Week Six.

こんにちわ　みなさん！

おーげんきですか？

Wow what a week! It definitely had it's ups and downs. I'm gonna start off this email with quotes from the one and only Kosaka Sensei. To you these things might not be so funny, but he is asian and sometimes it is funny when asians don't have 100% perfect english. So here are my favorites!

"I like go temple!"

"Cool bean."

"The bathroom is stink."

"Stars, they are pretty, but not so great."

Ha ha I don't know why it is so funny when he fails to make some nouns plural but I just laugh so hard when he does that! It's so... asian! Ha ha ha ha!

Okay so now to the serious stuff.

This week was well, hard. To my family, you already know that from the letters I've sent. To everyone else, surprise! This was not a good week, really. These last 3 weeks haven't really been good at all to be honest. Don't get me wrong, missions are great! But, sometimes they are just really hard and scary, too. And Satan is super good at making to just want to go home. But even though I had major thoughts of going home, I want you all to know that I am definitely staying out here the whole 18 months no matter what kind of trials I endure. This work is too important to quit. I luckily have the best best best best friends ever here at the MTC who helped me a lot. My companion and the other two girls in my district that I live with helped me so much! They shared the sweetest stories and insights that really comforted me. King Shimai especially helped. She said, "sometimes it is okay to just HATE your mission. Just HATE IT! Just hate it with everything that you are. But then, after you got it all out, bind up those feelings and then give them to the Lord. Just hand it off and let him take care of it." That really helped me. I felt like I have been having to put this fake smile on and act like I just love everything here when really I don't love EVERYTHING! But sometimes it is just OKAY to cry and hate your mission a little.. but then you must move on and keep moving forward and that's how it goes. I am also very grateful for my sisters that wrote me letters and dear elders and for their encouragement. It was so so so good to hear from you Paige and Bailey and Abby! I cried out of joy! Keep sending them if you have time! My district is also wonderful. All my elders take good care of me. I received a blessing of comfort which helped. And just seeing their faces and their determination helps me every day! I just really do love them like a family. I can't wait for the day when my whole MTC district has a mission reunion after our mission and in heaven :)

Another thing that helped me was the devotional on Sunday. I can't remember the guy's name but he is the marketing manager for the MTC I think? But his talk was very hands on and interactive with the audience. He would ask questions and if they applied to us he'd ask us to stand up. Well one question he asked was "If any of you have thought about going home, please stand." And at least half or more of the people stood up. I'm not the only one who has felt like this! Apparently these are normal feelings and they will soon pass if I have patience. I am doing okay. I really am. The Lord is in charge here and I just need to work on trusting. I am surrounded by people all around me to help me and love me, and I am doing a GOOD thing by being here. It'll get easier. 

Besides that big news, um, I just got back from the temple! It was so good, but I accidentally fell asleep a few times... ha ha. Last night I was up so late because the group above me that is going to Japan left last night and since I am the Sister Training Leader I had to stay up late and check them out and make sure their rooms were clean! I just wish they would have got it done EARLIER! So I have been really tired all day today. After I finish this letter I'm going to take a nap before choir practice :)

Tonight for devotional it is being broadcast to the other MTCs again which means probably someone from the 12 is going to be here again! I am so pumped!

Mom, I got your packages! Thank you so much for the bracelets and the exercise pants! Thanks for my sweatshirts too and the backpack! Funny story... I found my old temple recommend in the backpack ha ha. The backpack is nice because I made it into a shoulder bag that works WONDERS. So thank you! Thanks for the treats too!

I have sad news! So with BYU school starting soon, all the teacher's schedules are all weird and switched around so I don't have Willard Sensei anymore! Which means I taught Harada san for my last time yesterday as well. I am going to miss Willard Sensei so much :( He was such a loving teacher. We got a new Sensei named Seito Sensei. He's Nihonjin! I like the Nihonjin teachers because it helps with pronunciation and stuff. They are really funny too! He seems like a nice guy!

Okay before I go, I will leave you all with a funny story about my terrible Japanese skills ha ha.

So Orr Shimai and I were teaching Harada san last week sometime and I was teaching about the Atonement. I was trying to tell him that through the Atonement, you can become clean, but I didn't quite say that exactly ha ha. I first said, "Through the Atonement, you can become good looking." and he started to laugh and Orr Shimai corrected me and then I realized my mistake so I fixed it and said, "Through the Atonement, you can become yellow." and then they both kept laughing! And I didn't even know what I did this time! But then Orr Shimai helped me again ha and I finally got it right on my third time, but it was really funny! Just so you know, the word for good looking is kirei. The word for yellow is kiroi. And the word for clean/pure is kiyoi... so they are all really close! Ha ha! Also, Orr Shimai had a good one yesterday when we were teaching Kimura san. She kept saying that through the Atonement you can become unworthy and when you sin you are worthy. Ha ha she got those two words mixed up which is kind of not very good. But I didn't catch her mistake during the lesson so we have some fixing to do next time we teach him! Oh Japanese... why must you be so confusing!

Anyways, I gotta go now! I'm sleepy!

Love, ロバートソン　しまい

 

 

 

here are some pictures that Sister Robertson sent
 

(sorry for the repeat!)

Week Five.

Konnich!

Your week sounds so fun minus all the fireants. They sound like they are a really huge problem! I feel bad for Miles. That would be really sad to hear that poor boy crying from the stings. And I'm sorry that everyone else got stung too! Speaking of stings, are you getting bees anytime soon? I was telling one of the elders in my district about dad and he just thought it was so cool that dad is a beekeeper. I have been asked by the chorotachi to request a bottle of honey! :) I said only if they get their mothers to send homemade bread.

Have a fun trip mom and abby! Tell Abby good luck at college! College is THE BEST! She needs to give me her address so I can write her letters while she is going to school.

Oh hey, thanks for the family reunion letters as well. It was so good to hear from my family!

Mom, I think my teacher got mad because it is a culture thing. He is from Japan so they might just handle situations differently? I'm not sure.

Here is my update!

So I made a list of the things I want to write about so sorry if this letter is disjointed once again. I'm just going to go through the bullet points.

1. Skirts! I like the skirts I have but am realizing that the longer skirts and the pleated skirts are so my favorite! The other skirts I have are modest but almost boarderline when I sit down and it just isn't comfortable. If you ever spend some time in like a thrift store and want to send me a nice granny skirt, I would LOVE that! But I don't need them. Just a gift idea maybe!

2. Exercise pants! I really want to be exactly obedient and have decided that my exercise attire just doesn't work. I am going to use some of my emergency money to buy some bball shorts at the book store I think, but if you find some nice baggy sweatpants (I'm sure the thrift stores have all the good stuff.) you could send some too! I do have a pair of black sweatpants that I wear that work good and my bball shorts are okay but not when I'm doing crunches...

3. Kosaka Sensei once again snapped on us... but this time it was more directed to the chorotachi. He told them they need to SYL more (SYL= speak your language). This last week I really tried super hard to say everything I could in Japanese and it is crazy to see the difference it has made. I don't think I really understood what SYLing was before, but I'm starting to get it. I'm getting quicker at teaching lessons. 

4. So one sister in our district named King Shimai is a tenshi (angel). Her doryo is Mataoa Shimai and for the past few weeks Mataoa Shimai has been trying to figure out if she wants to go home or not. It has been hard on King Shimai because she has had to pick up Mataoa Shimai's slack. Orr Shimai and I have decided to sacrifice half of our study time to help King and Mataoa shimaitachi. We spend a lot of time mogi-ing (role playing) with them to help with their lessons. I'm trusting that the Lord will bless Orr Shimai and I with the gift of tongues as we serve the shimaitachi and sacrifice our own study time.

5. Guess whaaaaat! Last sunday Orr Shimai and I got called as the Sister Training Leaders of our Branch! I think that is super awesome but I also kind of hate it... I'm just freaking out because now I don't have any personal time at the end of the day to catch up on study time that I used to help King Shimai and Mataoa Shimai because now I have to do interviews everyweek! There are 25 sisters in our branch... so there is a lot to do. I literally have no time to study any Nihongo. I am trying to eat meals faster so I can have 10 or 15 minutes to myself to practice or prepare for lessons. I take flashcards with me and practice conjugating verbs while I wait in line for things like at dinner and stuff. I'm just really hoping that Heavenly Father sees my effort and just blesses me and helps me retain this information quickly so I don't have to spend too long reviewing the same thing so I can still stay up on my studies and with the class.

6. Guess what else! I'm now also the senior companion! That doesn't mean much besides I get to decided when to hold companionship inventory (which is when you just sit down and talk about what we love about each other and address any concerns and make sure we don't have contention.) Pretty easy.

7. I have good news! I made it a goal to read 10 min every day in the Morumon Sho while being at the MTC and I finally finished 1 Ne. 1:1 and it only took me a week! Ha ha ha... that is terrible. But just remember that it is in a different language with crazy characters. I'm not just reading it though, I'm translating it so I can understand what I'm reading. I feel like Joseph Smith basically. I'm working on verse 2 right now!

8. So last P Day for the Tues Night Devotional we had a very special guest teach us :) It was Elder Richard G Scott! Can you believe that?! It was so amazing. He taught us about prayer and faith. I feel like the underlying message though wast to pray with faith and then more importantly ACT on that. We live in a church of action. This gospel is a gospel of action. It is so important to do our part and show Heavenly Father that we are willing to do what he asks of us. That's when the blessings and the answers come! It was so awesome to hear him speak. The coolest thing about his talk though is that he started and ended his talk with this "With apostolic authority, I invoke a blessing on all those learning a new language that through their study and by their faith, the Lord will bless them with the gift of tongues." Um, wow! With apostolic authority! It was so amazing to hear that. The last thing he said as he was walking out of the Marriott Center and as all the missionaries were waving goodbye to him, he turned and said to us, "Be good!" Everyone laughed and just yelled, "We love you!" It was so awesome :)

9. Last P Day I got to see the new Temple film! It was SO good! I liked the changes they made. I get to go to the temple again here in about an hour. So that'll be really great!

10. So more about SYL... I have really really really really been trying hard to speak japanese all the time. It is difficult but I am trying. I can't believe I go to Nihon in like 3 weeks. I cannot hold a conversation with a Nihonjin at all. We have 4 Nihonjin sisters that are here just for a couple weeks then they will go back to Japan, but I tried to talk to them and it was just not really working out. It made me realize how.. not good I am at Japanese! But I am surely trying.

11. Bad news... I lost my glasses a few days ago. I have searched and searched and haven't found them anywhere. I check all the lost and founds on campus every day to see if anyone has turned them in but no one has! So I guess I will just be semi-blind the rest of my mission. I also lost my CTR ring... I left it at the gym last week. So now my fingers are bare. But, oh well I guess. I have a cool tan line from my ring so now I get to look at that!

Well, that's all really. This work is good, but it is hard. I had a very hard week to be honest. I spend a lot of time on my knees last week talking with my Heavenly Father. Pray for me that I will be able to accomplish everything I need to right now. I have sisters to help, and language to learn, and investigators to teach. It can get overwhelming. 

I am hoping this next week is better.

I will try to send pictures this week but if I don't have enough time to do that, I'm sorry!

I love all of you so much!

Love Robertson Shimai

Week Four.

Konnichiwa mina san!

 

Oh boy do I have so much to tell you! This week was not my best... It was pretty hard actually.

Let me first tell you that as of late, I have been so terrified to teach. Well, really I have been so terrified to teach ever since I got here. I love the MTC but I just really really don't like teaching my investigators which is so bad because I'm a missionary and that's what I do! I teach!

I think the reason is that I'm just so nervous about my Nihongo and plus my companion Orr Shimai is just so good at it that tokidoki (sometimes) it is easy for me to fell inadequate maybe? Or inferior? I just can't really say stuff like she can. Let me tell you a funny story to illustrate this point...

We've been teaching our investigator Iwata-san about the gospel of Jesus Christ. Yesterday we taught him about repentance, but it was kind of a surprise lesson and we didn't know we were going to be teaching him so we were only semi prepared. Usually we like to mogi (role play) our lessons for practice before we go so we know what to say and what kind of questions they might ask. Well we didn't mogi this time! So Orr Shimai starts by wonderfully recapping on our last lesson which was faith and then I started teaching about repentance. I told Iwata-san that repentance is changing. He asked, "what changes?" and I didn't really know how to say anything to answer that question so I attempted telling a personal experience. You all will think this is funny... I tried telling him about the one time when I was a little kid and I used to steal candy from the store. But after I stole the candy, I felt bad. So I went back to the store and said "sorry." And after I said sorry I felt better and happy! That is change. But of course how in the world does someone who doesn't know Japanese tell a story like that?! Well, I attempted to and it was just hilarious. It was so bad! We were all kind of laughing but I was also really embarrassed! It was a funny lesson, but the spirit was definitely not there at all.

I've been having a hard time really understanding the spirit and how to teach by it and through it. I don't ever feel impressed to talk about something and it is so hard for me to really decipher what my investigators really NEED. I pray and pray and read and read but I just really don't have any idea what I am doing! I am not a very good teacher. Actually, I'm quite bad at it. My companion and I had to teach the lesson on Sunday to our district and I just didn't really know how to do it! I'm finding myself wanting to just sit back in lessons and let my companion say everything. I would rather just not say anything besides maybe the prayer. I can do that!

This was really becoming a problem and a concern for me so I really went to the scriptures for answers. Orr Shimai found this scripture and shared it with me one day. It is about Enoch and he is asking the Lord why He was called to be his servant.

"And when Enoch had heard these words, he ^abowed himself to the earth, before the Lord, and spake before the Lord, saying: ^bWhy is it that I have found favor in thy sight, and am but a lad, and all the people ^chate me; for I am ^dslow of speech; wherefore am I thy servant?

 And the Lord said unto Enoch: Go forth and do as I have commanded thee, and no man shall pierce thee. Open thy ^amouth, and it shall be filled, and I will give thee utterance, for all flesh is in my hands, and I will do as seemeth me good."

 

I feel exactly like Enoch. I'm slow of speech and I am just a kid... how can I do this great work? Well the Lord's reply to that is, "Miranda, go forth and do what I have commanded you to do. I know what I'm doing and I know what you are capable of. I wouldn't have called you if I didn't know you could do it. Study the scriptures and when you open your mouth to preach my gospel, I will give unto you what you should say to help your investigators. I am in charge here. Don't worry."

I'm grateful for the scriptures to teach my lessons! In addition to this experience I must tell you about what happened just last night in class. So we were all teaching our two Nihonjin investigators Iwata-san (that's when I told the terrible candy story.) and Kimura-san (he's new!). Afterwards, both our sensei's came into class and just POUNDED us with how not good of missionaries we were being. They both said that when we teach them (when they are playing investigators) they like never feel the spirit. They said our lessons are boring and asked us if we were in their place, would we invite the missionaries back? I think everyone in the room kinda knew the answer to that... no, we wouldn't. Then Kosaka Sensei asked, "do you even want to be teaching your investigators? If not, why are you here? Why are you wasting the Lord's time?" I thought about that and realized that for these past couple weeks my answer to that question probably is, no! I don't want to because I'm scared and this is hard! But now I realize that yes, yes I do want to because it is right and it is what God needs of me. We had a discussion on how we can improve which helped then we watched a video from the District about how we can better teach to our investigators needs and to most imporantly, LOVE THEM! After we watched the video we mogi'd with each other and gave little short 5 minute lessons on baptism and we got to teach in ENGLISH. Orr Shimai and I taught Nielson Choro and Watanabe Choro and then we switched and they taught us. Family and friends, the spirit was indescribable. It was crazy because even though I know them and they were just playing a fake character, I just loved them so much. I can't even describe it! I just wanted so bad for Watanabe san to accept baptism. I think I started to cry even when I was bearing my testimony about how important baptism is! It was just so incredible! I hope I can teach my investigators in the same manner.

The most important thing I have learned throughout this experience is that I can be the worst teacher ever and still be okay. You know why? Because as long as I invite the spirit into the lessons and live a life worthy of the spirit, the SPIRIT will teach the lessons. And I think we all know how qualified the spirit is to teach the gospel of Jesus Christ. I am not the teacher here, the spirit is.

It was quite a remarkable day yesterday and definitely a life changing experience for the rest of my mission.

I'm grateful for everyone's support and prayers. I definitely can see the blessings in my life from your prayers and thoughts.

I know that this gospel is true and that Jesus Christ Lives! He is the way! The only way!

I challenge you all to really evaluate your lives and if there is anything that is not in harmony with God's plan, please change it. Repent everyday and come unto Christ. Think like Him. Act like Him. Teach and love like Him. Do not waste your time on this earth doing wordly things! There are people to help! There are people that need you! Yes, every one of you!

I leave this testimony with you in the name of Jesus Christ, Amen.

Love, Sister Robertson.

Week Three.

Hi mina san!

It sounds like the Family Reunion was very fun! I am excited to receive some letters from you guys that wrote me! I just love letters so much!

Things are good here. So remember how last week I told you I got to go do service inside the temple? Well guess what me and the other 3 shimaitachi got to do! We got to clean and put together CHANDELIERS IN THE CELETIAL ROOM! How amazing, right?! It was the most incredible experience I have ever ever had in my life thus far.

Me and the other shimaitachi made lots of cool comparisons when we were putting the chandeliers together. The main source of light is like Christ and we are all like the little crystals.. each one is important and each one has a way of letting Christ's light shine through us in so many different ways. It's amazing! Don't ever think you are not important! God works miracles through ALL of us! Not just missionaries!

This week was a fairly normal one at the MTC. I saw Caleb Brower though which was such a happy joyful thing for me! I miss the Brower family! I haven't gotten a picture with him yet, but I will. Don't you worry!

I see Elder Fisher a lot here in the MTC. He was the guy that we met at the airport when I was just leaving Houston. He is such a great missionary and it's fun to run into each other and update each other on our progress in the language and practice bearing our testimonies to each other. He's a very nice elder.

The big thing that has been happening these last few days is that Mataoa Shimai is very homesick and has decided that she wants to go back to Tahiti where she is from. She is such a wonderful person, but she just doesn't want to be a missionary anymore. I support her decision but it is tough on all of us becuase she has kind of given up on the work. It is hard to be obedient when you have a sister that won't get out of bed and go to class or go to the devotional or anything like that. On Sundays we have the opportunity to watch a film at the end of the day and last sunday we decided to watch the Joseph Smith movie in French for Mataoa Shimai. I didn't understand anything but I still cried! Especially when there was bagpipe music playing "praise to the man" because it reminded me of Dad and I just couldn't hold my tears in. It makes me want to cry now just thinking about it! I miss you dad!

Besides that, not much new has happened... here is a semi-funny story!

I was teaching Iwata-san and Orr Shimai made me do the introduction and like the get to know you stuff this time... she usually does it but she made me do it becuase she is a good companion and so I asked "how are you" and "how is school" and "how is your family" and after he answered there was kind of an awkward silence so i tried to think of another question (let me note that this was our first time off notes so i didn't have this stuff written down" so i tried asking, "how is life" but the way that i asked it was more like "how has your lifetime been?" and he just looked at me with the biggest eyes ever and was like "whhhooaa. uhh, so so?" ha ha it was kind of funny. I didn't know what to say so I just said, "uh, me too."

It was... fun!  

Here are some pictures for you to enjoy!  

That is my district in front of the Temple. 

 

The picture of the four girls is all the shimaitachi in our district. 

The other pictures is some of the chorotachi during personal study time :) They look so good and faithful!

A pic of me and Elder Pincock of course! I love him!  

All those books are the supplies I was handed on the first day. They weigh like 20 pounds or something!

 

Sister Robertson's name tag.

 

Sister Robertson's district.

 

Sister Robertson and her friend from high school.

 

Someone in Sister Robertson's district. 

Well, I love you all so so much! Don't forget that you have a Savior that is reaching out to help you everyday!

Love, Sister Robertson