Week 44

 We moved to Fushimi!

I was going to start the email in a certain way, but before we got through the subway gates a drunk man stopped us and talked with us about something, I was then called English man and said I was American and he was like you mean Canada? I was like sure.. :). But thankfully nothing bad happened. 

Big news, we made it to Fushimi! We moved this past Thursday and it's been a little crazy since then, but it's been a blast and we've seen so many miracles!

We were out street contacting and bunch of highschoolers were getting drinks at a vending machine, about 5 guys. I felt prompted to go over and talk to them. It was tough, but went over! I never really talked to younger people, maybe because they seem like peers? That plus the language just seemed like too big of odds against me, and then I realized they were, BUT I had the Lord on my side and He can do all things! So I just simply asked what the best drinks were and boom! We started talking and ended up giving 5 pass along cards, and a Book of Mormon! And then we talked to this cool old guy for 20 minutes afterwards which was cool. He isn't really interested, he likes to learn, so he said he might come to a sacrament meeting! 

Another miracle, we OYMed this guy and he's actually from Vietnam! He was pretty excited to talk to us once he realized we were Christians as well! He was like "I'm one too!". He was super interested also in reading a Book of Mormon! It was cool to see that he didn't have preconceived ideas about it. What he knew and what we know is that the Book of Mormon is another testament of Jesus Christ and through it we can learn more about Jesus Christ than through any other book! And he was excited! But he can't read Japanese, but he speaks it pretty well! So we got his LINE (biggest social media in Japan) and we'll send him a Vietnamese Book of Mormon! To connect with someone on "LINE" you scan their personalized QR code on their phone and bam, you can then contact them on LINE!

Moving was rough haha. In Japan when you transfer, you get to ship two items. And most missionaries have at least a bike and one or two bags! So I had a suitcase and two bags and Matsumoto Choro had two bags and his bike. We have bike bags and you just carry out on the train. Pretty intense at times! We got to the apartment and realized we had the wrong key as we were trying to get in! Haha so President and Sister Halvorsen drove an hour and a half to bring our keys to us :). 

Today we woke up at 4 and I'm crazy tired :). Why?  Because Fushimi Inari! It's this famous Japanese shrine and it has over a thousand akamon, red gates! It was super cool and we saw parts of the sunrise as well and no one else was there! 

I think something to remember as I do these emails, and this goes for me as well, is that the most important thing that I'm doing isn't pictured here in photos. The people are the most important. I'm not here on vacation and yes it's fun to enjoy ourselves, but there's so much more satisfaction in helping others. And I still have to remind myself of that while I'm here! But always remember your next goal, have that spiritual momentum and you will see miracles!

Love you all!

Week 43

JSL Lesson (Japanese Sign Language), more craziness!

So this week we had lessons everyday which was crazy, but good for my language study!

So since we're still in Kobe at the mission office, we have been taking an hour and a half trip to church on Sunday's to get to our ward in Fushimi! But we have another ward called Otsu that we haven't been able to get to. But this past Sunday we made the trip! And wow! It was 40 min of walking and an hour and 20 min of train. What was nice is that it was just one train and it was bunch of them. Because when we go to Fushimi, it's usually 2 to 3 trains, so they're all only 10-20 min and usually you don't get a seat to sit in, but it was nice this time to just get one long train instead of bunch of small ones. But the members in Otsu Ward were so excited to see us there! We had lunch there, we bought these sandwiches the night before and they were like crustables, but filled with tuna, pretty good! Elder Matsumoto got the same sandwich, but it was filled with egg, and honestly, his were better :). 

We had a super cool lesson with a lady that asked for a Book of Mormon and we sent it 2 weeks ago and we set up a lesson for this past week! She is deaf and speaks Japanese Sign Language, JSL. So we asked around and it turns out that a recent convert speaks it! So she helped interpret for us. So it was cool to help teach someone and to involve a new member. It was a super cool experience! We talked about God's love and invited her to read the Book of Mormon! She's Christian already and has a Bible which is awesome! And she's pretty interested which is awesome!

So we got some good news! We might this week move to our apartment! Haha it's honestly hilarious, because in 2 weeks the transfer ends and we've been in the mission office apartment this whole time :). But it's been awesome to hang out with the Office Elders and the APs! President Halvorsen is also so amazing and it's been fun to be able to talk to him more on a daily basis than what we usually get as missionaries. 

So since Americans are getting their visas, missionaries have been coming in every 3 weeks and even every week :o! We just got missionaries this past week and then in 8 days, we get 3-4 more and then a week later, transfers happen and we get 3 more brand new missionaries! Haha it's going to be a crazy 6 months here in the field. I'm blessed to have Elder Matsumoto, a native, but I know that I might not be able to stay with him throughout all the new missionaries coming in. I'm sure that President Halvorsen will put him with someone else to give them some good Japanese help and then since I've been here for a bit, he'll put me with a new reassigned missionary. I hope it doesn't happen, but I think it might :).

I've talked about this, but the situation in the Kobe Japan will be like the Army of Jericho story in the Bible. My last mission president talk about this, President Wright. The Lord doesn't need or want tools, us people, that think they can do it. There's no potential, no growth, or faith. If someone can already pick up a stone, they won't ask for help they just do it. But if someone struggles to pick up that same stone and turns to the Lord, they can not only learn how to lift the stone with Christ's help, but they have a relationship with Him and they can then learn to lift more and bigger rocks, because they have that relationship already with Christ. Basically what I'm trying to say, is that God wants us and the world to know that it was Him. He will us the weak and simple things to accomplish great things. A great work is about to happen in Japan. It might look bleak, bunch of Americans that don't know how to speak Japanese, but through that, we will need to rely on the Lord more than what we have done in the past. We will be open to new idea's and through our reliance on the Lord, we will accomplish so much more than if we all already knew Japanese. 

Miracles are happening and they will only get bigger! Remember that if you feel insufficient or weak, that's a place we can put our trust in the Lord and see the biggest miracles. We will see Him deliver us from our trials, our " enemies army's". 

I love you all!

Elder Robertson 

Pictures

-Parents and Haley :)

-A weird 7 11 vehicle haha

-Food!

-My new Japanese tags! So cool :)

-AN interesting picture with my comp :)

-Next 7-8 pictures are from last weeks hike and the pictures with the blue background are so good! He's the old AP :). He's not going home, just opening a new area!

-The last guy is Elder Eddington, super awesome Elder! He was in my MTC District and we were in the same District in Japan for 3 weeks, he's also opening anew area this week so he left the Kyoto District :(, but we still had fun with the time we had!

-More food and some fun vehicles :). They have some crazy minivans in Japan :o