Week 96 - A Voice of Warning

Alright so I don't have a ton to update y'all on this week but one awesome thing is that Yenny got baptized! Yenny is awesome! She is from Haiti. She found the church over there are was being taught by some missionaries. She was living with a guy and he wasn't really the best influence on her. She decided the church was where she needed to be and so she left Haiti and came to the DR. She found the church and told us she wanted to get baptized. The only problem - she doesn't speak Spanish. Only Creole and French. It was super interesting teaching her. Luckily her cousin, Eliza (her story will come next week) could help translate for us. Sometimes. I actually learned quite a bit of creole, just the super basic stuff enough to teach her and actually taught a good amount in creole! She loves the church so much. We were talking to her and a few of her friends a little bit ago and asked them "what would y'all do if Jesus appeared to us right now?" Yenny replied "I would beg forgiveness for not getting baptized in his church still." She was so fun to work with. I took a picture a while ago with Eliza and Yenny, Yenny is the one on the right in the white dress.

This week has been interesting. President sent me a talk called "A Voice of Warning." It is awesome. It talks about the importance of warning people about the consequences of sin, but doing it with love. I have been trying to study that this week. As of right now everything is going pretty well. We have developed a good relationship and have some good goals. Dad, I am actually a little sad but I really have never asked a ton about your mission. Of course now I have millions of questions but funny enough there is one story that you told me a looong time ago that I have never forgotten, and it is that exact story, that story popped right into my head as soon as President explained the assignment. I know that the Lord has a plan for each and every one of us. Elder Gamas has a ton of potential as a missionary, I am excited for the next few weeks to learn and grow together.

We will coordinate everything with the Skype call this week to know for sure before next Monday, I will be able to call basically at any time. What time are y'all in church? My church is from 10am-1pm my time. It would be best for me if it was after church but it depends on what y'all can do.

This week I am going to try and just buckle down and get to work. I have to use all the time I have left the best I can! I love y'all a ton! Weird to think that Britt is done with school and back at home! Hope everyone has an amazing week!!!

Love,

Elder Robertson

An older picture of Yenny. She's on the right. 

Week 95 - The start of my last transfer...

This past week has been one of a lot of reflection. I am sure both Dad and Matt and anyone else who has served a mission can testify that there is a little bit of anxiety to see what is in store for your last 6 weeks in the mission. I wasn't exactly sure what was going to happen. I have been in a little bit of a weird situation with a couple different areas and a couple different companions. Friday while I was riding my bike I get a call from President. My last transfer is definitely not going to be a basic one. I won't go into a ton of detail but President gave me a special assignment. There is a missionary in our mission who is having a hard time. He is farely new in the mission. President explained the situation to me and said that he feels like I need to be this missionary's companion. I am grateful for the opportunity but I know that it isn't going to be an easy transfer. I have been pondering a lot about how I can help him and I feel like it would be pretty easy to get him to change his behavior for a transfer but I feel like I can try and do more. President sent me a talk to study about correcting with love. I don't know a ton right now but I will be finishing in El Cristal. Prayers would be appreciated!

Dad I totally agree about what Brother Lynn said! Zach, Christian and I were actually talking a little bit about that a little while ago, how right now we don't really feel any of those same temptations that we had before the mission but a big part of that is probably just because we are in a place where none of that stuff is really available. I have been making a plan and I am still working on it but I know that a lot of missionaries think that they are the exception and I don't want to think that, I want to make sure that I stay strong.

I don't have a ton of awesome stories this week. I have been studying in 3 Nefi and it is always a very humbling experience to read about the Savior's personal ministry among the Nephites. The part that always strikes me is the love he showed. He focused on the "one." The people came "one by one" until everyone had seen and felt. The part that most stuck out to me was the importance of being firm until the end. The importance of applying the doctrine of Christ in our lives always, every day, continually.

I am excited to have all of those adventures with y'all! I am super excited to go and visit all of those sites with y'all! I have always wanted to do it! It is true that we are going to have some awesome memories but a little sad because then we will all part ways again.

That is crazy that Elise is home alone! But even crazier that Britt is getting ready to come home and then go out on her mission!!! It is crazy how fast life changes! I realized the other day that I graduated from High School 3 years ago! I feel like it was the other day! It is crazy how fast life goes by!

I love y'all a ton! I attached a few pictures from last week! The pictures of Wilfrin and Neroliza's wedding and baptism and also some (not great) pictures of Luis's baptism! The Lord is doing awesome things here! I can't wait to see what he has in store for me these last 6 weeks! Love yall!!!

- Elder Robertson

Wilfrin and Neroliza's baptism

Wilfrin and Neroliza's Wedding

Wilfrin and Neroliza's Wedding

Luis's Baptism

Luis's Baptism

We aren't allowed to have pets but this is Duke (Elder Arnold and I named him) he is our neighbors dog but he loves us 

Week 94 - I love this work so much!

GOOD NEWS!! I took a ton of pictures this week! BAD NEWS I am on a weird intercambio and I don't have my camera with me....sorry. I will send them when I can!

Alright so last week I promised y'all a great miracle! And more came than I was expecting! There are four of them actually! Their names are Luis Arturo, Sulema, Wilfrin and Neroliza!!

Okay I will try and make this quickish.

SULEMA!

Sulema is an older woman. She is the mother of a member who joined the church a while ago. Sulema lived in the south of the country but had recently moved here because of a sickness she is struggling with and can't really live on her own. Her entire life she had been a devout catholic. Her daughter invited us over to their house to share with her about the restoration. She couldn't understand most of it but everything changed when we got to the part about Jospeh Smith, in simple words we explained the importance of the restoration and what Joseph Smith did and who he was. We could feel the spirit very strongly and she accepted a baptismal date. It just depended on her health. She can't go to church and was worried about that but we talked to the Branch President and we are working with some members to get her to church and when we can't, have the sacrament taken to her. She has been amazing to work with.

WILFRIN AND NEROLIZA!

Wow. Okay so quick side note. I am currently working in La Victoria, another "out in the boonies" area in our zone. Last monday, about 15 minutes after I stopped writing I got a call from President, when you are a normal companionship on a monday afternoon and you get a call directly from President it usually means something is up. He started off talking to me in spanish like he always does and trying to word it carefully but then just switched to English and said "Elder Robertson I need your help, there is a missionary in La Victoria that is going home early and I need you to go finish the transfer up there." That would have been perfectly fine except the fact that the missionary up there is, well something special. It has been an interesting week together. He is a Dominican named Elder Lopez and he is 27. Lets just say he likes to have things his way. Anyways we have been working fine and working really hard with an AMAZING couple. They came in contact with the church a little bit ago while praying for guidance about where God wanted their family to be. They have had a lot of doubt and a lot of questions. But finally after going to church and hearing every single person who isn't a member talk bad about the church he thought to himself "well this church isn't at all what they say, if everyone talks so bad about it, it must be the true church and Satan is trying to take me away from it." Furthermore he said he was always impressed that we never talked bad about the church, even when he purposely gave us opportunities to do so. He started to investigate further and said he wanted to get baptized. On Friday they got married and on Saturday they got baptized and they were both so happy! The Relief Society put a little celebration together for them. It was super fun and such a big testimony builder. They have seen so much opposition but they haven't let it effect their testimony at all!

LUIS ARTURO.

Wow. I don't even know where to start with this kid. He is a 20 year old kid who is really good friends with Ysmael. I think he may have been in a couple of the pictures that I sent home of his baptism. He is the really tall one. We have been working with this kid since I got here. He is one of the kids we play basketball with every Monday. He has known the church is true for so long. He has had doubts about Joseph Smith, and temples about missionary work and just about every other thing you could think of. He hasn't wanted to get baptized for a long time. We have had lessons and lessons with him and we were stumped on what to do with him. He had resolved all of his doubts and he had a testimony but there was still something holding him back. We decided that the only thing we had left to do was to have a fast for him and as we did, we felt inclined to have him get a baptismal interview, I still don't know what happened in the interview but he finally decided that he was ready and HE DID IT!! I am so happy for him! Probably the saddest I have been in my mission is that I wasn't actually able to attend because I got moved to La Victoria and he is in El Cristal. His baptism was the exact same time as Wilfrins and Nerolizas. But I talked to him on the phone to congratulate him and I was so happy for him! The Spirit is so real and the Gospel is so true. I have never had a more sure testimony of that than I do in this moment. This was the biggest miracle that we had!!

I don't have a ton of time today, like I said I am on a weird intercambio but there are so many good and amazing things happening! I have to work harder than I ever have worked to make sure that I don't regret not working harder! I am glad to hear that everything is well at home! I did find out, after studying the church manual 2, that it is in fact the Stake President that calls the EQ president! Still got a ton to learn about the church!

I love y'all a ton!! I hope this week is amazing! Sorry about the pictures! Here is a couple that my zone leader took of me getting my hair cut and him putting some weird cream out of nowhere all over my face and then washing it off! Also we made tacos, my zone leader is Mexican, and not going to lie, kind of disappointed by his taco making skills, still looking forward to Torchy's :)))))

I LOVE YALLL!!!!!! COMPARTAN EL EVANGELIO CON ALGUIEN ESTA SEMANA!! GOD IS GOOD AND REAL AND I LOVE THIS WORK SO MUCH!

I will know more about the skype call next week after I get my last transfer call... super weird.

LOVE YALL!!

Elder Robertson!

This video below will give you a little insight on what a majority of the churches here are like... Yes, the guy in the black shirt is a preacher...

We made tacos. I'm still looking forward to Torchy's.

Getting my haircut and him putting some weird creme all over my face and washing it off.

Getting my haircut and him putting some weird creme all over my face and washing it off.

Week 93 - Zone Conference, Interviews, and me almost Dying

Another amazing week has passed here in the good ole DR. The highlights of this week were Zone Conference, Interviews, and me almost dying!

That sounds like a crazy week back there with all of the changes! I feel a little dumb asking but I was under the impression that usually the bishop was the one who called the Elder's quorum president? But that is awesome that they got all that done within a week! I love all of these changes! It hasn't effected our branch here much. In most of my areas the High Priests and the Elders usually meet together because there are not many high priests here. In my branch, apart from the branch president and his first councilor, there is only one other high priest so he always was with us in Elders Quorum. I actually don't think I will see the full affect of these changes until I go home. But I am excited to hear about them in the mean time!

Zone Conference was super awesome! I am going to go back like 9 months to when I made a comment but it was reinforced this past Friday. I have received many confirmations that President Smith has been called of God to lead this mission and will help us further the work of the Lord if we would let him. President Corbitt really focused on the amount of work we did and working really hard. In January of last year the mission baptized 256 people in one month. In 2016, over 2000 people were baptized in our mission boundries. That is enough to form various stakes. But there wasn't even one more branch formed. That means that most of them were going inactive, or as one came into the church, another was leaving. I received a confirmation that President Smith is going to help us improve the quality of our teaching and with that experience of working hard, helping them really be converted.

This goes hand in hand to what dad was talking about, the importance of the spirit. In Zone Conference we were trying to find a way to improve our teaching to really just let the Spirit do the teaching. As many of you know, us missionaries have different pamphlets (I don't think I have used that word in over a year...folleto) that help us convey the message of the lessons that we teach: the Restoration, The Plan of Salvation, The Gospel of Jesus Christ, The Law of Chastity, The Word of Wisdom and The Law os Tithing and Fast Offerings. We decided as a mission this past zone conference that as we teach, we are going to go for a goal of teaching each lesson shorter, preferably no longer than 15-20 minutes (the actual teaching part) and we are going to teach our lessons just based out of the pictures in those folletos. For example (openening the folleto of The Restoration, there is a picture of a happy family) "What do you see here?" "A happy family" "Why do you think they are happy?" "Answer" "That is because and we testify that when we live the gospel of Jesus Christ, our families are immensely blessed." It is kind of long to explain but Elder Arnold and I put it into practice and it is SUPER effective in bringing the Spirit. It basically helps the investigator teach themselves the lesson as we kind of guide them along and lets the Spirit testify of what they are teaching themselves. It is super cool. Basically, President Smith is awesome and receives some awesome revelation for the mission.

Then we had interviews and it was super awesome. I always love interviews. We talked a lot about the importance of the Spirit and how we need to continue studying the conference messages during these six months!

So I was also protected by the Lord yesterday. Our ward mission leader, Antoni, stopped in his car and said hi to us while we were walking. It was around 7:30 at night. He pulled over to the side of the road and we ran over to say hi. We weren't there for long but Elder Arnold was on my left closer to the front of his car standing at the drivers window. Out of nowhere a drunk guy, teaching his girlfriend to drive stick came speeding behind the car and hit the back of Antoni's car. I had the impression to jump backwards, but something made me step even closer to Antoni's car, as soon as I did it the car bounced off and went to the left, right where I was standing. If I would have jumped backwards it probably would have broken something and probably would have ended my mission early. I don't tell y'all this to worry, I tell y'all this because I know that the Lord protected me. Everything in my body wanted to jump backwards away from the harm but something kept me close. The Lord knows what he is doing and obviously still has a purpose for me here in the DR. I have to do my best to find it!

Quick thing, if y'all could send out some prayers for President Smith that would be awesome! He had a fall a little while ago, while nothing appeared to be damaged, there were some unseen fractures in his tibia and from walking on it for a little bit it ended up breaking so now he is in a cast. He wants to operate on it as a last option so he is going to see if it will heal up on it's own. Like I said, the Lord will take care of his servants but some prayers would be appreciated!

I love y'all a ton! It is crazy that it is already April! That is cool that LT swept the District Meet! I remember back when I was there when LT one the meet for the first time ever! That makes me happy that they are still doing pretty well!

Stay tuned because this week we are waiting on a huge miracle so next week should be an awesome email!

I LOVE YALL! MAKE THIS WEEK AWESOME!!!

Love,

Elder Robertson

Our Zone Conference (and Pres. Smith with his cast)

Week 92 - I turned....12?

Wow this week was just FULL of craziness!!!!

I completed another revolution around the sun here on planet Earth. It was a pretty normal day. I loved the rest of the stuff in the package! The ovens here are kind of garbage so we didn't really want to cook the cake in the oven and risk ruining it soo...we made real pancakes and from that I made a fun little cake! Just big enough to put the two number candles! :) We ate with a member that night and had spaghetti! It was a pretty good Birthday!! Today to celebrate we got permission to go way outside of our mission into the west mission and eat at Fuddruckers! It was super awesome and my good friend Elder Slack came way down from out in the middle of nowhere so that was a ton of fun! Hamburgers are still really good.

Next...Brittany! MAHAL KITA!  IPINAGMAMALAKI KITA!! Okay so that isn't your mission language but I would be surprised if you don't learn a fair amount of it. Aparently in the Philippines there are like 4 different languages. One of the main ones is called Tagalog. I lived with a Philippino for 2 transfers and he is probably one of my favorite people in the whole world. I don't know a ton but he taught me some words in Tagalog. If he is right then you will probably eat a few weird foods! I am SO excited for you!!!!!!!

General Conference was AMAZING!!!!! I got to watch it in English which is always awesome! There are so many things that we can take out of conference. I personally found two main themes. The first is love. There are a lot of amazing changes happening. One of the things that they focussed on is that this will allow us to love those we serve more, not just do things because we have to but actually do them and seek ways to serve because we love them. They focussed on the Love that the Savior has for each of us and how we need to share that love with all people. The second theme I saw was part of what dad talked about, the importance of the Holy Ghost. Personal revelation is so important and I don't think I can count the amount of people who talked about the Holy Ghost in their talks. The Spirit I have come to learn is so important in our lives and we need to seek it and be able to recognize it during the calm times to be able to find it during the hard times. I loved that story of that young man on the ship. One thing that Elder Renlund said when he came here is that we have the right to recieve a personal witness of President Nelson as a Prophet of God. The second I saw a picture of him after he was set apart as the President of the Church I saw that mantle on him and felt a confirmation that he is a true Prophet of God. I recieved a similar confirmation yesterday watching him testify and teach. I love General Conference and am sad that I didn't take better advantage of it throughout my life but I will not make that same mistake going forward. We have to study the talks given! One of my favorite talks was the talk by President Uchtdorf, I have always loved his talks.

Life is going pretty well! We need to find a lot of new investigators, a lot of the current ones we have aren't really progressing. That will be the main focus this week!

Thank y'all so much for the package and for the pictures! I love Texas during spring time! It is crazy how much has happened and changed in just one week! I very much look forward to the future of the church! Big things are coming and we are all a part of it! We have to do our part!

I LOVE YALL!!!!!!!!

LOVE,

Elder Robertson

My mom sent a package for my birthday that included cake mix and frosting and candles. So, I made a cake

I made birthday pancakes from the cake mix because our ovens don't really work

I nice member family had us over for dinner on my birthday. We had spaghetti.

On P-Day, I got to go to Fuddruckers and my buddy, Elder Slack got to be there also