Week 18 - A golden family

Really not much has happened in the past week! We have been trying to find new people to teach because after a lot of consideration we decided that a lot of our investigators weren't really progressing and talked with them and they agreed so we found ourselves without a lot of investigators. But it was fine it just meant we had to find more. So we did a lot of contacting! And we have found quite a few people that show a lot of interest! So I will have to keep you guys posted on them as they progress more!

Our president kinda gave us a lecture today in his email about being obedient. Last month he issued a challenge for everyone to try to be exactly obedient for two months and see the blessings that come from it and today he told us that the month of October the mission showed more disobedience than normal. Granted this mission is actually super obedient but yeah this past month apparently has been worse. It was a really good wake up call thought. I have always tried these past four months to be obedient! But recently I have had some good time to reevaluate some things I could do better on so if anyone has any scriptures or anything on obedience I always love reading those. Our goal as a mission is 300 baptisms in one month so hopefully we can do that in one of these next two months.

One cool things happened yesterday. We were walking and it started raining but it wasn't that bad so we kept going. About half way to our appointment it started raining super hard and we took cover under the only thing close, which was a tree that wasn't helping a whole ton. After about 3 minutes of getting soaked we heard a whistle and a guy beckoned for us to come over to his house and take shelter. We thanked him and started talking to his family and I don't really know what the term "golden family" is supposed to mean but this family has to be the definition. They are so prepared! He had a baptism date 15 years ago but after some weird circumstances he never got baptized and he and his wife had recently visited many churches but have gone inactive from all of them because they never felt right in any of them. So we shared the Restoration with them and I could feel the spirit so strong and I am so excited to go back!

But yeah I apologize that this email is kind of boring but really not much has happened this week! We went to a cool place today called Los Tres Ojos which is just a series of caves and three big pools of crystal clear water. I took some pictures so I will try to send them.

I love this gospel and my mission and I hope everyone has an amazing week!!

Love,

Elder Robertson

We went to a cool place today called Los Tres Ojos which is just a series of caves and three big pools of crystal clear water.

We went to a cool place today called Los Tres Ojos which is just a series of caves and three big pools of crystal clear water.

We went to a cool place today called Los Tres Ojos which is just a series of caves and three big pools of crystal clear water.

We went to a cool place today called Los Tres Ojos which is just a series of caves and three big pools of crystal clear water.

We went to a cool place today called Los Tres Ojos which is just a series of caves and three big pools of crystal clear water.

We went to a cool place today called Los Tres Ojos which is just a series of caves and three big pools of crystal clear water.

This is Thor's hammer for all who are wondering.

Week 17 - Look at me, a real missionary!

Yay I am officially out of training and a real missionary. As far as transfers go I am staying here in Lote y Servicios with Elder M****. Actually we live in a house of 4 and all four of us are staying so that is kind of cool and I have grown to be really good friends with all of them! But it also means another six weeks with 3 guys who don't speak English so yay.

Okay really the highlight of my week this week were the two souls who got baptized! L**** (yall already know his story) and the second is named C****, or C****. She is a 9 year old girl. Actually she turned 9 on Friday the 21. The story with her is she is the youngest daughter of 7 kids and only the mom is a member but she went inactive a loooong time ago so none of her kids were ever baptized. A few months ago the missionaries started working with her mom, named A****, and she started coming back to church every so often. But since most of her kids were grown up besides two of them (one is a 14 year old girl who is hard core protestant and was quite openly upset with her mom for C****'s decision to be baptized) only little 8 year old C**** was left in the care of her mom and attended church with her. But A**** was very clear that she would not force baptism on C**** and she would have to make the decision herself.

C**** wasn't super enthusiastic about church and never wanted to leave her mom so she would always go to class with her mom and never went to primary. One day she finally decided to go to pirmary and absolutely loved it and I have nenver seen such a strong testimony grow so fast in such a little girl. The church orginizations truly are inspired of God. Last Sunday A**** handed us a note that said that C**** wanted to be baptized the day after her birthday, therefore putting the responsibility on us to prepare her, in a week. (for those who don't know the rule, if a child has 8 years and has a direct family member who is a member, mother, father, grandmother, that sort of thing, it falls under the responsibility of the bishop to do the process, but once they turn 9 it is the responsibility of the missionaries.) So we went over that night not sure how we were going to teach her everything she needed by the time she wanted to be baptized, but when we got there, somehow, she already knew almost everything she needed to know. That is when I really got blown away by the testimony of this little girl. She was baptized on Saturday and she was so happy as was I.

It is absolutely insane how the Lord prepares people for baptism and can even work with kids like C**** and L****. I love this work so much.

Other updates is I had to give a talk in church yesterday for the first time in spanish and really I wasn't super nervous for it but at the same time I was. Especially because it was over the Atonement and I didn't know if I could express my true feelings about it in this language. But I prayed a ton and did my best! I think it was okay. It was kind of weird preparing a talk for sacrament meeting after preparing so many lessons for people who have never heard these principles. Like I could talk about some deeper doctrine and stuff but it was cool! One thing about the States that I miss is it seems to be custom to tell the speakers that they did amazing no matter what. That isn't really practiced here but I felt pretty good about it! jaja.

But yeah I have nenver been more pumped about missionary work!! Last story I will share about this week sorry this email is kinda long. Earlier this week was kinda hard for me. I was just missing home more than usual and realizing that I am going to be gone for a long time and miss a ton so I was praying for comfort and for whatever reason felt impressed to start reading the books I had from the missionary library. I started with "Our Heritage" and that helped because it talked a lot about the hardships our ancesters went through and it is a super amazing story I highly encourage everyone to read it! But it wasn't until the end that something really hit me. A short one paragraph story about President Gordon B. Hinckley when he served his mission.

It says that he was super discouraged while over there and wrote a letter home to his dad that said "I am wasting my time and your money. I don't see any point in my staying here." he waited some time and got a very short response from his father, "Dear Gordon, I have your letter... I have only one suggestion. Forget yourself and go to work. With love, Your Father." That hit me HARD! A president of the church felt the same and the response of his father spoke to my heart. Guys this is the Church of Christ and it is our duty to share it with everyone who doesn't have it. I know more than ever that the Lord doesn't want me anywhere else than where I am right now and it is my job to figure out my purpose here. I know he has been preparing people like C**** and L**** and it is my job to find them and bring them to Christ. A former president pointed out how incredible it would be if every member in the world helped one person be baptized every year. Imagine it!! There are like 16 million members right now, in a year, 32 million, then 64, and so on. Could you imagine that? That is my invitation to all members who read this and all nonmembers, something a leader of our church, Elder Ballard, said was "do you ever wonder who Mormons are so anxious to share their beliefs, most of the time a lot more than those of other faith?

Really I just want to say that I know this church is true and that Jesus Christ is the head and I have felt so much joy from sharing it with the people here!

I love you all so much and have an amazing week!!!

Elder Robertson

One of our baptisms this week. 

This is our zone. President doesn't want to send sisters here so it is one of the like 2 "frat zones"

And here is a cute little friend we found outside our house

Week 16 - One week away from being a real missionary

Okay so first of all I want to give a huge shout out to my family and say that they are the best family in the whole entire world! I got the package they sent (I think I got it last week but we didn't get our mail last week) and thank youuuuu!!

I am one week away from being out of training so that is exciting! Transfers are a week from tomorrow and if I am being honest I don't really want to leave my area right now. I know that wherever I go I will love it and serve with all of my heart but I feel like I'm not finished with this area yet. First of all it is huge and I haven't even been to all of it yet so I know there is so much more to be done but we will see what happens.

I kinda feel bad because I don't really have any cool or crazy stories this week. The past couple weeks have been pretty slow. We have just been working and trying to find people. A lot of our investigators weren't really progressing so we are trying to find new people. One of our investigators is progressing like crazy though. His name is L****. But he calls us his Primo and tells us to call him that too. He is 18 and I will tell you a little bit of his story.

We have this other investigator named A**** and she has been an investigator for a really long time because her husband doesn't want to get married (that is the number one problem here). But we still go over and work with her and teach her and Elder M**** and I were kinda determined to get something going with her. They live at the house of the Mother of her Husband. But for some reason almost every time we went over, L**** would show up. Either just passing or coming to say hi because he was pretty good friends with A****. But he was never really serious but we offered to teach him. And the first two or three times were superrrr hard because he would never pay attention or would always change the topic so we told him that we couldn't keep teaching him if he wasn't going to take it seriously. So he said he would stop and we actually taught him a good lesson.

We were then talking about baptism and he said he didn't want to and that he wasn't ready. He said he needed a lot of preparation. We tried to put a date with him as a goal to work towards but he said he would think about it (this was at the end of September and he said he would probably want to be baptized at the end of November). We were actually in a lesson with A**** and he randomly showed up and told us he prayed about it and needed to be baptized on the 22 of October. And ever since then he has been doing really well and progressing like crazy and is super excited to be baptized! It is crazy how the Lord can answer prayers so specifically and how he prapares people.

Yeah other than that not a ton to report on. The language is going super well. I started reading the Book of Mormon in Spanish and I am in Alma right now. Guys Alma the younger was a BOSS missionary!! If you want to get motivated to go do missionary work read the end of Mosiah through like Alma 17. It is really awesome. Also I have a question, so any insight is welcomed. Really it's not a question but if anyone has some awesome insights on the Atonement send them my way. Because the Book of Mormon talks soo much about it and how everyone was saved by the blood of Christ but he hadn't even come to the Earth yet and shed any blood and I know the Atonement is all encompassing but how does that work if it can be effective if it hadn't even happened yet?

And the last thing and this is kind of a weird thing but everyone should go listen to the song "If The Savior Stood Beside Me" and listen to its lyrics and really ponder on what they mean because that song is POWERFUL and says some really awesome stuff! My favorite line is "So I'll be the kind of person that I know I'd like to be" or something to that affect like not the person I have to be or I should be but the kind of person I want to be. Do it it is super awesome!

But for now that is all and I will have transfer news in my next email but I love you all so much and hope everyone has an amazing week!!!!!!

Love,

Elder Robertson

And an awesome picture of me in front of a statue with a dude on a horse

Week 15 - I finally got rejected!

Okay so there are a lot of things I miss a ton from the US, mostly comfort things, but one thing I heard before I came out here and is something for which I am grateful is that nobody here rejects you! Everyone at least invites you inside or accepts one appointment and from there you can usually tell who has potential and who is just being nice. But this past week I had three really interesting experiences while teaching.

The first is, yes, I finally got rejected. We contacted this one house that we found in the old investigators part of the area book. Apparently they moved and it was a different family. When we arrived only the 13 year old daughter was home so she told us to come back the next day when her grandparents would be home. We did. And we met the Grandma. And she went on a little rampage about how we are selling fake salvation and are of the devil and a few other things that I don`t really care to translate.. jaja. But she told us not to come back and that was the first time in my mission that I have been rejected!!

The second was a girl of 18 years. We were contacting and found her sitting on her porch listening to music. When we met her she was really receptive to us and our message but we didn't have a guy with us so we couldn't go in and teach her (this happens most of the time when we are contacting because women never work here and the guys are always gone.) So anyways we had already handed out all of our lesson 1 and 2 pamphlets so we only had the pamphlet on the gospel of Jesus Christ. We gave that to her and she promised to read it before we came back.

We were super excited because we thought we had found a investigator with a lot of potential! We could tell she probably liked to go out on weekends and party and she had a lot of piercings but we were hopeful! Well long story short we went over and started teaching, we got through the first principle which is faith and moved onto the second principle of repentance and extended an invitation to repent. I will translate her direct quote, "No, no quiero arrepentirme porque me gusta pecar mucho." or  "No I don't want to repent because I like to sin a lot." So, at that point we kinda gave up on her...for now.

The third was another girl who we found pretty much the same way but she had just had a baby so we gave her a Plan of Salvation pamphlet. When we came back we started talking and introducing this amazing and marvelous plan that our Father in Heaven has for all of us. I told her that we know that families can be together forever, that she could be with her beautiful baby boy and her husband for eternity. I then asked if that was something she would want and she simply just said "No." Uhhhh... "¿Por que?" "I don't know I just don't want to."

So this week I got rejected, told that a girl doesn't want to repent and that a girl just doesn't want to live with her family forever. It was kind of a bizarre week but for the most part it was still pretty good.

As for hurricane Matthew. It missed us and we just got a lot of rain from it. It kinda came out of nowhere too. I will attach a picture of Elder M**** and I after we got caught in the rain. But there isn't any damage to my area so that is good. No clean up to be done.

One super awesome thing is I saw a kid wearing a BYU shirt! He was about 10 and looked like he was on his way to baseball practice but it was a shirt that had a number 2 on it and I thought I saw the BYU "Y" at the top. So I called him over and sure enough! And on the back where the name would go on a jersey it said Cougars and it was totally a BYU shirt. I don't know if it is his team shirt or what but it was super awesome and made me super happy to see! I asked him where he bought it but he was super shy.

And, once again I am super grateful for American healthcare. One of the Elders I live with had to get his wisdom teeth removed while he was here and he is on really crappy pain killers and they pretty much did a hack job so he is super miserable and I am just so grateful I was raised in America.

The last last thing is I read a talk from last conference by Elder Holland and he was the last speaker and talked about how after such an amazing spiritual experience like conference the world has a way of coming down on us and trying to ruin it. My invitation would be to go back and reread your favorite talks from conference and always try to think of how you can apply those talks in your own lives (cough cough especially the talk by Elder Oaks). Also you can go read the talk by Elder Holland last conference--it is super good!

But I miss you all and love you all so much and send my love and prayers to anyone who got affected by the hurricane up there! Also Haiti needs y'alls prayers! There are a ton of people who had to evacuate and a ton of people who died. So everyone know that us as an entire mission are praying for all of the victims of the hurricane! Y'all are the best!!!!!

Love,

Elder Robertson

Getting caught in the rain of Hurricane Matthew.

Week 14 - Things I have taken for granted

Okay this past weekend was soo awesome! I did get to watch conference and most of it was in English! We got it set up on the computer in the secretaries office but sometimes the power would go out so we had to watch in Spanish because the tvs were hooked up to their generators. And really my week was super uneventful and the hurricane barely missed my area so we have just been getting a lot of rain and nothing more. So it hasn't been that exciting so most of my email I am going to focus on conference.

This conference was amazing! I mean I don't know if it is because I am a missionary or whatever but this conference was super good and I learned so much from it! I Wish I could show you guys all the notes I took but it was so amazing and I don't know if I have ever felt the spirit more in conference than this past weekend.

Okay so really I have about 12 different favorite talks but I only want to focus on two of them! The first one is the very first talk given by President Uchtdorf. That talk was soo powerful and gave me a chance to really evaluate my life. If you didn't get a chance to hear that one I HIGHLY recommend looking it up and reading it. He talked about a lot of things but one of the main things is he talked about taking things for granted. He talked about how when he was first dealing with computers he was hopeless. This new technology and he had to learn how to type and he was hopeless. But now he owns a smartphone, tablet, laptop, etc. And he said that he realized that he totally takes all of them for granted. Then he compared it to the gospel.

Do we sometimes take the gospel for granted? Do we sometimes forget the magnitude and amazingness that is the restored gospel of Jesus Christ? One thing I thought about was do we sometimes take for granted the fact that twice a year we get to hear from the living prophet of God and all of his Apostles and other church leaders? We legit get to hear revelation that they recieved for us directly from the Lord which is something I have definitely taken for granted and and kind of sad about all the times where I was bored during conference or doodling or anything. Because all of this stuff is super awesome!! It is something I invite everyone to do is read or reread that talk and then evaluate your lives and think about this amazing gospel and all the blessings it brings in your life.

And once you do that.....

Reread the talk by Elder Oaks. So yes this one is probably because I am a missionary but holy moly this talk was amazing! Especially because Elder M**** and I want to focus on how we can involve the members more in our work! I don't even know if I have a ton to say about it because he says everything so perfectly. But I think a lot of missionaries (Including myself at the beginning of my mission) think that the missionary work in this area is for the missionaries, and them alone. Sure the members can help us but we are in charge of the work. And boy was I and every single missionary who thought that super wrong. As Elder Anderson said there was once a time where the missionary work belonged to the full time missionaries! But now members play a huge role! When members and the missionaries work together, amazing things in this work can happen. I can personally testify that the absolute best way for people to become interested and more importantly stay intersted and active after they get baptized is for those people to be introduced to the church by members.

I want to leave you guys with two challenges. One is to really think about how the church has blessed your life and think of who would want to hear the message the missionaries have to offer. And the other is something I have been thinking about personally. We have about 60 active members in my ward right now, but when I got my ward list from the bishop I about cried. We have 400 members in our ward. That means in my area there are 340 members who are inactive. That is rediculous!! And I don't have time to try to reactivate all of them! Not unless I want to put a stop on finding and teaching investigators.

So I was thinking that probably the best way to reactivate all of these less actives are through the members in the ward. If each family agrees to take two or three families and tries to be their friends I am convinced that we could get every inactive member back to church. So my other challenge is work with the bishop or the missionaries and get a list of the inactive people in the ward and as a family or individual try to bring these souls back to the truth. If they are members it means they accepted and have felt the love of the Savior before, we just have to remind them of what they once felt.

The last thing is something at the end of Elder Oaks talk. Now I heard this part in Spanish so this is a rough translation but he said something along the lines of,

"How we feel about the gospel is reflected by our willingness and desire to share it."

I love you all so much and miss you guys. I love hearing about your lives and all of your adventures! Go have an amazing week!!

Elder Robertson

We got to watch the 2nd day of conference in the high council room at the church.

We finally moved to a new house and we have running water again! When we were moving, we had to use our little mission truck.