Puppy Heaven

This email is dedicated to my sweet puppy Curly who just passed away to puppy heaven this week. You were a great dog these past 16 years. You always had stinky breath but always knew how to make anyone feel better. We'll hug it out again in heaven. 

I wish I had more exciting things to write about this week. Not much happened. It's so crazy how much hard work you feel like you put in the work every day. And then when you look back at the week your numbers are so low it's not even funny. Kind of had that kind of week. But all is well, this is still the Lord's work, and my faith is in Jesus Christ, not the results. 

This week on the 30th I hit my 6 months. What is time? So 1/3 of my mission has come and gone and I didn't even know it. Is it going as fast for you guys as it is for me? Don't worry mom, even though I don't want to, I'll be home before you know it.

I literally am at a loss for what to write about this week. Nothing much happened. I guess I can tell a semi-cool story that happened. Yesterday (Sunday) we were done with lunch and deciding what to do because we had previous plans fall through (#MissionaryLife #WhatsNew). And so we just decided to go housing. As we were biking to the place, and housing, nothing felt right. We just knew that there was something better the Lord had in store for us but we couldn't figure out what. So after the 2nd or 3rd "kekko" we got (that's what the Japanese say when they're not interested) we got an email from the ward clerk saying he had yasumi kaiin (less-active member) forms ready for us.

Side note: with this new sisters policy we are required to have these certain forms filled out with the yasumi kaiin's information written on it before we can go visit these people. And the person in charge of that is the ward clerk. 

So we went to the church and got those and now we can really start to fulfill our new responsibility. And that is what the Lord had in mind for us that day. 

After the Lord sees you work, then the blessings will come. 

Love you all. Your support and love is more than I deserve. 

With love from Japan,

Aulick Shimai 

アウリック 姉妹

Happy belated Easter loved ones! Easter here isn't really celebrated. Even among the church members. Haha 1 member told me and my companion happy Easter. So that was good. :)

So most of this letter is about our investigator named Fujita. He is stellar. He is a 67 year old man with no family and no friends but wants to meet God more than anything. Senmin (elect) for sure. 

So we taught him Friday and after we taught him he gave us a letter. After finally figuring out what the letter said (kanji, can't read a thing) we realized how sweet and awesome this man truly is. He apologized for not celebrating my birthday and how he didn't want to come to church the first time. And he actually wasn't even going to come to church that first Sunday but because we visited him the Saturday before he came. And now he's going to be baptized. 

So that is actually a pretty cool story. That Saturday that we visited him we weren't even going to visit him because we were at a dinner with all of our most recent converts. And it was getting late and raining and we needed to do our weekly planning session. But we both felt like we should just visit him and remind him about church. The Spirit didn't scream at us to go visit him or anything, but we both felt the small, still prompting and urge from the Spirit. So we visited him. Because of that he came to church, and is going to get baptized in June. 

He really struggled to pray for the first time. He didn't address Heavenly Father and didn't close in the name of Jesus Christ. So it wasn't a huge surprise when he said in his letter that he prayed to me the first time he prayed in his house. Hahaha he apologized for that too. 

I love this people and their simple understanding of God's plan. It is truly a struggle for these people to start on their journey back to God, but helping them brings me the greatest joy I've ever felt in my life. 

I pray that we may all listen and heed to the small promptings of the Spirit. You never know where it may lead but we are promised that we will not be led astray. 

With Love from your Japanese friend, 

Aulick Shimai

アウリック姉妹