Er'body!

Hello, hello!

It's the happiest missionary in the world over in southern paradise, Japan! Yep! It's Sister Roberts again!!! And I even remembered how to spell my name right today!

Ok, quite honestly, this has been a really hard week, but I am still so so so happy! I have been sick almost this entire week actually... I have a nasty cold that has made doing much missionary work a little hard... And as if that weren't enough 2 days ago on Saturday night when we were over at a member's house for dinner, I had an accident when I fell down their stairs! So for the last couple days I've been house bound and not quite able to walk or ride my bike, BUT last night I got a priesthood blessing and I was actually able to ride my bike to the church today so I could email! Yaaaay! Happy p-day!!! No broken bones this time =)

This week of the little that we were able to do, we were able to meet with our investigator, Ray! We are still working on the word of wisdom with her... When we went to her house we almost died of second hand smoke, which I attribute partly to the cause of my getting sick... But it's ok! No matter what, we just care so much about Ray and we're trying as hard as we can to help her out and get her on a better path... she finally agreed to start praying =)

Also even though we weren't able to go to church yesterday, 2 of our investigators showed up! We were so happy! Miyazaki is doing so well, and it's just proof that even if I'm not super woman and can't do everything, the Lord will do what he will with those prepared people! Yay!

Ok, so something else kind of cool is that I learned how to cook takoyaki this week! Takoyaki is fried octopus pancakes! Sounds really weird, but it's actually so delicious!

Also... Miyazaki got another set of elders this week! So now we have 4 elders and 2 sisters! One of the elders is from Australia and he looks like Prince William... so we call him Elder William. Every time we send him an email we always write it in scriptural language and end it with "your majesty". Then we put a little animation of a crown after it! So... life is becoming a little fun =)

Other than that, not much to say, except that we're working hard!

Hope everything is good at home!

Love you all!

Roberts Shimai!

Lots of love

Hello, hello!!!

Guess what! Another awesome week in Miyazaki and no surprise, I'm not transferring!!! 

So great =)

This week was just so awesome, so great in so so many ways.

I am so sorry, I can already tell this is going to be a short letter... My mind is a little scattered today. Happy, but scattered!

Here's just one little funny thing I want to share cause it's just so cute!

To set the background...When I first got to Miyazaki a little girl came with a ward member and Sister Suzuki to meet me! Apparently she was the daughter of a less active member we're working with...and also it was her 6th birthday! So I tried to struggle over a few broken Japanese phrases to tell her happy birthday and I thought she was cute and I was so glad to meet her... and that was pretty much it! 

So this week week when we went to meet the family they were all so surprised when they met me! They said that they had asked the little girl whether I was Japanese or a foreigner missionary and the little girl had said that I was Japanese!

So when I got there they were so surprised to see an American!

Apparently she had thought I was Japanese because my Japanese was "so good" even though I think my Japanese is awful......

It was actually really a hilarious little tender mercy. I have been praying a bit about my Japanese... I have been a little worried about it... but it was cute that a little girl told her family that a white girl was actually Japanese all because I had stumbles over a few grammatically incorrect congratulatory phrases when I first met her! Haha... kids are cute! 

Gosh we're just working to hard... Not much progress with our investigators... but that's ok! We can always go find new ones! In fact, that's what we're going to focus on this week! We're going to knock every door in Miyazaki until we find the prepared one!

But quite a bit of progress is happening with less active members... We are trying so hard to bring everyone back so we can have more people here to all support each other even though our little branch is so time!

Miyazaki is so great. It's actually the surf city f Japan... Today we went to the ocean =) The water was so warm... I am so happy we're allowed to go to the beach... as long as we don't go past our knees in the water! Miyazaki is almost as paradisaical as Okinawa! Palm trees everywhere, glorious flowers... even in the winter it's surf paradise! I just love Miyazaki and EVERYTHING and EVERYONE here!!!

Anyway... sorry this is so short, but I love you all and hope you have a great week!

=)

Robatsu Shimai!

Haha... if you noticed... I have forgotten how to spell my own last name! I only say it and write it the Japanese way anymore! I'm going crazy!!!!! But in the best sort of way =) No point fixing it now! You all know! =)

Lots of love <3

MIYAZAKI!!!

Oh hello!

Surprise! I'm no longer in Okinawa!

Some crazy things happened with transfers and I was transferred early to a new mysterious place... MIYAZAKI!!!

I am now companions with a Japanese missionary, Sister Ami Suzuki, who is amazing and sweet and kind and is luckily fluent in English! We are having a lot of fun together!

I actually haven't been here for long, so I don't know much about our investigators, but I have met a cute girl that we are teaching, named Ray. She's 18 years old... she's a fixer-upper, but we love her and are trying to help! 

Our other investigator that I've met is Orimoto san! She's the cutest old grandma ever and she's totally getting baptized! She comes to church every week with her cute little granddaughter. 

The people of Miyazaki are amazing! And it is very nice to be somewhere once again where the people actually show up on time to things =)

On Saturday we had a talent show! I sang... like always, but we also did this awesome skit!

There are 4 missionaries in Miyazaki branch. 3 of us dressed up in reindeer suits and played out this strange reindeer version of the Cinderella story with the Circle of Life song playing in the background. It didn't make much sense, but it was so fun! It had a happy ending... The reindeer all turned into frogs! So fun.

Last night I went to dinner at some older members house and it was so funny because the old men just kept joking the whole time about how shiny their bald heads were!

Everyone here has been so kind to me.

I was a little sad to leave tropical paradise and step right into winter, but I love love love it here and I can't wait to serve and help and find and teach! It's gonna be great!

Thank you for everyone who has been praying for me =) I'm still working to make you all proud!

I'm happy, happy, happy!

Love,

Sister Roberts!

#Miyazaki!

Mister Miyagi

Hello everyone!

Oh my goodness!

I'm still in Okinawa and it's still Summer!

Yesterday I figured since it was November I might be able to wear a scarf and a sweater... biggest mistake of my life. I walked out the front door and walked into a wall of summer heat! But at that point we were already late so we just had to go! Oh man! I was dripping all day! Good thing we were in the air conditioned church most of the day.

This week we had our ward Halloween party. I dressed up as a Japanese person! I wore one of those stereotypical round Asian hats with a point on the top and  a kimono shirt! My goodness. All the ward members thought I was hilarious! It was a lot of fun.

I also was in charge of making the pinata for the party. That was a funny thing- watching Japanese kids do a pinata for the very first time in their lives. They all took the baseball bat and tried to hit it karate-chop style! It literally took an hour to get it nearly broken at which point we just ended up ripping it apart to save time. Japanese kids are so funny.

This week we also found a new investigator- His name is Mister Miyagi. He does karate and has a bonsai garden. He's pretty legit. We were riding our bikes down the streets and saw him trimming his bonsai trees and we asked if we could help! Turns out he already knew who the missionaries were and knew quite a bit about the church! He said we could come back to his house and teach him! So that's good!

Okinawa is as good as ever. We're still struggling to find and keep investigators right now because of how flakey the Okinawans are, but we're working harder than ever and bishop Arakaki keep reminding us to "party hard, dude"... so we're doing our best.

Anyway... that's all for this week!

Love you all!
Robatsu!

To Er'body!

Hello, Everyone!

This week has been strange... very strange... all of our investigators cancelled every single appointment we had scheduled with them this week...that is, everyone except Casey! The lush from Florida!

Boy, oh boy... that was a strange lesson... It really made me realize why I am in Japan and not anywhere else...  and it also made me respect my daddy a whole lot more and admire the fact that he served his mission right in the middle of the Bible Belt in Missouri! Gosh... I can't imagine doing lessons like that 24/7. Casey is also baptist... and he showed up to our appointment once again not in the right mind... It was hallelujia and paraise the Lord all the way! He didn't remember me from last time... I think our next lesson will be the word of wisdom.

Also this week, I learned to do basket weaving! An old lady in the ward taught me! Cool, right? I made a basket in the shape of an owl! Wish I could send you pictures, but this dumb little computer won't let me! Basket weaving reminded me of when Sister Lane and I learned how to do tatting. Gosh. I miss her so much.

We also met a crazy lady who talkes to spirits. We were tracting and we went and knocked on her door and she opened it and said, "when you rang my doorbell, my heart leaped and when I opened the door there were so many beautiful light spirits around you!" Then she basically told us our futures. Aparently I am going to grow a lot on this mission and promptly get married when I get home... but who knows... that was just what the spirits said! We also met with another ward member his week who is a 97 year old who hears spirits! She said, "just tell the spirits thank you, and I love you and they will be nice to you!" Okinawans are very spiritual... literally.

But Okinawans are also very funny. Sometimes it's still hard for me to wrap my mind around the fact that people actually laugh in meetings and my bishop says things to me like, "party on dude"...

All in all I would compare this week to an insane asylum... Spirits, drugs, basket weaving... but don't worry, I'm not going crazy yet! The Lord is helping all the way!

Oh, and by the way, everyone... my mom's birthday is this week on the 29th =) Make sure you give her some extra love for me =)

Anyway! That's it for now! The church is still true!

Love you all! Keep praying!

Another crazy week in Okinawa!

Another crazy week in Okinawa!

It's still gorgeous and showing no signs of moving into fall! I love everything about Okinawa. All the tropical flowers, the constant sea breeze, the friendly people. I never want to leave!

But... but, but, but... we are having a bit of a rough time trying to keep investigators... There's something here that we like to call "Okinawa time"...  Meaning- whenever we have appointments, either no one shows up, or they cancel 15 minutes after they are spposed to show up. Also, no one ever calls us back unless it's to cancel an appointment that they most likely are already late to... it's interesting =) But not completely unworkable!

Right now we have an amazing investigator names Oshiro who we committed to baptism a few days ago! She's really excited. The problem is that she's so busy, we might not actually be able to get her in the water until March... But we're still really excited!

All of our investigators are really awesome, but the real struggle is just pinning them down for appointments. They're all a bit flakey. But I love them! I still haven't het half of them yet, but they're all great and have really good desires!

One of our investigators, Casey in an African American from Florida. He's not all that promising, but he sure does love us!

The other night we met him on the street and he was SO SO SO drunk! He wolf whistled at us and got out attention! Then we had a little discussion about all his x-wives. He also started ranting and raving about black people and the priesthood, garments, tithing, baptism, and all sorts of other stuff... Man. He was really drunk. Then at the very end he started telling us how cute he thinks we are. All the sudden he turned to me and said, "Hey... are you Jewish or something?" And I said, "Nooo..." So he was like "Well what are you?" So I told him I was Italian... Then he started going off about how beautiful Italians are and about how his very first girlfriend in 1st grade was Italian... Then we left. Yeah, well that's Casey for you... When he's not drunk he's actually pretty great, but when he is drunk, man... he is out of it!

So that's the up down of what's up in Urasoe!

Japanese is still a struggle, but it's getting better every day! People down here actually speak a different dialect, so sometimes that can be confusing, but when people just speak plain Japanese, everyithing is fine!

And that'S pretty much all I've got for this week!

Hope everything is well back home!

Love you all!

ロバーツ姉妹

I'm in OKINAWA!!!

Well, hey hey hey!

I'm in OKINAWA!!! What else can I say?

Just in case you haven't heard, Okinawa is paradise.

On the flight over I just kept looking out the window at all the water... as we got closer to Okinawa island I saw the water starting to turn turquoise... That means one thing- tropical!

So basically I am living on a tropical island.

It's called the Hawaii of Japan- because it literally is like Hawaii. There's actually a Hawaiian elder down here and he says it's just like home.

It's kind of funny- on my way down here I was wearing several layers and my coat and a scarf, but when I stepped off the plane I was in mid summer heat! Totaly unexpected. I just got done with summer up on the main land and now I just came back to it!

Okinawa is the most beautiful place I have ever been. Everywhere is beautiful flowers and palm trees. My area, Urasoe, is right on the coast, so we get the ocean air every day. We're also right next to the military base.

One thing that is very different about Okinawa is the relaxed attitude. 

Up in the big city everyone is so serious and stone-faced. Even among missionaries... But down here it's a party all the time! When we had our first missionary get together with the zone I was so surprised. Everyone was laughing and talking. I kind of stood off to the side for a while like an awkward loser because I just didn't know how to act! But I'm getting used to the island vibe and now I'm actually starting to enjoy the laid back feel among the members and missionaries. BUT- just because it's relaxed doesn't mean we're lazy. I've worked harder this transfer that ever before. The area is probably less than a tenth of the size of my last area, so it's a lot easier to get places. We get a lot more done in one day.

I feel like God has blessed me by sending me away for the winter. Everything down here is warm and happy and sunny. Plus, they actually have root beer down here, so that's a good thing.Oh have I mentioned that? Japanese people hate root beer, so it was impossibly to find anywhere up on the mainland. We're going grocery shopping today =) I'm excited to see what other American treats they have here =)

We've got great investigators and the members are amazing. Okinawans are so different that all the other Japanese people. They're happier and more friendly and less busy!

Everyone down here is Japanese too, so I'm done teaching in 4 different languages! I just realized how bad my english is getting though. Sometimes the things I say don't even make sense. I had to read this letter like 3 times before I sent it just to make sure you could understand my severely deteriorating grammar...

Everything else is fabulous though! I can't think of any place I would rather be! I love the island, I love the people, I love Japan, and that's all there really is to it!

Love you all! I'm happy as a clam!

Robatsu Shimai!!!