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
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| Picture in front of the temple |
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| Picture in front of the temple |
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| A surprise visitor from back home. They're here on vacation showed up with a package from home. It was the best! |
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| Elder Powell and I proselyting near the beach |
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| They have Wendy's here |
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| Elder Pilarte who is from the D.R. but heading to the Texas San Antonio Mission. Look out for him! |
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| Missionaries out street contacting at the beach. Life is rough! |
