pictures courtesy of Elder Gish, Elder Gish testimony for those thinking of serving a mission.

HAPPY NEW YEAR!!!!!!!!!!!!! Posted: 06 Jan 2014 07:53 AM PST So with the new year comes miracles, goals, and best of all, clean slates to start getting things going!...kinda like baptism ;) Well since there aren't many emails in the inbox this week.. (hmmhmhmh *clearing throat ;)*) haha. Atleast I will have a good amount of time to write this email to everyone! (image from the official Taiwan Taichung Mission Blog) So funny story...I might have gotten some of my Dad's blood in my veins...why do you say?...I am a prankster at heart hehehe...and when you have a district full of really good friends...every once and awhile...it might come out. Well we have started to every so often hide each others bikes when we have long days at the chapel...Well, it has always been small things like behind a tree or bush...in a large trash can...an elevator...but then...one day; Elder Roberts and I walked out to find only our helmets on the ground. We looked in the normal spots and nothing...then it happened. We looked up. Yup...the bikes were on the roof of the churches storage building!! We were like, "WHAT THE...." haha, it was so good and so funny! I love this district so much!...Stories will come soon of how we upped that one...haha Also Elder Roberts and I have developed this habit of every so often talking like children...it is a weird habit....but it is SOOO FUNNY holy cow. SUCH a good stress relief! Anyways, HILARIOUS story. Elder Roberts had this bag of skittles and it was late at night and he read the bag in this kid voice and on the bag it says "guess what is inside?" and he said in his kid’s voice "...skittles I hope...otherwise I am going to be very upset!" hahahahahaha It might not be as funny over email...but I was DYING laughing for like 15min!! It was SO good, I love Elder Roberts so much! Such a fun and hard working companion! Good Job Mama and Papa Roberts!! ;) I had the worst dream last night though and I thought I would share it with everyone for the reason of pointing out what the mission means to me and how much I would plead that ANY and EVERY youth go on their mission..I PROMISE YOU nothing could be more important than this and you will NEVER regret going on a mission, but you will eventually or at some point regret not going or quitting. So in my dream I was home and I was so happy to be with my family and to see everyone. At night I started to unpack my stuff back at home and I pulled things out and was remembering the amazing people I have met here and the experiences that I have had and all of the sudden a huge fear struck me so hard and I called for Mom. When she came in I said " Mom I don't think I should be home yet....my mission is not finished...why am I here? I need to be back in Taiwan...I am not finished yet!" At first she questioned me and then after talking for a little I realized that I was home early and I just started crying and crying and saying that I was not finished and shouldn't be home yet. That was pretty much it. Now don't get me wrong I am SO EXCITED to be able to see my family and friends and all that...however I LOVE my mission so much. It has meant so much to me and I don't want to waste a single second out here because one day it will all be over...and I will start crying and miss it. I know without a doubt that this gospel is true and that Jesus IS the Christ and that he has called modern day prophets and has restored his church! I would ask ALL, even long time members to get down on their knees and ask their Heavenly Father the truth of all of this...I love it so much and I love you all so much!

Happy New Year

First off I want to let you in on a secret!!! haha It really didn’t snow here.... Sorry mom haha that is a picture Dave sent me to trick you guys!! I hear it worked!!! haha So funny!! It would only trick a blond! I love you mom. It is starting to get warmer again, it is back up to the 70's again so it feels really good right now! I have been pretty healthy. I got a little cold but other than that I am doing pretty good just home sick sometimes It’s a good thing. I can do hard things!!

 

For new year’s we had such a party!!! I think we stayed up until like 10:31... shhhh don't tell president ;) haha No we didn't really do anything we are so tired at night we just want to go to bed as soon as we can!!! 

 

Zhang dixiong (the old guy) is doing well! He is so cute!! every time he sees us he walks in with this huge smile and give us a high five!! He is so happy now and is always smiling and always wants to hang out with us! We see him almost every day and if we don’t the next day he calls us and tells us to come over and he gives us drinks and stuff so we will talk to him ha-ha He is such a cutie!!! Love him!

 

Me and elder Gish have kind of been talking in little kid voices a lot lately and the other elders asked us why we do that and we weren't really sure but the other day in my personal studies I read in Mosiah 3 and it talks about how we need to humble ourselves and become like children!! haha When I read that it made my day and I have showed everyone it! :) The other day I was going to open a pack of skittles and on the pack it said "what’s inside?"  And me being me, in my little kid voice, I say "Well it better be some skittles or I’m going to be mad!" and Elder Gish thought it was pretty funny and we laughed for quite a while!! It sucks we only have 2 weeks left we have become such good friends It is almost like we are buddies in college except we have an awesome message and I have no idea what anyone except elder Gish says... haha But it is super awesome and I have grown so much and I know without a doubt this is the true church and I am doing the Lords work!! I love being a missionary and being able to helps so many people!! Love you guys!!!

 

love Elder Roberts

阮俊雄 

ruan jun xiong

The pictures are of some awesome pancakes we had and Elder Gish's bike. (note to self, No tricks on bikes)

First Babtism!!!

Another week in Paradise!! This week was a little rough with Christmas and everything but super awesome being able to serve the Lords on his birthday and to make it even better we got to baptize the cute little old guy!!  I was able to do it and everything went good!! It was a little difficult saying the prayer in Chinese but I did it and it was so awesome!! 

 

Seeing you guys on Christmas made me realize what truly makes me happy and it made me think about what I was doing here and as much as I miss you guys and as hard as it is being away from home I know that in just a little while I will be back with you.  I thought about what I was doing here and that I am helping people to be able to be with their families and the people that truly make them happy forever!! What an awesome opportunity I have to teach this amazing gospel and to give people such great hope in life and to give them a purpose in life!!

 

This Friday I went on exchanges with the Elder that told me I needed to be more serious and I need to stop joking around so much... haha it was fun I have really learned to be patient and learn how to like people and really get along with them! On Friday night we were heading to one of his investigators but he didn't know the way.... so I was leading and the light turned yellow. I went to go but then the car in front of me started to turn and a guy stepped out in front of me so I hurried and stopped and my companion ended up running into the back of me... I hadn't completely stopped when he hit me so as he came up to the side of me and tipped over. I was still balancing on my bike. I stepped off my bike and reached down to help him and see how he was he says to me in a super whinny voice "why did you stop right there!!!" As if it was my fault. So being the good person I am and trying not to completely lose my temper I road up the road a little bit and waited. He had hit my derailer and bent it into my tire so we ended up pushing my bike for the rest of the night... haha but I didn’t say anything to him about it. The next day he and the other elders brought it up and he still blamed me for it and said I shouldn't have stopped so fast and it was just as much his fault as it was mine, I just laughed and dropped it but that was my excitement for the week.

 

Everything is going good. We have some really good investigates right now and as of right now we have 4 baptisms for next month so hopefully things work out I love you guys and hope you have an awesome new year!!!!

 

JUST ANOTHER DAY IN PARADISE!!!!

 

love Elder Roberts

阮俊雄 

ruan jun xiong

 

 

 

 

 

 

Another week in paradise!! This week was super crazy!! We had three Christmas parties that were pretty much the whole day, so it felt like we didn't get very much missionary work done which was kind of frustrating but it was fun to. We had a big party on Thursday, the whole mission got together and we all rented these party buses and went to sun Moon Lake! It is a big tourist lake here and we got to shop and just hang out. We took a big picture with everyone from the mission in front of the temple up by the lake! It was super foggy there to so that was really cool! You could walk out on the dock and pretty much disappear and look out over the lake and it was just white!! Super cool! After we left the lake we rented this big steak and BBQ place, it was pretty good. It was all you can eat everything and it was good food! Then me and Elder Gish had to leave early because the AP's asked us to go help them set up for the fire side! I have only been here for 2 months and I am already in with them, ha-ha. Elder Gish is awesome he is the only reason I am. The devotional was good and the missionaries that are leaving soon spoke and it made me really want to enjoy my time here even more!! After the devotional we got back on the bus and headed back to the mission home to get our bikes, but about half way there a guy got hit by a car crossing the road so President got out and helped him and then in the next intersection there was 2 scooters that crashed....it was crazy and we had a baptismal interview at 8 and this happened at 7:30... from the mission home to our chapel is about a 30 minute bike ride so we decided we weren't going to have time to wait and get our bikes and ride back so we end ended up just walking back to our chapel... it was an exciting day!

 

The old guy had his baptismal interview on Saturday that was quite the adventure... haha I was on splits with Elder Palmer, he is from south Jordan, he is super cool to. Anyways  we showed up at the church and there was no Zhang Di Xiang.... we wait for about 10 min. then decided to go get him so we road to his house and he was just getting ready to leave to who he said was his "girlfriend" house then we asked him if he could come to the church with us right now for 30 minutes and he said ok and we headed off! :) (Just picture how cute that little guy looks riding a scooter!!!!!) haha then we got to a light where we needed to turn and we turned and he kept going straight.... not sure where he was going and I don’t think he did either by the look he gave us when he drove past... he looked like a lost puppy dog! We decided to just go to the church and hopefully he would show up, he did about 5 min. after us but sadly he didn't pass again because apparently he is drinking alcohol and coffee and tea... I guess it just kind of depends what days you ask him these questions and how he wants to answer them... he is so cute so this week we are meeting with him every day at 7 to make sure he is doing everything and then we will baptize him next week!

 

Yesterday we went to a mall and sang a bunch of songs and everyone gathered and took pictures of all the white people gathered together singing! Ha-ha it is so funny we are like animals at a zoo! Everyone gathers to see us and wants to talk to us until we start talking about the gospel... then they run away! Some people are scared of us though it is super funny! We tried to talk to this one kid and he started backing up and was tripping up this hill... Then hid behind a cart.... ha-ha he was really scared of us!

 

I found some pretty funny and cool stuff this week during studies! The funny thing is in Ether 14: 18,23 it is pretty funny if you just read those two verses!! I at least got a laugh out of it :) Then in Words of Mormon I read verse 7 and it really helped me! Even he doesn't know everything but as long as we put our trust in the lord things will work out and he will help us do what we need to! Do what he has told us and he will bless you!

 

I love all of you and hope you have another fantastic week and Christmas!! I know I will! Like my uncle Dave always says "Just another day in paradise" Live every day like it is another day in paradise and your life will be a lot better! Everything happens for a reason, we might not know why but God does so trust in him and keep moving on!! Love you all!

 

Love Elder Roberts

 

More scriptures!! 

-Psalms 37:16-17

 Christmas Morning!!

Just another week in paradise!!  We are moved into our new apartment and it is super nice!!! During packing though we made some paper air planes and found our way to the roof  haha there was also a basketball and some helmets that fell out our window.... oops haha :) Some mad it into the garbage 15 stories down but some didn't....  It was super fun though. I finally got a little cold a gift from my companion. (ha-ha) We spent most of the time moving and being stupid this week so nothing super exciting happened except for stupid stuff and a lot of contacting! We have met a lot of nice people!

 

A cool blessing experience we had this week was with Tony, he was feeling pretty sick and his throat hurt so he couldn't really talk and within an hour after the blessing he said his throat didn't hurt at all!!! The priesthood is so awesome! 

 

I ate a 1000 year old egg yesterday for dinner at member’s house so that was good..... ha-ha 

 

Hope you like the pictures and sorry for the short letter this week! Thanks again for all the letters my mom sent to me and for the Christmas tree it is so awesome! Love you all!! I still haven’t got all the Christmas presents for you guys either... I am going to do that today I hope!! We have been so busy with moving this week it took up almost all of our time!

 

Sorry I don’t have very much time but I will try to write more next week! I am expecting a lot of miracles :)

 

Love Elder Roberts

Week 7 in AMAZING Taiwan

Another week is already over time is going faster and faster every week! I finished my first move call now so I'm not the youngest on the island anymore! (haha) that is good. I probably still know the least amount of Chinese though but who needs Chinese when you have a smile like mine. (haha) Elder Gish got better for a couple days then got a cold ( ha) I have stayed healthy for the most part! I can feel my body trying to fight it off though so hopefully I don't get sick! That is crazy and awesome for Rhett! Congratulations!!! 

 

We have to move because the apartment rent thing is over so we are just moving down the street a little bit. That's not a bad thing though, every morning we get to take a cold shower because for some reason our shower won’t stay warm the whole time, it goes really hot to really cold so we have put a dumbbell in there so while it is cold we can work out and hopefully one day look like ky. ;) We are hopefully moving the end of this week! 

 

So this week was pretty slow again and we lost a couple more investigators.... The guy from Texas stopped answering our phone calls and when he does he doesn't show up to the lesson... It is super frustrating but we have found some pretty cool people on the streets so hopefully they work out. The old guy has a baptismal date for the 25th of December.  He and our only other investigator have goals for that day! The week has been kinda of discouraging though and so to make ourselves feel better we sometimes have to find things to do. The other day we got a parachute army guy and took him up to the roof of our 15 story apartment and I bet you can guess what we did.  I’m sure the people downstairs were wondering what we were doing going up and down in the elevator. Pretty stupid but it was fun so I don't care what they thought. We were like little kids at a hotel ;)

 

There is a bakery by our church so we go there quite a bit and get treats and dinner and last time we went they were talking to each other thinking we couldn't understand them. We could haha and they were talking about me I didn't know exactly what they were saying but when we left Elder Gish said they were saying see that’s the hot one it was super funny.  Today at lunch a bunch of girls asked if they could get a picture with us!  We are like super stars here because we are white it is so cool! :)

 

Here is a story that I found during my studies one day hope you like it! It makes you really appreciate what the God has done for us!

 

There was once a bridge which spanned a large river. During most of the day the bridge sat with its length running up and down the river paralleled with the banks, allowing ships to pass thru freely on both sides of the bridge. But at certain times each day, a train would come along and the bridge would be turned sideways across the river, allowing a train to cross it.

A switchman sat in a small shack on one side of the river where he operated the controls to turn the bridge and lock it into place as the train crossed. One evening as the switchman was waiting for the last train of the day to come, he looked off into the distance thru the dimming twilight and caught sight of the train lights. He stepped to the control and waited until the train was within a prescribed distance when he was to turn the bridge. He turned the bridge into position, but, to his horror, he found the locking control did not work. If the bridge was not securely in position it would wobble back and forth at the ends when the train came onto it, causing the train to jump the track and go crashing into the river. This would be a passenger train with many people aboard. He left the bridge turned across the river, and hurried across the bridge to the other side of the river where there was a lever switch he could hold to operate the lock manually. He would have to hold the lever back firmly as the train crossed. He could hear the rumble of the train now, and he took hold of the lever and leaned backward to apply his weight to it, locking the bridge. He kept applying the pressure to keep the mechanism locked. Many lives depended on this man’s strength.

Then, coming across the bridge from the direction of his control shack, he heard a sound that made his blood run cold. “Daddy, where are you?” His four-year-old son was crossing the bridge to look for him. His first impulse was to cry out to the child, “Run! Run!” But the train was too close; the tiny legs would never make it across the bridge in time. The man almost left his lever to run and snatch up his son and carry him to safety. But he realized that he could not get back to the lever. Either the people on the train or his little son must die. He took a moment to make his decision.

The train sped safely and swiftly on its way, and no one aboard was even aware of the tiny broken body thrown mercilessly into the river by the onrushing train. Nor were they aware of the pitiful figure of the sobbing man, still clinging tightly to the locking lever long after the train had passed. They did not see him walking home more slowly than he had ever walked: to tell his wife how their son had brutally died.

Now if you comprehend the emotions which went this man’s heart, you can begin to understand the feelings of our Father in Heaven when He sacrificed His Son to bridge the gap between us and eternal life. Can there be any wonder that He caused the earth to tremble and the skies to darken when His Son died? How does He feel when we speed along thru life without giving a thought to what was done for us thru Jesus Christ?

 

Love you guys! Hope everything is going good sounds like the weather is awesome there!! ;) haha

 

Love Elder Roberts

阮俊雄 

ruan jun xiong

 

Week 6 in Awesome Taiwan

So I will try to answer all of your questions. There are so many but some of them I was already planning on telling. I did get one of the packages but we haven't set up the Christmas tree yet because we were supposed to be moving apartments this week but now we will not be moving until the middle of December  so I’m not sure when we will set the tree up.  For Thanksgiving we woke up did personal study and went and taught people about the gospel, nothing different. We forgot it was thanksgiving until president called us and said happy thanksgiving( haha).We ate rice, soup and pig feet for dinner.... yummy.... haha..  That video sounds awesome I can’t wait to get it!!   I’m not too sure about Skype but I am pretty sure it is on our Christmas so your Christmas Eve. 

 

Church here is so different!! There are about 100 members in my ward. yesterday our zone leaders were telling us about their testimony meeting and how it turned into a debate about gay marriage so that is kind of how church is here sometimes but every now and then it is really good, most of the time I have no idea what they are talking about so church is very long. I was super grumpy this Sunday.  Poor Elder Gish! I get super grumpy when I don't have food and then everyone tries to talk to me and I can’t understand them which is even more annoying.  I bore my testimony the first week and introduced myself but that is about it so no talks yet. I will also try to get pictures of the girls and the old guy! Even everyone here knows him as the short little old guy... it is funny!

This last week has been pretty rough. We dropped almost all of our investigators and our numbers have gone way down!!! So that has been pretty discouraging.... but I try not to get down on myself to much, when I do Elder Gish always finds a way to help me out and start feeling better it seems like! I have been pretty home sick the last week to which kind of sucks but I think it is just because we have had a lot of free time not having very many investigators. We plan on working our butts off this week so we can get some more investigators! That is so awesome about dad getting the award! Don't let it get to his head though (haha)!

The weather is getting a little colder here now but I still wear a short sleeve and it isn’t to bad as long as we ride at a decent speed to get our blood flowing but not too fast or the wind is really cold. I have only put on my sweat shirt once. Funny story though today we went down stairs and played basketball at the track across the street and I was shooting with one hand and the other hand was in my pocket holding onto the keys and because it was pretty cold. A lady came up to me talking in English at first then said in Chinese pointing to my hand "what are you grabbing...." as I pulled out the keys I realized what she was probably thinking..... (haha) they are crazy I tell you but it gave me and Elder Gish a good laugh.

On Friday (my 100th day) we spent the day inside... Elder Gish was super sick! He woke up and wasn't feeling very good but was getting ready then throughout planning he started to feel worse and worse, at about 12 he ended up throwing up and he threw up blood.... So he decided to call sister Blickenstaff and was thinking he was going to have to go to the hospital, she didn't answer so we decided to just wait. He called the other Elders to come over and help me give him a blessing. I was super nervous because he was like dying and I was worried I was going to tell him that he was going to not make it or something. I found out later that he was super worried that something was really wrong also but he wasn't acting to worried so I didn't think it was too big of a deal. When I started the blessing things were coming to my head that made me super worried to say so I would pause and really think about the things I was going to say but I felt so strongly to say them it was crazy!!! I promised him he would be feeling better by tomorrow and that if he had enough faith we would be able to do everything we need to do tomorrow. After I was super nervous haha It was like the same thing that happened when I gave Jaxon his blessing! I felt almost sick from what I had promised Elder Gish but decided to have faith that things would work out. He slept most of the day and when he was awake I would talk to him and we got into some pretty good deep talks but then he fell asleep at like 7 for the night. The next day I woke up and he kept sleeping so I worked out and thought we were probably going to be inside again.... I was trying to figure out why I felt so strongly to say those things and what the reason was and what we were supposed to learn from it, but then he came walking out and he wasn't feeling completely well but he was good enough to go do the work!!

It was such a miracle and I know the lord is completely aware of everything we are doing and going through! The power of the priesthood is so strong! That experience built my testimony so much!! God can do anything and if you have enough faith and truly believe that he will help you he will!!

I love you guys so much!! I’m glad things are going good there sounds like it is a party ;) Hope all the holidays go good!

Love Elder Roberts

阮俊雄 

ruan jun xiong

2 Nephi 28:21-24,32 satan is very tricky be careful!! :)

2 Nephi 30:11 Ky this one is for you and your Girdle ;)

2 Nephi 32:4-5

2 Nephi 33:11,14-15

Mormon Message:

I think it is called wrong path or something like that