1) Elder Renlund. This meeting we had with Elder Renlund was AWESOME! It was different than the other times that an Apostle has come to the mission. It kind of shows in his Conference talks but he isn't one of those super energetic talkers, he is more of a serious talker and when he talks you want to listen. He was accompanied by two other General Authorities, Elder Civic who is in the presidency of the Caribean, and Elder Kearon who is in the presidency of the 70, he is from England and he has the coolest accent ever. We didn't get to hear much from the other two authorities but it was awesome to have them all there. Elder Renlund talked mainly about two things, the Prophet and our purpose here as missionaries. He said he had three purposes of his visit which were:
1) On behalf of the Lord Jesus Christ and the Church, Thank you
2) You have been called of God to come to the mission you are in, if you haven't received a confirmation that it is true, seek it.
3) President and Hermana Smith have been called of God by Prophecy.
He told us the process from when President Monson passed away until President Nelson got ordained to be the new President of the Church and Prophet of God. It was kind of a long story. Basically it ended with all of them in the temple setting apart President Nelson with Elder Oaks being the spokesman. He said that in that moment he received a very strong spiritual confirmation that it was supposed to be like that and that President Nelson is who God has chosen to be the next Prophet. He then told us that each and every one of us in the church have the opportunity and the obligation to receive that same confirmation that he had. Even if we trust in the process and know that is how it always happens, we should receive a spiritual confirmation that God has chosen President Russell M. Nelson to be his prophet on the Earth today.
For time I am cutting out a few things. The other big thing he talked about was who we are as missionaries and how we should be. He gave an example of 4 missionaries (he didn't say it but you could relate them to the talk the 4th missionary.) I will attach the chart in a picture. He talked about what each missionary looks like and what each missionary gets done. He says most of the time an obedient missionary is in the upper two quadrants. He told us that he tends to be in the upper left quadrant where he has good effort but his attitude isn't the best about it, he said he blames his Finnish roots whose 2nd verse of the national anthem starts off "Our land is poor and it will remain so." But in the end he said it is the missionaries who are in the top right quadrant that have the right to see miracles and call down blessings from Heaven over our investigators. One thing I love about hearing the Apostles talk, they talk about Jesus in a way so personal, like we all are his brother but it is just different, but awesome. I could talk about this forever but just for the sake of time gotta move on. But it was AMAZING!!!
2) Marielis. This little girl is one of the smartest little girls I have met in my life. She is also really sassy. She is the daughter of a less active member who has been less active for quite some years now. She has been so fun to work with. She was so nervous on her baptism day. When she got into the font she was shaking, but after she got baptized I didn't see the smile leave her face. She has a lot of family that is less active and most of them have some big problems, but I am sure that through her example many of her family members will come back to church. Her mom came to the church building for the first time in a long time the day of her baptism! She is super awesome!
3) We are working with two AMAZING families. When I got here to El Cristal, the missionaries had just baptized a few people and we didn't have a huge list of investigators, so we started contacting. These two families have kind of similar stories to how we found them, sports. The first one is the Familia Tejera Rodriguez (Fam JR for short.) Elder Arnold, a couple days before I got here ran into this kid named Ismael. He seemed pretty interested in what the missionaries had to say so he took them to his house. His parents weren't home but they said that we would pass by later. So we went back again after I got here and met the family and they are AWESOME!! When we passed by the parents weren't home. Just their 3 kids. So we were talking with them to see when we could come back, when the parents roll up and get out of their car dressed in really nice clothes. They saw us and said "Have yall been waiting here a long time? Sorry it took so long we just got back from getting married." (The biggest problem I have seen here is living together without being married, it is mostly a money thing but this was a huge deal because normally we have to go through that whole process.)
So we sat down and started talking and they were right away interested in what we were sharing. We have shared a couple times and they are so amazing. The dad calls us Los Siervos (the servants) and every time we walk up to their house he yells "the servants are here! Come listen to what they have to say!" Yesterday they shared something sweet. When we passed by their house, after giving us a meal of boiled plantains, chicken feet, chicken necks and some weird organ on the inside of the chicken, they told us that as soon as we started visiting them they have seen little blessings in their life and little improvements. We shared with them that those blessings don't come from us, rather from our loving Heavenly Father as we try harder to live his commandments. The wife then shared that she almost never lets "preachers" into her house. Every time someone passes by the door she always hides, but something told her that she needed to listen to what we have to say. The church is so true and the spirit is so real. It's awesome. Also, I remembered that there are not many more stressful things that when an investigator, let alone a family, with a lot of potential comes to church for the first time in their lives, you want it to be PERFECT! I think I have to be a better member when I go home to make sure those experiences are perfect for people visiting the church for the first time.
The second family is the Familia Tabera. Okay this story is straight up the spirit leading the missionaries to someone who needed the gospel in their life...again. We met a kid named Randy playing basketball on a local court that we have in our area. We were walking past and he yelled "GRINGOS" so we stopped and he came running over to us but didn't say anything. It was kind of weird. So we asked him his name, he told us. We asked him if he had talked to missionaries before, he said no. We asked him where he lived and he just said follow me. So we followed him to this house crazy far back behind a ton of stuff that we never would have found on our own. Nobody was there but he told us to come back a few days later and his dad would be there, so that is what we did. When we came back we met a man who was doing the laundry, we started to introduce ourselves "Hola! Somos misioneros de..." He cut us off "La Iglesia de Jesucristo de los Santos de Los Ùltimos Dìas." he finished.
When someone here knows the real name of the church and not just the Mormon church it means they know quite a bit about the church. So we went on to talk and for all of you who don't know, (which is probably all of you) the church is farely new here in the country compared to how old it is. The first Dominican family (who were baptized in the states) moved back to the country in 1978, it was a young couple. A new American couple named the Rapleyes (now the temple president of the Santo Domingo temple) were transfered here three days after by his company. They soon realized the the church did not exist here. Comunicating with a mission in Florida there were some missionaries sent here a few months later. The church grew rapidly. On January 1st 1981 the first mission was opened here in the DR. Apart from Portugal, the Church in the DR acheived the quickest climb in the world from entry of the missionaries to establishing the first stake when in 1986 the first stake was established with then close to 13000 members in the country. Basically the point of this little history lesson is most of the original members of the church in the country, the pioneers, are still alive. The man washing clothes, named Ruben, was one of the original members baptized in this country when we was just 9 years old. Because of moving a lot and kind of a crazy life he has been inactive for over 20 years. But he has not lost his testimony, he knows the church is true and wants to come back and wants his two kids, and his wife to get baptized so they can be sealed in the temple. And another crazy fact, I know his dad! His dad is a crazy firm member in Valiente! He is pretty old and a little crazy but I remember telling him that he prays every day that his two kids, one who lived with him and the other that didn't (Ruben) would come back to church! I had to tell yall about these two families because I know I will be talking about them a lot, they have been such blessings in my life for just only a few days, I can't wait to work with them the next few weeks!!
Okay I know this email is crazy long but just one last story,
4) I learned that it is kind of dangerous to show 8 year olds magic tricks. I do this really dumb magic trick to the kids here in the street where I take a coin in my left hand, pass it to my right hand, place my hands on either side of their head and pass in from my right hand, through their head, to my left hand. We walked up to a couple of kids who were playing with some marbles, I thought it would be kind of fun to do it with a marble. They handed me this one huge marble a little bit smaller than a golf ball. To my surprise it actually worked pretty well, well...it definitely tricked this little 8 year old named Angy. She was so amazed that she "I want to try!!" grabbed the marble and, in a desperate hope to pass it through the head of her friend, wound up and -WHACK- slammed it as hard as she could in the side of her friends head! We didn't really know what to do we went and asked her if she was okay and she said yes but we could tell that it hurt her friend but trying to be a good friend she kind of laughed it off. But confused why it didn't work, Angy came in from behind, wound up again and -WHACK- on the other side of her head, remember this is not a small marble. To avoid brain damage we had to take the marble away from her. I haven't tried to show that trick again.
Well I think I am going to have to end it there so yall can get on with yalls life. I love yall a ton! I am glad all is well! HAVE AN AMAZING WEEK LES QUIERO!!!
Love,
Elder Robertson
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| Baptism of Marielis |
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| Baptism of Marielis |
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| My apartment. That's mosquito netting |
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| My Apartment |
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| My Apartment |
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| The "effort-attitude" diagram that Elder Rendlund spoke about. The top right quadrant is when a missionary has great effort and great attitude. |
