Week 5 - I'm Almost FREEE

HIIIIIIII!!!! Okay one quick thing so I don't forget, because I'm leaving the MTC on Tuesday and my P days in the field will be on Mondays.... I wont be able to send another letter for a week and a half.. I'm super bummed about it but when you don't get a letter from me next week that's why. I promise it's not that I don't like y'all!

So last Friday we got to go on splits with the missionaries out in the field! It was so much fun and way better than contacting because you got to go visit people and do all the things missionaries do and it made me so much more excited to leave next week! Nothing super crazy happened while I was on splits like any crazy stories or anything but it was so fun to talk to everybody! Being out in the field is going to be super hard for a while until I get used to the Spanish and can speak it a little better. Because for some reason even when you ask people to speak a little slower because you don't really know Spanish that well they still speak just as fast. But it's going to be so fun!!!

Another thing I really like about the missionary work down here, we start almost every single lesson with a hymn. Even if it's just an investigator we give them a book to follow along with the words while we sing. It's so awesome because I've always known there is some power behind music and I don't think the Spirit can be invited into a lesson quicker any other way than singing a hymn. Another thing about being out in the world and visiting people in their homes, it's very humbling. I visited multiple homes where my bedroom at home growing up was twice as big as their entire home. They lived in one room and that room had their kitchen, bathroom, eating area, and bed. But the crazy thing is, even though I didn't know them and had just met them, I had an overwhelming love for them and wanted to do anything I could to help them. I can't wait for the opportunity to bring the gospel into these peoples' homes. They are also the happiest people I've ever met even though they have nothing. They are so humble and it's so amazing for me to see.

I've been studying a lot about the life of Joseph Smith and the restoration. I was reading in a book that used to be in the missionary library called a marvelous work and a wonder and there was a little story that really struck me. It talked about how there was a world famous reporter once who was asked that if he could share anything to the world, what would be the most important message he could share. After a while of thinking he came up with the answer that if someone had died, and then come back with a message from God then that would be the most important message he could tell. In this case we as members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints have the most important message to share with the world because of the angel Moroni and multiple other messengers who have brought us a message from God.

Also a scripture that I read that hit me hard. A big question or comment we receive out here is that we are so young and why would we take so much time out of our young lives to do the things we do. In 1 Corinthians 1:26-29 it gives the answer. And I wont quote all of it because I don't have it with me at the moment but it talks about how God chooses the weak to confound the mighty. I shared it with my district and we had a discussion about it because there are definitely times where I don't feel qualified for this work and feel like there are a lot better people for this than me but then I also remember that it isn't about me and I am merely a messenger and a vessel for the Holy Ghost to teach.

Okay last thing and this could totally be apostate but I thought it was super cool when I heard it. We were talking as a district about when Christ was resurrected and when he came back and saw Mary crying at the tomb and then he said "touch me not" to her and he needed to go to his Father. Well apparently in a class one of the missionaries took about the old testament, his professor told him that a more correct translation for that time would be "Let go of me for I have to go to my Father in Heaven." and again that could totally be super not true but it's a funny thought to think about Mary not wanting to let him go.

Alright there is my false doctrine for the week! I miss everyone so much!! But I know this work I;m doing is right and good and I love it so much! I know this church is true and do my best every day to be the kind of missionary that my savior would have me be. I'm super sad I wont get to talk to you guys next week but I'll have a ton to say in two mondays from now so be watching for that!! I believe my time in the CCM is already over but I'm so pumped to get into the field and meet my trainer!!

I love you guys so much!!!!

Elder Robertson

Outside of the CCM. Can't believe I'm only here for a few more days.

A picture from the Pioneer Day Celebration we had. They gave us a huge feast. It was awesome.

A picture from the Pioneer Day Celebration we had. They gave us a huge feast. It was awesome.

Week 4 - Almost out of the CCM

This week has been kind of crazy. First of all, I HAVE THE BEST FAMILY IN THE WORLD!!!! I was laying in bed and Elder Powell and I didn't go down for dinner because neither of us were really feeling super well and I just hear a knock at my door and hear someone say "Elder Robertson" but the weird part was I didn't really recognize the voice and then out of nowhere Brother Johnson was standing in my room with the best package ever!! I am so grateful for all of the things you gave me and the sweet notes you wrote!!! Also the music player is way perfect and way nicer than you had to send but thank you soooo much! The music on there is perfect and everyone is really jealous of me and the amazing family that I have! That was such an awesome special treat!

There is an Elder here who is going to the San Antonio mission!! He's from the DR and hardly speaks any English so look for him! His name is Elder Pilarte and I made him take a picture with my Texas flag! Also, there is a girl here named Sister Hall from a certain high school that rang a bell for me... Spring High School. Which I'm pretty sure is the school that broke our streak or at least knocked us out of the playoffs one year. Which is funny because I always ask what high school people went to if they are from Texas because I recognize a lot of them and can usually say "Oh yeah we beat you in football.. but not this time" But it was kind of fun because her, Sister Romney (from Dallas) and I all had a big nerd sesh about what we loved and missed about Texas.

Okay now on to my week!! So it was an awesome week and we got to go contacting again!! But this time we got to go to the beach and talk to families and it was so much fun! I have a few stories from it! The first is on the way to the beach we stopped this guy who was walking and asked how his day was to which he just replied "trainquilo" and then reached into a garbage can, grabbed a cup, drank whatever was in it, and kept right on walking. We didn't really know how to react but it was funny.

The second I was actually with an Elder named Elder Slack from my district because we went on "exchanges" and we walked up to a group of guys who were all laughing and having a good time. We started talking to them and told them who we were and they told us they didn't speak Spanish so we started talking with them is English and having a really awesome gospel talk with them and started talking to this one guy who said he used to go to our church and the reasons he stopped going. We were sharing our testimonies and having some really good experiences, we even committed that guy to go back to church the next Sunday. And they were all so happy and accepting of everything and laughing. That's when they pulled out the alcohol and we realized they were all drinking and could have been drunk the whole time so that was kind of an interesting experience.

The last one was kind of funny. We saw a young women (24 i later found out) sitting by herself looking out at the ocean so we thought it was a perfect opportunity! We walked up to her and I started talking and telling her who we were and everything. She said something about families and so I asked her about hers and I saw a ring so I asked if she had a husband and she said no, so I asked if she had a boyfriend or fiancé or anything and she said no. So I just kind of went on with my speech and showed her the pamphlet and she saw the missionary's phone number on the back and she was like "Wait, is this your number?"(this is all in Spanish) and at that moment I realized that everything that I had just said now sounded like I was hitting on her and I was all like "Nooooo!" Haha that was a funny experience but it all was awesome and we placed like 50 pamphlets and 3 copies of the Book of Mormon.

We were walking back from that and we almost saw a girl get hit by a car. So apparently it's a thing here to backup on one way streets. There are only one way streets really so if you pass your destination it's hard to get back. So there was a lady backing up going at least 40 miles an hour. And we looked back and saw a girl crossing the street. She wasn't looking towards the car because it was a one way street so we kinda tried to yell and right before she was about to step in the way of the car she looked and jumped backwards. But she was holding a big bag of some sort and the car hit it and it went flying backwards and it sounded like a gun shot. I think everything turned out fine. The lady in the car sped off but the lady on the street looked fine and she just walked away.

Okay the last part of my stories are about the French missionaries. We have 5 Haitians here who only speak French so that is super interesting and hard to communicate with them. For our sacrament meetings if they ever give a talk there has to be a translator to translate it into Spanish and then another translator to translate that into English. It's like translating the translator. But the other thing is that they don't really sing when they are supposed to sing. I only say that because there isn't music coming from their mouths. They just straight up yell the words to the hymn. Like I don't even know if they are trying to sing or not but they are just yelling at the top of their lungs. So that's always kind of funny.

I miss everyone so much. This week has kind of been harder than all the others because for some reason I just miss everyone so much. But I'm not letting it affect my missionary work and I'm trying to be the best missionary I can be.

I read the story this week of a man who had a son that was sick and wouldn't stop seizing. So he took him to Jesus and asked him if he would help his son and Jesus asked him if he had faith that Jesus could do that. The man said yes but Jesus knew it wasn't true so the man then said "help thou my unbelief" and that sentence has really resonated with me. None of us are perfect least of which me but I know that through Jesus all is possible and if I am ever having a hard time having faith I can even ask him for help and I know if I ask him to "help thou my unbelief" he will help and bless me more than I can imagine.

I love y'all. I think of everyone every day. Also fun fact I got my release date if you guys want to start planning. It's June 5th, 2018. I had the weirdest realization the other day. It's less than two years. For 19 years I've always been looking forward to my two years and now it's less than that and it's so weird. But I love being out here so much and can't wait to get out of the CCM and start serving the people of the DR. Thank y'all so much every week for your letters and support. Y'all are amazing!!!

Talk to everyone next week! :)

Love,

Elder Robertson

Picture in front of the temple

Picture in front of the temple

A surprise visitor from back home. They're here on vacation showed up with a package from home. It was the best!

Elder Powell and I proselyting near the beach

They have Wendy's here

Elder Pilarte who is from the D.R. but heading to the Texas San Antonio Mission. Look out for him!

Missionaries out street contacting at the beach. Life is rough!

Week 3 - Fear No Man

This week has been awesome!! Okay so last Friday we had one of the coolest experiences! We actually got to leave this place and go talk to other people. We went to the local university and went street contacting and I learned two big things from that. The first is that I know way less Spanish than I thought I did but the second is it's amazing how much the Lord will help you if you do your part. It was just Elder Powell and I alone walking around talking to whoever would listen and everybody here is so nice but so hard to talk to because I can't understand them!!

There are three experiences I want to share from this one. The first is something Matt actually mentioned to me a while ago. We were walking down the street and two girls came up to us and tried to speak English (everyone does because we are white) and, trying to be cool, of course respond in whatever Spanish we know, which was a mistake. One of the girls went "OHH ESPANOL!" and I kid you not this is what she said to us in the next sentence "a;klsjdhfo;iasifo;iawne foiahwf;khasdjkl;f hnkasfhio;asdfnl akjshdfjoawe." She then realized that we weren't as cool as she thought but we ended up giving her a pamphlet and they seemed pretty excited about it!

The second experience was interesting, we saw this guy sitting on a bench and he looked like he was pretty happy and just enjoying life and talking to all the people who pass him so Elder Powell and I think it's a perfect opportunity. We walk up and introduce ourselves and start telling him a little about the church and give him a pamphlet about the restoration and just as we are about to say goodbye he says "yo tengo una pregunta" and then asked us something but we had no idea what it was. After about a minute we realized he was asking what our opinion on something was and he kept saying yay. We were utterly lost. He then asked for a pen and when he wrote it in big letters write on the cover of the restoration pamphlet with Jesus on the cover, and we finally realized he wasn't saying yay, he was asking us our opinions on gays. I started freaking out because there is no way I was going to be able to answer him in Spanish. He spoke no English and we were not prepared for this kind of encounter. We sat talking with him for a few minutes and tried to say some things but ultimately we just had to give him the numbers for the other missionaries in the field who could help him. So that was an experience.

But the last one was awesome. We were just about to end and we met up with a couple of the other missionaries and were walking back when we got stopped by a guy who asked us who we were. He seemed like he was a student at the university. So we started talking to him and when he found out who we were he said that he had always wanted to know more about our church so we not only gave him the number for the missionaries to set up a meeting but I also gave him a copy of the Book of Mormon with my testimony in it and he was so grateful. So yeah that was one of the best days in the MTC so far.

I guess really the only other big thing that happened this week is all of the people left. My district is the only district left so Sunday and Monday were pretty emotional saying goodbye to everybody because we all had become pretty close friends. Sunday was fun because we got to walk around the temple but right as we were by the temple it started pouring so we were all dancing and laughing in the rain. I sent a few pictures of that. One is of the rain that actually makes it look like it's snowing here which is kinda cool. Another one is of something they call heat lightning where there isn't any thunder with it and it's caused by the heat and the humidity, I got a pretty good picture of it. And the last is of a district who I became really good friends with all of them, the picture is a little blurry because the guy taking it wasn't very good but it's there. There are a few other pictures I sent with some latino elders who have helped me a lot with my Spanish.

So yesterday 50 new missionaries came and it's interesting to see what we looked like 3 weeks ago even though it feels like a lifetime ago. We are all helping them as much as we can and trying to answer any questions but we'll see if we all end up getting as close as we were with the last group. There are a couple people from Houston which is fun because in the last group I was the only Texan but this week will be interesting.

The last thing is I wanted to share my new motto for the mission. We watched a devotional by President Uchtdorf, who's always been one of my favorites, and he told this awesome story about a missionary. It's too long to share but in the story this missionary would always say the he feared no man and it didn't matter where he was or who he was talking to he would not be scared to go tell people what he was about and just talk to everyone so my new motto for my mission is Fear No Man and that's what I'm going to try and do when I get out is just talk to anyone who will listen.

I miss everyone so much and hope everyone is doing awesome! I hope everything at Nauvoo is going well and it all sounds like so much fun I wish I could be there!! Alright last last thing, mom might actually be right about something, everyone go look up Philippians 3:2.

I love y'all so much and I'll talk to you next week!!

Love,

Elder Robertson

A picture of something they call heat lightning where there isn't any thunder with it and it's caused by the heat and the humidity

Sunday was fun because we got to walk around the temple but right as we were by the temple it started pouring so we were all dancing and laughing in the rain.

This picture of the rain actually makes it look like it's snowing here which is kinda cool.

Some latino elders who have helped me a lot with my Spanish. 

Some latino elders who have helped me a lot with my Spanish. 

Week 2 - The 4th of July in the D.R.

This week was so good and it absolutely flew by. Elder Powell got super sick. We couldn't quite figure out what he had but he was in bed all week. Normally when that happens with a companionship it's okay for them to be separated while at the CCM as long as they are with their district and the district leader says it's okay and can keep an eye on them. That was a little hard considering I'm our district leader so it was kind of an odd week where I just had to make sure I was with someone or another companionship if I went anywhere. A lot of people have been getting pretty sick but so far I've felt great and haven't really been super sick at all! I got a little cold last week but nothing too bad.

Next week we are in for a big change because we are getting a wave of new missionaries. Right now there are only 35 missionaries here, 27 of them are leaving, and 53 new ones are coming so it's about to be super crammed because this is not a very big CCM.

The 4th of July was interesting here. There are like 20 or so missionaries who are all from the US and the entire day we all dressed in Red White and Blue the best we could and we were all constantly singing American songs, I think we sang the national anthem at least 15 times. All of the Dominicans were giving us all super weird looks and thought we were all crazy. I really missed home and all the 4th festivities that go on that day. I think it was the first 4th ever that I didn't see fireworks.

The Romneys left on Monday to go to their daughter's wedding and when they left the entire CCM like shut down. We started having a bunch of problems and questions and people got sick. Nothing too serious but all of the stuff that we needed them here for started going bad the day they left. President Romney gets back this Saturday but it definitely has been an adventure having them gone.

As for the language, it's going so well. I'm learning way faster than I thought I could and I'm finding myself being able to talk to all of the locals and native Spanish speakers, I can't say a lot of things but when I don't know how to say something I either learn or try to reword it in a way that they understand.

I'm getting better at teaching. We have a super hard fake investigator who is supposed to hate God because her husband died 3 months ago, and she was doing a really good job but in the second lesson I had a feeling to share an experience so, all in Spanish, I shared an experience and had a full conversation with her about faith and hope and I came out of that lesson feeling so good.

I really do love Spanish especially singing in Spanish. I don't know what it is but I think singing the hymns in Spanish is just better and more powerful. Maybe Matt can relate to that. But I know that none of this would be possible at all without the help of the Savior and the Spirit. I'm definitely on my knees every day thanking Heavenly Father for all the help and guidance I'm receiving. Speaking of singing, thanks Matt for showing and making me listen to a bunch of Spanish music because it's scoring me a ton of points with all the native Spanish speakers that I know all of it haha.

Okay time for the doctrine part of this email. We had a devotional on Sunday from President Nelson, he had a ton of good things to say but my absolute favorite thing he said was "obedience to Heavenly Father's commandments provides spiritual and physical protection and allows us to always have the Spirit with us." I absolutely love that as a missionary. Even here at the CCM there are temptations to break the rules and just not follow one or two and I know nobody would ever know about it, but I know that is just the adversary speaking and if I follow his commandments and all of the rules then I can receive countless blessings including always having the Spirit with me which I think could prove useful on my mission.

And last thing is I would invite everyone to go read Moroni chapter 7. It is by far my new favorite chapter in the Book of Mormon. I have benefitted from it on my mission already and I think everyone else could benefit from it a lot. It is super good.

I love and miss everyone so much and can't wait to see what you guys had to say! Again I'm sorry if I didn't answer anything but I promise I will next week! I hope all is well!!

Love,

Elder Robertson

Elder Powell and I

Awesome picture of the temple. It's so beautiful

After a lesson of locking your heart, we found a giant heart with a ton of locks

Random picture in front of a giant snowman outside of the CCM