Monday, January 30, 2023

Week 75

Learning is work!

What a week of learning!

Miracles are always there! Sometimes all we have to do is look back...
1. We did District Council at Sennan, so we took an hour train down and met the Sennan District there! The Halvorson's also came down which was fun. We were asked to do a training after DC (District Council) started so that was fun haha. But we gave a decent training on finding and some principles with that. 

2. We had several 英会話's this past week with people one on one. It was cool to be able to help someone one on one with English and then teach the Gospel! Two people we had it with seemed pretty open to what we talked about. One of them talked about feeling a warm feeling after we talked, we were then able to teach about the Holy Ghost to that person! Cool to see the Lord preparing them to meet us, even through English!

3. Sunday was a super hard, but a learning day. A linguist (in Japanese a 言語学者) came to our ward on Sunday. His name is Brother Cody and from Utah! After church there was a stuff exchange (you bring stuff you don't want and take other people's stuff) and then we had a language study with him. He was like, "I can't teach you Japanese, but I can teach you how to learn a language better". We basically then received a free engaging hour long college lecture. Basically we need to help our brains recognize the importance of concepts you are trying to learn or for a language, vocab, or grammar in order to remember them and understand them. We do that better not through flashcards, but by applying what we learn and learning how it applies to other things! That pattern has really helped me figure out some other things as well. For the past transfer, Japanese has been really bugging me, but now I feel I have a direction to have better and more natural Japanese.

SO! I did say we had a baptism for this past Sunday in my last email... And it didn't happen, but for a good reason! Tsukui San is deaf and has some other medical challenges, so it's sometimes hard for her to learn and feel things. She's following the commandments, but after interviewing with our Mission Presidents, he felt she needed more preparation before baptism. She needs to believe and feel that Christ is her Savior, Russell M. Nelson is God's prophet, things like that. And she still doesn't know. But I'm happy that we can be tools to be able to help Tsukui San. Please pray for her!

One more thing that Brother Cody said. When we are learning and trying to figure out the why's of things, our brains hurt. We feel a little stress and confusion, but in reality, that's good! That's us learning

Isn't this life confusing sometimes? We are in the biggest learning stage of our existence right now! We see through the glass darkly. Meaning, we don't see the big picture. We can adopt an eternal perspective, but we still don't see eternity. So even when life is confusing, just trust in Christ! It's that easy! 

Alma 37:46
O my son, do not let us be slothful because of the easiness of the way; for so was it with our fathers; for so was it prepared for them, that if they would look they might live; even so it is with us. The way is prepared, and if we will look we may live forever.

I know Christ lives! He's saved me. And He will save you if you let Him! And remember to choose that choice every day. Being saved is choosing Christ everyday. It's choices across your whole life!

Love you all!
ロバートソン長老




















Wednesday, January 25, 2023

Week 74

 Baptisms and little miracles draw a big picture!

I've got a surprise, another short email!

My phone is about to die, but here are some highlights.

Exchanges with the AP's. 

District pday at Nara! 

Kataoka San, a person I worked with for 7 months in Fushimi received baptism! 
So awesome! I was so happy to hear about Him!

And this Sunday we have a Baptism for Tsukui San, she is deaf. Please pray for her!

Just how little strokes make a beautiful painting, little miracles and little habits like reading the Book of Mormon truly make something beautiful. Not one big splat on a canvas. A thousand little decisions really make a beautiful painting of a life!

Love you all!

Elder Robertson


































https://youtu.be/pJMhSJKhC6k

https://youtu.be/0bog0FgbXdk





Monday, January 16, 2023

Week 73

 Time flies, Zone Conference, Ikea!?

Sorry for another short email!

We had a great Zone Conference last week. We held it at our building in Abeno!

We talked about the new key indicator we use as missionaries and about picking up a person (meaning to start teaching a person) in Areabook. Very technical, but we have a ton of new missionaries so it was really helpful. And we also talked about focusing our streeting efforts from just passing out things to truly teaching and bearing witness of Christ. It was great :). 

We've been having a lot of great streeting experiences. One guy even said he would ask around for other interested people at his job! 

I'll end with my testimony for this email.

Life is hard. I know it won't go right. 

But

It didn't go well for Christ either. Instead, He always focused outwards and showed that personal example of focusing outwards throughout His whole life before He went to Gethsemane or the cross. He experienced a lot of personal unfairness and heartache before feeling ours. I am so grateful that because Christ stayed cheerful through His personal trials and through feeling ours, so can I! I love Him. I know He loves all of you!

Pictures
MaClaren (Maclaren?, MacLaren?)
Me eating a whole shrimp on exchanges with the Hashimoto Elders (crunchy)
Ikea Pday, so fun :)
























Week 102

MAOPAY NA KALOP SA BUONG MUNDO Hello peoples. Musta mo? I got transferred! I'm back in Samar! I'm excited to keep working here as it...