Akita Transfer 2 Week 6

It's been another awesome week! 

Today, I officially ended "bean-hood." Being a bean (or "greeny") is the first 2 transfers, or 12 weeks of your missionfield experience. Basically the baby of the mission. But ya, that officially ended today- legitly felt like it was my birthday this morning it was such a feat. Yay

On Tuesday and Wednesday morning, we had a mission wide 24 hour fast. The purpose of it was to pray that God will bless this area of Tohoku (known for it's lack of numerical success) to open the hearts of the people and be more receptive to our message AND to help us as individual missionaries to become more consecrated and "full-purpose" (involved not only with investigators but with all members and projects of the church) missionaries. It was a powerful experience and I grew a lot from it. Our district of 4 broke our fast on Wednesday by riding up a big hill in a park, on empty stomachs, to a nice secluded place surrounded by nature. We all bore testimony, opened our hearts and committed to be the best missionaries we could be. Afterwards, we rode another 4 miles on an empty stomach to an all-you-can-eat meat place called stamina. It's the sweetest place ever- I'll attach a picture.. by the time we left, we weren't feeling very hungry at all and had to ride 5 miles back home in the rain feeling like whales on bikes.

TRANSFER CALL came in on Saturday. I'm leaving Akita unfortunately but heading to a place every missionary here wants to go, a place called Misawa! Small northeast city in Tohoku- an American Air Force base! That means there'll be American food, American people, American stores (something like Wal-Mart!) and a lot of things you can't get anywhere else in Japan! Super sick. I'm so pumped. My new companion is Japanese- his name is Elder Suzuki and heard he's a funny guy and that we'll have a lot of fun together and since he's Japanese, that means my Japanese will "grow in leaps and bounds" according to President Smith. Elder Anderson, my current companion, will stay and end his mission here in Akita. Akita, this past transfer, was made up of 4 elders and 4 sisters. 2 of those sisters just hardly went home due to health concerns, and the other companionship of elders is moving out and not being replaced. So what once was an 8 man area will now be a four man area and a lot more work for those 4 missionaries, ganbarimasho! 

Just got news that the Warriors lost by a smudge in game 2. Sounds like an exciting series. I think the Lord is laughing at me- the year the Warriors explode is the year I head out on my mission.. which means I can't watch them anymore.. Pretty sad but I see the humor.  

This week was also good because Elder Anderson and I worked our butts off and got some solid numbers... We found 2 new investigators. Both young, cool and super nice guys interested in english. So unfortunately, I won't be working with them since I'm moving to Misawa but for the brief time we got to know eachother, i really liked em a lot! My boy Jerry is very close to setting a baptism date; probably the middle of July. Bummed to leave him behind as well, love that guy so much. 

Anyway, hope y'all are doing well and getting ready for your summer vacations! Do your best with your school finals and at work! Love you all.

PS: Happy birthday to my dad this Saturday June 13th! He turns 39 for the 9th time... And happy father's day to him and to my excellent role model grandfathers I have. Love ya!

PPS: Go dubs!

Elder Dallin Robins

Robinzu Chōrō

ロビンズ長老

Stamina: looks kinda gross but trust me when I say its succulent.

The 8 man. Top left to bottom right: Michioka, Mailes, Me, Anderson, Arashiyama, Ishikawa, Davis and Collyer. Collyer and Ishikawa Shimai went home :(

Akita Transfer 2 Week 5

Ohaiyo Gozaimasu!

This week was pretty incredible! I learned a lot, grew a lot, and had some good cultural fun.

 We had our first zone conference in which the mission president visits the zones in the mission and does a training to help us be better missionaries. He calls them "revelatory sessions" in which we are individually edified on ways we can improve and become a more "consecrated" missionary. That was the theme of this conference- The Consecrated, Full-Purpose Missionary. To make things short, consecrated means giving your heart and will to the Lord - which two things are the only thing we have that God doesn't own. It means giving up personal desires, unfocused thoughts and ulterior motives and then submitting fully to God's will for us and for His children. Yes, it is pretty much as hard as it sounds. It's no easy task, but it is motivating and the growth that comes from losing yourself is so very rewarding. I grew a lot from that conference.

Another thing I learned this week was one of the tougher lessons I've had on my mission so far- that my humor doesn't exactly work here like it works in America... Don't worry, I didn't make a fool of myself or anything publicly embarrassing like that, it was just a gradual thing that built up I think. But ya,, Japanese people don't understand sarcasm and they don't really understand joking around very well. Which, for anyone that knows me well, is PART of me. My companion was good in explaining it to me that you kind of have to adapt and learn when to use your humor and when not to. Hard stuff, but it's good I learned it earlier rather than later.

This past weekend was crazy sweet! Ever since the 2011 Tsunami in Sendai, Tohoku (northern Japan- the region that makes up the mission) has put together festivals that are aimed towards getting the people of Tohoku "genki" again, to make them happy and pump them up. There are 6 "ken"s or county's if you will, that make up Tohoku. Each ken has there own cultural festival thing. So Tohoku put this thing together that once a year, they have all 6 kens gather together in one of the 6 kens. Akita has it's own ken and I was very lucky to be here when it was Akita's year to host! We missionaries went of course with the focus of dendou in mind and talked to as many people as we could. We hung out all day with this super cool 18 year old I had met the day before at the train station, which was a miracle in itself, and we had a ton of fun. (That's a cool story to tell but too complicated to write out). Anyway, we were out and about from 12 to 8:30, watching a lot of cool cultural stuff, meeting a lot of people (there were around 3 million people in Akita this weekend, most of whom were out on the streets, super super crowded!) and soaking up the sun and fun. I'm definitely blessed to have been one of the lucky missionaries to be at the right city at the right time for the once a year in northern japan event.

That's about all for this week. Love and miss yall! Have a good one!

Elder Dallin Robins

Robinzu Chōrō

ロビンズ長老

 idk

a competition they had where they balance these things that weigh 50 kilos (110 lbs) on their hips, shoulders, foreheads and even mouths, trying to get it as high as they could. Pretty cool/ random

still don't know

Akita Transfer 2 Week 4

Minasan-

Hope you all are enjoying/ enjoyed your Memorial Day weekend! This week was pretty fun!

We had basketball on Thursday night which was crazy! Tons of people were there wanting to play with us gaijin (foreigners)! The zone leaders who both play basketball arrived from Morioka just in time to be able to play! Elder Anderson also plays so it turned out to be a great time playing some fun, easy going but competitive basketball. There's this 12 year old girl that's always there when we go and let me tell ya, she is talented. She might be 4'8" at best but that doesn't stop her one bit. She'll drive inside and put it up over the top of us tall white guys, even with our arms stretched out and it will swish every time. Or she can shoot from outside and nail it.. Can't leave her unguarded, she's incredible. The only way to stop her is to block her shots which is too mean haha.  

Anyway, went on "splits" to Morioka with Elder Reynolds, one of my zone leaders while Elder Anderson and the other Zone leader stayed here in Akita. After the 4 hour train ride, we got to Morioka and had one of the most if not the most fun day of my mission. Elder Reynolds is probably the most affable missionary I know, so he talks to everyone and sees a lot of success from it. We picked up 2 new potential investigators, both super cool super nice. The highlight of the day tho was probably the first celebrity experience I've had here in Japan! We were riding along and this group of girls all stopped, waved, said hi and looked all star stricken so we figured we'd go ahead and make their day for them, turned around and started talking to them. They were so stinkin excited. They loved One Direction, Taylor Swift, Bruno Mars, all that pop culture stuff. They told me I look like Nile from 1D, thanks. We invited them all to come to our english class, and by the end, they had all added us on facebook, followed us on twitter, they were facetiming their friends as we chatted, they took pictures of us, with us... it was insane. Pretty funny stuff.. Elder Reynolds and I had a lot of good missionary fun that day. 

Food of the week: Reimen and Sukiyaki. Reimen is a cold bowl of noodles in a kimchi broth with boiled egg, watermelon and a piece of beef in it. It was actually really really good. sukiyaki is where you have a bunch of raw meat and vegetable and you throw them in a pan of boiling broth, let it cook, then take out pieces of meat bit by bit, dip it in raw egg and eat it. Also delish. 

This week I learned about the importance of doing things out of a willing and loving heart. To smile and talk with people, to love one another and lift each other's burdens. This will often take some sacrifice on our part, but I've witnessed this week that those sacrifices are worth it. Putting other people's needs first will, ironically, take care of your current needs in one form or another. That's the challenge of the week! Look for ways to help one another out and do it out of the good love in your heart.

Love always,

Elder Dallin Robins

Robinzu Chōrō

ロビンズ長老

Akita Transfer 2 Week 3

Hello!

Highlights of the week - experienced my first japan earthquake early Wednesday morning. It was a 7.1 at the epicenter which translated to a 3 or 4 magnitude here in Akita but it was a solid 15 second earthquake, kinda fun! There were a couple days of rain and thunder too! I love that stuff. That is your weather report for the week!

We had a conference at Morioka Saturday and Sunday so we spent the night at the Morioka apartment- 12 elders were able to fit in one apartment, it was a blast! Had my first McDonald's "Tankatsu" Burger, my first bowl of "kimchi" (fermented cabbage and hot spices) with rice and chicken, and last night I made ann at home version of tin-foil dinners! That is your food update for the week.

This week's work was super slow because we had to input our whole area book (records of people that missionaries have taught in the past) into our iPads which took hours on hours on hours to do. It was awful. But its over now and we can over back on with normal mission work! We should be getting facebook opened up, allow us to use it on our iPads in a few weeks so I'm looking forward to that!

So this week was kind of sad too cause we dropped our only investigator that had a baptismal date set up! He is a 38 year old man but unfortunately acts more like a 7 year old girl.. We did our best to be patient and loving with him but it just boiled down to him not being ready for the gospel in his life. It's too bad. Our other investigators are moving along slowly but surely.. Our Papau new guinea friend Thomas is looking really good to get baptized in the near future! And Jerry got back from hhis trip to Korea and is doing well too! We are really pushing for him to set a baptismal date as well but he understandably is taking it slow and making sure he understands everything well.

I've made some bigg steps with Japanese this week and have really been relying on the Lord to help me learn this language. Exciting stuff. 

Everyone have a great week! Japanese Proverb: 七転び八起き。Fall down 7 times, get back up 8.

Love ya!

Elder Dallin Robins

Robinzu Chōrō

ロビンズ長老

A picture of a turtle chilling in Morioka :)

Akita Transfer 2 Week 2

Happy Mothers Day to all the wonderful mothers out there and to everyone else, hey,

This past week we have been doing a lot of work on our iPads- took a trip to Morioka for another iPad training and since then we've been devoting a lot of time transferring our million and a half records (exaggeration) into the iPads and yada yada. So that's been fun and very time consuming. Elder Anderson and I have been having fun working with each other trying to fill the shoes of Elder Hoskyns, working hard and trying our best to bring our investigators closer to Christ. We even found a couple more people to teach this week! Thomas, from Papau New Guinea, he's a stud. AND speaks English! which rocks. And a student named Naoki, cool kid. Haven't had a lesson with him yet but hopefully soon! 

I haven't mentioned this earlier but the McDonald's here are tons better than America's, something about it and the quality workmanship that goes into each item of food. Thought I'd mention that.

It is actually the day after Mothers Day here as I write this but as I reflect upon yesterday's church experience I realize how there was hardly even a mention of Mother's Day during the 3 hours. Pretty interesting. My companion gave an impromptu talk during sacrament meeting and made sure to talk about Mothers to do the day justice in Japan but that was about the only mention of it. So I would like to quickly express my love and gratitude for my mother and grandparents- my mom IS the best. She's patient, kind, works her tail off for her kids, loves and cares for us like no other, the list goes on. I'm sure we can all say that about our own mothers, but I can also say I'm grateful for the way my mother has shaped me. She's taught us (her kids) since we've been young to WORK and to be self reliant. Tedious and tough Saturday chores, annoying daily kitchen chores, study and account for our school work on our own, to get a job and make our own money, to do more jobs outside of that job etc.- it all sucked at the time but I am for sure grateful for it all now. Retrospect is great. Im grateful she taught me all these hard things, it built my character and has made me fit to deal with the world on my own. For a kid from Danville where things are often handed to us without having to work for it and truly appreciate it, it is something to really be grateful for. I love my wonderful, beautiful mother. She's got the best smile in the world, makes me super happy, and is always there for me. And I know she is that way because of her mother (love you grandma:)). Let's all do something nice today to our mothers- make them smile and show them your love!

Well, I'm continuing to learn and grow and learn and grow here in Japan and seeing a lot of miracles in my life and in other people's lives. God is amazing! I'm grateful for yall, love yall, feel free to shoot me an email, and have an awesome week!

Elder Robins

Me talking to the fam this morning! They are all so healthy and happy. so glad to see Jake still Jake-ish even after his mission ;) and to see my niece (averi the cutest ever) sister and brother in law in Florida- they're doing great. Love you fam!

Elder Anderson and I would like to wish everyone a happy and joyous Mother's Day full of wonderment and flowers.

Akita Transfer 1 Week 6

Konnichiwa minasan!

Exciting week we got here- transfer calls! I'll cut to the chase- I'm staying in Akita but for Elder Hoskyns, he's outta here heading to Hachinohe to finish up his mission. Hachinohe is a northeast city in Japan and a place where they use a lot of sign language! So  he'll be learning a bit of Japanese sign language which is sweet.  He's been in Akita for the last 4 transfers (6 months) and he now has to say good bye right as things were really getting good here. But a thing about Elder Hoskyns- he has been an incredible blessing for my mission. He's the guy known throughout the mission as the nicest, most friendly and loving elder so I feel very blessed to have had him as one of my trainers. We got along perfectly, had a lot of fun and saw tons of miracles. Gonna miss him. My new trainer is elder Michael Andersen. From Elder Hoskyns, I've heard he is AWESOME. A big basketball guy, super nice, super friendly and easy going, and a really good companion. So as sad as I am to see Elder Hoskyns go, I am pumped to work with Elder Andersen starting this Wednesday! 

This week elder Hoskyns and I went on splits with the Zone Leaders! I was with Elder Reynolds, a Utahn. We had a blast! and had another "sports taikai" where we go to the public gym and play badminton, basketball and ping pong. It was super fun. Reynold's uncle is the CEO of the 76ers in Philidelphia  which brings me to my next announcement- My older brother Jake is getting home from his 2 year mission in Philidelphia this week! So exciting. His homecoming talk along with Ryan Nearon and Kira Stone's farewells are on May 10 - should be a pretty sweet Mother's Day sacrament meeting! Proud of them and their choices to serve the Lord.

In other news, we got our iPads on Wednesday- the last group in the whole mission to get them but hey- the first shall be last and the last shall be first - Matt. 20:16. The mission work here in Akita is really heating up! Our district of 6 has a possibility of 5 baptismal dates within the next month or so, which almost itself exceeds the goal of our whole zone! So really, things are great right now and the three missionaries transferring out of Akita are pretty bummed they're leaving at such a prime time. #CropHarvester 

Elder Hoskyns and I had a dinner last night with our favorite investigator Jerry! He took us out to a sushi place where I tried I think 12 different types of fish/sushi. Some of it was scary looking but none of them My favorite was the torched eel! おいしい ね！Jerry is so awesome. On the car ride home he was just expressing all the love in the world to us, especially to Hoskyns since he's leaving and won't be coming back. This next week is "Golden Week" which is I guess Japan's country wide equivalent of a spring break during which Jerry will be going home to Korea to see his wife, kids and the rest of his family. We mentioned whether he would want to talk to them about church and he's like "I definitely want to tell my family about church and will try to find a church building to go to in Korea.." Like wow. That kinda explains how perfect he is. We don't even have to bother him to do all of these great things. They come naturally to him. He's the best. Our other investigators are also great but not as perfect as Jerry :)

Good stuff. Love hearing from yall and now that I have an iPad, I'm able

 to check my email every day! (but still only allowed to respond once a week)  but feel free to shoot me an email if you have extra time! Love yall tons. Enjoy the presence of Jake Robins back in Danville!

Elder Dallin Robins

Robinzu Chōrō

ロビンズ長老

Akita Transfer 1 Week 5

Konbanwa everyone! 

One of those weeks that seemed to come and go! 

This week had some fun adventures for sureee. Tuesday, I was on splits with Elder Erickson, who has only been in Japan for two more months than me... therefore, neither of us can really speak Japanese. That is also the day we had our first lesson with Ritsuko (the woman we found housing last friday) so I was super nervous. Since none of us could speak well I was actually pretty scared for the lesson. I was afraid we'd blow it and that she wouldnt be interested anymore.. That wouldve been unfortunate. Luckily, we got a member to join! Which means we had someone fluent to help! He was a great help of course in clarifying things we were trying to say and helping to smooth it out a little bit (who am I kidding, he completely carried it! All we did was steer the conversation) and now shes an investigator for the sister missionaries! Erickson chourou and I had two other lessons that day that went really well actually! We were able to stay pretty busy- definitely a fun learning experience for both of us.

Took another trip to Morioka on Thursday for a rather vague training session on health. The MHS (Mission Home Squad) came from Sendai - nothing too interesting happened except for the fact that the group that came in with me in March finally got our training that we were supposed to get the first day we got here! That was a really good experience and learned a lot what our mission president (President Smith) is like and what he's about. We had to watch the Japan government's video on bicycle safety since we ride our bikes everywhere and it was hilarious- a nice teenage girl is riding her bike with her friend and out of the blue gets nailed by a car and goes flying. It was just so random and unexpected even the mission president couldnt help but laugh.

Last week at our english class, Elder Mailes apparently told all of the Japanese students that I liked umeboshi- pickled plum. Japanese love their umeboshi and its pretty rare that they hear a foreigner likes it... So at the end of class, five people came up to me and gave me jars and packages of this plum thing.. I acted grateful of course but was very confused why theyre giving me all these gross looking ball things. The worst part was they wanted me to try it right there and then! Luckily I had an excuse that I had a lesson to get to! All those plum things are still sitting on our counter at the apartment unopened and no ones planning on opening them...

I unfortunately dont have more time to write this week and unfortunately didnt write any of the spiritual experiences I had this week but I have seen God's hand in my life this week. Whether it was being able to find someones house in a foreign area or hearing something that I needed to hear or just being able to connect with investigators without speaking the language well, His hand is there, its always there, you just have to be looking for it and ask for His help.

Love always,

Elder Dallin Robins

Here's a picture of the beautiful pond/lake in front of the Morioka church building on Thursday.

Akita Transfer 1 Week 4

Heyyyyo!

Its been a really great week! Seems like the immense amount of blessings aren't cooling off which is amazing.

Thursday was the highlight of the week. And it was a day I had been looking forward to for 2 weeks. Why? Because thursday night was our Sports Taikai! Or sports night for mission work! Which means we got to play basketball! So the days before Thursday I was really working on getting my hematoma leg ready to work and play and by wednesday, it felt great and ready to go! So Thursday night rolled around after a great day of mission work and I found myself starting from airballing a lot of shots and moving half speed (excuses: havent played in nearly 2 months and the balls werent very good ;) ) to playing a fun and light 5 v 5 with the other missionaries and 3 japanese people we invited to play with us. It was SOO MUCH FUN. Loved it. We talked with those 3 we invited to play with us afterwards and played some ping pong with them and introduced our free english class we teach on wednesdays and they said they'd go! But ya being able to have a fun time with everyone in the gym was really a blessing, a highlight of the month. 

On the way home, we were riding our bikes and found ourselves stopped at a stoplight next to this other foreigner! An american! They pop up every now and then but not often. Anyway, I asked him where hes from and he said California, I asked where, he said Sacramento! I told him I'm from Danville and he was like wow, I know exactly where that is. We both said, well, this is kinda weird. He then, seeing my Golden State Warriors sweatshirt and beanie, said Go Kings! as he rode the opposite way. Haha the odds of two Northern Californians running into each other at a stoplight at night time in a random city like Akita in a foreign country of Japan. Pretty funny.

Elder Hoskyns and I had an appointment cancelled on Friday night and had an appointment scheduled an hour later so we decided to do housing for that extra hour. After 3 buddhist houses, some nice to us and some not so nice, it was my turn to do the door approach. The house was pitch black inside and I was wondering why we were even ringing the doorbell, assuming no one was home and there was no point. But I rang anyway, a moment later a light turned on and a younger woman came to the door. I gave my pathetic and poor japanese door approach but much to my amazement and awe, the door stayed open. Hoskyns then took the reigns of the conversation once she started responding and all of a sudden, 5 minutes later, we had an appointment! We're meeting her tomorrow and we were both so excited to find a success. Door approaches are generally the least effective way to find new investigators, especially in a buddhist country like Japan, but God decided to keep pouring blessings. WE are truly blessed.

Our investigators are doing great. We had all three of them come to church (Sunday Morning General Conference broadcast) yesterday! I wrote in my journal describing the situation that it was like being a host for a house party- pretty overwhelmed with the number of people there that I had to try to please and on top of that, I had to please them in a foreign language! Luckily though, conference started soon enough and they were all seated and amused for the following 2 hours. Jerry SOAKED IT UP! He took some crazy mad notes and was really affected by it. He felt the Spirit. This morning, Hoskyns and I decided to push Kenjiros baptismal date back a few weeks for various reasons but plan on setting baptismal dates with the other two investgators- Jerry and Oshima - for the month of May. 

A lot of other good happened this week and I learned and grew a lot from the messages from General Conference. 

Commitment for the week: Say hi and smile to someone that looks a bit down. Its easy and it will change their life.

Ｉ　ｌｏｖｅ　ｙｏｕ！

愛しています！

Ｅｌｄｅｒ　Ｒｏｂｉｎｓ

ロビンズ長老

Akita Week 3 Transfer 1

Hello friends and fam!

Its been a pretty fun week here in Akita! Ill skip to the interesting stuff that i can remember-

Caught a nasty cold on the second:] and was treated on my birthday to wake up at 5AM to catch a 6AM train to our first zone conference in Morioka! Trains are so exciting like wow. Luckily the train ride there is about 3 hours long so I got some solid nappage time that I took good advantage of. We got to Morioka, it had been pouring rain all day and - spoiler alert - it rained HARD all day long and all night long, but we took a bus to take us to the Morioka church building which is usually sweet looking but since it was raining and cloudy that day it wasn't as pretty. The building is just right across the street from a nice big pond/ mini lake with a bunch of swans and pretty trees, the swans out there having a good time just floating and making noises cause of the scary rain. It was definitely the sweetest venue for a church I've seen. 

Zone conference was great, Elder Hoskyns and I celebrated the 19th bday by walking/ getting drenched over to a sushi conveyor belt place where I had some great authentic Japanese sushi! And some not so great authentic Japanese sushi... I had the wonderful pleasure of trying out squid sushi and nato sushi. The squid was a white and very tough and chewy meat, not something Id eat again. The NATO. This is a monumental and must-do for Japan missionaries. It is this infamous food- fermented soy beans. If you search it on google, it looks like this disgusting bowl of snot. So it took me a long and dramatic 10 or 15 minutes to decide to put it in my mouth and then another minute and a half to eat it and get it down with out throwing it up, gagged about 4 times before I was able to throw it back. It was disgusting but awesome!

The train ride home was like 4 and a half hours long. My cold and the long day made me pretty exhausted so I slept the majority of the train ride home as well.

Other than that, our investigators are doing very well, we set a baptismal date with Kenjiro for the first week of May! Jerry is still progressing and soaking up our message, we got him to tear up in a lesson :] and Oshima is a being a bit of a twit.. but we think we'll be able to set a bapt date for him this week, perhaps the same day as Kenjiro!

There's a hilarious, classic, white guy in our ward that made us delectable homemade waffles saturday morning! Stuff like that is rare so i feel that may have been the greatest blessing ever, they were very satisfying.

They dont really celebrate easter here in Japan.. not even the church members do really. All they really did was acknowledge its easter and the rest was just like any other sunday. A bit different but it was still and us americans still valued the message of the day. :]

Been having a lot of success and a lot of fun so far here in Akita! Finishing up getting over the cold today, The people are great and have an awesome district. A bit scared for later in my mission when things arent as awesome haha but Im looking forward to another good week!

And thank you for all of the birthday wishes!! You are all the best and I love you all so much!

Have a good one!

Elder Dallin Robins

PS sorry this email was so long! Dont like doing that to yall

Authentic Japanese family- the Shindo Family. Elder Mailes and I were on splits for the day and were treated to some good old homemade japanese mexican food for dinner on Saturday.

Akita Week 2 Transfer 1

Konnichiwa!

What a fabulous week! Not a whole lot of time to write but 2 people to tell you about and a few other things.

1. Another week of not knowing much (which is an improvement over 'anything') of what anyone is saying but I still do the best I can with what I know. We did some flyer handouts at a train station for this free english class we teach every week and I got laughed at by a group of mean japanese teens for what I assume was my foreignness and bad japanese. Oh well:) its good to laugh at myself.

2. Had my first bowl of real ramen this week! It was sooo much food and greasy meat but it was delish.

3. Kenjiro- this hilarious investigator we have that refuses to speak japanese with us and only uses his slow, but pretty decent english. he loves loves loves the bible, the band U2, maroon 5, and katy perry. He can almost never focus so this week I kinda layed down the law with him on focusing and that was fun.　Ｈｅ　ｋｅｅｐｓ　ｕｓ　ｅｎｔｅｒｔａｉｎｅｄ．

4. Jerry- korean guy that called us on friday that wants to meet with us every week. He's golden! Love teaching him english and the gospel. he soaks it up. More to come next week.

But it has been a fun and awesome week here in Akita! The moment I feel most like a missionary is when we're on our bikes, suits on, shoulder bags swaying around, its raining outside, and we have our dorky little helmets on. So awesome I love it.

Everyone, please have a great week. This Friday night should be a good one!

Elder Robins

Akita Week 1 Transfer 1

Hey ! 

Made it to Japan! I LOVE IT

I really dont know where to begin! We woke up to leave Provo at 2:30AM and after a few busses and trains we made it to SLC from there we flew to the Portland airport for my first layover, where I had a very random but awesome moment seeing a good friend from high school (Daniel Paulus, shoutout) It was really great seeing him and for sure a sweet surprise! From Portland was our 10 hour flight to Tokyo and then another layover before our final flight to Sendai. We woke up at 2:30AM Provo time on Thursday and went to sleep at 10:45 PM Japan time on Friday. Nutty time change, they say I`ll have jet lag for another week or so... SO TIRED but genki :]

Anyway, the events started the next morning at 5AM. Headed over to downtown sendai from the "mission home" where we had a conference in which the whole Sendai mission, all the missionaries in northern Japan basically, gathered together in one chapel to hear a training on how to effectively use the iPads we will receive soon. Apparently big meetings like that neverhappen so it was cool to have one on my very first day here! The meeting was sooo good, kinda long being 4 hours but good and I learned a lot. Ok now that I run the rest of what`s happened so far through my head, I see I've gotta kinda highlight things.

First off, whatever they taught me in the MTC was great and all but I can not for the life of me understand what these people are saying! went to church yesterday and all three meetings were great!, but I honestly couldn't tell you what they were about. Haha its been a lot of fun tho and the people are so nice! The Akita branch of 50 people are all amazingly genki, positive and nice! Plus, they are way focused on missionary efforts so its really a great place to begin the mission. I love it already!

My trainer, Elder Hoskyns, is the man. A big white friendly giant, super nice, super chill, fun and definitely a solid missionary. All the people at the big mission conference said I was the luckiest "bean" (brand new missionary) of the group for getting Elder Hoskyns as my trainer. For the next 6 weeks he'll be teaching me the ropes of missionary work here in Japan, leading me, guiding me and most importantly, translating for me;) I live in a small apartment with my companion and one other companionship, Elder's Erickson and Mailes- who are also awesome. 

The weirdest food I've eaten so far hasn't been very weird at all. It was last night when an old japanese man wanted us to come over and eat with him. On the way over, Elder Hoskyns kinda warned me about some of the food this man gives missionaries and how gross it can be ie. the pickled insides of a squid. LUCKILY, I didn't have to eat anything close to that, what I did eat was a pastry type thing with what I thought was a big thick block of chocolate in the middle, delish! but it was actually a slab of red bean paste. So ya, not too weird or too gross, but different!

I was thinking the other night about what a crazy adventure this is. Kinda reminded me about the things I used to do back home when my friends and I would decide to go some random place, check it out and aimlessly explore no matter how much we didn't know about the area. In a way it's a similar experience here/ But the differences are big. This is by far more foreign than anywhere I've ever been- the food is different, I can't read much on the signs or stores, everyone is japanese, and I don't know my way around, but the main thing is, I have a purpose here. I'm not here to aimlessly explore and have a relaxing, fun time. I'm here for others, to help people be happier and to tell them about the amazing plan God has for us.

Alright this email is long enough but I want yall to know Im safe, Japan is so so so awesome, this is an amazing adventure and I am blessed. 

Look up Akita on google maps。Northwest city in Japan. 

Love you all so much and hope you have a great week,

Elder Robins