December 14, 2014

I can’t believe there is only 10 days till Christmas and until I get to see you guys! :) It doesn’t feel like Christmas though! It has been pretty nice here, it is starting to cool off a little but it still hit 22 C degrees here which is like 71 F so it really doesn't feel like Christmas, I think that is a good thing or I would get way too Trunkey and miss home! :P I am not sure what time I will be talking to you guys yet because I am moving!!! I am going up north right under 台中 Taizhong To yuan Lin. I heard it is a good area and the ward is awesome so I am excited! I am going to be senior over two other pretty new missionaries and one of them is known for being really disobedient.... ha-ha so wish me luck! The other one is really awesome though and everyone has only said well about him! I will be moving up there on Friday.

This Friday we met with Lin mama and we had a really good lesson with her, we reviewed the first lesson and Elder Rock did the pen example or idiom (I think that’s what it is called in English) and she just freaked out because it made so much sense why we need a prophet now! Ha-ha it was awesome being able to see such a little thing help someone so much! After the lesson she invited us to come to dinner with her and I thought she said the relief society so I asked if we could and she said yes and said how there was going to be a lot of people and you just kind of grab the food you want and it would be OK. So I thought I just miss understood her.... ha-ha we showed up and I definitely understood what she said.... It was all these middle aged women at this table and then us two missionaries.... ha-ha it was kind of awkward but we got free dinner and got to know the relief society better :) 

I have been trying to get over this stupid cold this week and I think I am almost better! I called sister Blickenstaff on Wednesday finally and she told me some medicine I could get and it has been helping quite a bit. That night we had English and I had just took the medicine and boy did it make me feel good!!! Ha-ha I felt like I was just floating and my body was all tingly, it was super weird but felt pretty cool! :) My nose has been really weird though it gets super clogged up but I don’t notice and all.... It is super weird because I can breathe fine and it doesn’t feel weird I just notice because I start to not be able to hear very well... I don’t know if that is normal but it is really weird! Ha-ha my hearing gets all muffled and I start feeling kind of light headed until I blow my nose then I feel fine! Ha :)

Today during my personal study I read Alma 1 and it talks about priest crafts, which is pretty much pride! On my mission I have noticed how bad pride is and how much it can take over people and the things and can lead to! Pride is the hardest thing to overcome but once you do you and the people around you will be a lot happier! I want all of you to forget about yourself this week and focus on the savior and serving others! Here is a video for you guys to think about! Love you! :)

http://www.mormon.org/christmas?cid=HPFR112814529

Hope you all have a great week! Love you lots! :) I will let you know next week about skype! :)

December 8, 2014

This week has been pretty awesome! I have been sick all week with a cold but other than that a lot of fun stuff happened! Ha-ha On Dec. 1st it got cold! It was super weird but now it is getting warm again! It wasn’t anything like Utah but I put on a wind breaker! It has been super nice though up until this last week! This week we had our mission Christmas party which was sweet! We went and saw a huge Buddha and then went to a buffet on the 43rd floor of a hotel that looked out over the ocean! I got to see all of my old companions and it was super fun! After dinner we all crammed in the elevator to go down and it stopped about half way down so we all turned to face the back of the elevator and the doors opened and the guy just sat there for a second until one of the elders told him he could get in then a couple more floors down it stopped and another Asian got in and the one that was already inside says to the other (in Chinese thinking we can’t understand) "when I got in they were all turned facing the back" Then we all started to laugh and he says "what you understand!" in his broken English then turns back around shaking his head in embarrassment! It was super funny! :)

Other than that though nothing to exciting happened! Everyone keeps asking me if I forgot to shave when it gets later in the day because my chin hair is starting to grow fast. Sister Huang is still crazy! Ha-ha but I figured out why I don’t understand a lot of thing she says, she is a lot like mom! She will be thinking about something and then just start talking to you half way through her thought! For example the other day we were in the hall talking and she says “in a second what’s going to happen fruit" hmmmm I understand what you said but it doesn’t make sense! ha-ha she also came up to us and said "pudding" then didn’t understand why we didn’t know what she was talking about.... ha-ha she is so funny it makes me miss my mom! :)

Yesterday I started to do this thing called Project Purification It is where you fast and you write down all the things that distract you from the work and then you fast from all those things for 40 days, you don’t talk about them or think or anything like that so that should be cool to do for the next month and I am really going to need help!! Ha But yesterday I really prayed for help to be able to feel the importance of the sacrament and to help me prepare for church so I could feel the spirit! I had the opportunity to pass the sacrament and I just couldn't stop smiling the whole time! I sat down and noticed how good and happy I felt and it was so awesome! I don’t think I have ever been so happy on a fast Sunday as I was yesterday! :) Ha-ha God answers prayers and he likes sacrifice! The more we sacrifice the more we will be blessed!! 

I love you guys and hope you have a great week! 

Love Elder Roberts 愛阮張老

November 30 2014

This week was full of finding!! We did a lot of contacting at the begging of the week but a lot of little things still happened this week! :) On Tuesday morning I ran a mile in 5:20!!! I was running and kept looking at my watch and I couldn't see it very good but I thought I was running slower than usual so I would run faster and faster and it was kind of hard but I have been sick so I thought that was why and so I just kept pushing myself faster and faster and then I finished thinking I ran pretty slow and I looked at my watch and it was at 5:20, it was awesome! :) This week I am going to break 5 minutes! ;)

We had Mission Tour this week and Elder Gong, from the Quorum of the 70 and he is the Asian Area President, came and spoke with us. We did a lot on the first vision and the restoration it was super good! They asked all of us to memorize the first vision before and then we all had to teach that part and say the first vision. It was a good meeting and on top of that they gave us a big thanks giving lunch!!! IT WAS SO GOOD!!! I haven't had mashed potatoes and gravy in so long and it tasted so good!!! :) Ha-ha I can't wait to get home and have some of my grandmas’ Delicious gravy!!! :)

On Monday we went to Costco and got a bunch of food to fill up our fridge and for the move call and then Tuesday morning our fridge was no longer cold.... our big fridge full of food was now broke and the only other option we had was the mini one that the other elders were using.... When we asked them if we could put our milk in there you would have thought we were asking for their first born! They acted like we were nuts ha-ha then I told them we were putting our milk in their fridge and they didn't have a choice and they just went quiet :) I guess that is what I get for taking the big fridge though.... ha-ha Later that night we were walking around a park and we found this family with these skate things, they are like a rip stick but separated. I don't know what they are called in English ha but we started talking to them and they asked if we wanted to try, of course I did ha-ha but I just ended up making a fool of myself for like an hour! They are so hard!!!! :) It was super fun though and I kind of started to get it at the end! This is a picture of them ha-ha all the little kids would ride around me and make fun of me! : P It was HARD!!!!  :)

This week we BAPTIZED!!!! Sister Lin or Lin mama got baptized and it was awesome! At her baptism they asked her daughter that is serving around here to give a talk and the spirit was so strong! After the baptism Lin mama bore her testimony and I'm pretty sure everyone was crying. She has been being prepared for the last couple years and I am so thankful that I was chosen to be here when she was finally able to o

I am so thankful for this Gospel and for my family thank you guys for everything you do for me! I love you so much and truly do appreciate everything you do! I hope you had a great thanks giving and have great Christmas holidays!! Don't forget why we have Christmas!! :) Love you all!

Love Elder Roberts

Overcome the things that were holding her back! She is so strong now and is going to be such a good member! It is so awesome being able to be here and serve and help people change their lives for the better!!

November 23, 2014

This week has been pretty exciting, on Monday we only got to email and our P-day was on Friday because of transfers. On Monday while emailing we got a call from President saying Elder Ng was going to be training a new missionary so we were really confused what was going to happen to me because I was told I was staying in my area. We ended up splitting into a 4 man and he is white washing (starting from nothing) with his trainee and I get to keep all the investigators :) So this week we had a lot of meetings and stuff getting ready for the new people and for him training. On Friday he went and picked up his new companion and some of the other Elders came over and we cleaned our whole house and organized it for the new guy.... I got my new companion and his name is Elder Rock, he is super cool and likes pretty much everything I like so it will be a fun next couple weeks! :) He is from Minnesota and is Native American! Super cool! He has been in Taiwan for 4 months :)

Lin mama passed her interview and is going to get baptized on Saturday! We had one of Presidents counselors do the interview and after he told me that we have to make sure her daughter that is serving in this area comes to the baptism and that she gives a talk! Ha-ha this will probably be one of the coolest baptisms I have had yet! It is really awesome to be able to help bring this Gospel into her life and to see it affecting the family! I don't even know how to explain it but it is really cool! :)

This week during our morning work outs we have had some funny things happen!!! Thursday morning I we were at the track and I was over doing pull-ups an push-ups and this old guy comes walking over and waves at me, I looked behind me thinking he was waving to someone else then looked back at him and he waved again but this time gave me a huge smile with his three teeth! Then he slowly walks over to the pull up bars and grabs on and starts hanging from it like all the old people do, then out of the blue he cranks out 10 pull ups like it was nothing and then slowly limps away!!! I was pretty impressed and kind of embarrassed because this old guy that can barely walk just came over and showed me up! Then like ten minutes later he came walking over and gets in push up position and does like 50 push-ups.... ha-ha luckily it was time for us to leave! :) The old people are crazy here!! :) Then Saturday Elder Rock disappeared for a little while and when I found him again he was missing a sock.... I asked him if he was running so fast it fell off and he just said the bathroom is out of toilet paper.... ha-ha I had a pretty good laugh about it but he lost one of his good socks! :)

That was pretty much the week Hope all of you had a great week! And have a happy thanks giving! What are you thankful for? Try to do something nice for someone and let them know how thankful you are to have them in your life! Love You all!! :) Live life to the fullest! :)

Love Elder Roberts

November 9 2014

Well how many people can say they spent their 21st birthday on the other side of the world playing basketball and baptizing people! On Saturday we played basketball with some investigators and of course I got hurt, jammed my hand/wrist on an Elders leg and bruised it pretty good. I still made the shot so it was ok, right dad? Then at night sister Huang got baptized and bore one of the most powerful testimonies I have ever heard from someone that just got baptized, it was really cool! She asked me to baptize her and so that was really cool. She also told me before that she wanted me to hold her under for 5 seconds, as she counted on her fingers to show me how long. haha I just laughed and said probably not. When I baptized her I found out she was serious because I had to completely lift her out of the water and stand her on her feet!!! Then, after, they through a big party for me and bought TONS of food and two cakes!!! She gave me a present, it was a light up glass picture of me her and Elder Shelton on it!! She is so crazy and awesome! My Birthday was really good!

Not too much happened this week other than that. We did have a cool experience while contacting. I am pretty sure the guy was Atheist but he was willing to listen. We started talking about prayer. He brought up "how is got supposed to answer EVERYONE'S prayers, there are probably at least 100 people that are all praying at the same time how does he answer all of them?" I have thought about that as well but the spirit put the answer in my mind at the time I needed it!!! I said "well don't you think that someone that has enough power to create the world and all of us would be able to answer someone’s simple prayer?" It hit him and he was like oh I guess he could. Then he told us he was going to talk to his girlfriend and hopefully meet with us so we will see what happens.

Sister Lin or Lin mama (the mom of the sister missionary in our district) now has a baptismal goal for the 29th of this month! SWEET!  She is so ready and is coming to church now so she should hit it as long as she doesn't get cold feet!!! What an awesome day that will be!

I hope all of you have a great week and thank you all for the packages and birthday wishes they mean so much!!! I don't think you understand how much they mean!!! They make us missionaries’ day!

Here is a quote that I read in a LIahona this week it says "Perhaps the most valuable result of all education is the ability to make yourself do the things you don’t want to do, when it ought to be done, whether you like it or not."

Love you all have a great week!

Love Elder Roberts

November 3 2014

This week we had some pretty cool lessons. First off DTM went really good it was awesome! I taught about diligence and we discussed things that have happened from talking with everyone and bore testimony of it, the spirit got super strong and then we did a practice that was so fun! We had a companionship go out of the room and picked someone to be the person that would accept then the companionship had to find the person. I also had everyone act like a special person, like a drunk person, parents, and stuff like that. The last companionship was the sister training leaders and we all acted like we were a family and the dad was the one that would accept when they would contact him we would call him over to help us and so they couldn’t really talk to him. By the end of it the sister training leaders were doing the "Kamie squat" trying not to pee their pants because they were laughing so hard! It was super fun!

This week at English class we had an awesome spiritual share. We chose to do it on Life’s purpose and the Atonement. We asked them what things helped them be happy and what things made them sad then what things they needed.  We watched a Mormon message called "what matters most" and talked a little about that then talked about putting others first and serving others. We said Christ was a perfect example of this and if you really want true happiness you could get it through following him, we watched a video on his Atonement and at the end shared more testimony and by the end almost everyone's eyes were filled with tears trying not to cry! That is the first time the spirit has ever been that strong at an English class it was so cool and really helped strengthen my testimony on the Savior! I truly Love the spirit!

We are teaching a sisters mom! She is in our district and her mom is meeting with us how weird is that!!! Sister Lin is from where I am serving but went to Taipei for school and turned her papers in up there and then got called down to the Taichung mission and her mom has investigated the church but never got baptized because of the Sabbath day and her work. She owns a fruit stand and Sundays are the busiest day of the week so it is really hard for her to not work. This Friday I was planning for her and I wasn’t really sure what to teach her and what to share so I prayed and when I finished I thought of a story that I had not ever read before but I knew it was in a liahona (I know, kind of weird but that’s the spirit haha) so I grabbed a couple Liahona's and started reading where I thought it would be. The first one had a story that was on the Sabbath but it wasn’t the right one so I grabbed the next one and found a story on working on Sunday and opening his candy store for a Holiday so I was pretty impressed but it wasn’t quite what I was looking for so I grabbed another one and this story was exactly what came to my mind when I was praying!!! It was so cool! It was exactly like Lin mama's life and story! Then in the lesson she shared an experience, last week she prayed about working on Sunday and then went to work. At work 3 people asked her about her religion and she said I guess I am Christian" and then her customers got mad at her for working on Sunday because they knew Christians don't do that! SO COOL!!! This Sunday she was at church and stayed for the whole thing! Pray for her and that she will be able to receive the blessings from keeping the Sabbath and trusting in the Lord!!!

Love you all and hope you have a great week!

Love Elder Roberts

October 26 2014

This was another awesome week!

It started off awesome and crazy and didn't stop through the whole week! The title of my email is how an old guy started a conversation with us this week while we were sitting at the park doing language study! Also I was contacting a guy and asked him to pull over but he said he didn't have time so I got his number in the middle of the intersection and then he took off.... about three hundred yards down the road a car turned right in front of him and he slammed into the side of the car....  I didn't know what to do and I still don't know what to write about it besides he should have pulled over and talked to me...

Friday we had weekly planning. Thursday they came and readied our house because it is going to be a 4 man house in two weeks. So they brought a lot of new stuff so most of our hour planning was spent taking all the new stuff for ourselves and putting it together (hehe)! The problem was we didn’t have most of the tools we needed so we had to use what we had and I ended up pounding 1 inch long nails into the back of a shelf with a dumb bell handle! Haha. Elder Ng was using a wrench! It was a pretty fun day!

Saturday I got to go to the Temple with Elder Shelton and our ward because Elder Shelton had a family that was getting sealed! It was such a cool experiences to see them get married for time and all eternity! What a great feeling to know that this life is not the end and that you will be able to spend forever with your family! The day over all was super crazy though! We got there and found out the time had been changed so we were going to miss our bus home. We had to figure out how we were going to get home. One of the bishops said he would help us so we told someone from our bus to tell the other people we weren't going to go with them, well that message never got to them because right before the sealing three people came in telling us our bus was out there waiting for us to go. The next problem was wondering if we had enough money to get home because we could only ride half way with that bishop and then we took the high speed rail the rest of the way! Luckily everything worked out and we made it home.  A lot of things worked out so that I will hopefully have enough money for the rest of the week. The day that was supposed to be about 2000 Kuai ended up being almost 4000!!! So 60 dollars to about 120!  But somehow we will still be alright to get through this week! we also only get 7000 Kuai a month.... so that shows how expensive the day was. But the Lord definitely provides when you are doing his work and I am going to be able to make it through the week! Hopefully!

On Monday we were buying groceries at about 5:30 and the sisters called saying they had a lesson at 6:30 with someone that lives in our area so they wanted us to be there so they could hand her off to us. We got there and it was a former investigator that called them and wanted to meet because she had some things happen and now she feels like she needs this gospel in her life and that it can really help her! They said they would sit down with her first and then invite us to come in in a little bit. About 20 min. later they invited us in and told us "the spirit is really strong just bear your testimony on prayer" so we sat down and that's what happened my companion started on why prayer is important and then I felt like I needed to share an experience that I recently had with prayer and God answering through scriptures then I kept going and talked about trials and how he has helped me a lot! I shared a lot that I normally wouldn't share but I felt like I needed to and it got pretty deep! I finished and things were quiet and I was kind of nervous about what I said then she just opened up and told us pretty much everything! The spirit was super strong in that lesson and I know she felt it! Her name is Gill! 

Love you guys so much and hope you have a great week! You are all in my prayers! :)

http://www.mormon.org/monica

Love Elder Roberts