Week 30 - I'm getting transferred to Chowchilla

Ama!! Tu hablas espanol?! Que glorioso! La verdad es lo que quiero hablar con ustedes en espanol para siempre. No me gusta mucho ingles horita. La mejor idioma en el mundo para mi es espanol! Pero se que todos ustedes son guerros entonces no podemos placticar en espanol. Les amo!! 

So first thing I wanna let y'all know is that I am getting transferred :'( I was really bummed the night that I found out because I truly love this area! I'm getting moved to a little dinky town called Chowchilla where I will be serving in an English ward with a Spanish group. So I am a little bit bummed about that because I won't get to use my espanol as much! But it's all good. I've come to terms with it now and I am excited to go there and see what the Lord needs me to do there! White people here I come! haha So I'm humbled that you have all willingly taken my challenge to apply a Christ-like attribute! It will literally bless y'all's lives so much. So one thing I would add to what y'all are doing is to share what you're learning. I have such strong testimony now of how sharing what we learn is an absolute necessity!! 

So this week was good.. not a ton to really report cause I just talked to y'all haha. Pretty much the only thing is that I'm getting transferred! So this'll be a short email! But it's just cause I just talked to y'all. I love y'all so much and the next time I talk to you I will be in a little secluded town! Have an awesome week! Oh and tell grandma yes I got her letter! I will write her personally, but you can let her know not to worry and that I got it and I am sooo grateful for it :D

Love,

Elder Robertson

The aftermath of presents.. yeahhh

Banana fight on christmas eve at the Hernandez family house

Christmas at the Kuhn's house right before watching Frozen!

A gift from a recent convert in our ward. It's a sweet tie! 

The Juarez family! We ate there on christmas eve

Week 29 - MERRRRYYYY CHRISSTMMAASSS (early)

MERRRRYYYY CHRISSTMMAASSS (early)

It sounds like y'all are just having a wonderful time so far on your christmas season thingys. First thing that I want to say, is that I love all of y'all so very much. This christmas season really has made me realize how much I miss and cherish our home and our family. (Be it known, that it is not unrighteous missing though! I am still very focused) But just know I am thinking about all of y'all a lot this week. 

So this week was really awesome! We have had some really cool things happen this week. So first off, we have 6 baptismal dates!!!!! It's so awesome how much the Lord is hastening his work. 

So the first one is Geraldo! Oh my goodness, first off, he came to the ward christmas party and had a great time. He even danced!!!! (he was still a little shaky from the effects of alcohol for 16 years but he had a great time.) He's still sober and going strong. And THEN! He came to church for all 3 hours!! And he set a baptismal date for himself in two weeks. Oh, I can't explain to you in any way shape or form the incredible joy I have for this man. 

So then also, Maria De Leon came to the Christmas party too! She came with her whole family!!! Even Emma (her 16 year old daughter who really isn't interested in talking to us at alll) And they had a wonderful time. There was a cool dance part and the end of the party, which was really cool. I love the mexican culture so much. It's just so much fun. Their dancing is way cool. But emma loves to dance and just had a great time and opened up. So that was awesome to see. The Lord really is opening doors for us to work hard and bring his children unto him! As well, even though their daughter (Neida) was sick they came to the party and ate some pasoli and mingled. Twas an awesome night. I'll send a few pictures that I took. 

So this past week, I have been studying humility. We had a training in District Meeting to study one Christ like attribute and try to repent and change to become more like the Savior in that one way. So as I studied this I recieved so much personal revelation. I really have been improving in this aspect. Poco a poco, because it's pretty hard one for me to be humble! Pero estoy trabajando! I encourage all of you to do this this christmas season! It has really helped me get closer to the Savior than anything else I've really done on my mission!

I love all of you soooo stinking much!! I can't wait to talk to y'all on Thursday :)

Love,

Elder Robertson

Geraldo at church with Elder Perez

Geraldo after the christmas party

All the mexicans getting their dance on at da fiesta de Navidad

Cool picture of the mountains from outside our apartments

Sooo just two giant bins of rice and beans.. VIVA LA MEXICO! jajaja

Crazy truck full of corn outside wal mart

Week 28 - Remember: "HE IS THE GIFT"

Thank you for all of your letters. It makes me miss home thinking about this time of year, with the holidays and also all of the basketball! But I'm glad that you're all getting to enjoy it for me :) Plus I'm having a pretty amazing time out here!

Dad, I absolutely loved your insight on eternal families it is my absolute favorite thing to teach people because of the pure joy it brings. In fact we have two investigators right now that are probably going to get baptized this month who we had a huge lessons about eternal marriage this week and it was such a powerful lesson. Both of them at the end of the lesson told us that they know the church is true! 

Their names are Alberto and Leticia! They are sooo awesome. They came to church this last Sunday. They were all dressed in a suit and a dress it was so awesome. In Priesthood Alberto stood up to introduce himself saying: "Hola, Soy Alberto Lopez, y esta es mi primera vez aqui. Gracias a ustedes para aceptarme. Y muchos gracias a Elder Robertson y Elder Perez por todo que hicieron para mi." Pretty much thanked me and my companion in front of everyone three or four times. It was really sweet and you can really tell that he is so appreciative of finding this gospel and the happiness that it has started to bring him. So that was absolutely awesome! I totally agree with the eternal family and everything that goes with it! I just love the Plan of Salvation that we have it seriously brings us so much clarity and purpose in this life! 

I hope y'all have an amazing week this week! And remember HE IS THE GIFT. I am so grateful that I get to spend this Christmas on my mission. I get to focus on our Lord and Savior and his wonderful birth. That would be my christmas wish this year! That y'all will be able to focus as much as you can on Christ! I love y'all soooo much. You're all beautiful inside and out. You are da best. Stay sweet!

Love,

Elder Robertson, your son, your brother, your missionary.

Cool nativity outside the temple

Our investigator on our little temple trip to show her what it was! She loved it, and felt the spirit soooo strongly.

Giant cross. Hmmm.

The best mexican food thing ever. Its like a giant bugle but way better and tastier.

Our zone!

My hood companion

Week 27 - Another chapter in the Geraldo saga

So here we go, have I got a story for y'all today. So it starts about two days ago. I was on an exchange with my district leader, Elder Wither. We were going to see if we could catch one of our investigators to invite them to a baptism. (the one who has been hiding with his gang). He's back at home, I guess he got it worked out quicker than he thought he was going to. But anyways, he wasn't able to come to the baptism because he had to set up for his brothers birthday or something like that. So we were a little bit bummed cause we were excited for him to come to the baptism. 

So at this time it was about noon. And something about being a Spanish speaking missionary is that literally nobody, and i mean nobody is home at noon. They all have work, every single one of them. Especially on a Saturday. This was all happening on Saturday. So we decided that we would go see if we could find Geraldo. We went by the house that we normally find him at and he wasn't there. I kind of just figured that we'd go do something else. But no, the Lord wanted us to find Geraldo, as we were heading somewhere else we saw him stumbling around on the side walk walking somewhere. We knew that for some reason we had to talk to him. So we jumped out of our car and went over and talked to him. 

And oh, he was sooooo drunk. I mean he could barely stand drunk. We hadn't really ever seen him that bad. So we commenced to help him to go cash a check he had. Long story short the store wouldn't cash his check because he didn't have ID. We started walking back with him and I had the idea that I could go cash it in for him at my bank, cause there was a chase bank pretty close. We decided we would walk him to Juan's house (the house where he normally hangs out) and then go cash the check. 

On our way back however, he randomly stopped. We turned around and asked if he was okay. He then proceeded to fall backwards right onto his head and got knocked unconscious. I legitimately thought I watched him die right then and there. A lot of thoughts went through Elder Withers and my heads. It was a scary moment. 

But after about 10 minutes of nudging him and talking to him he became coherent again, well somewhat. We picked him up and sat him in the shade and had him endorse the check to me. He did so and we went and got the cash for him. When we got back we told him that we were going to give him $20 back and then give $80 to Juan. We did this because that was the money that we had been praying for to find so we could get him into the rehab center! He agreed that this was the best idea and thanked us so much for our help. 

So we helped him back to Juan's house where he stayed the night. Then yesterday, on Sunday, December 7, 2014. We admitted Geraldo into the Rehabilitation Center! There are so many more little miracles that happened that have helped him get into this place. We are so grateful to God for helping us so much with him. 

He's going to do it. He's going to get sober. I am so excited for him! I love the Lord soooo much. It's hard to really express my feelings on this situation because there are just so many. So we visited him today and he's already doing better. He's drinking less today then yesterday and hopefully by the end of the week he will be completely sober! 

That wasn't the only thing that made this week incredible. We had a temple trip and zone conference! So much revelation!! Haha. It was amazing. Oh, watch the [LDS "He is the Gift"] christmas video! It's so stinking amazing. I'm so impressed with the amazing way that the church is using technology! I love it. 

Thanks for all your prayers for this work I know they are helping us. I love y'all so much and hope that y'all have an amazing week. Let me know if there's anything I can do for y'all!

Love,

Elder Robertson

P.S. Dad, will you email your brother, Mike, and tell him that he is kind of a legend here among the Hmong missionaries! and also tell him that Sai is still a strong member and that her husband got baptized and her father in law as well!

Yeah selfie Yeah. And yes. I'm getting fat. Don't Judge.

YES SUSHI YES

HE IS THE GIFT / EL ES LA DADIVA

My Companion, Elder Perez, getting ready for bed

Panoramic of my apartment!

Diamond, one of our investigator's many chihuahuas

Week 26 - Happy Late Thanksgiving!

HAPPY LATE THANKSGIVING!! :) 

So thanksgiving was awesome! We had a great time. It was super fun. We went to a member who has a really cool house and a really cool conversion story. It made me miss home a little bit because Thanksgiving was such a great time with y'all! But it was good. I'm glad y'all had a good thanksgiving! 

This week was good. It was intense. We stopped by one of our investigator's house and asked if he was home. His sister told us that he's not going to be home for a while. We then heard a story about how he was shot at and has to go lay low with his gang now. Sooo that's intense. haha.   

Oh, and Elder Feltner in my zone wanted me to give you a message: "I am Elder Robertson's friend and Echo Leader.  Thank you for raising him to play basketball...I finally have someone to play with."  Elder Felter's pretty cool. he's good at basketball. It's fun.

We have like no time to write this week because we went to the temple! I'll send an awesome letter next week! I promise. I love you all so much. I love serving the Lord. Thanks for all you do! I'll send some picture's though!!

Love,

Elder Robertson

Temple trip yeah! a little blurry. But this is my zone

Our thanksgiving dinner we had on wednesday night!

Our thanksgiving dinner we had on wednesday night - after we got done!

A picture with our hosts. They are a super family. It was really cool that they hosted us.

Our second thanksgiving dinner...we were fat that night.

All the missionaries in our ward.

Week 25 - The holidays are hard

Buenos tardes familia. He tratando a trabajar en mi espanol esta semana pesada. Entonces voy a escribirles en Espanol un poquito. La primera cosa es que les amo muchisimo. Me he dar cuenta que la obra misional no es todo flores y mariposas. A veces esta tan dificil. Especialmente en esta nueva area. Me permiten explicar. En otras areas hay muchisimos otros investigatores los que podemos ensenar o por menos visitar. En una area nueve no es la verdad. Todos los que ensenemos son quien encontramos por nuestros mismos. Por esta razon es un poquito dificil porque tenemos que tocar muchos puertas. Y tocando puertas no es mi favorita manera para encontrando personas. 

One day, I'll take the time and write my whole letter in Spanish! But for now I'll send a little bit in English. So, I won't lie to y'all it's been hard as the holidays are rolling around to not be home. I miss all of the little things that we would do. Thanksgiving is going to be hard but yes we have a couple of places that we are going for dinner that night! It's going to be great. I will definitely get fat that night, that's for sure. 

Here are who we're teaching. Maria. Oh man!!! I love her and her family. She is a single mom of three kids and is our most progressing investigator. She reads like 4 chapters in the book of mormon a day! It's wonderful. She is super sarcastic and funny. She is having us over for dinner on Tuesday. The hardest part for her though is that she works soooo much. She works every sunday. Which we are trying to work with her so she can get them off. She also doesn't have a car or know how to drive. So, that's gonna be a challenge, but we're trying to figure out a bus situation or something. So there's a lot of hope for her. 

There's really only one other one and he's got a lot of potential. His name is Emmanuel. He is 18 and trying to get his life back together. We had a lesson with him and talked about how we are going to help him stop smoking weed. It's gonna be fun. We talked about how every day he can come and knock doors with us and some days we'll go and do service projects with him so that he can get his mind off of the smoking and not be bored all the time. He has a lot of enthusiasm and excitement for changing! It's gonna be awesome. 

We're still working with Geraldo and trying to figure out how to get him into the Rehab center. No new updates on that. Hopefully soon! So sorry it's short today! But I've got to go! We have a zone activity that I'm late for.

I love y'all so much and miss y'all. I will be trying to write y'all some letters for the holidays! They should be getting to y'all before christmas. 

Love y'all :D Happy Thanksgiving

Love,

Elder Robertson

Week 24 - Staying in Echo North for the Holidays

I get to stay in Echo North for another transfer! Whooo. Me and Elder Perez are both staying which is really nice, because we have both put a lot of work into this area and didn't want to have to leave it all behind and go to another area. So I'm very glad to be staying. Plus that means I'll be in this area for Thanksgiving and for Christmas! Which I'm super excited about. I like this ward so it will be nice to be able to spend some time with them through the holidays. I will say that It does make me miss home when thinking about the holidays and such. I'm definitely gonna miss stuffing and mom's pies on thanksgiving! But it's all worth the sacrifice. 

Elder Perez and I have become quite good friends. He's a very awesome missionary. He came from a pretty humble background from the Dominican Republic and really has a strong testimony. He can dance like crazy too!! But it's been cool to hear about his culture and everything too. He also tells a ton of funny stories from his past so those are always entertaining. 

This week has been wonderful! We have been able to find soooo many investigators. We have found 16 new investigators in the last 2 weeks. It's so awesome. The Lord is truly hastening his work. Although, not everything has been so wonderful. It's been a little bit rough the past few days. I got a bit of a cold or something. So that's been kind of annoying. But other than that it's been awesome! Hopefully all of these new investigators will start progressing. It'll be awesome if so! We currently have some really good potentials though. 

We trying our best to teach Emmanuel and his family. They have all got their own problems and will need some helping out but it really seems like they have been prepared up to this point to start applying the gospel principles to turn their lives around. So we're just trying our best to stay in contact with them and teach them because they are never all home together at the same time! 

So an update on Geraldo is that we found a rehab center for him and went and talked to the owner. He told us that he will be able to admit him and help him. We were very excited about that. Even more exciting is that the rehab center is in full cooperation with us. Meaning, that we will be allowed to take him to church every Sunday from the rehab center! The Lord works in marvelous ways! Now we are just figuring out the final kinks on getting him to the center and paying for it and all that jazz. But it's coming along greatly. 

I've been studying in the Book of Mormon lately and have been reading in the beginning of Alma. I read this morning about Alma and Almulek contending with Zeezrom. It made me realize how bold we have to be sometimes as members. While it is true that we need to be polite of what other people believe and what they choose to do that does not mean we can not be bold! I'm truly learning how to make this gospel a legitimate part of me. Better, the whole part of me. It's amazing how true it is that when you are living the gospel you are just happy. It's because you really do completely understand what is going on. You know where you're trying to get after this life and how to get there. It's a truly beautiful thing. And one that I love sharing with people and helping them realize!

Love y'all so much and miss y'all!!! I hope everything is going wonderfully and gloriously. Let me know if there's anything I can ever do for y'all!! Love y'all!!! :)

Love,

Elder Robertson 

Week 23: The Lord is blessing my companionship more than I can describe

So this week was absolutely incredible. The Lord is blessing my companionship more than I can describe. So just some background information our mission has a goal this year of getting 1000 baptisms! We are in the last two months of that goal and have about 190 baptisms left. So we're a little behind. So all things are now about to go full speed. We are all going crazy! We are all trying to be the best disciples of Christ we can be so that the Lord will bless us with those last 190 baptisms to reach our goal. 

So this last week we hit the streets to knock doors and try and find those prepared people to be baptized! Oh my goodness. I'll share a few stories with y'all. Actually I should say I'll share a few miracles with you:

Elvira: We prayed and were trying to figure out where to go first to be able to talk to someone and be able to find people to be baptized. We felt impressed to knock a certain street in this little neighborhood/suburb type thing called Pinedale. So we said a prayer when we got there and hit the streets. And lo and behold the first door we knock she invites us in! That's pretty rare to be invited in right away! So we sat down and had a good lesson with her and talked a little bit about the Gospel of Jesus Christ and the importance of baptism. We came back a few days later and taught her the plan of salvation and she really liked that lesson. She has previously lost her sister and so she had a lot of questions. She said she wants to be baptized but she just needs  a little time to try and prepare herself!!! SO THAT'S AWESOME!

Victor and Janette: At the end of the day of knocking doors we were tired and hadn't had a ton of success. WE were a little down. But we realized that there were some members in the area and so we thought we'd try and visit them and see if we can just practice teaching and get them to do some misisonary work. So we head off to one of the members we felt like we should visit. We pull up and it's a little duplex type thing. We see this little family playing outside. They kind of look a little weirded out when they see us but we just walk past them and try to find the members. They weren't home.. which seemed to be the case with everyone that day. So as we're walking out we start talking to the family that was playing outside. Well it turns out that they had just recently moved here from Mexico. We had an amazing first lesson and they all committed to be baptized!!! We're going to visit them later tonight. 

Emmanuel: Emmanuel is an 18 year old boy. We were trying to contact his dad ( who we had taught once and said we could come back to his house sometime). We were stopping by and Emmanuel opened the door. He said his parents weren't home but we started talking to him. It turns out that he had just come back to his house a few days before from living on the streets and doing some bad things. He also had gotten out of jail little while back. Needless to say he's been though a lot. So we ask if we can share a message with him and he accepts and we sit down with him. We talked about the restoration and he was absolutely fascinated. Here's the most incredible part. We talked about baptism and how it can wash away all of the bad things we've done in life and can take all of our guilt away. Elder Perez asked him "Does that sound like something that would feel good?" He replied "Yes! I feel really good just talking about it." We then invited him to be baptized on the 29 of this month. He accepted saying, "What do I have to do to get myself ready?" Wow.

I am in absolute stupor for the amount of miracles that I am being blessed to witness. I know with my whole heart and soul that there are people out here that are super prepared for our message. I love this gospel! So for Gerardo, the news on him is that we are still trying to figure out all the kinks but I'll let you know when we have more of an update on getting him into the center. Keep the faith Family and work hard to be missionaries every day!! LOVE Y'ALL SO MUCH!!!

Love,

Elder Robertson

Week 22 - The Miracle of Gerardo

Buenos Diassssss!!!

Como estais?! How is everyone? I miss y'all especially when the holidays are finally coming around. It's sad not to be at home. But it's definitely made some good stories so far! We decorated our apartment for halloween and then had about 6 other misisonaries over to play games and just hang out that night. As missionaries we have to be in at 6:00pm on halloween night since it's a holiday and probably too safe to be outside! But it was still very fun. :) 

I'm glad y'all had such a wonderful time! It was kind of weird though because nobody I was teaching really celebrates that holiday. Mexicans don't really celebrate Halloween at all. Especially because it's kind of a weird spin off of their holiday, Dia de los muertos, which is I think in a couple of days or something. Who knows. 

This week was great! We have a standard of excellence in our mission or in other words a goal that every missionary has to try and achieve throughout the week. And this is to have 20 quality lessons every week. This has been quite the challenge for us since we are opening a new area and all. But this past week we had 18 of them! We are almost there!!! :) That's kind of a fun accomplishment. 

We had kind of a crazy miracle this week. So there's a bit of a back story. We have a recent convert in the area named Juan. He lives in kind of a sketchy place. there's always a bunch of berrachos over there playing poker haha. A berracho is a drunk. He's amazing though and has an awesome testimony. He just kind of lives in some weird circumstances. But anyways there is one man who is always over there that they call "Pescado" which means fish. They call him this because he is literally a drunk. He is never sober. He drinks all day every day. He is also homeless. All of the men over there always laugh at him and whenever we are over there they laugh and say, "If you can save him you can save anybody!!" "He's so hopeless!" It's very sad. 

So one night when we were over there I felt prompted to go talk to him, his name is Gerardo. It turns out he hates being an alcoholic (which isn't that surprising.. most people don't like it.) But he was very humble about it and sluringly said in spanish that he really wants to change and he knows that he needs Christ's help to do so. We came back the next night and had a lesson with him. He was of course still drunk. But we taught him the gospel of Jesus Christ and he was very responsive, which was surprising. We asked him to say the closing prayer. Y'all, I have never felt a stronger spirit then when this drunk, homeless man prayed. He literally cried and yelled, pleading with his Heavenly Father to help him. He plead that Christ would help him stop doing this. It was seriously incredible hearing this humble man's prayer from the heart. 

We realized though, how hard this was going to be because he is homeless and really doesn't have anyone to help him. So that was a miracle in itself but here is the one I was going to talk about. That was the back story. We didn't know where to go the other night and so we went to the closest member to us who we found on the ward list and visited them. It turns out they are a part member family and the husband isn't a member. He has always hid from the missionaries but for some reason that night he was there and willing to talk. We had a great lesson with him and the wife expressed that she knew that we were sent from God in that moment to help her. So here's the incredible answer to our prayers. This man, Hermano Pacheco, works in a rehabilitation center. He told us that he would help us get Gerardo in there to get him sober. We were amazing at the way the Lord answered our prayers. We then thanked them for their time and set up a return appointment so we can try and help Hermano pacheco be baptized and him and his wife can be sealed. 

We then raced to the other side of town to Juan's house and found Gerardo. We told him that there is a center we can admit him to and they will help him get sober. Now get this, Juan (who is not a super wealthy man at all) offered Gerardo to pay for everything if he's willing to go to the center and stay. There's so much more that I want to tell y'all but I don't have time. I love this gospel and am amazed that I am getting to be used in the Lord's hands. 

I love y'all soooo much!! 

Love,

Elder Robertson

Week 21 - My Definition of Obedience

Buenos tardes!

I wanted to share something from my studies recently with y'all. So, I was studying obedience under the direction of Sister Clark from a zone conference. In "Preach My Gospel," there is a scripture study part after the section on obedience. They are 1 Nephi 2:3, Mosiah 5:8, Mosiah 15:7, D&C 82:8-10, Matthew 7:24-27, John 7:17, and John 14:15. So from these I kind of took them all and wrote my own definition of obedience and here it is. It's not revised or anything but i liked it and thought i would share it.

To be obedient is to keep all of the commandments of God given to us through his Holy prophets, past, present, and future, unto the end of our lives because of the love we have for Jesus Christ. In so doing we strive to have our will swallowed up in the will of the Lord so that we might receive the blessings that the Lord is bound by eternal laws to give us, such as knowing His doctrine more fully and having our lives and testimonies built upon a rock so that the storms of the adversary will have no power to cause us to fall.

So this week was really good. We had a whole 13 lessons this week!! Wooohoo. We now have a few more investigators which is nice! Something that is kind of cool about having only a few investigators is you focus all of your time and energy on them so they really get a lot of attention. Which I can see is helping them progress. 

Our main investigator right now is Matias. He is like 70 or something. Super nice man. Seriously one of the nicest people I have ever met. He says that he has tons of respect for God. While this is a very important thing it brings up a big challenge for him. He feels that baptism is a hard thing for him to do because he feels that he will be playing with God. He says that if he gets baptized and then makes mistakes afterwards he's going to be mocking or playing with God. This has been something we're trying to help him understand. So that's him. 

Our other investigator is named Jose Hipolito. All of his family are members and he hasn't been baptized because he says that he has a hard heart.. So that's been interesting. But, I do feel that God sent me and Elder Perez to this area so that we can just love him to death and help him soften his heart to want to be baptized. 

My other investigator who has a baptismal date we handed off to other elders. After praying about it we decided that it would be better for her to go to an English ward. It was hard to hand her off but I know that that's what the Lord knows is best for her. But that's pretty much a quick summary of what's happening with my main investigators. 

My companion is great. We are starting to get to know each other better and figure out how to best work as a team. The hardest part is feeling like we're just not doing enough work. Our numbers are super low every day. Now I know missionary work isn't all about numbers but you do feel a little discouraged when you are only teaching 2 lessons a day or so. But we're slowly improving on them! So no worries :) 

My favorite thing is that everything about the area I know. I know every single investigator/potential investigator. Because I am the one who found them. This isn't always a thing on the mission since most of the mission is actually trying to wrap up the work of other missionaries. But it's nice. I feel like I am getting to know these people on a deeper level.. even if there aren't a ton of them.  My area is in the center of my mission and covers three stakes and like 12 English areas. So that's crazy.

Other than that, the weather is has been incredible lately, so that's been!!! Good to hear about Lake Travis beating Westlake! Always good to know we kicked some Chap backside! 

Love y'all so much and am so grateful for everything that you do for me and all of the inspiration you give me. Stay strong in the faith and remember that we are all potential gods! 

Love, 

Elder Robertson

My companion, Elder Perez, and I

My shiny car

Week 20 - Finding Investigators and Getting Lost in Fresno

Sorry for the short letters. There just hasn't been a whole lot that has been happening. We have been just driving around getting lost and trying to find new people.

But I'll answer some of the questions you've been asking! :) Physically, I am doing well. Especially since I have been in a car now. I have been able to recuperate my knees and such. But my shoulder is fine. Just sore a lot. I'm probably going to have to go to physical therapy at some time. But besides that it's nothing to be worried about! So don't worry too much. :) 

My companion is named Elder Perez. He is from the Dominican Republic. He speaks Spanish and English very well. My favorite part is that he is super fun and is always laughing.  My new area is suuuuuper big. It's pretty much all of Fresno. I drive at least 50 miles every day in the car. Plus, we have no idea where anything is. So we get lost a lot. It's good. 

The new apartment is great. The only thing is that I think that somebody smoked in it at one point. So it kinda stinks a little bit. But whatever. 

Right now we have three investigators. Two of which have baptismal dates! One is named Christina and has a date for the 1 of November. She is super sweet and has a super sweet family. The other is Matias who has a date for the 22 of November. He is a single old man who is trying to just get by. He has a ton of respect for God and now we just have to try and help him have a spiritual experience. And the third is Carman. Carman is the Mom of a recent convert in the YSA. She is very nice and loooves the Bible. So we're working hard with her to have her pray about the Book of Mormon. Those are pretty much the only 3 we've got right now.

I haven't had a whole lot of discouraging times. Sometimes, I feel unworthy for this incredible work. But when I feel that way I just ask Heavenly Father to help me to be a better missionary and to help me with my shortcomings! I don't know much about my Mission President and his wife except that he's a super loving man and his wife loves obedience and being healthy! haha. They're super awesome. My ward is super big now. It's a whole ward of just spanish people which is kinda rare. More than 60% of the ward is less active though...so that's crazy! We're trying our best to just help our ward out as best we can. 

I love y'all so much.

Love,

Elder Robertson

Me and Elder Moody right before I left... tear

My best friend in the whole world. Elder Ayala from Paraguay

Elder Davis

Vanessa and Irving! They are absolutely awesome. Super strong recent converts. They were super fun

The family Contreras. Love them so much. They really need to get baptized but won't get baptized! They are awesome! Paloma is the one in the middle hiding her face cause she was mad I was leaving. She's the one who reminds me of Elise!

Maria Hurtado and her son. Super nice old lady who would always feed us sooo much!

Family Kreisel again with their daughter

La familia de Magdaleno. They're awesome! We were helping them get back to church. The little girl is their granddaughter, marley, Cutest thing ever

Briahna. She is one of the recent converts from Lindsay

My Mexican family. La familia Hurtado. Greatest family ever y'all!!

The Kreisels. Really nice family. They brought their son over to take a picture with me cause he doesn't live at home anymore and his gf

My missionary Mom! Miss her tons. Sister Avina

Week 19 - Opening a Brand New Area

So about my new area...it's pretty ridiculous. So here is the big story: So I got transfered to the area of Echo North. When I showed up to the Mission office I found out that I was actually opening up this area. It didn't exist before about 5 days ago.

I also met my new companion, Elder Perez. He is from the Dominican Republic and speaks pretty good English so that's nice. He's super funny. He's only got a little bit left on his mission. We had nothing the first day but a car and a brand new phone without any numbers in it. Oh yeah, I got a 2014 Chevy Cruz now...so that's nice. :) But, we didn't even have an apartment. We still don't so we're still working on that. 

It's been crazy because we are just starting from scratch. We don't have a single investigator or anything. So we have been doing a lot of finding. It's been intense. It's cool being here though because we get to see a lot more missionaries than when I was in Lindsay, so that's fun. 

I love being a missionary. It is so amazing. Everything about it is just so much fun. Is there anyway that I could just be on a mission forever? Naw, just kidding. I'll come home sometime and say "Hi" to y'all or something. I miss y'all a lot though. I hope even though y'all are so busy that y'all are still doing well.  Love you so much and hope that everything is going so well for all of y'all. Elder Robertson out.

Love,

Elder Robertson

Week 18 - I am being transferred to the Fresno Zone

Oh, how I loved General Conference. I loved hearing about the missionary efforts during conference as well. Elder Bednar gave an amazing talk to all of those who were not of our faith. For the first time I did listen to all of them and take notes. I realized how inspired their messages are. 

The two talks on the Sacrament and also the talks on fasting and fast offerings hit me hard. They're two huge things that I need to really look more at and not take it for granted. I just loved hearing the words of the Prophets. 

I have something that I'm going to stress hard in this email. GO TO "MEET THE MORMONS!!!" Bring all of your friends. This movie can change the country and the way they see us members of the church. We, as missionaries, got to see a pre-screening of it and it was absolutely amazing. I felt the spirit through the whole thing and was almost brought to tears many times. It's incredible! Do it! Do it! Do it! Do it!

Now that I've ranted, this week was great. We had transfer calls of Saturday, and I am leaving to Fresno Zone on Wednesday. That's about 2 hours away from me right now. I'm sad to have to leave Lindsay but excited for seeing the next place the Lord wants me to be. I've loved every part of serving in Lindsay and am so grateful for it and look forward to what the Lord has in store for me in the big city of Fresno. More on that next week after I've been there for a little bit.

I'll be right next to the Mission Office too so that's awesome! I'll get packages right when they arrive so that'll be cool if I ever have to get anything in the mail. In answer to your question, my shoulder is good. It annoys me sometimes and I might have to go to some therapy to try and get the appropriate strength back. We'll see. But I'm good health wise. 

I love y'all so much and am so grateful for your prayers and love! Thank you for all y'all do :)

 

Love,

Elder Robertson

Week 17 - I'm really starting to love Spanish!

This week has been great! But, for a different reason than most. We have had 11 new investigators. Elder Moody and I have been praying to see what this area needs. We decided that it was a clean slate. We realized none of our old investigators were progressing and decided to drop them. A bit of a rash decision kind of but it's what the Lord wanted. 

We then set out to see who the Lord would lead us to. We found a great family of a woman named Desiree. She has two little 8 year old twins who say they want to be "bapatized". She accepted a baptismal invitation after the first lesson. I've never felt the spirit so strongly then in that lesson. My body was literally on fire. It was super cool. We had our ward mission leader there. His name is Rey. He is Mexican and doesn't speak English. He's been working on learning English over the past little while. Desiree doesn't speak any spanish. So in the lesson Rey bore his testimony in English.. While it was somewhat broken and a little hard to understand with his thick accent, the spirit was tan tan tan fuerte. It was increible a ver este. 

I'm really starting to love Spanish! It's starting to make more sense than English sometimes actually. Elder Moody actually told me that the other night I was talking in my sleep and it was all in spanish. Kinda weird haha. But something that happened that was kind of sad is that one of our new investigators got anti-ed a little bit. She went on the internet and read some weird things about the church. It was kind of sad because you could tell that satan had kinda gotten to her. But we just encouraged her to read and pray for herself and all the answers would come like that. 

I miss y'all tons!

Love,

Elder Robertson

The railroad we walked on for about a mile to try and take a "short cut."

Us Burning all the papers at the Lord's vineyard.

Me busting a move to try and get to the other side of the bins while the tractor was driving... No worries I made it across safely.

Us after the Uva with two of our recent converts, Vanessa and Irving as well as some of the Watson family

Us after the Uva with two of our recent converts, Vanessa and Irving as well as some of the Watson family

Me and all our recycling from the past year that we went and recycled and made a whole $15 on! Wooo

Me taking a quick nap after lunch and a little sign to let Elder Moody know not to wake me up.