Week Twenty-three.

Konnichiwa minasan!
O genki desu ka? Kurisumasu wa do datta? Watashi no Kurisumasu wa subarashikatta desu! Ice cream tabemashita!
So I hope everyone had a very merry Christmas! Dad I am sorry you got sick. That is the pits especially during the holidays. If it makes you feel any better, I ended up going to the hospital for something this week, too! But my circumstance is a little different.
So one day this week I was riding my bike to the church for district meeting and when we got there my nose started bleeding. I didnt think anything of it because this always happens to me especially when its cold so I plugged my nose and ran into the church to the bathroom. It was then that I realized that this wasnt just a regular bloody nose! It was pretty bad! I know this is kinda gross to talk about but some pretty weird substances were coming out of my nose... so I called the Nihonjin sisters into the bathroom to diagnose me and they said to go to the hospital. Dont get too freaked out when I say hospital. They dont really have simple doctors offices here, only hospitals. Anyways, we went and the doctor checked me out. It was terrible! She used a scope and stuck it clear up my nose and out my throat and it was so painful! I cried... but on the brightside Im okay! She didnt say what caused it but she told me what to do if it happens again. So I think Ill be okay. Unfortunately I missed district meeting ha ha.
Sister Tui and I had a pretty cool experience this week! It was blizzarding and we had time so we decided we wanted to try to find some less active members to visit. We knew the general area in where they lived but not the exact apartments but we thought we would try it out. So we start walking and walking and walking and we get pretty far from everything and it was snowing so bad and it was cold and we realized that if we kept walking trying to find this house that we wouldnt get home until late so we knew we had to turn back unfortunately. We were probably 2 hours from our apartment by foot in a blizzard! We started walking back and as we were walking back we ran into an old Japanese guy that spoke perfect English! He told us that he is a Christian and so we thought that was pretty cool. We asked him where he was going and he said to a cheap Chinese food restaurant. Then he proceeded to tell us how he hates the Chinese because they are Communists but he loves their food! It was quite funny. He was hilarious. We kept walking and talking and eventually we all decided to just eat dinner together at this restaurant! This guys name is Ito san and I guess Ito san is a regular at this Chinese place so when we walked in he kept saying to the workers things like, Oh look how lucky I am! I found two young beautiful girls on the street and now we are eating food at the best restaurant in town! We just laughed at him and said, Oh yeah, quite a blessing huh! He might sound crazy but hes actually not. We were able to talk about his family and beliefs and things. We offered him a book of Mormon but he wasnt interested but thanked us for sharing something so dear to us with him.
He was a kind man and we gave him our phone number. I will never forget how he called Britains fat and the Chinese terrible Communists...
We are still teaching the Arai family and unfortunately they are not on track to be baptized on Jan 25th. It is hard to teach them right now because who we really want to see progress is the 15 year old girl Yuria and the dad... but they are always in and out of the lessons so really all we are doing is teaching english to 4 little kids, and when it is time for the message they are always everywhere and dont pay attention. We arent quite sure what we are going to do about this situation yet but we will see. They are pretty much our only real solid investigators and they arent even progressing though so its tough. We really need to do more finding here in Aizu.
I did have the opporutnity to go to a Shuwa class with one of my other investigators though. Her name is Hirano san. And Shuwa is Japanese Sign Language! Isnt that crazy how I am learning another language through Japanese? I can say simple sentences like My name is Robertson and other simple words like I dont understand or I cant. Its pretty cool! We were able to advertise our free English Conversation Classes too and the people there seemed way interested! It was a great finding activitiy.
I got a package this week from Abby and Emily Wilding! Thank you both so much! It really made my Christmas wonderful.
Mom, I did get everything in the package you sent me. Thanks for the meat!
Today I am way excited because we are getting facials which I need so bad. So this will be a fun experience for me :)
What are everyones New Years plans? I am going to go to a Buddhist shrine! I also have two meal appointments and I plan on doing service and shoveling snow. It is also on my agenda to read all of 3 Nephi and set goals for this next year. New Years is the biggest holiday in Japan so it should be very fun!
I hope you all have a wonderful New Year. It is a great time to recommit yourself to Christ and really think about what it means to be born again. I am grateful that we have a merciful God that always gives us second chances.

Happy New Year to you all!
Love Sister Robertson

Week Twenty-two.

PART ONE.

 

(Miranda wrote this email kinda weird she sent it in two different ones, one to Mom and one to Dad part one is the one to mom and part two is to dad.)

Hello Mom, Dad, Family, and everyone,

Every Sunday I write in my planner all the main points that I want to talk about in my email home but I forgot my planner today so I cant remember everything so this might be a short email. Plus, I will be talking to you soon so I suppose thats okay.

This week we had the Christmas Party on Saturday and it was so crazy. Pretty much the reason we havent had time to go out searching for people to teach is because these branches out here dont have activities committees so they pin all that stuff on the missionaries even if it isnt our responsibility. So we spend all our time shopping for decorations, sitting in planning meetings, and setting up chairs and tables at the church. It has been quite crazy this last week with planning. All of the Christmas stuff is almost over and then we have New Years which is 1000x more big than Christmas. This Holiday season has been quite crazy!

Right now our only strong investigators are the Arai Family. We have been teaching them for quite awhile now but it is hard to tell if they are progressing or not because not all the family members are in the lessons each time so it is hard to follow up with them. They keep inviting us back so I think that is a good sign! I feel like I am running out of English to teach though! Later today Sister Tui and I are going shopping with one of the Arai girls named Yuria. Shes 15 and just moved back to Japan from Ukraine. (Shes been living in Ukraine with her mother for awhile) I figured she probably doesnt have many friends right now so I invited her to go shopping with us today and she seemed really excited about that. So that will be some good dendo time!

We had a potential investigator come to our Christmas Party and to church to listen to my talk. His name is Hashimoto san and he actually spends a lot of time at the church because right now we are getting an elevator built and Hashimoto san is the main guy. Kinda like the boss of it all. Hes so cool and nice! And speaks some english! He told me that he understood 90% of my talk which means it wasnt all terrible. Im not very good at translating English into Japanese yet ha ha. Oh dad, I used the letter that you sent me about Christmas and the sequence of holidays in my talk. It took forever to translate your words into the best Japanese that I could to share with everyone. I dont know if that part of my talk made much sense.

Anyways, I will think of cool stories and such to tell you when we talk this week.

Here are the instructions for phone calls:

1. Dial 011 (international call number)

2. 81 (country code number)

3. The rest of the cell phone number (the first zero is dropped from the 080)

 

So dial THIS--> 011-81-80-9354-4091

Since you will be in Wyoming on Christmas I think it is 4:00 pm 12/25 there when it is 8:00 am 12/26 in Japan. I think. You might have to check on that... but I will just be expecting a call at 8 am on the 26th.

 

Thanks for your prayers, mom. I appreciate that my family is trying to help my Japanese by sending that lady to me... I would teach her but I am not allowed to. She is friends with someone on the danger list that has tried to like injure missionaries before and she specifially told me she wants nothing to do with the church... I dont want to risk my life really. But I appreciate so much your prayers and that God has been answering your prayers!

I have been able to tell that my Japanese is getting better but I still just cant understand a lick of anything! And thats the annoying part!

 

I will talk to you this week!

Oh and I did receive the Christmas package but no handwritten letter yet...

I have been trying to wait until Christmas but I have been opening one present every day.. I just couldnt wait!

Merry Christmas everyone!

Love, Miranda

 

PART TWO.

Finally after a week in a half my ear isnt plugged anymore! I am pretty much healed but now I have this weird dry skin issue. Maybe it is an allergic reaction to something? Under my eyes is so swollen and dry. I dont know whats up but it makes me look like a grandma and it hurts ha ha.

Christmas here is focused on presents and food and not the Savior. Most people dont understand the real meaning of Christmas because they are mostly Buddhist or dont have a religion. Christmas here is a time to each chicken and cake!

New Years is a way bigger holiday. They have traditions to go to a buddhist shrine and throw a coin and say a prayer. Pres R asked us to do that with an investigator or member so we can get a feel for the culture here and have a cool experience. We dont get the day off on Christmas, but we do kinda get the day off on new years. We have an assignment to deep clean our apartments all day. So we will still be working, just in a cleaning kind of way.

Love you!

Week Twenty-one.

Oh boy mina san! My email inbox is so full of emails I still need to reply to that it is ridiculous. Im sorry!

So first off... SKYPE. I havent found anyone really that has Skype in my ward so I have decided to just do a regular phone call. Sorry. I need to find a time that is good for you guys to call. On Dec 25th (it will be the 26th in Japan) can you call me around5 pm (8 am in Japan)? Let me know in the next email if that is okay or not. I dont have all the instructions right now on how to do it because we forgot to bring the paper but I know that you have to call me. My cell phone number is 080-9354-4091. Next week I promise I will give you all the exact instructions. Im sorry we cant Skype!

So last Pday after our emailing time the weirdest thing happened. This lady named Shimakage san who is an LA here in Aizu randomly found me on the street and started calling out for me in English that she needed to help me! I went over and talked to her and it turns out she has been in contact with some people from Lovell, WY possibly the Hydes that asked Shimakage san to help with my Japanese. It was the weirdest thing ever. I appreciate these people in Wyoming that I dont really know that they want to help me but I cant do that. This lady actually doesnt like the church at all really anymore and she is friends with a person on our super danger list. She isnt interested in hearing any kind of message either so I couldnt accept help from her. If I cant teach her, then I need to spend my time elsewhere. It was the weirdest experience...

So it snowed for the first time this week! And when it snows, IT SNOWS and never stops. It snowed for 2 days straight without stopping. We cant ride our bikes anymore and it takes 45 minutes to walk to the church. That kind of sucks, but oh well. There is so much snow here and it is freezing. I heard that it isnt even bad yet though... the bad stuff happens in January and February. Sister Tui and I had a cool experience the other night. We were walking home from an appointment we had with one of our investigators and it was about 7:30 at night and it was completely dark and it was blizzarding. We couldnt really see and the snow was so bad and cold that we had to keep our faces down or close our eyes. I kinda lost my way and didnt know if I was on the right rode or not so we prayed really quick that the weather would get better so we could so and that we could be warm and that wed be able to find our way safely. Right after that prayer we saw a man walk up behind us which I thought was unusual because it is freezing and no one would be out walking in this weather! Well we started talking to him by saying good evening and he instantly asked us if we were from the Church of Jesus Christ of LDS and we said Yes we are! He said that he knew me! And I asked him his name and he said Hashimoto! And then it clicked! Lately our church is under construction because we are getting a new elevator and Hashimoto san is the man in charge so he is always at the church. So I said, Oh Hashimoto san! Shite imasu! Which means Oh I know you! And then we were able to ask him exactly where we were and how much further until the main road. He was also walking home to his apartment which was in the same direction as ours and so we talked the rest of the way until we had to part. We invited him to our Christmas Party and to church next week! I told him I am giving a talk about Christmas next Sunday and he said Nihongo de?! Which means, In Japanese?! And I said Hai! Ganbarimasu..! Which means Yes Im gonna work hard! I dont know if he will come but I hope he does. We were able to talk about him and his job and family and things. And it stopped blizzarding and we got warm as we finished walking home! It was such a tender mercy! It was awesome! I love Hashimoto san! He is so cool and speaks English too!

But with every good thing comes a bad thing... this week I got really really sick. It started out with a bad bad fever and the chills and then from then on I got a very terrible sore throat. It got so bad I couldnt breathe or swallow or sleep. Then the pain spread to my ears and I got bad ear aches and clogged ears and started hearing weird like an echo... I finally went to the doctor and it turns out I have tonsilitis! But I have been taking medicine for it so Im getting better I think. My throat isnt sore anymore but I havent been able to have normal hearing out of my left ear for 3 days now. It is clogged and SO annoying I can barely stand it. I just have to wait it out I guess.

So let me tell you about Tui Shimai. She is half Tongan and so awesome! She is from California and she is so so fun. The way she talks is so real and gangster I love it ha ha. We have fun together and we laugh a lot.  She is so hilarious and fun. I love her a lot. Things in Aizu are kinda weird right now. I am realizing that really nobody does stuff here... I cant remember the last time I really did missionary work here ha ha. I mean yeah we teach lessons but it seems like most our time is spent with the Takahashi family not really doing... anything. Just talking and hanging out. It is making everything for me a lot more happier but I supposed that isnt helping us find anyone to teach... Teaching is just so scary and stressful... I dont like it! We all need to figure our stuff out here. Our district isnt unified and we arent organized really.

Oh fun fact, I am certified to do CPR in Japan!

Okay thats it for the week I think. Thanks for sending me a package! I havent received it yet. I also havent received Isaac and Kandaces announcement. Hmm... Love you all! I will keep on keepin on but I sure still do miss home... I think about good ol America every day. Keep it real over there.

Love Miranda

PS Everytime you talk to Maria I am actually with her..! So it is fun when you email!

Week Twenty

Dear Family and Friends,
(Dad I got your email)
So yes, yesterday we got the transfer call! And... Im staying in Aizu! But, Sister Johnson is getting transferred! So my new companion will be Sister Tuikolovatu. She is from California and she was actually Sister Johnsons companion in the MTC so thats cool. Everyone says she is going to be a really fun companion. I am excited for sure. I kinda wanted to get transferred because we have a Christmas party coming up and things and I didnt want to have to deal with it ha ha... for some reason the missionaries are in charge of planning all the ward and branch activities here. We spend a lot of dendo time in meetings planning. Like a lot of time. Also, I am now the leader for awhile until Sister Tui gets more acquainted with Aizu but remember how I am terrible at directions? Yeah. That is still a challenge for me. I know how to get to the church, post office, and library. Also, I dont want to be the lead when it comes to our investigators. Unfortunately I dont really know that much about our investigators because I cant understand them so it is going to be hard teaching them according to their needs... Sister Johnson did a great job at talking and understanding Japanese! So I am really nervous about that.
So I learned something about me this week. I am really stressed! At Zone Conference Pres and Sis Rasmussen did a training on this new booklet out by the church called Adjusting to Missionary Life. Its an awesome book! You can take a self assessment to see how stressed you are and then the book gives specific instructions and advice on how to help. I took the self assessment and checked almost every box... Then during personal study I started from the beginning and started picking a few suggestions to work on to see if it will help. Well, I ended up getting more stressed because I got overwhelmed with all of the things I needed to do in that book! So I ended up just closing it, taking some deep breaths, and clipping my fingernails. I dont know but for some reason clipping my fingernails is so relaxing and helpful. Maybe because I have complete control over how my nails look and I know exactly what I am doing and how to do it. Seems like a weird thing, right? But it works for me! I have awesome nails right now just so you know.
I do want to try those suggestions though but everytime I think about it my throat gets tight and I feel a heavy weight. I dont know what has happened to me, but lately I have been having these tiny stress emergencies a lot. I got one after the transfer call too. And I always get them when we plan for lessons and especially on the ride to the investigators homes. I dont know how to explain it but I just get really freaked out and I just feel like I dont know what to do. After one of these stress emergencies the feelings kind of linger for awhile so it is hard to snap out of it sometimes. There are times when I am not stressed though, like when we are at the apartment at the end of the day and all us girls are being girls talking about boys and the other elders and whatnot (yes, we are still young girls. We need to talk about boys sometimes.) I am glad I have friends here because it isnt so bad when I am with my friends but when I am dendoing, it is pretty rough. I want to be excited about dendo but I cant control my feelings! I immediately feel nervous and scared always. Ive also noticed some physical symptoms. Usually I am a pig and eat a lot of food, but my appetite is going down and I am not sleeping well. I also have trouble waking up in the morning. I have trouble getting motivated to exercise and lately I have been having stomach pain and sometimes headaches. Any clue as to what this is? Is this a serious problem? The next transfer we have interviews with Kaicho (president) so I will definitely talk to him about it. I have been thinking about talking with the dendo therapist, too. Sometimes it is difficult for me to talk about how I feel to the people around me because I really dont want to bring them down. It is easier for me to talk to other people that I am not in close quarters with. It just gets tough because I hold in so much that sometimes it makes the situation worse, ya know?
Anyways, enough of that for now. Zone Conference was awesome! It was so fun. It was surely a surprise when I received some Christmas letters from my family! I bawled like a baby. Paige, your girls are so big now! Brooke and Leslies hair is SO long I cant believe it! I was so happy to hear from so many people- mom, dad, paige, bailey, abby, and grandma flash- thank you!
It was a good week for letters because I received quite a few more throughout the week! Best week ever! I got some letters from Grandma Flash and the Robertson side of the family! Oh thank you so much. It was so nice to hear from my aunts, uncles, and cousins. It really lifted my spirits. I also received letters from the Idaho Falls North Stake Young Womens presidency, the Katy TX Stake (I love receiving these letters every month!!!), and my lovely friend Rachel W. Thank you to all who sent letters and emails! I love you!
As for our investigators, it was quite an interesting week. We taught Urasawa san and Nobuko san again... well we tried to. Nobuko san doesnt like Mormons at all. She asked us how many people were members of our church and when we told her she said, Really? Why? I dont believe it. Then she proceeded to damn us. (I dont think that is swearing, but I dont know how else to put it, sorry!) She reaaaaally doesnt like Mormons. Urasawa san doesnt have a lick of interest in the gospel either. We probably are going to stop lessons, maybe. I dont really know yet. I will have to ask my new companion what she thinks when she gets here tomorrow. We also taught a lesson to our investigator Hirano san! She too isnt at all interested in the gospel. Whenever we ask her to do something as a commitment she changes the subject and gets us on a tangent until we run out of time. She just wants to learn English. We are going to keep working on her though. We also taught the Arai Family a couple times. We had a pretty good lesson with Arai san (the dad) and talked a bit about baptism and the Word of Wisdom. He has desires to follow the Word of Wisdom which is awesome! We asked him to pray to know if our message is true and from God. The next time we taught that family he was too busy with work so we only taught the kids and we didnt get to follow up with him. The kids are pretty cute! We taught them about baptism and they said that they really want to get baptized! But we told them they need permission from their parents first and when they asked them Arai san said they already got baptized. So now we will have that issue to deal with next time we teach... and I will be leading the conversation... and now I am getting nervous thinking about it... ah!
In other news, I went on a split with Morita Shimai! I love her a lot. She is a great missionary. We were able to spend some time helping some members in the branch. We made Christmas invitations for the party coming up. It was good dendo and nice relax time. I was able to talk with them a little about how I have been feeling and I was able to thank them for their help. Mom, check our FB inbox. One of the members in my branch sent you a picture of me. The message is probably in your ``other`` inbox. Also, please accept her request! She will be able to keep you updated on me and she will send you pictures too. Her name is Maria Takahashi. Shes so awesome.
Oh, bad news! My camera broke. I am so sorry! Dont worry about buying another one, I broke it so I should buy another with my own money. I hope it is my money you have been putting in my bank account by the way! How much money do I have anyways?
I dont know when I will buy a new camera... I can still take pictures, I just cant see them on my screen. Maybe I will take pictures and send my card home so you can see the pictures and copy them all onto the computer then send the card back? I have two SD cards so while you have one, I can still take pictures with my other one! Maybe I will do that. I hate spending money so I dont know.
Anyways, thanks for your prayers and encouragement. It is so helpful! I am really really really really trying to be happy and a hard worker. Some days are better than others but I guess I will just keep on keepin on... do my best and try to stay calm!
Love, Miranda

Week Nineteen.

Dear family and friends,

First, Dad! I received some emails from you this week on Thanksgiving day! Thank you!

Second, Mom! I have no idea what I want or need for Christmas honestly... Umm maybe some American cereal! Also, maybe a Christmas CD that I can listen to. And I forgot to bring that speaker you bought me because I thought it wasnt allowed but I guess it is! So you could send that too. Also, I dont really have sweaters. I bought some the other day, but if you could send some cardigans or long sleeve shirts that would be a nice gift! I really want pictures of my family so that would be the best gift of all! Thank you!

This last week was interesting. I dont remember if I said this in the last email or not, but that same family that doesnt like me and Sister Johnson now apparently doesnt like any of the sister missionaries in Aizu. They think that we are lazy, dont follow the rules, waste time, and dont work. So thats great. And the ward mission leader and the only ward missionary we have are from that family. This will be interesting!

Monday night or maybe it was Tuesday night, I dont remember, but I talked to Sister Johnson about how I was feeling about this whole mission thing and that seemed to help. I set a goal this week to be happy and for the most part I was! Its crazy though because on the good days that I had they were the same days that you talked about in your email mom about when you went to the temple and prayed for me and stuff. Thank you for your prayers.

So this week we had to go to Yamagata for Zone Meeting and because of it we had to cancel a lot of our appointments that we had set up. I wish people would tell us earlier when we have meetings, but they never do!!! Anyways, I like Zone Meeting because I like riding the bus because you can sleep :) And it is so fun to see everyone in our zone. Oh, on the way home from Zone Meeting a lady sat by me on the bus and I talked to her and she said that she has heard of our church before because she used to go to Eikaiwa in high school. Before she got off the bus I gave her a pass along card and my business card with our phone number on it. That was good!

Today we are going to Yamagata again because we have Zone Conference tomorrow. We are going to spend Pday in Sendai shopping (I dont plan on buying anything really though) and then we will stay at the Yamagata sisters apartment. Zone Conference is an all day thing and we get training from President and the APs. We have this cool Christmas skit planned for it too and my district has a fun skit for it. Lets just say that yes I wrote another Christmas rap, just like last year. It is sooo awesome. I wish I could like record it then send it home somehow but I cant with these computers. Sorry.

So unfortunately this week we lost 2 investigators pretty much. Urasawa san and Nobuko san. Nobuko san gave us our Book of Mormon back and said that she will never read it because it is bad and Urasawa san said she wont read it either because she doesnt even read the Bible. We tried giving a lesson last Wednesday but I swear the planned it so we couldnt teach. We taught the english part of the lesson and then when we were getting ready to teach the gospel part Nobuko san got up and left and Urasawa san went into the kitchen and started cooking for us. They just want to learn english is all. Sister Johnson and I went back the next day as a surprise with a plan to give Urasawa san a special Korean BOM that we ordered for her and we were going to invite her to church. Turns out she already has a Korean BOM and she tried giving it back. We said no keep it! If you dont want to read it then give it to your family or friends! And she said no. We didnt have an opportunity to invite her to church because she was kinda annoyed with us... next week might be our last lesson. They arent progressing.

We taught the Arai family! We taught them about Adam and Eve and Christ and Agency. It was a pretty good lesson I think. Since all these little kids are so young, they pretty much believe everything we teach them. We still teach that they should pray and ask to know for sure though. One of the kids named Iriya is 9 years old so we are hoping that he can get baptized! He came to church yesterday so that was awesome! I think he liked it. He came with his little sister Mari.

Our branch has a goal to see a baptism on Dec. 28 and so in order for that to happen, we need our investigators to come to church at least 3 times. So we cant miss a Sunday from here on out. It is stressful. At this point, Iriya is probably going to be the one, we hope! That family is really ready I think.

So yesterday was Fast Sunday and in order for us to meet our goals as a branch to see a baptism on the 28th and also we want to see 3 LA members reactivated, we said a special prayer after sacrament meeting. I knew that I was going to have to give this prayer so I practiced so much the night before and I wrote out this super awesome prayer and memorized it. But on Sunday morning Sister Johnson got sick so we didnt go to sacrament meeting (which sucks because we had an investigator there!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!) and Sister Morita was going to give the prayer for me instead. So I didnt practice my prayer anymore! Well Sister Johnson got better and we went to church and made it just in time for the prayer so I was back on to say it! Well I was under pressure and forgot everything I memorized and pretty much said the prayer in English instead... it was embarrassing. Ugh I practiced so much! Why when I really need help with the langauge I can never remember anything!! Its so annoying.

It makes it even more difficult because I can really express my feelings and apologys in english super well, but not in Japanese so with the miscommunication and misunderstanding it makes it hard to connect with the Japanese people here. Hm, maybe I will get transferred... I dont know.

Anyways, I love you all lots and lots.

I am so grateful for the emails of encouragement! Really!

I am sorry to all those that dont receive a reply from me. I usually run out of time to reply back individually, but if you include your currently mailing address I can write a handwritten letter back to you!

Love, Miranda