July 28,2014

So this weekend we got a little surprise!! On Wednesday I had my checkup for my finger and they took out the stitches and he told me everything looks good, my movement is better than most people and I probably will not need rehab, so we asked him when I can ride my bike hoping he is going to tell me earlier.... ha nope he told us that I get to wait another 8 weeks before I can ride my bike... haha so we thought for sure I was going to move into the office for a little bit. When I called on Saturday they told me I wasn't moving and they were going to give it another week and see how I was doing, me and elder Greenhalgh were super excited and thought we were going to be staying together ha boy were we wrong, about 15 minutes later the zone leaders called and told us he was moving and I was getting a new companion! What the heck that was a surprise! My new companion is Elder Shelton he is super cool I met him when I was being trained in Taiping. He is from Lehi and is super chill, before his mission he was super hipster I have been told I don’t know too much about him but I have been told he is super cool!

This week has been quite the week!! ha it started out last Monday after emailing a crazy investigator txt us saying that she was going to give her daughter to the church and commit suicide because we weren't paying enough attention to her and she felt like we didn't care about her..... We met her that Sunday and Luckily we got that taken care of and everything is ok with her but the sisters are teaching her now so we don't really have to worry about her. 

Through the rest of the week we got fanged (people didn't show up) time after time after time! If all of our lessons showed up we would have double mission standards! haha The rain started to come on Tuesday for the typhoon and so Tuesday and Wednesday none of our lessons showed up so we did a lot of calling! The typhoon wasn't too bad, we were in the church whenever it was bad, luckily but it wasn't too bad in my area! There were a couple pretty big trees that got blown over and a lot of broken branches but for the most part it was pretty calm. So Wednesday we spent a lot of time calling and setting up lessons for Thursday so that we could get back on track and get our numbers back up and by the end of the day we had 11 lessons set up so we were pretty excited, until only 4 of those lessons showed up and some of the peoples reasons were because they were too tired to come.... haha by this time of the week I was just ready for the week to be over and didn’t know what else could happen..... haha well I found out :) Friday was weekly planning but we had to leave early to meet with an RC and on our way we called him and he said he was on his way, we get to the church and wait for about 30 minutes and call him again and he says "oh I decided not to come because I have some stuff a little later." What the heck! Ha why didn’t you say that earlier? We ended up quilting him into coming luckily haha then we got home and did planning super-fast so that we could lay down and rest for a little bit and take a break, haha that was nice for about 20 minutes until they started drilling on the floor above us.... haha by this time we just woke up looked at each other and just started to laugh, we didn’t know what else to do :P so we got ready and headed out early to meet with a LA, right when we got to the church that LA called and told us he wasn’t coming anymore because he was tired....  and that is pretty much how our entire week was! But it happened 20 times! 

I learned so much this week though! Elder Greenhalgh had an awesome attitude the whole time and we just had to start laughing at how terrible our week was going! I definitely learned patience and at the end of the week we had to start finding stuff to do to help pick us up at night so we started having rap battles and just stupid stuff to have fun! :) Saturday when I called to see if I was moving Elder Greenhalgh started to get bored and as I am talking to the assistance he pulled up his shirt and started to draw a face around his belly button.... haha I couldn’t help but laugh! :) Over all I would consider it a good week and good learning experience! 

Last thing is WE BAPTIZED again this week! It was super cool he was the first person I have taught from the very beginning to the end! We had a member baptize him and after he was super happy and gave the guy a big hug! It is so fun to see the change in people and how this gospel can help them! Oh one more thing to add to the week Sunday on our way to church bian txt us and said he wasn't Cumming, because he was to tired ha, but he was going to be confirmed and so we were kind of freaking out and luckily we got him to come but man this week was just awesome! :) haha 

Hope you all had a great week and if you didn't well take it and learn from it and make this week be great! :) 

Love you all!

Love Elder Roberts

July 7th 2014

Move call was this week!! I hate move call!!! haha it is so stressful because you don’t know what to plan for the next week and on top of that everyone kept saying I was going senior which I don’t feel ready yet haha and there have been a lot of things that have changed in the last week or two so I was kind of nervous haha but I didn’t so that was a relief. So me and the amazing Elder Greenhalgh are together for another move call!!! I am super excited, we have like 4 people that are looking pretty good for baptism right now so it should be a pretty good move call!!! :)

This week has been pretty exciting! We had zone conference this week and they gave us permission to use our cameras whenever we want so now you will probably be getting more pictures, before we could only use them on Monday. I have a lot to send this week to so I hope you guys enjoy them! :) And now I have pictures for most of my stories so you can see!! :)

On the 4th we went to a place called shark bite toast and got a big burger and a milk shake!! haha it wasn't quite as good as in America but for taiwan it wasnt to bad :) We also had a member give all of us American flags and we all took pictures with them and it was pretty fun especially with the Taiwanese companion in the picture haha we also found a giant snail in the church parking lot and we took pictures and one thing lead to another with a bunch of guys and we ended up getting our zone leader to lick its eye!! haha it was awesome! :) Then at the end of the day one of our Recent converts gave us this crazy chocolate from new zealand  and it was white chocolate that had lemon flavor and pop rocks in it!!! haha it was super good!! :)

This week some elders from another area called us and asked if we wanted to do a service project at a hospital with them and play games and  teach them a lesson, we of course said yes and then the day comes and we get to the hospital and the other elder call us and tell us that they are still in the area, they were supposed to have a car come pick them up but it never showed up and the lady that was in charge of it was sick so they asked us to go in and figure out if it was still happening and find out what was going on!  As we walk through the hospital and to try to find the children’s cancer place in Chinese that was fun! We finally find it and ask the people if they are having this activity and the lady looks at us really confused then goes and asks some people and everyone starts to get up and look around trying to figure out if they missed something or something like that and so we realize that they have no idea what we are talking about so we called the other elders and what ended up happening was this lady was like crazy and she just moved into their ward, she use to live in Taizhong and she scams people out of money and sets things up for missionaries that sound like really awesome opportunities for us then we show up and the people have no idea what we are talking about... haha so she didn’t have anything planned except for talking to us :P That was an interesting day kind of a bummer that we didn’t get to do that!

I am so thankful to be serving here in Taiwan doing the lords work! It is such a blessing and is really making me someone that I will be proud to be! I and my companion Elder Greenhalgh were just talking about this earlier today about how the mission is so hard and stressful but so good! It helps you be able to prioritize and deal with stress and over all if you aren't stressed you will be happier! Ya right now it kind of sucks but at least we have the Lord with us right now to help us be able to overcome all of the trials and challenges that missionaries deal with! Everyone has stress and challenges and trials and we as missionaries go through a lot but how grateful we will be in a couple years when we are able to handle all of it and go through it with ease! Ky and Brett I am not going to lie and say a mission is easy but I will tell you that it is freaking awesome and you will learn so much from it! It will prepare you for the rest of your life! Sometimes it sucks but those sucky times make you a stronger better person and when you finish them you will look back on it and be happy that you did it! Like practicing or lifting weights while you are doing it it is hard but when you finish and see the results it was all worth it! Strive for the best and let God do the rest and you can accomplish anything!! 

Love you guys and miss you lots! Hope you had a great week and 4th and I hope you have a great week ahead!! 

Love Elder Roberts 

The missionary tan lines, the watch the fingers from holding onto your bike and the ctr ring on the finger :)