'm just not even embarrassed anymore hahha. I LOVE THEM SO MUCH. Everyone was super sweet and wrote me little letters and gave us lots of delicious food and took us out for meals and my little girls gave me a bunch of hello kitty stuff. If I could've stayed, I would have. I also discovered donuts stuffed with anko beans. They are my favorite. I don't even like donuts.

I feel like this email is super lame compared to all the roller coasters of feelings I had this week. We're moving into the apartment and almost done setting up things to make it livable. Really what it comes down to is until we get the less active work rolling we'll be hitting the streets-- same as usual. Finding the people prepared to hear the best message in the galaxy that'll change their lives forever and the lives of all of their relatives and probably friends. The extent of this work is incomprehensible. 

I love you all! <3 

<3 Daniels shimai

p.s. my new bike is a mix between an elders bike and a sisters bike. and it's all black with a Jesus Christ yellow sticker on it. we call it the BAT

1. GRUNDVIG SHIMAI!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! <3 <3 <3 <3 <3

2. one last look at the sea of Japan