March 16, 2014

March 16, 2014

To start off I would like to just give a little shout out to a beautiful girl named Morgan!!! Happy Birthday last week!! Hope it was a good one!

This week has been a little slow nothing to exciting except last Friday was pretty interesting… You will probably think that I am a bad missionary for this but I guess that kind of is half of the reason, just my normal Braden Roberts side coming out but it is also because my Chinese is bad and so I just say what pops into my mind!! haha Anyways we were on our way to a less actives house and a tai ke (punk kid) drove by with his girlfriend on the back and he yelled hello trying be funny and speed by us but luckily for me the light just down the road turned red so I pick up the speed a little so I could talk to him and I cruise up and skid up next to him and this is how the conversation went:

Me: wow hello handsome boy!!! ( with a huge smile)

Him: hello.... ( kind of embarrassed but happy because a white guy just called him handsome in front of his girlfriend)

Me: how’s your day?

Him: not to bad!

Me: Oh cool, so where are you off to?

Him: I’m going home....

This is when I decide to have some fun haha I get a little grin on my face and look back at his girlfriend then back at him and say:

Me: Oh that should be fun.... haha

Oooops probably shouldn't do that as a missionary.... but those are the words that came to my head.... the guy just smiled and the girl got super embarrassed and put her face into the guys back and wouldn't talk to me.... haha I talked to him a little more but the light changed and they left and I had a good laugh about it and kept on my way to the less actives house. This less active was super cool!! He plays the guitar and a Chinese version of a violin, but that isn't even the cool part.  He lives on the beach and has a beach front house!!! But wait there is even more!!! haha His job is to take people scuba diving and they take harpoon guns!!! We went and visited him at 7 pm and when we were leaving he started to get ready to go to work.... it is dark and it is like 8pm!!!  But I found out they go out from like 11pm to 4am. There is no way you could get me out in the middle of the ocean at 1 in the morning to go hunting for fish that are bigger than me!!! They are crazy!!!

Earlier Friday we had another funny experience one that Elder Ng says he has never seen before and he has been here over a year!! We were out riding around contacting and a big buss full of like high school students was turning in front of us and they were all staring at us.... so I decided to smile and wave at them. In the back of the buss I noticed some girls were already waving so I looked at them and waved then they started to blow me kisses, that was awkward at first, I went to blow them back but then I thought I was a missionary so I probably shouldn't do that! Then it got really awkward so I just smiled and kept waving... haha just part of a day’s work as Elder Roberts :)

The church is true and will bless you more than anything else! This week I read one of my favorite chapters in the book of Mormon!! Alma 14! It is so good you guys should read it and tell me what you think!! I know that through our Faith we can accomplish anything!! Stay strong and stay on the Lords side and you will see miracles! 

Love you guys!! Just another Week in PARADISE! I’m about to take off!!! Hope you feel the same way about your life if not then change something so it is paradise!! Your day will only be as good as you make it!!! 

Love you lots!!

Love Elder Roberts!!!!!

March 9, 2014

March 9, 2014

Wow Mom You still know what I am thinking even though I am on the other side of the world! Pretty much everything you said in your email I have been thinking about this week! I kept wondering if you guys had got the cars fixed yet haha that’s weird! I don’t know why that came to mind! About Brett’s baseball game, of course he is a favorite haha look who he is coming after LOL he is such a stud tell him good luck and I wish I could be there! Oh what I would give to sit and watch a baseball game with my family right now :) Then just this morning we were talking about Garrett hitting his year mark and when I left he was around his 5 month mark. We also were talking about how close Rob and Amy are to having a little girl!! When is she due? :) That is so awesome I wish I could be there to hear you speak! You will be fine. Let me know how many times you cry ;) haha I gave my 5th talk in sacrament Sunday but it was in Chinese so a little bit more complicated. I use pretty much every single word I know and it barely lasted like 3 minutes. So fun! They called me Saturday night when we were planning and asked if I could give a five minute talk on Sunday in sacrament meeting. They kind of just think since we are missionaries we don't need any preparation we just have it ready which kind of is the case but still. Elder Brinely got asked 5 minutes before priesthood meeting started if he would do a 5 minute spiritual share to start class...... haha no pressure! :) I'm sure you will do great mom good luck!!!

Our area is pretty cool, we are in a 4 man so it is like a party all the time, especially at night! Me and Elder Brinely are getting pretty close, he is only one move call ahead of me so we are kind of in the same spot of our mission but his Chinese is way better than mine! In our apartment it is pretty packed! It isn't much bigger than a normal one but there is twice as many people so it gets pretty squishy!! It is super fun being in a 4 man though but hard because there is always someone to talk to so you have to stay focused! My companion is super awesome, he is so humble and caring! He reminds me of grandma almost haha for example I farted when we were getting ready and it was a pretty good one so I warned him and then he pulls out his febreze and sprays over by me then waits about 30 seconds and asks if that is better and if I’m ok? He sprayed the febreze so I wouldn't smell it anymore.... haha silly guy :)

The area with investigators is really slow right now but I am hopefully going to change that.  That is my goal at least!  We don't have any baptismal dates and like 0 progressing investigators.... not sure what was going on before but we have a couple interesting eternal investigators (they have been investigating for like 6 months) one of them I met with by myself and we talked about baptism and I asked him like why he hadn't been baptized and he said he doesn't have any motivation and no goal.... so I jumped on that and gave him a goal that he accepted at first then at the end of the lesson he decided not to and said he hates goals and he has had a lot and they don't do anything, it really confused me but he said he knows the church is true and so we just need to find the one thing that will help him get the motivation. The other guys just kind of wants to hear about the church and learn more so I’m not really sure what to do with him he doesn't really have any interest in baptism.... so wish us luck with them!

The ward here is awesome though!! They are so willing to help us and do missionary work with us it is amazing! People say that this is one of the best wards in Taiwan so I feel really lucky to be here and a lot of people speak English so that makes it even better!  We have one RC (recent convert) he is 87 and we went and played ping pong with him and got completely embarrassed!! He totally dominated us!!! haha he is super cool! 

We did a lot of tracking and finding this week and we had some funny experiences! We knocked on a door and an older lady came out and started to talk to us in Taiwanese and Elder Ng (ing) knows some so he talked a little bit and most people act like they don't know Chinese because they don’t want to talk to us, which is what she was doing! haha but we aren't that stupid and Elder Ng slowly worked the conversation to Chinese, silly lady forgot she knew Chinese I guess. We also went and visited this really old guy named fu bei bei (few bay bay) and when he opened the door he said he didn’t have time because he was eating.... haha so we talked to him a little bit then he started to get really mad at us and start to tell us how we never bring him anything and he is super hungry and doesn't have any food.  He eventually let us in and talked to us how he doesn't have food or warm clothes, but he was wearing a sweater with a vest and then he also had food all over his face!!! haha it gave me a good laugh!

This week we had a really amazing miracle happen to us! I think it was this last Wednesday we were trying really hard to get lessons set up for in the morning but we couldn't get anything until lunch and so Elder Ng decided to take me to one of our secondary areas to show me around, he says we don't go over there very often but it would be good for me to get to know the area, so we headed over there right out the door. As we were riding down the road contacting, some members pulled up and asked if we could go with them for a little bit because they needed help. So we said we could because we didn't have anything going on for a little bit and it seemed like they really needed our help! When we got in the car they started to tell us what was going on and they said one of their friends is going in for surgery tomorrow because he has a tumor on his back and they wanted us to give him a blessing. They had been trying to get a hold of us but they couldn't find our number and so they said they had just been praying that they would be able to find us or run into us and geng hao we were both at the same intersection at the same time!! Such a miracle that they were able to find us and that we were able to help them! We were kind of frustrated not being able to set things up but that just shows that God know better than us and knows where we need to be and what we need to do!

Put your faith in the Lord let him lead you and your life will work out a lot smoother!! He knows what we need and what is best for us! Stay positive and follow his words and you will be happy! I love you guys and miss you. I hope everything is going great for you!

Your day is only as good as you make it so why not make it PARADISE!!! :) Love ya!

Love Elder Roberts

P.S. make sure ky is going to mission prep!! It is so important and I really wish I would have taken advantage of it while I could!! Everything you do there and learn there is what you need for your mission! It will make life a lot easier when you get to the field if you already know how to teach the lessons!!! Love ya!

I'm moving!!!! AGAIN!!!! haha Elder Washburn is training and gets his trainee tomorrow morning so today is my last day in this area... not sure where I am going yet but it should me awesome where ever it is!

I got the package and the letter yesterday, thank you so much you guys rock!!  The conference was really good the spirit was so strong and the talks were really good, they were on missionary stuff hahaha SURPRISE!!! They talked about a lot of stuff from preach my gospel, being obedient, and just helping people. They shared stories about some of their mission experiences and awesome stuff like that. It just got me super pumped to be here doing what I am doing! 

Our baptism didn't work out because his son got sick and had to stay in the hospital so he is probably going to get baptized this Saturday... and I will be gone.... there might, be a chance that I can come back for the day though, fingers crossed! My bike still isn't fixed... haha We got the part yesterday so we are going to go get it fixed today after emailing!

This week was POWER WEEK so it has been pretty crazy, we have done a lot of contacting and finding people. We have been super busy but nothing to exciting has happened so my letter this week might kind of suck haha we traveled up to jia yi on thursday and spent most of the day there for a trainers meeting for Elder Washburn, that was pretty fun... haha then we have had to travel to nanzi for some baptismal interviews so that has been pretty fun and expensive. One of the kids that had the interview was really cool! He makes cameras for the iphone!! He was super cool and we decided to show him how good the cameras were on our nokia brick phones and then got into all the cool apps and how cool the calculator was on our phone and all the cool games it had.... haha the funny part is he was trying to be nice and acted like it really was cool because he is so polite!! haha we all had a good laugh about it.

So the other day I was thinking about how fast time is going and I looked at the calendar you guys sent me and it had a picture of us on the cruise and so I started thinking about that and it feels like it was just yesterday then I realized... That was 2 years ago!!! Holy cow.  It made me really think about how fast it is going to go over here and I will be back to a boring life again, when I feel like my life is so busy watching tv and playing video games haha it is weird to think how busy I thought my life was and now I have 30 min. a day to just relax... kind of haha I get to relax from 10pm to 10:30pm and that is usually spent getting ready for bed. It is so awesome though getting home and sitting down planning and realizing how much you have accomplished that day! 

So I don't know if it is because people like to mess with the missionaries or they just do it because they do but all the time especially in church we will be sitting there listening to a talk in sacrament and I feel like I am doing good I can understand and kind of get the main idea of what they are talking about then all of a sudden I don't understand anything... hmmm wanna know why because they start talking in Taiwanese... ha, not funny, They do it when they don't want us to know what they are talking about... haha super annoying imagine sitting in sacrament and every now and then the speaker throws in a line or two in Spanish... haha The best one is when you are tracting and you come to an old person and they talk to you in Taiwanese and say they don't know Chinese .. haha  it is so fun maybe by the end of my mission I will know 3 languages!! :)

I opened the package this morning that you guys sent me and was looking at the pictures and it made me realize how much I miss baseball haha.  Brett enjoy it while you can!! Before you know it is going to be over and you might be on the other side of the world to!!  It really made me want to start just enjoying the time I am in right now and just focus on the now and live it to the fullest!! It also made me realize how freakin amazing I look in a baseball jersey haha I am one shuai baseball player.

The last thing I want to do is give a shout out to my little big brother, HAPPY BIRTHDAY!!!! He is 18 and now I guess an adult... haha but mentally we all know he isn’t haha just kidding Love you man!!! Hope your birthday was good! Did you get my card I sent you?

I love all of you and hope you remember to enjoy this next week we all have in PARADISE!!!

Love Elder Roberts :)

Here are some pictures of a couple of members from the ward I am in right now.

^ month mark

This was probably the first valentines that I actually got a kiss and took someone out.... haha just kidding. I actually didn't realize it was valentines until the next day haha  It was just another day as a missionary couldn't really ask for much more than that.  So last week I said it had started to get warm.... haha this week has been pretty cold... Monday it started to rain but we just stayed in and cleaned our apartment pretty much the whole day! We went out for dinner and my bike broke. The crankshaft, the piece that makes it so when I pedal my bike will go and holds my peddles centered in the bike, yeah pretty much the most important piece on the bike broke so elder Washburn has been pulling me everywhere which hasn't been to bad but it isn’t helping me stay in shape though.  Now I am really getting fat! haha it takes us twice as long to get anywhere though!! They said the part should be here no later than last Friday though so that’s good..... haha I  still don’t have the part  other than that the week has been awesome though  It has flown by I can’t believe it is already Monday again!!

This week we have had some pretty interesting things happen!! One day we woke up and I got out of bed and stood up then elder Washburn started to tell me he didn't know how to play the game and he didn't know how to do it. I was pretty confused and trying to figure out what he was talking about then shortly gave up and asked what he was talking about then we both started to laugh cause he was totally sleep talking and woke up half way through it!  It was a good way to wake up. Then another exciting experience was our investigator that is getting baptized this week that acts like a little kid. This week we went to see him and he answered the door in a hoodie and supper hero little kid underwear then sat through the whole lesson in his underwear he thinks he is so funny!

This week we had a family take us out for hot pot, I haven't had hot pot since I first got on the island and they took us to marijuana.  I didn't like it and couldn't finish it the first time but my taste buds have definitively changed and my stomach has gotten bigger! I ate all of it and it wasn't to bad.  It is pretty much just a bunch of vegetables that you boil on the table right in front of you then you have some sauce and some rice to eat it  I was pretty impressed that I ate it all!!!

One last story I went on splits with a member because we had two lessons at the same time . My lesson was with a less active member. When we got there we talked a little bit and I asked how his day was and he responded by saying good but my wife doesn't want you guys being here late anymore. This was right before we headed home for the night so it was kind of late so I just started to share things that went good and stuff and then he and his wife started talking about the law of Chasity. Not really sure why?  Then he was asking me a question and I couldn't really understand what he was saying so he said it in English "Making love with a lot of people" I’m not really sure what the question was but I could kind of guess so I decided to just bear my testimony on it, so I did and then he asked me how to know what is a bad sin and what isn't a sin?  That was hard to explain in Chinese. He said to use English so I did a little and it looked like a light bulb turned on in his head and things just clicked. He probably didn't understand a thing I said but because of the spirit he knew what I meant! The spirit is so amazing and without the spirit I would be nothing!! The spirit told him exactly what he needed to hear and all I did was help it testify to him!!

Love you guys hope you have a good week!  Just another day in PARADISE!!!!

Love Elder Roberts

Broken bike so Elder Washburn is giving me a ride.

This week has been super different but I will try to answer all of moms questions first. I heard about the super bowl.... haha sorry Brett! I wish I could be there eating that food with you!! It sounds so good!! I haven’t had Mexican food since I got here and it is really hard to find and if you do find it, it’s really expensive..... Well for Taiwan food anyway. But I had my first mountain dew on Saturday since I left on my mission it was soooooooo good!!! I was so happy for the rest of the day!! I also had real milk that day to so I was one happy boy! haha As for my clothes they are getting a little tight but nothing to bad I don’t know if it is just because it is starting to get hot or if my collars are getting tighter but they are getting really annoying!! This month I hit my 6 month mark!! It feels like I have been gone forever but it has gone by fast to!!! It is kind of a weird feeling but before I know it I will be home so I am trying to enjoy it while I can. In the next package if you could send my go-pro chest mount that would be awesome!!! Then I could wear it around and show you guys more of what Taiwan is like and send a football!! They don’t have any footballs in Taiwan!!!!!! What the heck haha that would be a fun little thing to play with!

The little old people are awesome the son is a member but the mom isn’t she says she promised her dad that she would stay Baptist her whole life so..... but she really loves us and they take good care of us and always load us up with fruit and drinks and healthy old people stuff.... haha so good.... :)

Last Monday we went shopping and then went back to the church and one of the members gave us all facials!!! That was pretty sweet!! haha I will send a picture of it.

This week was Guo Nian or Chinese New Year!! It was so sick!! haha nobody wanted to meet with us and everyone went out of town!!! But we also got feed a lot!!! On Thursday night we went over to a super-rich guys house. He has a pent house on the 24th and 25th floor of a building!! haha it was super nice!! We went out onto the deck and looked out over Taiwan or as much as we could until it all disappeared into the pollution which isn’t very far but it was still really cool!! We even saw some stars!! That was the first time in Taiwan I have noticed starts!! haha Then on Saturday we got taken out to an all you can eat place.  The grill is in the middle of the table then you go get the meet you want and you bbq it on the table, it was really cool, but I was sitting right by the grill.... so I got fed a lot!!! I am pretty sure they did it on purpose but they just kept putting meat and food on my plate! They cooked it faster than I could eat it so I was eating nonstop for 2 hours straight!! It was good but I was full 30 minutes into it and they just kept making it and putting it on my plate... haha I had some chicken butt and a plastic tin full of just cheese!! haha They would laugh every time they put more food on my plate to so they knew exactly what they were doing!!! haha Then yesterday we had two dinners!!! The first one was pretty good but the second one was a Taiwanese meal for sure!!! We had squid, fish eggs, rice and veggies... haha and every time I would put down my chop sticks they would tell me not to be polite and to eat more.... haha so I did... it was so good! You know how much I love fish!!! haha

So this week was pretty good nothing to exciting except a ton of food!!!! I haven’t paid for a meal since Thursday!!! Just another day in Paradise!!! Love you guys!!

Love Elder Roberts!

Facials form a member

First week not being a trainee.

This week has been pretty good!! My new area is awesome! The people here are super cool and super nice!  Elder Washburn and I get along pretty good!  That is awesome that you got put in young women’s!! That will be super fun for you! Ha that is crazy to think how soon Kaylee will be in there with you but even crazier I will be home before that time!!! Ha-ha that is weird to think! I don’t think Elder Washburn has a blog though. It sounds like things are going great there! I finally got the video of rob and Amy telling everyone!! That is so cool how they did it!!  That is crazy Brett is training with the high school teams now I bet he is going to be huge when I get back.... ha-ha just kidding that’s not going to happen! (Wink wink) speaking of getting huge everyone in my last area kept saying I was getting bigger and my arms and stuff are getting big but that was mostly elder Gish so I was like yeah right he is just trying to make me feel good but I weight myself this week and I was at 75 kilograms!!! Which is 165 pounds! Ha-ha I was freaking out I am getting fat. Ha-ha no not fat but I am putting on some weight! I weighed myself again last night though and I am 160 lbs pretty crazy!! My shoulders are getting bigger and my chest is too!! You can’t see all the bones in my chest any more... ha-ha I am starting to look husky instead of a skinny twerp!! Ha-ha it is kind of cool.

We have an old family that we go and visit a couple times a week and they are super funny!! It is a mom and her son, she is 91 and he is 61! They are so cute!!! We went over Friday night because they wanted to take us to dinner and when we got there all the lights were off and it looked like nobody was home so we called them, they answered and said they were just upstairs so we waited outside their door for a while as she slowly came down the stairs!!! She is 91 and can do the stairs!!! So crazy! Then when we went inside they asked us if it was morning or night because they had just woken up!!!! Ha-ha it was so funny they thought it was 5 in the morning and they were wondering why we came over so early!!! Then we went to dinner and they ordered enough food for all of us but then they didn’t eat!!! So we had a TON of food!!! And when we thought we were finished they ordered 25 dumplings!!! Which I normally only eat like 12 for a normal meal.... so that was fun trying to eat! Then they kept trying to order more food!!! The funniest part was when we were leaving the restaurant the guy asked if we had eaten yet.... he is kind of handicap so he always asks us if we have eaten and that is like his go to sentence if he doesn’t know what to say!! Ha-ha then when we got to their house he asked a couple more times and the grandma just looked at him and started laughing!!! She called him an idiot and said we just ate!! It was so funny!! Ha-ha they are so cute!

Our area is where a lot of rich people live to and it is like a really big nice city! There is an Audi, Ferrari, and BMW dealer ship in our area so there are always sweet cars driving around!! We saw an awesome Ferrari the other day!! It was sweet! It is weird the things you can do here that you would never do in America!! For English proselyting I stood in the middle of a huge intersection right by the mall holding a sign ha-ha there were scooter flying past me and huge trucks and nobody honked or anything!!! They just looked at the sign and went around me. I think a big reason is because I am white. Ha-ha, just kidding but kind of not they think we are so cool here!

Things are going good here! We have a couple baptisms for the next couple weeks the only bad part is it is almost Chinese New Year so nobody wants to meet.... It is like Christmas for them but for a whole week!! It is going to be crazy!! One of our less actives invited us over for it and said to asked if we could stay out until 12 that night ha-ha probably won’t happen but it would be fun!!! We will probably get fed a lot!! Should be a good week as long as we can get people to set up.... Love you guys!!

Love Elder Roberts!

Bat Cave

A mother nad her son.

Training is over

Okay mom I will answer all your questions haha I am doing good, super excited to be in my new area everyone is always talking about how cool and good this city is! This is kind of the area Elder Gish was in before he went to Taiping. My new companion seems like he is going to be really cool!! He snowboards and Rides dirt bikes, and his brother is a professional football player for the Detroit Lions!! He plays DE his name is Ezekiel (Ziggy) Ansah so that is pretty sweet! Our apartment seem really nice to it is pretty small but still nice! :) I and Elder Gish traveled pretty much the whole way together! He got off like 30 minutes before me! Saying bye was weird but it was real quick because he was trying to get off the train!

This week I went on a couple exchanges with some of the Elders in our district and one was with my best friend that ran into me last time... this time it was a lot better though we went out and I could tell he was having a rough time and he was super down so we did something that Elder Gish taught me, we went to McDonald’s and I bought him Ice cream and we just talked for a while! It was really good and it made us be a lot closer and the rest of the exchange went pretty good! :)

Something sad but happy at the same time, we had 2 baptisms set up for this last Saturday but both of them said they were not ready and now they are getting baptized this Saturday and me and Elder Gish are both gone... super awesome that they are getting baptized but super sad we won’t be able to be there and see them be baptized!!

This week we had an English party and of course we waited until the day of to set everything up and get ready for it so Wednesday was super crazy!! We did a murder mystery, kind of like clue in real life and it was with super heroes! My group was super crazy!! It was a bunch of little kids and then we had a couple girls that were probably just a little older than Kaylee! One was super cute and reminded me a lot of her!! But the other two weren’t very nice! They stacked a bunch of chairs on top of each other and started to climb up them, then they wrote the F word on the white board and they wouldn’t listen to us at all.... haha it was very interesting!  It went pretty good! I also got a baseball glove from one of the Elders that was by my old area! He said he didn’t use it so he gave it to me! It isn’t like my glove at home but will definitely work for here!

I was almost one of the people that went and helped with Dan Jones!! I was super nervous but then I let another Elder go because one of his friends was coming on and I didn’t want to go embarrass myself!! I have started learning Characters and have started reading the book of Mormon a little bit! I don’t really understand much and can’t read too much of it but for how much I know there is a lot that I can read and understand!

Things are going pretty good on this side of the world hope things are going good over there!! Love you guys! 

Love Elder Roberts! :)

Here are some pictures of some recent converts.

other photos