September 12, 2016

Another week in missionary paradise! Okay here may be a few rough points in every week, but there are so many moments that are surreal and heaven feels so close. My favorite point in the week:

But first, scroll to the bottom of the email and see the picture of the little boy so you can picture him as you read this... Okay proceed.

We were riding home Friday night and had a little time left so we stopped a mom and her ten year old son. We had an amazing totsuzen with them, gave them a Book of Mormon, and prayed together. When we asked if we could meet with them again they said yes and we scheduled a return appointment for the next morning at a close 7/11. We show up to the 7 and the little boy is waiting for us on his bike!  He jumps off and runs over to us and asks if we want ice cream and starts walking inside. He has his own little wallet and is so excited to buy us ice cream. We convinced him to let us by him a donut instead (because it's 9 am) and he lets us. We were a little confused and kept asking him where his mom was and if she was coming, but he said she was sick and couldn't come. We decided to ride to a nearby river and still share a message with him and talk with him. This is the sweetest boy on the planet. Talking with him was so pure and fun and we just fell in love with him. We asked him if we could share a little message with him and he happily said yes. We showed a video and talked about God and Jesus Christ and he had the sweetest descriptions of God and Christ. We closed the lesson in teaching him how to pray. We wrote out a little instruction sheet on prayer and asked him what kind of things he would want to pray about. He answered that he wants to pray for his moms health. (Insert me holding back tears here). We told him that was a perfect thing to pray for, and then asked him if he would say the closing prayer. There's no way to put the pray into words. It was one of the most spiritually powerful experiences of my mission. This little boy woke up on his own, remembered out appointment time and place, came even though his mom didn't, tried to buy us a treat, listened to our lesson, and then prayed straight from the heart. It was such a tender mercy from the Lord. After he prayed we committed him to pray with his mom and he was so excited about it. It was amazing seeing the spirit so naturally and powerfully testify to this sweet boy. I don't think his family situation is conducive to becoming a member right now, but I know someday the missionaries wills top him on the street and he will remember the first time he prayed and it'll all fall into place from there.

Missionary work is full of miracles and it's humbling to see the Lords hand daily.

I still live with three Angels who teach me every single day about love, service, and devotion to their missions. I could not be more blessed right now! I love iwakuni more than ever and hope to get to stay here for the rest of my mission :)

As always, all my love, Sundell Shimai

Mom, our Book of Mormon flower pictures match this week!!!

Beautiful, overpriced, rather tasteless Japanese fig dessert. McNaughton Shimai wanted to take a "blog" picture.

How mission life actually looks.

Dinner with Dustin, a marine, who got baptized a little under a year ago.