A third of the way through my mission

So this week... was pretty much the same as all the others!

Which is good! My mission is awesome!

But... the most important thing that happened this week was a little adventure that Sister Lane and I had this week. =)

We were feeling a little worn down because we had Zone Conference, which always gives us plenty to do... and I guess Sister Lane got this brilliant idea to pray for something funny to happen! Oh boy, did it ever...

The next day we were planning on visiting a less active member, whose house we had never actually been to before. 

First of all... The street system in Japan is SO confusing. There are no street names- just block numbers, which are painted on these minuscule little signs and you have to drive around the whole block to find it!

So... it happened to be Sister Lane's day to navigate... and I was kind of hesitant because I didn't know if she knew how to read the map...

So, I just followed her, and before I knew it, we were riding up the side of a mountain! So I just went with it and followed her. Eventually we found the right block- number 17, but the only entrance to it was by stairs... so we walked our bikes up about 100 stairs and when we got to the very top, we realized that it was in fact block number 17, but she had lead us to the wrong number 17! 

So we were exhausted and a little put out that we were on the top of a mountain and the right house is no where to be seen, so I get off my bike to go give a lady a flier and all the sudden I hear a spat. I turn around and a bird has just flown by and pooped on my bike seat! Great... but sister Lane thought it was hilarious.

After the lady rejected the flier, I start hearing this loud meowing... So I look around and see this lady carrying a cat into our house, so I try again to make an attempt so I can give her the flier and I just say, "OH!!!!! NECCO DAI SKII!" Which means, "I love cats!!!!!!!!!" So she turns around and she is holding the fattest cat I have ever seen in my life! So we got pictures with the cat... it was HUGE...

Anyway... it was quite the adventure and afterwards sister Lane and I just looked at each other and laughed =) So her prayer was answered =) Very funny. We plan on visiting the correct house tomorrow =)

Also this week about a hundred people (ok, maybe not that many) have stopped me on the street to tell me that I look like a movie star... so that's been kind of awesome...

Anyway... Japan is always an adventure. So much fun, and I just love the work =)

That's all for now!

ロバーツ姉妹

# A third of the way through my mission... and it's still the best decision I've ever made! Where is the time going?

Sister Roberts and Sister Lane with matching scarves

The littlest door I have ever seen

Doing origami with Less Actives and Zone Leaders!

I made sushi!

The endless staircase

Victory!

bird poop

fat cat

fat cat lady 

Emiko's toilet- Japanese toilets are strange...

The underground world

ロバーツ姉妹

Oh my goodness, is September almost over already? A third of my mission done? 

Crazy...

This week has been awesome =) We're still getting used to the new apartment, which we have discovered is infested with lots of creepy crawlies... Not only is it infested with lizards... also cockroaches... and large black beetles... and centipedes, killer mosquitoes, and spiders... yes, spiders. Big jumping ones... Sister Lane is constantly freaking out, but I've gotten used to it. She runs around squealing, begging me to kill whatever it is that she's screaming about and I just sit there and make her do it... But the down side to that is that sometimes she won't do it, and I will find it crawling on me later. We don't kill the lizards though. They're too big. But... the mosquitoes really are a problem. Every bite I have gotten has turned into a scar. And those are just the regular ones. These ones are way worse. The other day I got 3 bites on my left foot and about half an hour later while we were on our way to an appointment, I noticed that my foot was turning purple. But it's back normal now... but the bites still look really scary. 

The other night I was laying on my bed when I felt something crawling up my neck. I used my ninja reflexes ( which have begun to develop quite rapidly since living in a bug-infested apartment) and swatted the back of my neck. I thought it was a mosquito, but when I inspected it, it appeared to have been a very large spider, with quite a few blood and guts in it. Pretty gross, right?

Other than that, this week has been great! I tried octopus, which was actually really delicious! Last night i also went to a dinner and ate lots and lots of raw fish, which was actually also really delicious... But who knows... I think I could eat a tire and think it was delicious. My taste buds are probably disintegrating. Oh, what i wouldn't do for some dairy queen!

Anyway That stuff isn't that important... But here's something cool. I finished 2nd Nephi this week and I have 2 chapters left in Jacob til I'm done with it!

The Book of Mormon is awesome and I'm just loving it more and more every day =)

But not I am running out of time... Sorry this wasn't a very spiritual letter... But suffice it to say that I did in fact have a lot of spiritual experiences this week!

Love you all so much! I'm off now!

Today we're going to go visit the underground city of Fukuoka... cool, right? The other week we were desperate for some American food and heard word that there was a Krispy Kreme somewhere in Tenjin... so we went looking down in the subway station, and not only did we discover Krispy Kreme (which was delicious as I had never actually tried it before), we discovered that there is an underground metropolis under Fukuoka city!!! So today Sister Lane and I are going to go explore it =)

Hope you all have a good week! Pray for us please!

Much love.

ロバーツ姉妹

みなさまこんいちわ！

Oh hello, everyone!

This week has been scattered and crazy!

We moved into a new apartment this week! It's wonderful because we actually have room for everyone in it now! Sister Andaca doesn't have to sleep on the floor anymore!

It's way funny, no members showed up to help us move, so we had to do it with just us and the elders. We also had a lot of teaching appointments that day, so when we came home, the elders were still in our apartment unloading all our stuff in their pajamas, listening to Taylor Swift! Those big sweethearts. We really couldn't have done it without them.

Also, this week, something exciting happened.

I have developed a love for the Book of Mormon. Sometimes I just sit there reading and I just think to myself, "There is no way that this was written my any man unless they were inspired by God..." And now I'm almost through with 2nd Nephi, and I'm loving every bit of it! 

Confession... I have never read the Book of Mormon all the way through... But I have a goal to do it, and let me tell you, when I made that goal, I had no idea how much it would bless my life. I am finishing strong. I am being fed by living waters and the bread of life.

Anyway... not much else to say!

The gospel is true! The Book of Mormon is True!-no matter what language it's in- IT'S ALL TRUE!

Love you all.

Have a great week.

Love,

ロバーツ姉妹

Salvation!

This week's tender mercy- Sister しぎはら　brought me some macaroni. from COSTCO!

Sending multi-lingual texts...

Add caption

Hey, Everybody!

Oh my gosh. Where to start.

This week has been SO good. One of the best of my entire mission- not just because of the investigators, but because I've seen a lot of changes in myself...First of all in my Japanese!

So last week I fasted that my Japanese would improve and it HAS! But not quite in the way I expected...

So I have discovered that one of the reasons I think I have been sent to Japan is so that I can learn that silence is golden. I am by nature a very outspoken person. I say exactly what I think, and sometimes certain things would be better not said! Sometimes I catch myself thinking, "wow... I'm so glad I'm in Japan and I can say whatever I want and no one can understand me..." I realized how bad that is. No matter where I am I am a representative of this church and of Jesus Christ... and I decided that I want my voice to be one of kindness and happiness no matter what country I'm in!

So this week I made 3 goals!

1. Not say the words 'crap', 'freakin' or 'hate'

2. To not say anything mean or negative.

3. To not be sarcastic!

It's been the craziest thing, as I've worked on these goals, my JAPANESE has improved RAPIDLY. It's just so crazy! I think Heavenly Father is seeing my efforts to improve my speech and he's deciding that it's the right time for me to learn to speak my mission language! It's CRAZY! And I'm so grateful...

Also this week we met an Italian who has become out new investigator! His name is Amadeo... He said that he died and went to heaven and that he met God and God is black... Yep... so we’re teaching him... Sometimes he'll just go into Italian because I will usually understand what he's trying to say, but it's just so difficult! I haven't spoken Italian very well in SO long! So in addition to my Japanese study I also read the Book of Mormon in Italian... and I study Tagalog... because we're still teaching that crazy Filipina =) Having a background in Italian helps with that too... I usually understand what she's trying to tell me, but I can't speak Tagalog very well yet, so... I'm trying to study!

Also this week I ate some really weird food. Pretty sure I ate snails... and squid tentacles...

it was gross...

Other than that though, life is good! I just love being with sister Lane. I love her kindness and her cute little spirit. I love hearing her sweet little singing voice around the apartment. She's a darling...

I just love being a missionary. I've learned so much about God... I know sometimes we think we don't need Him, or we're better off without Him... but I can honestly say that through learning to rely on Him I've become humbled and a better person. I am nothing compared to Him... but I want so badly to be like Him someday. I want to create beautiful things and have power and wisdom... but I can't do it without Him! I have to trust Him and let Him teach me how! I have tried for years to fix my little vices but just in a week I have improved so much. and you know why? Because I have relied on the Lord. He is helping me all the way. I can't do it alone, so I don't try! And I am so much better off... Everything is just getting better. 

Life is good my friends, life is good.

Love you all!

Always,

Roberts Shimai!

Us at a dinner last night

Us at a dinner a while ago...

I convinced sister Lane to buy crocs also. I got 22 bug bites on my left foot and 15 on my right.

Look what we did to Sister Andaca and Sister Bush!

Also we made sushi. Look how tan I am...

Hey, everybody!

Hello! 

It's been a busy busy week in Fukuoka!

Sister Andaca got her greenie and I'm with Sister Lane now! Things have just been crazy crazy crazy and we're trying to figure everything out! 

It's been a little hectic cramming all four of us into our teeny tiny apartment, but we're actually moving to a bigger apartment this week, so That's a good thing! But it's also adding a lot of craziness...

Actually, this whole week has been crazy in general. There was a typhoon for the majority of the entire week, so we didn't get much done. Typhoons are crazy. We actually had an appointment scheduled right in the middle of the typhoon, but we really didn't want to cancel it... So we biked for an hour through crazy lightning and the heaviest rain I have ever seen in my life. It was really windy and a little scary... but the appointment went really well! When we finally got home, I was completely soaked and had the chills, but I didn't want to be a wimp about it, so I just went on with things and toughed it out. The next day I had a fever and chills and I was pretty delirious... So I've been recovering. Too much rain isn't good... Yep... so I got soaked and sick, but now I'm all better!

Also this week I found out that I have a cousin in the same area as me! It's so weird! He gave me his family's conversion story to read, but I had never actually read it... so yesterday when I was in bed recovering, I took it out and read it... and then I realized that it was the exact same story I've heard my dad tell a million times... And then I realized that This elders last name was a family name from　my dad's side.... So. I freaked out. And told my companions. They didn't believe me though. They thought I was hallucinating and told me to go back to sleep... So it took me like half an hour to convince them that this elder really was like my 3rd cousin! I promise I'm not going crazy! Haha... I have such awesome companions. They were just like "Don't worry, honey... you're not related... it's gonna be ok. Have you drank any water lately?" So funny... But yeah... That was weird. I'm serving in the same area as my cousin at the same exact time!

We also had to divide our investigators this week. It was a crazy spiritual experience. Some things turned out completely different than we originally planned. We now have 7 people each to take care of- much more manageable that doing it all together... So now we're working with Nora (my Peruvian mamma), Yukari (someone we just met on the street), Elsie (a Filipina... which will be a challenge because my Tagalog is still pretty bad too), Christina (my MTC "investigator" who is from Nepal), Mineoi (a crazy lady who is obsessed with Americans and never listens to what we're actually trying to say), and we're also still working with Emiko and a less active named chizuru!

One more thing- basically I just love sister Lane. She's amazing and we've started this new thing where every night we tell each other one thing we love about each other. It's really corny and Sister Andaca always makes fun of us, but it's so sweet! Sister Lane is just the best. She always does the dishes and we always have a fun time. Neither of us are very good at Japanese, but we are trying so hard! She had the coolest revelation this week that we needed to go see this member (who Sister Lane had never met) and read a very specific scripture to her. So we went, and this Sister just started crying. It was exactly what she needed to hear right at that time. I'm so glad I have a companion who pays attention to the spirit. 

That's all for this week!

I still love you all! 

Hope everything is well with you!

Love, Roberts Shimai