Okay first of all HAPPY BIRTHDAY TO THE BEST MOTHER IN THE ENTIRE WORLD! I LOVE YOU AND MISS YOU AND HOPE THAT EVERYONE TREATS YOU PERFECTLY TOMORROW!!!
Man this week was hard for one reason. I wasn't home for the 4th. The 4th here was interesting. Very very un patriotic. I mean this country wants to be the U.S. so you still saw a few things but really only if you went to like a grocery store. But I tried to go all out. I dressed up in my red tie, white shirt (obviously) and my blue pants and made a little American flag tie pin. We also had interviews with our new president that day (I will talk about that in a sec.) So I at least got to be with some other Americans. There was one with an English hymn book and who could play the piano really well and I just so happened to have my flag with me so all of the Americans who were there in the two zones got together and we held up the flag and sang The Star Spangled Banner and said the pledge of allegiance. Then in the night time I made some pretty bomb hamburgers because it was the most American thing that I could think of that I could make. I took a few pictures but my camera is being a little weird so I don't know if I will be able to upload them. All in all it wasn't too bad but I really did miss all of the fireworks and 4th festivities. The next one we will have to go all out to make up for the two that I missed.
Okay now President Smith! He is AWESOME!!! I am SOO pumped to work with him for the second half of my mission! We had interviews with him and I just wanted to talk and talk with him! He worked as an engineer helping make jets and submarines invisible from radars. He is such a spiritual guy. His wife is super awesome too! It is kind of funny because he is a little rusty in his Spanish and his wife didn't speak Spanish before they got their call so she started studying 4 hours a day every day until she came here! But we are sticking with a lot of the goals that were already in the mission but I can tell that if I do my part and follow his council we will have a ton of success in our mission!
Also a huge thing that happened this week is that we had a baptism!! Her name is Chandra and she is amazing! From the very first moment I met her I got the feeling she is going to be a strong leader in the church. We contacted her when she went to an activity that we started doing. (quick side note, I was trying to think of how we could connect with the youth of the church and working with the branch president we started an activity of basketball and volleyball that has brought us about 20 references and Chandra was one of them.) She was so excited to hear what we had to tell her! When we started and shared the message of the restoration she felt that it was true and started reading the Book of Mormon that same night! That was last week and she is already done with 1 Nephi. She wanted to get baptized as soon as possible and so we did everything as fast as we could and she was baptized. It has been so fun to get to know her and watch the gospel work miracles in peoples lives. We are now working with her parents and her brothers.
There is still so much potential here and we are trying to take advantage of all of it but it is so hard because the area is so big! I really hope, and President basically already told us, that when the next group comes, we will have more missionaries in this branch. We still have so much work to do before I leave and we are trying as hard as we can to get it all done.
I am still studying the apostasy. An awesome quote that I read this week from James E Talmage about the apostasy is about obedience. He is literally talking about the law of the land but it applies to God's laws also. He says, "Obedience to the law is the habit of the free man: 'tis the transgressor who fears the law, for he brings upon himself deprivation and restraint, not because of the law, which would have protected him in his freedom, but because of his rejection of law." I love this because it is so true and definitely have learned it on my mission. It is a lie from Satan that laws and commandments hold us back or keep us from things. They are the things that set us free and only when we want to be truly free will we fully obey the laws of our Heavenly Father. When we sin or transgress we bring upon ourselves depravation of blessings and actually make ourselves prisoners. The only thing that can truly set us free is complete obedience to the commandments of God. I have seen this on my mission that only when a missionary, or to be more personal, I, completely try to keep all of the rules and laws that I have, I can truly see the hand of the Lord working in my life and I actually feel free from sin and all bad things. But we need to be careful and not fall into what we always call the "Book or Mormon cycle." We always have to remember that it is from God that our blessings come and not feel comfortable and start to let things slip.
Thanks for letting me rant a little bit! I love yall a ton and hope everyone has an amazing week!
Elder Robertson
