Week 87

Baptism, Following God in all things

Do you ever wonder if God is really in your life, changing it? 

I can promise that He is! Christ is changing us. And even when we don't want to change, He gives us experiences and people and let's us experience trials to become humble to then want to change. 

Sorry if that is confusing :). 

But we need to have the belief and faith in Christ that He does love us. Why does that relate to change? Because we need to have the faith that Christ's love is infinite and because of that, He first wants to help and improve us. 

Don't teachers first want to help their students? Through teaching and love, they provide an environment to help their students. 

So we need to have faith Christ is doing that for us. 

And then we need to ask this big question to ourselves. 

Do I let God's love change me? When I feel His love, do I let it change me?

I have been thinking about that and I want to testify that Christ does love you. He has already paid the price. Follow His commandments and repent and He will change you.

It's that simple!

And a first for me that happened was that our friend Sister Ueda entered into the waters of baptism and received the Holy Ghost through proper authority. She has started the Covenant path! It was such a great joy to help her on her way. To be part of that journey. Her next goal is the temple and we are so excited for her!

We have transfers this week, I have done 3 transfers in Abeno and it has been a blast. I have a feeling might be leaving, but you never know!

Love you all!

Hurrah for Israel!

Week 86

Following the Gospel of Jesus Christ

There is so much power in living the Gospel of Jesus Christ.

Through striving to be obedient and striving to be a follower of Jesus Christ we have seen an outpouring of blessings in our area. 

Guided by the Spirit

Guided to those who are ready

So before I tell you the miracles, let's remember whose work this is. It's Jesus Christ's! So why is that important? When we follow His commandments that He has given us, we are promised peace and joy. But only as we follow them and strive to keep them. 

President Eyring gave a talk recently about finding personal peace. But that requires faith and focusing on Christ. 

If you want to experience the blessings of tithing, you need to follow the law of tithing! It's not the other way around! You don't experience the blessings and then you start following. If anything, the blesses comes as your heart changes. As we live principles and test them, we can find the blessings of them. So if there is a commandment or principle you are struggling with believing or questioning, I invite you to live it. You will learn the truthfulness by living it. I know that to be true.

Some miracles

- A brother in our ward sadly lost his wife recently. We called him a couple times, but he was busy with funeral arangements. We didn't really know how to help and neither did he. He's from Louisana and wasn't sure really what to do. So we decided to move on with our day after we called him in the morning. We were street contacting and then that brother out of nowhere appears on his bike! He disappears in a building and we wait and then he waves us in. At that time, it was actually his wife's viewing time, so we sat with him and his other Japanese friend and taught about eternal families and eternal marriage. He isn't active and doesn't really know much about the church, but we asked him if he wanted that. Eternal marriage with his wife and he said yes. So we invited him to come back to church. This Sunday, he did! Talked to a couple members and talked with Bishop on how to move forward.

-We meet several people that had interest in prophets. Haha, one of them exclaimed, "I love Abraham!". A lot of Christians don't really know much about Abraham or why he is important, but he was Japanese too which just made it even more interesting.

- A Chinese lady interrupted one of our conversations and so we invited her to church! And just before we were with another Chinese friend that has been taking the lessons. He made some really good Chinese Hot Pot. You have a boiling bowl of water and mushrooms and then you boil meat. Then you dip it into your oil bowl and seasoning bowl that you have. Super spicy and good! And he said he prayed to God about which college to enter. What a sign of faith!

- Both of those Chinese friends ended up coming to church and they had a great activity afterwards and both of them had a great time and made lots of new friends! 

Lots of other miracles that are there. Everyday!

Something I am excited for this week is that our friend Ueda姉妹 is receiving baptism! If she passes the interview and everything goes smoothly, I'll post and then send the link to you if you want to attend! But I'm not sure if that is happening or not. Be looking for it! And please pray for her that she will stay on track and continue to grow and learn!

And just another invitation: next time you're with family, just enjoy that time and think about them. What a great privilege we have to have families! I'm so grateful for my family and everything they have done for me. 

Love,

Elder Robertson

Week 85

We all have time!

We had a surprise this week :)

On Tuesday we were informed that our apartment was turning into a 4 Elder apartment! SO now there will be 4 elders in Abeno! Exciting!

Last week we got to watch some General Conference, I will have to start watching that in Personal Study as we are always so busy with lessons haha. 

We saw a lot of miracles and such in the past week. And some low points for sure. 

So Tsukui Shimai. We sadly had to drop her. Through writing we discovered that she was just planning on keeping not just our church, but more Christianity in general as second priority and then we asked her what her first priority is and it is Soka Gakkai. Soka Gakkai is a Buddhist Sect and yes of course we want her to experience the joy and change from Christ and make covenants with Him, but she didn't want to stop Soka Gakkai, so we respected that and said she couldn't accept baptism then. It was pretty sad. She is super lonely and in a way wanted baptism to appeal to a friend. So not even a good reason to be baptized. But it was sad to realize how lonely she was. But she asked if she could keep coming to church and we said she could! She is always welcomed for sure.

That SAME night we set another friend on date for baptism which was a great miracle! He hasn't come to church yet, but wants to change and come unto Christ, so we'll be teaching him more regularly from now on. 

On Sunday, a new friend came to church which was great! She is really interested and wants to learn more about our church. 

Another friend that is scheduled to be baptized on the 23rd of this month is trying to overcome beer, so if you all could pray for her. Her name is Ueda. (Think U-EH-DA)

Elder Marks and I had a very good talk on Easter Sunday, really brought our companionship together! I'm super grateful for him.

I want to bear a short testimony about Christ. 

I believe in Christ. I have felt His love and His strength. I know that strength is real. I know He suffered for my pains and afflictions. 

He loves us so much to let us experience hard things. I am so grateful for that level of love from him. 

I love Him too. He lives!

I'm so excited for this brand new week!

My brother Cal got his mission call!  I was able to join in for a few minutes while he read it.  He's going to the Philippines Tacloban Mission and will be speaking Cebuano.  He reports to the Manila, Philippines MTC July 19th!  I'll miss him by just a few days!

Week 84

I have 2 minutes for this

I love you all! My Mission President turned into an Area Seventy! 

We had a great week and our two friends on date are doing well. Can't wait to watch the rest of General Conference!

Love

Elder Robertson