Elder Braden Roberts

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Tuesday, May 20, 2014

April 6th 2014

Wow another week has already come and gone!!! So crazy!! This week was pretty good, we decided to drop a lot of our investigators because they weren't improving and weren't really wanting to move on so as for he is going to be left alone for a little while.... Sad but he wouldn't read and wouldn't do anything we asked him so we decided to let him do his thing for a little while and hopefully he comes back around! Eric is doing alright he still hasn't come to church though but we are making slow progress with him. But we dropped pretty much all of our investigators so now we only have one progressing  but we found a lot this week and so things should start looking better for us here in gang shan. As for me being sore at night I don’t think I have really ever been sore ha just my arms from lifting every now and then. But my bed is pretty comfortable :) As for knocking on doors a lot of people open the door and see we are white and get scared then look at our name tag and all of a sudden they are super busy.... haha and then the door is shut it is fun though trying to keep the door open in the most polite way we can.  But we do most of our finding by street contacting it is super easy because everyone rides scooters so you just pull up to them and talk to them but a lot of the time with that you get a hand and them saying they have no time instead of a door but then you say kindly " but sir the light is still red :) haha then you tell them what you have to say.  A mission is super humbling though that’s for sure but it is so fun to!! Just the challenge of it, there is always something you can do better at!

Saturday was a super awesome day!!! Our entire day was just service pretty much!! So Saturday was a Taiwan holiday and it is called grave sweeping day haha so everyone goes and cleans graves and worship their ancestors (they call it bye bye here)  it is kind of weird but pretty interesting! So we left the house at 7:30 and went and cleaned graves until about 12. I got to see Elder Washburn again and spent most of the time talking with him it was super nice to see him! He is a stud! Then we went straight from that to a members house and helped pull weeds and helped them move into their new house... kind of. I say kind of because they hired movers to help them and they were so ridiculous!! haha like we all just stood and watched with our mouths open, it was like a circus act!!! One guy moved a two piece dresser thing by himself.... but he took both pieces at the same time!!!!! When we saw him trying to pick up the first one we thought no way just because how awkward it would be and it was big!!! But then he got it up on his head and shoulders and turned around to pick up the bottom piece and he carried both of them into the house!!! So crazy I wish I would have gotten pictures, you would not believe it!!! We thought maybe it wasn’t very heavy until it took 3 of us to pick of the top piece of the dresser thing.... and that was balanced on his head!!! Then they were carrying 3 of these boxes that it took 2 of us to carry one.... haha we just stood there and watched because we were kind of embarrassed as you can imagine! It was so amazing!

One last happy note about this week was we finally got a baptismal goal!!! This is the first baptismal goal our side of gang shan has had since December.... kind of sad but happy we finally got one!! haha hopefully we can keep helping him progress!! And a couple people I was teaching in my last areas got baptized last month!!! So happy for them!!!

Scripture for the week 1 Nephi 7:12 I know this is true! If you have enough faith anything is possible with god!!

Love you guys lots and just hope you all watch out for grandpa I heard he likes to hit people in the face with 2x4's ;)  don’t want your nose to end up like Daves!!! :)

JUST ANOTHER DAY IN PARADISE!!


Love Elder Roberts :)






March 30th 2014

This week has been so crazy and so AWESOME!!! haha I will start off with the date night thing.  One of the members set us Elders up on a date for tonight.... hmmm haha we went to McDonalds for dinner on Saturday and willy (member), new one of the girls that worked there so we started to tell him to ask her on a date. We said she was cute to give him confidence and stuff and we set everything up and told him to invite her to dinner and we all could go. Then after we could all go to family night! So we were getting a new investigator and setting him up on a date.... at least that's what we thought then after he went to talk to her he came back and told us that he invited her to dinner and that he told her we, the Elders thought she was cute and wanted her to come..... haha that kind of put us in a bad situation but we have a date tonight so not many missionaries can say that right? haha But he also told us after all of this and after we were saying it isn't our date it is yours he said it isn't a date because she has a boyfriend. haha Not sure why he didn't say that right at first but oh well it makes for a good story!

For conference we watch it a week after you guys do and I think we just go to our church and watch it on a TV or something I am not really sure... and for Easter we don’t do anything for Easter I haven't seen one Easter thing here except for some missionaries that got stuff sent to them! Everyone here for the most part is Buddhist or Taoist so they haven't even really heard of Christ!!! 

This week I had the opportunity to give a blessing to a sister in our district! We were on our way to English meeting and they called to ask if we could do it before English so we say yes but instantly get super nervous!!! Elder Ng said he would do it because they didn't really say who they wanted to do it. When we got to the church things just started to take forever to get ready then when we finally thought we were ready elder ng just stood there.... haha he was trying to prepare himself but then they decided to switch and asked me to do it. Of course I say I will but inside I am praying that I will know what to say then to make it even easier I asked what the blessing was for and she says "just follow the spirit"........ umm haha that doesn't make it any easier!!! Well hopefully I have been living right and have the spirit with me!!!! The blessing ended up going good though and Willy said, when I finished, "I felt it three times" as in he got the chills three times during the blessing and got the chills it was a pretty neat experience and I hope it was able to help her!

This week we have met with an investigater twice and the spirit has been super strong!! He knows it is true but now we just need him to have the desire to change his life!! We had a pretty awesome lesson with a less active member named Eric! Most of the time when we go over he just plays on his phone and ignores everything we say so I decided to have a family night and play card games and make him get involved! It was amazing the change once we finally got him away from his electronics, by the end of the night he was laughing and joking with us and he walked us out the door and was talking to us where before we were lucky to shake his hand when we left. Hopefully we can help him come back!

The last thing is this last week we had a ward activity and the little kids came and did missionary work with us which was pretty cool and fun!! haha by the end of the day they were all exhausted it was super funny but this week they spoke in sacrament and it was super funny to hear what they had to say and the stuff that is just like everyday things and normal to us were like terrifying for them! For example knocking on doors :) haha one girl that is about 12 was saying how scary it was and she explained how like every door they knocked on the door was shut in her face before she could say anything she didn’t know how the missionaries were able to talk to people! It was super cool to hear people talk about what we do every day and it is just routine now!

I love you guys and hope you have a great week!! Here is a picture from one of our less actives house last Friday! 


Crazy to think a little over a year ago I was standing on top of snow basin looking out over Ogden now I am standing on the other side of the world looking out over the ocean!

March 24th 2014

This week has been pretty interesting, my mood has changed a little bit..... haha and I have just put my head down just trying to stay focused on the work! Some exciting things that have happened this week, we had an earthquake that was pretty crazy being up on the 8th floor in our church and you start to feel the ground start moving and your swaying back and forth... haha Elder liu (leo) he is one of the other elders in our apartment, but he got in a pretty bad accident this week and luckily just a couple scrapes and bruises. He was coming around a corner out in farm land and there were bushes blocking so they couldn't really see around the corner and a scooter came flying around and slammed into him! The scooter was like totaled and the guy on the scooter messed up his nose and had blood all over his face and it was going everywhere!! Elder Liu got knocked out for a little while they spent most of the day at the hospital and came back later that day. He is doing fine now and his bike is fine to!!! So amazing!!!  That was pretty exciting. ha

Couple questions for you guys. Has Brett got his learners permit yet?? haha I haven't heard anything on that I am guessing he has but maybe not... If he has I am super happy I am on the other side of the world!! (just kidding Brett) Then what happened to a picture every month?  The last one I got was on my 6th month mark but it was for my third month... I only have up to my third month haha Love you guys.

The work is kind of the same as before just trying to find some good people and get our eternal investigators to commit! We have one that is super cool!! He is 23 and I am determined to baptize him!! I think he will eventually, just need to keep working with him! He says he hasn't had a strong feeling yet but he also hasn't been reading and praying. We found this cool Pilipino this week and he actually lives in our apartment building, he is a member but hasn't known where a church is at so he hasn't gone since he got to Taiwan. He is super cool he is on a dance team and they travel and get paid to dance!!! His favorite dance style is to crump!

I also had the opportunity to go on exchanges with the zone leaders this week and that was awesome!! He is so funny! We contacted a guy or what we thought was a guy then we heard it start to talk and we weren't really sure what it was haha he/she acted really femmy and sounded like a girl but had a little mustache and short guy looking hair. Then Elder Magnason just straight up asked him by saying "sorry but are you a boy or a girl...." haha it was a guy luckily because he started off by calling him a shuai ge (handsome boy) but He said he had interest before we even really started talking to him so hopefully it was in the gospel and not us!!! haha

Today we went to see a cool HUGE buda that is why we are emailing later. I will send pictures, we took a lot but it was super Asian and probably what you guys think of when you think of Taiwan!!!  Just another day in PARADISE!!! Love you all!!!

Love Elder Roberts :)


Jacob 6:12 :)