Week 83

Zone Conference, miracles, and 桜

Who does God trust? Are you a person that God trusts? Do you feel that confirmation from Him? 

Lately I have been striving to be a missionary that the Lord trusts. Not just with things but with people. Helping people come unto Christ is a journey and you need patience and Christ-like love. So are you that tool that God will use? As missionaries we help other people to come unto Christ by helping them recieve the Restored Gospel through Faith in Jesus Christ, Repentance, Baptism, recieving the Gift of the Holy Ghost, and Enduring to the End. The central point is baptism. 

So does the Lord trust me with His children that are ready for that next spiritual step? 

Anyways, something I've been thinking about. 

From thus past week. Put our friends Tsukui and Ueda Shimai on date! Had an amazing Zone conference and started lessons with one of our Chinese friends!

We went on a bike path by the Ishi River and rode for about an hour, such a great experience! I am writing my email underneath a Cherry tree in Japan. Literally the best haha. 

But Elder Marks are excited for another great week! Love you all!

ロバートソン長老

Zone conference, today's pday, cool cars, Elder Jepsen!, and we sang "Angels Among Us", but we sang it in Japanese with Irie Kyodai. 

Week 82

  

This is great Work!

When you come to it. The Lord has a work. His work will happen. We participate as much as we choose.

Elder Marks and I have been striving to participate in this great work.

We have had ups and downs, but God has greatly blessed us. We meet a man from Turkey that has read every sacred book from other religions. He started reading the Book of Mormon and really liked it. We challenged him to pray about it. He said he's very excited to read the rest of it!

Sister Ueda is another friend that we talked about baptism with. It was a great experience and we also talked about temples and what we do there! We will be talking about baptism in the next lesson . 

As a mission this transfer we want the missionaries to experience a baptism this transfer. So how will you do that? Through faith in God. Being ready and prepared for a baptism by working towards that goal and looking forward with an eye if faith. Every area is so different though. So instead of focusing in a problem like other times, we are going to learn how to use Preach My Gospel (PMG) and how to recieve answers for our own questions and answers for our area as a a companionship. 

So we are doing a PMG challenge for this transfer! So excited!

A cool story. We went to this massive park called Nagai Park. We started talking to this family by chance, but didn't get to the Gospel, we were both a little down, but we finished comp study and near the end, I felt a prompting to get up and find that family! They were walking around so I thought it wouldn't be that bad. We then couldn't find them, but then Elder Marks felt we needed to go a different way and then we talked to this Vietnamese guy and he wanted to talk about our message! So we got his Facebook and hopefully we can meet up sometime! Miracle!

Super quick thought. God always wants us to improve, but sometimes that improvement is simply doing the things you learned and learning to do it everyday. 

For example, you learn how pray. Improvement isn't necessarily having a more intricate prayer everyday, but maybe it's simply learning TO do it everyday. So sometimes, God wants us to learn to love something. To learn to do something with joy, not just for a day, but everyday.

This past week was transfers. Elder Marks and I are here for another one! We're awesome excited to see where the Lord takes us. But yes, Elder Matsumoto did finally go home. There were many amazing missionaries. But Elder Matsumoto was an amazing influence on me and it was sad to see him go, but I'm so excited to see where he goes in life. 

But I know this is a great work. I know Christ lives! He loves me and you. Please remember that!

Love

Elder Robertson 

Week 81

 Blessing outside, Speaking of Christ

We had such a great last week.

Highlights and miracles

1. Brother Fujita is a friend that wanted to recieve baptism. Elder Bennion and another Elder called Elder Leonard taught him one or two lessons and then Brother Fujita got super sick and fell off the face of the earth. After visiting him twice and just seeing how he was doing, we got back into contact! We then talked to the Brother that referred him and then went to his house. We then gave Brother Fujita a blessing to him outside his apartment. He said he really felt the Spirit and so did we! We are continuing to work with him!

2. We got to travel a lot with Fujita San, District Council in Wakayama, and exchanges in Nara. It was great to interact with a lot of amazing missionaries. 

3. Had a lot of great lessons with friends. Tsukui San, Ueda Shimai. We have been so blessed this transfer!

4. We have a lot of friends that aren't being taught as we just found them and haven't been able to set up lessons. But we hope there will be so many more people to teach in the next couple of weeks. We still have two Chinese friends and we have our first lesson this Tuesday! 

5. We had a fun YSA and YA activity about family history which was cool. We then had Costco pizza, chicken, and ice cream. So good :).

6. And I get to speak in Sacrament meeting this week! (if I don'f get transferred haha). First time in Japan!

So yeah, this is the last email of this transfer! I have 3 more amazing transfers in Japan this week, I'm so excited to follow God's will and to grow and learn. Elder Matsumoto and a lot of other great missionaries are leaving. 

Elders Toriumi, Matsunuma, Kawatsuna, Nishida, Seki, Barr are heading home. Sisters Wise, Sisters Rich, Gearheart, Nascimento, Wada, Miyahira, Hill. 13 missionaries! That's a lot for a mission with only 88. I was able to serve with all of them except for 3 of them and they have all been great examples to me. Remember those who have touched your life in some way.

So thanks to everyone for what you have done for me! I really do remember every single one of you and grateful to have the privilege to know each and every one of you reading this email. Thank you so much!

Got to go to the aquarium with Elder Toriumi and Elder Keate and called Elder Matsumoto In Kyoto!

Love you all!

Elder Robertson

                                   This stuffed Nemo is about $150 US Dollars!  Crazy!  The aquarium in Kyoto was only about $12 a person, so crazy to see the very expensive stuff fish.