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